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It's a really interesting piece but I feel the need to question the premise that there's a "wrong" or "right" with art criticism, as if the purpose of a critiqu

It's a really interesting piece but I feel the need to question the premise that there's a "wrong" or "right" with art criticism, as if the purpose of a critique is to reveal to the reader the true state of an artwork — as opposed to just being an expression of an opinion. I realize that "getting it wrong" could be a shorthand for "being so different from the historical majority opinion" but the piece doesn't seem to approach things that way. It's significant in a way because I think over time majority opinions have a way of stifling minority perspectives on things that are most popularly seen as "great art". I don't mean to sound contrarian, I'm just suggesting that maybe consensus about a given work isn't quite what it seems all the time, that there are social pressures and dynamics at play that sometimes distort how people might consciously consider a piece versus how they might react to it completely independently without labels. I also think it points to other things, like art perception being contextually dependent. People change and their tastes change — it doesn't mean one perspective is invalid, just that it was occuring in a different time. Of course, sometimes people just don't fully appreciate something because it's new and are looking at it with a certain lack of imagination. But I also sometimes think we look back at the past as if it were preordained, more so than how we see the future.

skybrian 4y ago
The part that particularly seems closed-minded now is not seeing how others might appreciate new music that you personally didn't like. A music critic can't just say "I didn't care for it" and move on - or rather, they could, but then they wouldn't write the article. I think the lesson here is more for the editors: maybe find someone who's a fan to write the piece? Or maybe we get a better picture now that aggregate ratings (like Rotten Tomatoes) are widespread?
- Andrex 4y ago
  > maybe find someone who's a fan to write the piece Objectivity in journalism may not exist, but most poor quality journalism I find is directly correlated to how big a fanboy that person is about the particular subject. You need intelligence when approaching criticism far more than reverence, is I guess what I'm saying. If someone can intelligently relate to me specifically why they might not like the Beatles, or specific song, in a way that I can understand, I would consider that person more trustworthy than the alternative. But that relies on me, or rather the reader/audience, to be open and receptive to challenging opinions.
  - skybrian 4y ago
    Well, okay, but here's my personal experience. When I created a Mastodon account, I decided to use it to post mini-reviews of accordion-related music from YouTube. (Because I play accordion and I'm interested in hearing unfamiliar kinds of music.) I look around on YouTube for recordings I like. There are lots of recordings I don't like for whatever reason. I don't post them. Why bother? So, nowadays, I'm not sure why anyone should spend time reviewing music they don't like. At all. What's the point? The slush pile is vast. Make the best collection you can of stuff you like. If other people find it good then maybe they'll start to trust your judgement. Admittedly, I have a tiny audience, a newspaper is a little different, and sometimes people like to read a good takedown. But it seems unnecessary?
    - galaxyLogic 4y ago
      > But it seems unnecessary? If something is extremely popular but you perceive something wrong about it of course that's a good reason to write about it. At the same time many critics seem to just try to put artists down because that makes it seem the critic is above the artist because he can see the wrongness in the artist. Critics are wannabe artists.
      - skybrian 4y ago
        I don't see any upside in trying to tell people that some music they love is crap. It's different for other media, like an article about how a book or TV show or movie is historically inaccurate is sometimes fun.
        pbhjpbhj 4y ago
        Why is it different for music, to the situation with movies, say? Music can have a narrative that is counter factual too.
        skybrian 4y ago
        Can you name a song with lyrics that you'd consider to be misinformation rather than poetry or fiction? Seems like it would be pretty rare.
- largepeepee 4y ago
  >Or maybe we get a better picture now that aggregate ratings (like Rotten Tomatoes) are widespread? Funny enough we are actually took a step BACK from marketwide aggregated ratings in recent years. Using RT as an example, they changed their system in recent years so their shareholders had more control over the ratings, who can rate them and what is said. They basically shifted from a simple internet movie rating site to slowly becoming another Hollywood mouthpiece with their selection of pro-Hollywood narrative critics and making it harder for normal people to raise opinions, we seem to be reverting back to the status quo.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    The wide disparity the frequently exists between critics and audience reviews on RT always stood out to me as interesting- I frequently found that the wider the gap, the more likely I was to agree with the audience rating. It'd be a shame if the audience rating became less reliable in that regard.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > Or maybe we get a better picture now that aggregate ratings (like Rotten Tomatoes) are widespread? RT is not such a good example - didn't they recently start weighting reviews (viewer reviews count less and less)? I think Metacritic still allows you to see the viewer reviews independently of the critic reviews. I remember using Metacritic in the past, and my general experience was that any movie with: 1. High reviews from the critics but low reviews from the viewers = probably trash, expect to be assaulted with some deeper meaning or message which is completely out of context. 2. Low reviews from critics but high reviews from viewers = Probably good entertainment, bring the popcorn but don't expect a deep message from the movie. 3. Consistently low reviews = absolute trash, don't waste your money 4. Consistently high reviews = appeals to a very broad segment of the population, probably appeals to you too.
JauntyHatAngle 4y ago
I mostly agree and welcome your point, but as a footnote, I feel what complicates things is that music (like all art) is both a technical craft which can be rated somewhat objectively in terms of technical merit, while also being subjective in "judging" its cultural significance, evocative nature etc etc.
- IgorPartola 4y ago
  Not just that. Where the music comes from is also important. For example, a traditionally masculine music genre being suddenly performed by a woman, and performed well, will stick out. See Queen Latifah as an example.
yeuxardents 4y ago
[flagged]
- runsonrum 4y ago
  I have used ChatGPT but, can you ask it if it has responded to a specific article before?
- yeuxardents 4y ago
