Bright Eyes – Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was • Page 2

I obviously disagree since Cassadaga is my favorite Bright Eyes album and I absolutely don't hear how Conor would sound disinterested in any part of it? I still have a lot to uncover about this one. Right now my opinion is that it's a good, not great, album... Better than People's Key for sure. Conor is not going for maximum emotional intensity no more but some songs have implicitly the same effect, like Forced Convalescence.

 

It would be helpful if there was a community review option/rating for this.

 

It’s one person’s opinion. I don’t understand how that could make you disappointed in the site altogether. I don’t pay much attention to Metacritic, but it sounds like there are lots of reviews out there with differing opinions. This thread is full of people who disagree with the review too, and I think that’s pretty healthy.

 

Paramore comes to mind

 

Opinions are great, and you're definitely entitled to it. Mine differs quite a bit, this is one of my favorites this year easy.

I won't ever be skipping Pageturners Rag either, I love that track. It actually kind of broke me when I realized she was talking about the roses in Matt's yard, and the fact they still drive past it to have some connection to their dead son, and what it probably really meant to her to see them growing again. It makes me depressed in a hopeful way, I guess.

 

all of my reviews are wrong

 

anyways I really enjoy this record - nice review

 

Haha they edited it and it's still wrong.

 

Let’s all just calm down. This is just one persons opinion. IMO, this record rules. Lots of moments that just tug at me, both lyrically and musically.

just scroll right on through, and dance and sing.

 

I find it refreshing to see a review that isn't positive or neutral on this site. I like the conversation that follows. Often times, i get more out of those conversations ("this is why i like it" or "this is where i disagree") than positive reviews where the comments are mostly "right on!"

 

And all I'm saying is that the Cute is What We Aim For review, ten plus years later, missed way more than anything written a week after release.

 

Disappointed in the site because one of the writers disliked an album? I don't get it. (Also, the review itself talks specifically about that Metacritic score and why/how it disagrees.)

 

Most of that review I agree with, some of it (hence adding the footnote) is way off. But more to mind: I've written things about Box Car Racer and a couple of those New Found Glory albums that I have almost done complete 180s on now. I actively dislike Radiosurgery, for one example

 

Sorry I didn’t mean that as a personal dig at the author, or you, or the site. I figured reviews were maybe submitted/approved before being posted, so it would be a reflection of the site. Not that the site should be authoritarian by silencing writers. After first reading the review, and seeing that the album wasn’t just not recommended, but something to go out of one’s way to avoid seemed off. I known they referenced Metacritic, and it just seems odd that this could differ so starkly from all other reviews. Some are mixed, sure, but they don’t say to actively avoid it. That almost seems like it would be reserved for problematic artists or something. I recognize that as a huge fan I’m not going to agree with what everyone thinks, and that’s fine, this just seemed to take it a little too far.

 

I get rid of actual 'scores' only to have people still complain about the score. Sounds about right.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't ever want to to listen to this again, it took all of my will power to get through the whole album. I'm not a mega Bright Eyes fan by any means, but I've always liked them, this is just not good to me, either.

 

Also, I haven't thought about #GFYTN in such a long time. Good times...

 

"Welcome to chorus.fm, where everything is made up and the points don't matter."

 

yay!

 

I actually enjoy that this review is generating more discourse, and I think it's really well-written, even if I disagree with most of its arguments and think it misses the point of the album - an older, world-weary Bright Eyes would never have the knife's-edge, kinetic, practically teenage energy of their earlier work.

Or at least that's how I see it. Finished another listen of the album this morning and enjoyed it even more.

 

I don't actually see TOO much unnecessary negativity in this thread. For the folks who are disappointed that an album you like got a bad (but well-written and argued!) review, feel free to write about how the album makes you feel.

 

Can we please not act like Metacritic means...anything? You're talking about a source that, ultimately, has only aggregated 22 opinions on this album. It's completely arbitrary which publications or sources they choose to include, and the way they assign scores to try to bring together and standardize a bunch of publications with different scoring approaches has never made a lick of sense. At least Rotten Tomatoes aggregates based on a more logical positive/negative metric and includes a much broader cross section of opinions. Metacritic is a dumb site that has been given outsize importance (mostly by stans who want their opinions to be validated) and has done way more harm to music criticism and overall music discourse than good.

 

My biggest problem is with the "stay away" option in general. With the subjectivity of music, who gives a reviewer the right to tell independent music listeners to avoid something they may enjoy. If it would've been rated neutral or even "don't recommend," it would be more palatable than "stay away."

 

Razia's Shadow one of them? I think I saw that it was completely dropped from your best of 2008 reworked list.

 

I see "highly recommend" just as clearly the reviewer's subjective opinion as "stay away" - one is heavily recommending it, the other is heavily not. The entire point of many reviewers is to give that exact subjective period. Readers are smart enough to know to check things out themselves. The pearl clutching is too much.