What`s The Point of Reviews

With all the new technology just about any recording you care to name can be obtained through cyberspace either by streaming them or pirating them if you`re good enough with computers, which is what a friend of mine does. I don`t agree with it , but I was over at his house over the weekend and just to test his claim that he could download just about anything I started naming songs from lesser known prog bands such as Eiliff, Pell Mell, Gate, P.Mobil, FRUUPP, Ruphus etc. etc. and sure enough he got everything I could name off the top of my head almost instantly.
I`ve written 150 or so reviews on this site and try to write reviews for records or CDs which haven`t got that many reviews trying to stay away from stuff like Discipline or DSOTM which have dozens upon dozens of critiques. I`ve said this in the past on this site, when I started out collecting music it was go out and buy the album and hope for the best . If you were lucky maybe you would see a review in one of the few record guides that were available or in magazines like NME or Rolling Stone. If you can hear the whole thing on your computer why read someone else`s lowdown?
Don`t get me wrong, I find it interesting to hear what someone else has to say about an album I`ve had for years or will actually read  reviews at random in hopes of discovering  that  "new band".
So what`s the point of reviews? Are they just redundant or just simply entertaining?

I prefer to know a little about the reviewer's taste, so I know how to weigh the opinion.  Depending on the site, that's not always possible, but I find it helps a lot.  Especially if you find one that's somewhat in the ballpark of your own likes and dislikes. 

Even though most reviews will have a certain amount of bias in them, I still enjoy reading them to gauge whether or not I would be interested in buying the album.  For albums I already own I will read the review to see whether I agree or disagree with the comments made by another.  Reviews are helpful, but nobody should take them as fact.  Listen and decide for yourself I say.

If with technological development towards the more extensive and accessive propagation of info, that contemporary communication offers with internet, the reviews are relieved of their more exclusive purpose in spreading the artists' work, then maybe their most prominent and genuine function, now, is to verbalize our impressions of what traverses our ears, minds and lives, to turn an abstract idea into a visible and concrete expression, and to express the social component that music carries with it - since every human being finds the need of social interaction and expression, he/she shares with the world his/her exciting discovery, reason of bliss and admiration or outrage and disgust; and to formalize, structure these thoughts and impressions, are reviews, on sites, magazines or even just scribbled on a misplaced paper at home.
Still, imo, it's perfectly agreeable that no matter how large and accessively the songs are difused for one to listen to, you still need a hint at where to start and that's where reviews come in: not only letting you know what unanimously (or not) is considered quality music, through ratings, it furthers its appreciation through words of experience, allowing you to identify with or reject the album, song or band that you read and speculate is more or less likely to please you.

Edited by Aspiring hope - April 30 2007 at 11:36

I believe it's important to bear in mind that the reviews here will still be read 25+ years from now and by then who knows what restrictions may have been imposed on access to music.  The human element can't be replaced and I will always find it interesting to see what someone else thought of an album whether it influences my opinion or not.  While some have the time to download hundreds of songs to sample I would venture that most don't have that luxury and the ability to come to this site, look up an album or artist and get a fair assessment within ten minutes is extremely valuable.

I write reviews (now 67 of them) because:

actually i started writting a review just for fun... i'm quite bored and decided to try writting one. for now, i'm writting reviews to learn how to express your feeling toward an album, and to improve my english as well

it's good if someone actually did helped by my reviews, though i'm not expecting anything but a few from them...

as for reading reviews... i always like to find out the good and the bad points of an album...what's special about it,etc...

I am completely dependent on reviews, both the ones here and elsewhere.

The dilemma is this: there are probably literally a million+ options when it comes to finding new albums to listen to (in general, not just prog). How does one know where to look? For me, I turn to reviews, and the ones on this site are great because people here in general have good taste.

So, I only check out the higher-rated stuff, and without reviews, I'd have very little idea what to listen to. There's only so much time and money any individual can spend on music, and directing that time and money to the best stuff is almost always dependent on other people's opinions, whether it is by review or word-of-mouth. Even if you are one of those illegal-downloading people, you still need to know what you want to download ... you're not going to just do it randomly!

The drawback is that there may be many albums that have low ratings that I might enjoy a lot, but will never experience. Still, though, my way of looking for new music has led me to discover so much good stuff that I'm not very worried about that downside.




Edited by enteredwinter - April 30 2007 at 13:09

Philéas wrote: If one has a bad internet connection so that downloading takes time, reviews still serve a purpose. Wasting a lot of time downloading something disappointing isn't very nice.

It's better than wasting your money on something disappointing.

^^

It hasn't even been officially released!

How did you buy it?

And you shouldn't trust reviews on an album before it is officially released because you have no idea to what they were listening to when they wrote the review.


Edited by progismylife - April 30 2007 at 13:52