  I asked chatgpt to analyze the article, provide feedback, and analysis on why the premise of right or wrong might be incorrect. I am now living in a simulation.
  - Eupraxias 4y ago
    That reminds me of the moment that I realized that I have been a chatbot for a really long time.
- lovemenot 4y ago
  History may judge your condescension to GPT-3 unkindly. It was, by any objective measure, the greatest AI development since GPT-2. Itself a landmark achievement.
- Eupraxias 4y ago
  These kind of chatbot comments should be banned. When the chatbot content sticks out from everything else like this, we don't need AI to fish it out.
  - Eupraxias 4y ago
    Oh dear lord, I was being sarcastic and meta! Can we unflag the parent? It was a legit statement, I thought.
- farrarstan 4y ago
  [dead]
bnralt 4y ago
One of the first things I do when I'm considering a piece of media is I read the negative reviews. Finding out the reasons why someone doesn't like something is a good way to see if you'd like it yourself. For instance, most of the time I'm going to enjoy a film that gets dinged for being "confusing" than I am for one that gets dinged for being "bland." Others might find the opposite to be true. It's not that I'm necessarily going to agree with the negative reviews. But I definitely find them much more useful. It's a sad state of affairs when we're told that there's only one correct opinion about a particular piece of media and dissenting views are "wrong." We lose the deep insight that comes from looking at who likes and dislikes a piece and why. And it's hard to truly like something when liking it is presented as the only correct choice from the start.
- holoduke 4y ago
  For me as as well. Same for dislike buttons. I d like to see them. Shame they dont have it anymore at youtube.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    Interestingly, I don't think I really found dislike counts to be very useful, though I do go for negative reviews on books first. Negative reviews tend to be a bit more articulate and specific about what they didn't like, and why they didn't like it. Pain points tend to stand out a lot more than positive things, especially if you go into an experience with the expectation that you'll enjoy it. That said, there's also plenty of occasions where I've found nothing useful in the negative reviews, but found some positive reviews compelling enough to try a book. Movies, TV shows and music I tend to ignore specific reviews altogether, and just go by the description and overall positive/negative average from ratings. There are so many more dimensions that short form reviews generally aren't useful at all.
    - Sakos 4y ago
      I wonder how useful it would be for a dislike button to require a brief statement explaining why. I'm not a fan of dislike/downvote buttons in general because there are so many different reasons why something could be perceived as negative, and what might be considered negative by one person might be a positive for somebody else. It just feels like noise to me.
msla 4y ago
I distinguish between criticism and reviewing, where criticism is, ultimately, about putting a work in context, and reviewing is about telling someone whether a work is likely to be worth their time. Both can be done in the same piece, of course, and the longer reviews include some aspects of criticism at least to the extent of an after-action report: This work was good/bad, so let's explore what worked/didn't work to contribute to that, which is done in the context of the general language of whatever medium the work is in. On the other hand, reviews don't need to do that, and the shorter ones don't, and criticism certainly doesn't need to engage with the question of whether a piece of media is at all enjoyable. So a review can be right or wrong from my perspective based on how well it reflects my tastes.
- chongli 4y ago
  Yes exactly. Proper criticism tries to leave preferences out and instead investigate the context of a piece and how it influences other work, how the work was influenced by the context in which it was created. Look at a piece like Picasso’s Guernica [1] without any context and in all likelihood you’ll consider it an ugly, confusing mess. But then if you take some time to read the history [2] and it completely changes how you look at the work. [1] https://www.parisupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ParisUpdate-guernica-MuseePicasso2-1024x730.jpg https://www.parisupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Paris... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica
  - Sakos 4y ago
    That's an important point. I don't believe reviews should leave out preferences. They should be explicit, yet distanced enough. I judge games through the reviews based on how I've contextualized a reviewer's likes and dislikes. My favorite reviewers might not like a game, but admit that the things that bother them might not bother somebody else and they point out things that might appeal to people with different preferences.
    - chongli 4y ago
      I think it's important to make a distinction between criticism as a formal, academic discipline and reviews which are meant to give practical advice about whether or not a particular work is worth the consumer's time.
atoav 4y ago
The decision what is good art and what is not is a decision indivdiuals and/or groups within society take. Those indivdiuals/groups might not necessarily be in total overlap with each other. You might e.g. have particular sub-groups who enjoy noise music, something the majority of people wouldn't even call music. That sub group might consider a overwhelming fraction of popular music bad music. Similar a particular country fan might consider rap and techno not music at all, or bad music while they like their own thing very much. Sometimes (often?) these critiques contain an element of social or cultural connotation as well. Techno definitly is hedonistic, rap and hiphop are connected to certain demographics and classes within society, as where the Beatles. That means a criticism should always also be seen in that light: Who criticizes whom from what standpoint? If that country fan dislikes the latest and harshest noise rock release that might be a good guide for fellow country music afficionados, but someone who likes noise rock might rather take that negative review as a compliment. Both sides could try to use the border they draw towards the other as cultural capital within their own ingroups. That means when the Beatles became popular a lot of the criticism they got was also criticism the old generations had towards the younger generations. It was not only about the music, it was also about who decides what good music is. Today (thankfully) we live in times where objectively good art is revealed as the delussional idea it always was.
bambax 4y ago
> as opposed to just being an expression of an opinion Well if you're a critic you're supposed to have an informed opinion, something that is not just your personal, knee-jerk reaction but a well thought-out intellectual construction that explains what's good and what's less good and why. Otherwise what's the point? I can get an opinion from any patron at any bar, or from dogs even.
cageface 4y ago
To completely dismiss Sgt Pepper is about as close to objectively wrong as you can get in music criticism.

