I very much dislike how Roon does not have a feature to disable these reviews. Music is subjective, and I understand that a release can be well recieved amongst so-called ‘music critics’ but they have no place in my library.
Can someone from Roon comment on this? This topic has been open for a while and I can’t see any Roon response. I understand that some people like these reviews but all we’re asking for is an option to disable.
In my opinion, one of the greatest strengths of Roon are the artist bios and album reviews, and how they are presented. It is one of the primary reasons that I’m a lifetime subscriber. I don’t give much thought to whether the reviews are negative or positive, as I don’t claim to be an expert or a music critic.
I simply enjoy the insights provided by the bios and reviews, and they immeasurably add to my enjoyment of music.
I have no objections to an option to disable the reviews, as that is an option I simply won’t use. But if it came down to eliminating or in anyway annotating or reducing the size of the reviews, I would hope that the management of Roon is never guided by the relatively small number of complaints about the music reviews.
Roon deserves enormous credit for how those reviews and bios are presented, especially in the latest version on the Now Playing screen. The easy ability to access that information by simply clicking on the icon is fantastic. The latest version took one of the great strengths of Roon and made it even better. (And those who hate the reviews can simply turn them off in the Now Playing screen and not see them at all.)
By comparison, Tidal buries and hides the album reviews behind icons for information, and you have to click twice and then do a lot of scrolling. Qobuz is better than Tidal in that regard, but still does not have the clean interface and easy access of Roon. The way that Roon presents the information is far superior.
I primarily use Roon to read that information, so haven’t made that many comparisons. But I have noticed that in come cases Tidal is using a severely annotated version of the information as compared with Roon, and sometimes album reviews that exist on Roon are missing on Qobuz. I hope that Roon never follow Tidal down the slippery slope of annotating any of the music reviews.
I second that recommendation, as it would add even more value to Roon.
I totally agree, Allan.
I don’t particulary care for user or community generated reviews. If something like that is going to be added, I really really want to be able to turn that off.
Another great strength: the credits. There should be more -like the reviews from experts- and they should be accurate.
In that same vein: more cover art and booklets!
From my point of view is bringing together that kind of content with the music the primary goal and added value of Roon.
Marc
This has all been said, but an experience just brought this request back to me. I’d rather read informational material about an album rather than a review/opinion. Sometimes it can actually ruin a listening session to have someone’s negative opinion pop on a new album one just acquired.
Yes, liner notes would be so much better and more informative of the album.
To be honest, I do not seem the harm in the Allmusic reviews. I am actually happy whenever a review does turn up (does not happen that often in classical), in many cases I totally disagree with the review - but no harm done, I do not have to read it. Seems like society need consens all the time, I am perfectly happy with someone having other opinions. Makes mine stronger or, sometimes even change mine.
It would be great if we could get more reviews from other sources. I mean in Classical it would be incredible if we could get the Grammophone reviews, that truly would be mindbuggling, plus they have reviews for nearly everything classical.
Oh how sweet would that be…!
But but but, you don’t know the review is going to frustrate you UNTIL you read it. The point being made is that content about an album is totally welcome, but the open question is whether that content should be OPINION in a REVIEW versus something that is more informational and less opinionated. There is useful information at times in the reviews, and so if that is our only real option, then multiple reviews would be welcome so as to potentially balance the opinions.
Ideally, there would be liner notes, and information that is NOT in the form of a review, or if reviews, multiple reviews to reinforce that reviews are subjective.
Sorry for the bump, but I too feel like the option to disable reviews in your settings should be added. It seems like this could be implemented pretty easily and wouldn’t require any major overhaul in the code. It just makes sense that you should be able to customise this if you’re not happy with the feature.
The reviews I’ve read so far are highly opinionated but present themselves as objective information, which I find highly frustrating. I don’t really see the added value of a one-paragraph review that completely dismisses an hour of music. I don’t mind a critical review, but the ones I’ve come across are basically the reviewer saying they’re not interested in the music.
I feel like the reviews (or ‘info’) could be an enrichment to the metadata, but the current sources (for my music at least) actually detract from my listening experience. Using Wikipedia as a source would actually make make a lot more sense to me than what’s currently on offer. At the same time, it would be interesting if this feature was developed furhter and would either pull in more sources or allow you to select your sources.
Yeah, I requested this almost 6 years ago -
It’s a clear gap in the Roon experience at the moment. The user should have the option to add their own reviews for when Roon doesn’t have one, and also to add extra reviews in addition to the standard one. These extra reviews could be tabbed, like much of the other information in Roon is.
I believe RythmOne bought the web sites and consumer access to the content but Rovi (TiVo) still creates, maintains and owns all the content. Roon’s deal will still be with them.