Why I don't like music reviews

I'm always on the lookout for new music recommendations. But I've found that the best ones come from those who already know the kind of music you like. Occasionally I've suckered into things like Pitchfork or MetaCritic only to find that they come up short the vast majority of the time. In fact, one of my top favorite bands of all time ranked #49 on Blender's list of 50 worst artists.

Still, it is a form of entertainment itself to read some of these reviews and see how they attempt to justify their subjective opinion as if it were cold, hard fact. For example, this review of Pet Sounds, one of the greatest albums of all time, which garnered a mere 7.5, or any of these 0.0 ratings (type in different values for even more review fun like 10.0). After reading this stuff, it makes this Onion parody all the more hilarious:

Music, a mode of creative expression consisting of sound and silence expressed through time, was given a 6.8 out of 10 rating in an review published Monday on Pitchfork Media, a well-known music-criticism website.

 

According to the review, authored by Pitchfork editor in chief Ryan Schreiber, the popular medium that predates the written word shows promise but nonetheless "leaves the listener wanting more."

I can't say it's all bad. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is a pretty good shoegazer/noise-pop album that is on Pitchfork's Best New Music page. But the hit rate is pretty low. I've reliably found great new artists from trusted sources such as Pandora (Jason Falkner and McFly) or even the tried and true method: friends with similar tastes (Faber Drive and Binocular).