skybrian 4y ago

The part that particularly seems closed-minded now is not seeing how others might appreciate new music that you personally didn't like. A music critic can't just say "I didn't care for it" and move on - or rather, they could, but then they wouldn't write the article. I think the lesson here is more for the editors: maybe find someone who's a fan to write the piece? Or maybe we get a better picture now that aggregate ratings (like Rotten Tomatoes) are widespread?

Andrex 4y ago
> maybe find someone who's a fan to write the piece Objectivity in journalism may not exist, but most poor quality journalism I find is directly correlated to how big a fanboy that person is about the particular subject. You need intelligence when approaching criticism far more than reverence, is I guess what I'm saying. If someone can intelligently relate to me specifically why they might not like the Beatles, or specific song, in a way that I can understand, I would consider that person more trustworthy than the alternative. But that relies on me, or rather the reader/audience, to be open and receptive to challenging opinions.
- skybrian 4y ago
  Well, okay, but here's my personal experience. When I created a Mastodon account, I decided to use it to post mini-reviews of accordion-related music from YouTube. (Because I play accordion and I'm interested in hearing unfamiliar kinds of music.) I look around on YouTube for recordings I like. There are lots of recordings I don't like for whatever reason. I don't post them. Why bother? So, nowadays, I'm not sure why anyone should spend time reviewing music they don't like. At all. What's the point? The slush pile is vast. Make the best collection you can of stuff you like. If other people find it good then maybe they'll start to trust your judgement. Admittedly, I have a tiny audience, a newspaper is a little different, and sometimes people like to read a good takedown. But it seems unnecessary?
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    > But it seems unnecessary? If something is extremely popular but you perceive something wrong about it of course that's a good reason to write about it. At the same time many critics seem to just try to put artists down because that makes it seem the critic is above the artist because he can see the wrongness in the artist. Critics are wannabe artists.
    - skybrian 4y ago
      I don't see any upside in trying to tell people that some music they love is crap. It's different for other media, like an article about how a book or TV show or movie is historically inaccurate is sometimes fun.
      - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
        Why is it different for music, to the situation with movies, say? Music can have a narrative that is counter factual too.
        skybrian 4y ago
        Can you name a song with lyrics that you'd consider to be misinformation rather than poetry or fiction? Seems like it would be pretty rare.
largepeepee 4y ago
>Or maybe we get a better picture now that aggregate ratings (like Rotten Tomatoes) are widespread? Funny enough we are actually took a step BACK from marketwide aggregated ratings in recent years. Using RT as an example, they changed their system in recent years so their shareholders had more control over the ratings, who can rate them and what is said. They basically shifted from a simple internet movie rating site to slowly becoming another Hollywood mouthpiece with their selection of pro-Hollywood narrative critics and making it harder for normal people to raise opinions, we seem to be reverting back to the status quo.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  The wide disparity the frequently exists between critics and audience reviews on RT always stood out to me as interesting- I frequently found that the wider the gap, the more likely I was to agree with the audience rating. It'd be a shame if the audience rating became less reliable in that regard.
lelanthran 4y ago
> Or maybe we get a better picture now that aggregate ratings (like Rotten Tomatoes) are widespread? RT is not such a good example - didn't they recently start weighting reviews (viewer reviews count less and less)? I think Metacritic still allows you to see the viewer reviews independently of the critic reviews. I remember using Metacritic in the past, and my general experience was that any movie with: 1. High reviews from the critics but low reviews from the viewers = probably trash, expect to be assaulted with some deeper meaning or message which is completely out of context. 2. Low reviews from critics but high reviews from viewers = Probably good entertainment, bring the popcorn but don't expect a deep message from the movie. 3. Consistently low reviews = absolute trash, don't waste your money 4. Consistently high reviews = appeals to a very broad segment of the population, probably appeals to you too.

