[BobM]

It's the quiet secret of the music industry - all critics have a small, cantankerous, eighty-year-old man deep inside them that likes to shake his cane at young'uns and be persnickety about just about everything. Yes, even the female music critics.

Why music critics actually get such a perverse joy out of killing musical talent with their rip jobs, we'll never know.
 

[Wayner]

Bob, have you ever met one? I met this guy at a YES concert many years ago, and according to him, he was Gods gift to music, women and the world. He knew what music was way too cool for the common masses (which elevated him way above the masses) and what music only a stupid little skool girl would listen to. He also wrote a column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

He was one of the most obnoxious pricks I have ever met in my life and I will never forget him.

To me, the concept of a music critic is bizzare. Music is an emotional experience (at least for me) and everyone has had different experiences. So how does a critic know if someone will like the new music or not?

I guess I would simply use a few common sense tools. Can the band actually play? Do they write their own music? Do they produce their own music? Is the music structurally correct? Are they unique? Is their sound "captivating"?
Is this something I would listen to often or will it just sit on the shelf.

How's that?

Wayner

[BradJudy]

To me, the concept of a music critic is bizzare. Music is an emotional experience (at least for me) and everyone has had different experiences. So how does a critic know if someone will like the new music or not?

The most useful music "reviews" for me are comparisons such as "if you like X, you'll probably like Y" or "band X's second album brings in more blues influence to their music". 

[Photon46]

I find the majority of reviews from AllMusic.com to be very helpful. They seem to  have the basic premise that you already like the particular genre of music that a particular release belongs to. That's a pretty sensible approach in IMO. Nothing's less helpful than having someone who hates an entire genre reviewing a release in that category who predictably tells you it stinks. I think music criticism serves a very useful purpose if it is written with the intention of informing the listener about  the musical context of a given release. Newspapers are particularly rife with the pompous, hipper than thou windbags like Wayner met. Unless it's obscure and off the public's radar, they don't usually like it.

[no1maestro]

I have a different take on reviewers. I haven't kept up with pop reviewers but I certainly remember the days of magazines such as High Fidelity, Stereo Review, Audio and others. The staff of reviewers back then were a good bunch of writers and a few professional musicians mixed in.

Too many folks take reviews much too seriously and just write off a new work or group based on one or two reviewers. I always read and then did the listening and made my own decision. In those days you found the critics whom you could trust and those who were just in it to make a name for themselves.

I'll date myself and take some of you back to the days of Downbeat magazine and a section called Blind Test I believe. There a contemporary artist would listen, "blind", to several recordings both historic and contemporary and then comment on them. I was always amazed at how educated these artists were and how close they came to go so far as to quote dates of the recordings and maybe even the engineers involved. I would love to see something like that today!

[orthobiz]

Stereo Review: Back in the day, Steve Simels was my guy. If he liked it, 80 percent chance I'd like it. If Parke Puterbough (sp?) liked it, chances are I didn't need it.

I check pitchforkmedia.com, popmatters.com, musicangle.com, even babysue.com (that guy's way out there about politics but he sure does share my love of Badfinger!). Also, metacritic.com can lead you to other reviews as well.

But I spend my most time on allmusic.com, mainly because of the history angle and which album came out when kinda thing.

Paul