TheBurningOfSodom wrote:
I'll also say that, perhaps, this:
101wildturkey101 wrote:
why review an album from a band that you have never enjoyed 5 or 10 albums deep?
is just a step too far. Not everybody needs to found a fan club to write a review
You make a lot of good points, but I will specifically respond to this one. No, you don't HAVE to be a fan of a band to review their work, but what is to be gained from A) writing a review for a band you have never liked or B) us reading said review? Especially those that essentially say "I have never liked this band, not even one album, but I listened to this and feel obligated to review it. It sounds to my ears like the rest of their work so naturally I hate it." I don't see that as productive for the author, the band, or the fans.
BastardHead wrote:
Otherwise I'm just gonna stick to my old axiom of "Nobody ever complains that a review they agree with isn't objective enough". "Objective" is a completely meaningless and irrelevant term once you dip into the realm of critiquing art. You can get facts wrong ("Dragonforce is black metal") but when it comes to the actual meat, aiming for some weird standard of "objectivity" becomes utterly soulless because there's no way to solidify whether "Dragonforce is good" is an objective statement or not. A perfectly objective review would be a droning list of key signatures and tempo shifts. A review is, by its very nature, predicated on having an opinion about something, and sometimes peoples' opinions will go against the grain, even in ways that completely mystify us.
As a critic, shouldn't objectivity equate to the realm in which the review exists, ie an open-mind? It wouldn't be the same as being, let's say, an arbitrator who needs to view things fairly, but in my humble opinion, the second a reviewer's bias takes over, then it isn't of much value to me. One could also argue this very website uses a degree of objectivity when judging reviews, because some are rejected for not being GOOD.
As for the Ulcerate review, that was one, yes. I recently had covid and did a ton of reading in my down time, which is why my attention was drawn to the topic at all. There are many reviews I disagree with, as most of us surely do, but that is mainly due to a difference in opinion on an album, not the quality of the writing. For instance, in my mind it should be nearly impossible for an album to receive a 0 score, but that is my opinion.
I think honest reviews are a good thing, regardless of the outcome, and I don't even believe there is a solution for the point I am making, other than a reddit style upvote system, but that raises all sorts of questions.