Quality of album reviews

Just listening to Karl Jenkins’ ‘The Armed Man’ via Roon. Who writes these album reviews/commentaries? The second part of the review is just an ad hominem attack on Jenkins rather than any serious insight. I like Roon (when it works) and I enjoy being informed about music. I can’t say that I learned anything from the reviewer other than his obvious dislike of Jenkins and his love of John Cale. If you think that I’m rambling, read the review!

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Yeah, I have complained about this in the past. I would much prefer insight and info about the album rather than negative reviews of albums I like or love. I am sure the problem for the Roon team is WHERE to get all that metadata? I think the reviews come from AllMusic.com, or from the same place they get them, just a guess though.

The notion that the metadata be community sourced has been discussed in other threads. This would give fans the opportunity to provide other takes, etc.

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This thread is probably worth a look:

I usually find reviews by Stephen Erlewine will not help my blood pressure.

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In general the only thing a review is telling, is something about the critic’s taste. Nothing more.

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Many people aked for the possibility to change review form Allmusic one to what the user wants (by copy and paste or by URL) and I totally agree but I don’t know if this is on the roadmap or not.
Can anyone tell me if it is so?
Another thing related to Allmusic metadata is the possibility to change the artist Bio as well and, I add, the possibility to edit group members in “artist editor”

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All reviews should be taken with a pinch of salt they will never please everyone especially rampant fans when their favourites are heavily critised. Personally I don’t want to have heavily biased user reviews either.

If you want alternative reviews ,do your own. Google em and then save as PDF and add to the album folder.

It’s probably breaking all sorts of copyright BUT …

Mike

Most of the “professional” album reviews have little or no value to me. The users on the Roon forum make some great suggestions though.

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For one reviewer an album is bad, for another the same album good… nothing more personal than music…

I wish that the metadata was trivia, info, naratives about the recording…like detailed liner notes, rather than reviews. The allure of Roon is getting deeper into your music. Reviews certainly don’t do that. They are worthless in this context. Why would I care what some random dude or dudette thinks of the music I ALREADY OWN. I am pretty sure I have my own opinion. Seriously Roon team, Eliminate the reviews! They are useless and it can really be irrtiating to read a negative review of music I like. I find myself not even looking at the details behind the albums anymore since they are usually useless reviews…this is NOT what Roon promises to be (at least not to me).

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I don’t support eliminating the reviews. They may follow Sturgeon’s Law, but that still leaves 10% that are useful… And it’s probably a different 10% for everyone out there…

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I’m with Geoff they might not always fall in with your own view on your already owned music but they are good for music you don’t own and discovery. One of all time favourite albums I bought solely on the one review.

It’s a workaround but not the same thing that having the reviews in the main album view.

This is precisely the reason for which each user should have the possibility to choice the review he likes!

Maybe just an option like show/hide review could be OK? I like reviews!!! The ones I choose even more!!! :wink:

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I also must disagree.
I am not always the same opinion as the reviewer, but often the review gives some interesting background information. And that I like a lot. So please go on with the reviews.
If you don’t like them, you can simply ignore them.

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I agree. There is often some useful info even if the reviewer doesn’t like the album, but I would rather the information be the focus rather than the opinion.

I like Erlewine. Well, like is maybe the wrong word but he’s semi decent on hip-hop and that buys some good will from me.

What I really wish for is song level metadata…something like songfacts.com only better? That would definitely have me spending more time in the app.

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The critiques/descriptions of the pieces themselves are often informative (to me) and are often filled with useful factoids, e.g., where the piece is in their body of work, influences, location, performance anecdotes, etc. I also like the quick-hit bios of composers and artists and opinions of their work as a whole. I really like the “dot connecting” that is on the artist page: who came before or after him/her, influences and such. I often wish for a link to a deeper dive on such topics.

I find the recording reviews more amusing than irritating. They remind me of wine reviews. Still, IF I KNOW THE SOURCE (a +1 for source ids please), I can always put it in proper context, or the proper circular file. I’m sure there are critics I would read all the time and maybe some never again. But I’ll always want the choice to read.

Another +1 for liner notes and the like, although they are often fraught with opinions too. :slight_smile:

Personally, I have always struggled to find critical listening reviews of albums where the reviewer addresses the technical perspectives on the mixing, the dynamics, etc. Does anybody know of any sites that address the technical side? Critical listening reviews are objective at least. Music reviews are more personal instead and must be taken with the grain of salt. Thanks to tidal I can have my personal view on each album… but I cannot have any idea about the quality of the pressing/mixing

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Please, I wish to exclude certain reviewers that clearly do not like much of what I do & have no business reviewing it in the first place, it’s prejudiced rubbish. :expressionless:

I do not agree that roon should be trying to inflict unnecessary, negative nonsense on me, that is not what I venture into my music collection for, I have stopped reading the reviews. :frowning:

I agree with some of the comments above suggesting to focus on other things than reviews. Why is so much space given to opinions of a single person?

I would much rather see Roon to focus on retrieving facts about the music.

Give me trivia. Give me statistics of how well the album is doing in the market. Give me information about the musical content itself.

This is the stuff that could really make a difference, that would make me excited each time I start browsing in Roon.