good music criticism doesn’t really exist I hardly see any meaningful reviews that are positive or negative, as I’ve said I get way more out of small group discussion among friends in a group chat or on this forum than anything I read in a music outlet, I basically use them for single drops album announcements and tour dates
I find myself way less interested in traditional reviews and much more drawn to other kinds of music journalism. I don’t really know what to call them but I’ll always take a feature piece about an album/artist digging into narrative, creation, intention, etc over a critical evaluation.
Yeah I like in-depth interviews like Drew's, nice work there. Outside of Chorus discussinos, I generally enjoy the Premature Evaluations on Stereogum which I feel are written with a lot of care and personality, whether I agree with the reviews or not. That site's running essay series by Tom Breihan about every number one single in US chart history is also outstanding, as are some of their anniversary pieces. I find myself enjoying the work on Stereogum a lot more than Pitchfork, which I think has gone downhill badly even though I appreciate they finally cover some of the punk and emo music we at Chorus are inclined towards. But I get a lot more out of the forums here for albums I'm interested in than anywhere else, and find most reviews here to be great reads.
I promise you with my whole heart that I have never read a beer review and honestly don't even know where I would find one
reviews on untappd? I dunno about that, I guess people write one-sentence reviews if you count that. I mostly use it as a personal tracker though, to remember what I like or don't
untapp'd doesnt count as reading beer reviews however i do watch a couple beer review youtube channels
much like their movie review website, it did not last. their prominence as a voice in music culture is pure luck and right place right time
pretty sure I said reflektor was the best arcade fire album the week it leaked lmaoooo. thank god ap.net is wiped so we can't find that!
So often an album will be marked up due to residual goodwill. Reflektor is the prime example but there are heaps more. When we look back on certain albums, reviews from the time they dropped will tell us how they were received but certainly not if they were actually good or warranted that reception. Nor will album sales really, because first week/month sales generally just correlate with how much people liked the previous album/how popular that one was too.