2. I Disagree With This Review, My Life is Ruined!
Guilty, guilty. There have been times when I've been brooding for days after having read a review with which I took issue. It still happens now and then, but I'm getting better at reminding myself of certain things. First of all, music critics are just people. Some of them might believe that they have a higher calling that in separating the relevant from the irrelevant, the good from the bad, they're doing society a noble and vital service. But these people are out of their minds. A critic is just someone who really likes music and has something of a way with words. No more, no less. Unless the publication in question has an official line by which everybody must abide, a review will represent nothing more than the opinion of one person.
One person. It's not canonical. These words do not become doctrine the moment they're written. If a critic insists that an album is terrible, then it does not mean that the album is terrible. But one thing to bear in mind above all else is that critics tend to review a lot of albums. With so many word-limits and deadlines screaming for attention every month, it's quite impossible that a critic should be able to spend anything close to the amount of time necessary to really
feel an album. A lot of the time, what you're reading will just be their first impressions padded-out with a few bits of information from the press-release. If you like an album, it's likely that you've spent a lot of time with it. Having listened extensively, you've been able to pick out the fine nuances that, as far as you're concerned, serve to make it remarkable. A critic, though, doesn't really have the luxury of time. They must review the very latest releases, and their words must be set in stone by publication date. Not even an advanced copy will give a critic enough time to allow an album to truly seep beneath their skin. It might be the case that the more music you hear, the harder you become to impress. If something doesn't immediately jump out at you, it's easy to write something off as insipid. In a working day, a critic might hear five albums (or singles) that sound totally unremarkable to their tired ears. So, in the absence of having anything good to say, and because nobody enjoys reading clinical descriptions of what a song sounds like, they'll find a chink in the armour and attack. It's much easier and a lot more fun to rip something to shreds than it is to praise it or describe it as average. It's a flawed, lazy and pathetic state of affairs, but the only alternative is for a publication to print reviews a month or two after release. That sort of defeats the point. So when you come across a bad review, remind yourself that the critic is only human.
Of course they haven't understood the album in the same way that you have, because the chances are that the critic only had time to half-listen to the album once before moving onto the next one in their pile. Granted, there are some critics out there who take a much more professional and ethical approach than the one I've described. But at the same time, there are also those who have an axe to grind. They'll pen violently hateful reviews that make you question their very sanity. The band may have been rude to them on a previous occasion, but more likely they'll just really, really hate their music and thus resent their ongoing existence. Critics are just like you and me: If they don't like something, then no one else should. Reviews like this are easy to spot because they tend to radiate their vindictive hate like an unpleasant smell. If you find yourself upset by such a review, remember: It's not so much a vile attack on the band in question as a shocking indictment of the critic's mental state. They genuinely believe that, in writing their hatchet job, people will suddenly stop listening to the band and they might finally go away for good. These sort of critics, then, don't deserve your contempt. They deserve your pity.