In Johan's Responses thread I posted about an Amazon.com discussion that accused me of being 'clueless' in a Schnittke review. I was also labelled 'very British', which struck me as a bit strange.
Playing devil's advocate here, are revieweras like us - paid or otherwise - an endangered species? Given the so-called democratising effect of the Internet should we expect our thoughts to count for more than the millions of others that appear every day?
It seems to me that quality reviews -generally accurate, rigorous, informed - are often dismissed for the most trivial reasons. I can only assume it's not necessarily the content but the style that some people object to, preferring instead lazy responses along the lines of 'Wow', 'OMG', 'Awesome' or, in my case' 'clueless' and 'hack job'.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
There was a similar point made about critics on a BBC arts programme not so long ago: with everyone blogging their hearts out is there any future or market for paid/professional cricitism? Certainly the influence of critics has been diminished, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Writers could damn a production and kill it stone dead in the past, but now someone like Norman Lebrecht can have a mad moment and announce the "death of Decca" (for instance), and is more likely to be lampooned than taken seriously or be seen as a genuine threat to the label. As long as people are searching for serious comment then there will be a place for creating it, though I have no doubt establishing a reputation and a readership will become increasingly difficult amongst the growing mass of opinionated voices - expert or ignorant.
ReplyDeleteMy current thinking is somewhere in a middle zone about criticism. I've been noticing more and more bad criticism; not that it hasn't happened before, but just that my own thinking about what I write has made me pay attention differently. For example, in Fanfare, about half the reviews say nothing about the performance of a work; or in the LRB, most of the reviews simply tell the story that the book tells, and only a handful actually _assess_ books.
ReplyDeleteNot long ago, I decided to curtail, or at least limit my reviewing for MusicWeb. I felt I had nothing new to say, or that what I said wasn't worth saying. The last couple of reviews I've written have been, well, quirky at best. Part of this is burnout, but part is thinking about the issues of whether the type of criticism we offer has any validity.
Yes, anyone can type out their opinion, and many of the reviews I see on Amazon are very well written. But I think there's a certain amount of experience you get from writing reviews, if you do it regularly, that trumps those one-offs. (Not that all Amazon reviews are one-offs, of course...)
Nevertheless, I'm constantly questioning whether the reviews I write - for MusicWeb, Macworld, or my own blogs - are worth writing. I guess as long as people read them they are, but in some cases I'm not convinced.
When I send out reviews to record labels I get many excellent responses. One label told me their artists anxiously await the MusicWeb review because it is the one they take notice of. Many labels and their artist/conductors lavish praise on our in-depth style of review that we do better than anyone else. It is said they actually appear to listen to the recording! I post somne of these on the page "What they say about us" - see lower half of left hand side bar on any page.
ReplyDeleteBut you cannot please everybody. Jack Lawson's magnificent article and review of the remastered Beatles was greeted with the remark in one Beatles forum that it was too difficult to read! Another that he had concluded that the recordings sounded better (best) on high-end Hi-Fi that most could not afford as if that invalidated the review. It would have been surprising if he had found they sounded worse!
So do keep up the work as it is appreciated by those who really care.
Len
"Democratisation" of reviewing can be good in some ways, because it means people feel free to express their opinions. Yet "expert" reviewers, like (most of?) those used by MusicWeb, have the experience and awareness to write reviews which are full of insight. This requires a lot of listening, as well as other skills.
ReplyDeleteSo "democritisation" can be harmful, as it means that some people express opinions which are ill-thought-out or just ridiculous - and which may mislead others into buying poor albums.
I'd like to share with you one of the worst examples I have ever seen: a review from the internet. It is a review of a jazz album (which I recently reviewed for the MusicWeb jazz site) but which the Celebrity Café's reviewer was obviously unqualified to review. See it at:
http://thecelebritycafe.com/cd/full_review/14415.html
The reviewer is clearly used to listening to pop music, which often has lyrics, and unused to hearing jazz, which is often instrumental. The reviewer even finds it "unusual" to hear tracks that last "for about five to seven minutes". The final paragraph, with its "Some may not want to listen to an album with just music" caps it all!
Tony,
ReplyDeleteForgive me for asking, but aren't you perhaps being a wee bit harsh on the lady in question?
