I ask this because some are pretty negative and do not necessarily correlate with my subjective attitudes nor do they even agree with other critics.
The album inspiring this post is uchida playing the Beethoven sonatas 30 to 32. The Roon description of her playing is very damning and, IMHO, quite out of place.
The point of the excellent script associated with albums and the helpful links should be to encourage enjoyment of the music. A negative description, particularly like the one on this album seems designed to pick fault so one ends up not liking her playing.
I guess this poses the question about who decides which subjective review Roon should feature. Should it only post positive reviews? Or should it post more than one review - a positive and a negative review?
In a way I prefer the old Sooloos approach of letting one edit a review but that did lack the excellent links which make the Roon approach so much better. So I guess I have to live with what Roon decides to post up but I earnestly request more thought be given to the tone of reviews and they do not come across so dogmatically negative as a few (note I said a few) do. And particularly when the consensus among other reviewers is not so negative.
A case in point was the gig last night by Shelby Lynne and Alison Moorer.
Shelby stated, I don’t read reviews but I came across one where the guy suggested it was a mistake to put the song ‘Lithium’ on the album.
“I wish he had the balls (paraphrasing here to clean it up) to come here tonight to tell it to my face, who does he think he is”
They then went into an all out belter of a performance that put paid to any doubt of their capabilties. Attitude!
So if we don’t like the reviews, we are not alone. Artists do things for a reason and it seems reviewers often don’t understand or have other agenda’s.
I don’t know all the twists and turns but the data side of AllMusic.com was spun off as a seperate company. At some point that was bought by a company called Rovi. Rovi in 2016 bought Tivo which has TV metadata as its IP and asset. Since Tivo was a more well-known brand, Rovi renamed itself Tivo.