A little help from the experts?

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dtguitarfan said:
Hey, Mr. Angra, guess what? When I first heard Angra I hated them. Now they're one of my favorites. Wanna tell me my approach of taking music for what it is, not measuring one band up against another completely different band, and not placing my expectations up against an artist's work didn't work there?
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You really don't get it. It's not about your approach for taking music for what it is. It's about your approach as a music reviewer. You have zero credibility, and I'll repeat... it's because of people like you that lots of the people in the business aren't respected anymore. You admitted that you do it because you like the free shit and wants to keep that coming... sorry, but that's not very commendable.

Again, for the people who do it seriously, what you do is bothersome.

And personally, I could care less whether or not you like Angra.
 
Golly, you guys want blood badly. Look, back to the spacey 70's sounding psychedelic rock - I said some nice things about an album like that even though it wasn't my thing. I said those things because I could actually enjoy it, whilst realizing it wasn't something I'd be aching to pull out again anytime soon, and it wasn't necessary for me to say "these guys suuuuuuck" for any metal fans reading my review to figure out that this wasn't for them. And then I gave it the 3.5 out of 5 because, while I saw merit, I wasn't crazy about it and people can then compare that to what I do give 5 stars to and figure out what I do really like. It's just not necessary to be unprofessional in my reviews (even though I'm not actually paid).
 
Not lying. But being professional. Hey, do you have a job? Do you get paid for it? Are you nice to people you might not be nice to if you didn't work with because you'd like to continue to be paid for your job? You big fat lier!
 
dtguitarfan said:
Not lying. But being professional. Hey, do you have a job? Do you get paid for it? Are you nice to people you might not be nice to if you didn't work with because you'd like to continue to be paid for your job? You big fat lier!
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You don't work with these people. You don't see them on a daily basis, you're not their colleague, and your ability to get along with them doesn't impact your livelihood. It's not a good analogy. Regardless, as a reviewer, your job isn't to be nice, it's to be honest. You don't owe the bands or the labels any more than that. However, you do owe your readers an honest assessment, not an inflated assessment to keep the goodies flowing.

I think you believe you're being good to the bands, by never giving anyone a score of below 3.5. However, you're not being good to the bands who actually wrote a CD worth purchasing. A 5-point scale doesn't offer much in the way of differentiation. So, when you're handing 3.5s and 4.0s to bands who may have written a disc that deserves less, there's not a great deal to distinguish those bands from the band that rightfully deserves the 4.5.
 
dcowboys311 said:
NP dude. It's not exactly my strong point anyway. It's just ridiculous to accuse people of reviewing 'for free music' when any grandma with a dial up connection can get any song in the world for free.
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Brian, you know very well there's a really good reason why people get so aggravated over stuff like this. You've been involved in the business, so I don't need to go into it. Sure you can download music for free anytime you want, but there's more to it than just that...
 
General Zod said:
You don't work with these people. You don't see them on a daily basis, you don't go to meetings with them, you're not their colleague, and your ability to get along with them doesn't impact your livelihood. It's not a good analogy. Regardless, as a reviewer, your job isn't to be nice, it's to be honest. You don't owe the bands or the labels any more than that. However, you do owe your readers an honest assessment, not an inflated assessment to keep the goodies flowing.

I think you believe you're being good to the bands, by never giving anyone a score of below 3.5. However, you're not being good to the bands who actually wrote a CD worth purchasing. A 5-point scale doesn't offer much in the way of differentiation. So, when you're handing 3.5s and 4.0s to bands who may have written a disc that deserves less, there's not a great deal to distinguish those band from the band that rightfully deserves the 4.5.
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Look, it's my rating system and I'll give out whatever I want. I don't give a 3.5 or above unless I actually enjoyed something about the music, and therefore believe it deserves a 3.5 or above. I don't give a 4.5 or 5 unless I loved it. When I say I'm trying to be professional because I'd like to keep the goods coming, I'm talking about the language I use. You can usually tell when I'm not thrilled with a release because my review takes on a merely informative tone. I don't see it necessary to insult a band. And I have some degree of freedom to choose what to review as I usually have a queue of albums, so yes, I avoid reviewing the ones that I instinctively think are below 3.5 - not just because I don't like being mean but dammit, it's HARD to write about something that my feelings for can be described as "meh." It's much easier to write about something I actually enjoyed.
 
General Zod said:
You don't work with these people. You don't see them on a daily basis, you're not their colleague, and your ability to get along with them doesn't impact your livelihood. It's not a good analogy. Regardless, as a reviewer, your job isn't to be nice, it's to be honest. You don't owe the bands or the labels any more than that. However, you do owe your readers an honest assessment, not an inflated assessment to keep the goodies flowing.

I think you believe you're being good to the bands, by never giving anyone a score of below 3.5. However, you're not being good to the bands who actually wrote a CD worth purchasing. A 5-point scale doesn't offer much in the way of differentiation. So, when you're handing 3.5s and 4.0s to bands who may have written a disc that deserves less, there's not a great deal to distinguish those bands from the band that rightfully deserves the 4.5.
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This.
 
Maybe just maybe we can get back to the topic here? :) I thought I was on Blabbermouth until I looked at the background and realized I was in the ProgPower forum :p
 
dtguitarfan said:
If I was asked directly I would say something to the effect of "eh, it wasn't for me." But I'd leave it at that. I'd rather talk about bands I like than ones I don't, and there have been far too many cases where I have judged a band quite harshly, and later on, because good friends loved them and I wanted to understand why, I went back to them and that band became a huge favorite of mine. This has happened to me so many times that I try very hard lately to keep my judgements less harsh, more fair sounding, and leave room for people to see that it's just my opinion and other people might see merits that I don't. Am I an expert in practicing that? No. But it is something I'm striving for, especially now that I'm writing reviews for a couple websites and receiving free promotional materials. See, I really like getting free stuff and I want it to keep coming.... I hate assigning a star rating in my reviews and wish I could omit that part, but so far I've never gone below 3.5 out of 5, and if I felt like I wanted to go lower than that I'd probably tell the necessary parties that I'd like to decline writing that review. I don't take pleasure in being over critical but try to see the merits in every album I review. And because I've been taking this approach I've found myself enjoying many things I think I would not have in years past.
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Oy.
At least my opinion is based on personal taste and it is not colored by monetary gain, recognition, or the collection of free music. The more vociferously you defend something, the weaker your stance sounds. It is like feeling you won an argument by screaming the loudest. Or sucking on something the hardest.
Oh and for commenting on what the moderators might do or not do...when I start defaming people, inciting riots, or being a total asshole to those that really matter here, then I am sure that an email will come my way. Otherwise, I think I am safe providing an opinion that is shared by at least 7 others.
 
imaskinbeater said:
Maybe just maybe we can get back to the topic here? :) I thought I was on Blabbermouth until I looked at the background and realized I was in the ProgPower forum :p
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Yes. The latest album by Rush is quite good. Top 5 of the year for me in fact. I know they were mentioned in the original post, but this disc does qualify as an answer to the original question.

Amorphis is slightly harder, but really really good. They have growls, so you might want to check em on youtube first. You might want to check out Hangar; they are pretty good as well. I am spinning Dead Soul Tribe as we speak--yeah they sound a lot like Tool. Sue me.

One word of advice...you can resell disks on amazon as a private seller, enabling you to buy a lot more music than you think...keep the good ones. The bad ones you can resell quite quickly when you realize the music sucks and you want it out of your life in say, 7 wonderful days or less.
 
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