As you say, she is clearly no "expert", but at least her heart's evidently in the right place, and her comments are thoughtful and politely expressed. To me, this is far preferable to some of the loud-mouthed, pig-ignorant ranting that we can find swilling around the Net.
Moreover, it comes across that she is well aware that she's "right out of her box", because she qualifies that "unusual" with the admission "for my taste". If you compound that with her simple attempts to describe the qualities of this "new" music" and her earlier, "This instrumental CD is something delightful and wonderful to listen to," you have what is actually a quite touching picture - of someone who has made an eye-opening (or, rather, "ear-opening") discovery.
Who knows where this might lead her? If she persists in her efforts, one fine day she might be writing reviews for MWI!
Can't manage a pig but will a cow suffice? See this review by the esteemed Mr Hurwitz:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=12515
Paul Serotsky takes me to task for being "perhaps being a wee bit harsh on the lady in question" and suggests that one day she may be writing reviews for MWI. If that day ever arrived, she would need to have done a lot more listening to the type of music she is reviewing.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in my previous post, "expert reviewers...have the experience and awareness to write reviews which are full of insight. This requires a lot of listening, as well as other skills".
To be a good reviewer, you need not only to have good intentions but also to have listened to enough of that genre of music to be able to form a balanced opinion. Almost anyone can listen to a piece of music new to them and say "I quite like that" but is that balanced or knowledgeable reviewing?
The review Dan Morgan refers to is just a horrible example of a review in which the writer shows no respect for the artists at all. I think that is just bad manners. Whatever one thinks of a recording, one has to assume the artist was sincere and really thinks that he/she is doing the composer justice. To ridiculize a performer is just not acceptible. Recently I have only heard one disc which wasn't only a stinker but made me doubt about the intentions of the main artist. (It was the disc 'The Lute is a Song' with the lutenist Edin Karamazov and guest artists.)
ReplyDeleteBTW, it is not the only review of this kind by Hurwitz which I have read. He has a kind of reputation in this respect.
Fortunately the MW reviewers have better manners.
Yes, Hurwitz fancies himself as something of a 'shock jock' and it seems he has a loyal following in the US. I do think the Net has a lot to do with this, as there is no hierarchy of opinion when punters have a view - no matter how poorly expressed - that they believe is as valid/meaningful as any other. In that environment it's not surprising that the more reasoned and articulate review is liable to be trashed.
ReplyDeleteThe vigor of DH's pans is in part calculated to divert attention from the fact that he gives (sells) "10/10" reviews to half the recordings he reviews. Sometimes he is grotesque himself in doing so, sometimes he is right-on. And no harm done in sticking it to vanity productions if they truly do suck.
ReplyDeleteJens
ReplyDeleteYes, I've seen a couple of discs with 10/10 stickers; must be a nice little earner. I take your point about vanity productions though, as I've reviewed one or two that were pretty awful.
Like him or loathe him, DH gets a lot of publicity. And you know what they say about that....
As for Johan's original point, I've seen a few of my reviews on the Naxos site where the uncomplimentary bits have been left out. Nothing too blatant, though.
Apologies, I seem to have conflated two different postings here. The bit about Johan belongs with the 'Quoting reviews' thread.
ReplyDeleteTony - I didn't think I was being severe. In fact, I completely agree with your argument. I just felt that your chosen illustration was perhaps less than ideal.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, it's a rare creature that emerges from the womb fully-formed and mature - even reviewers have to start somewhere. Your example struck me as a fairly good example of "somewhere". The lady in question showed certain desirable qualities, and lacked only experience (this by her own admission, which in itself is a desirable quality) and plenty of practice. Both of these would come, given time. When I said "one fine day", I didn't mean "tomorrow", not by a long chalk!
Dan's alternative example surely comes nearer the mark, for the "esteemed" Mr. Hurwitz seems to possess ONLY the qualities that she lacks. Politeness, location of heart, thoughtfulness, and awareness of own limitations seem somehow to have eluded him. Some might suggest it's unfortunate that articulative ability is absent from that list.
I think it would be fair to say that the population at large has, really, only just cottoned on to the internet's "open house" on critical opinion. The entire business is still up in the air. Once the novelty has fully worn off, things will settle down to some sort of sensible order. Remember Kipling's apposite tale, so graphically represented in Koechlin's symphonic poem, "Les Bandar-Log"!