JauntyHatAngle 4y ago

I mostly agree and welcome your point, but as a footnote, I feel what complicates things is that music (like all art) is both a technical craft which can be rated somewhat objectively in terms of technical merit, while also being subjective in "judging" its cultural significance, evocative nature etc etc.

IgorPartola 4y ago
Not just that. Where the music comes from is also important. For example, a traditionally masculine music genre being suddenly performed by a woman, and performed well, will stick out. See Queen Latifah as an example.

yeuxardents 4y ago

[flagged]

runsonrum 4y ago
I have used ChatGPT but, can you ask it if it has responded to a specific article before?
yeuxardents 4y ago
I asked chatgpt to analyze the article, provide feedback, and analysis on why the premise of right or wrong might be incorrect. I am now living in a simulation.
- Eupraxias 4y ago
  That reminds me of the moment that I realized that I have been a chatbot for a really long time.
lovemenot 4y ago
History may judge your condescension to GPT-3 unkindly. It was, by any objective measure, the greatest AI development since GPT-2. Itself a landmark achievement.
Eupraxias 4y ago
These kind of chatbot comments should be banned. When the chatbot content sticks out from everything else like this, we don't need AI to fish it out.
- Eupraxias 4y ago
  Oh dear lord, I was being sarcastic and meta! Can we unflag the parent? It was a legit statement, I thought.
farrarstan 4y ago
[dead]

bnralt 4y ago

One of the first things I do when I'm considering a piece of media is I read the negative reviews. Finding out the reasons why someone doesn't like something is a good way to see if you'd like it yourself. For instance, most of the time I'm going to enjoy a film that gets dinged for being "confusing" than I am for one that gets dinged for being "bland." Others might find the opposite to be true. It's not that I'm necessarily going to agree with the negative reviews. But I definitely find them much more useful. It's a sad state of affairs when we're told that there's only one correct opinion about a particular piece of media and dissenting views are "wrong." We lose the deep insight that comes from looking at who likes and dislikes a piece and why. And it's hard to truly like something when liking it is presented as the only correct choice from the start.

holoduke 4y ago
For me as as well. Same for dislike buttons. I d like to see them. Shame they dont have it anymore at youtube.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  Interestingly, I don't think I really found dislike counts to be very useful, though I do go for negative reviews on books first. Negative reviews tend to be a bit more articulate and specific about what they didn't like, and why they didn't like it. Pain points tend to stand out a lot more than positive things, especially if you go into an experience with the expectation that you'll enjoy it. That said, there's also plenty of occasions where I've found nothing useful in the negative reviews, but found some positive reviews compelling enough to try a book. Movies, TV shows and music I tend to ignore specific reviews altogether, and just go by the description and overall positive/negative average from ratings. There are so many more dimensions that short form reviews generally aren't useful at all.
  - Sakos 4y ago
    I wonder how useful it would be for a dislike button to require a brief statement explaining why. I'm not a fan of dislike/downvote buttons in general because there are so many different reasons why something could be perceived as negative, and what might be considered negative by one person might be a positive for somebody else. It just feels like noise to me.

msla 4y ago

I distinguish between criticism and reviewing, where criticism is, ultimately, about putting a work in context, and reviewing is about telling someone whether a work is likely to be worth their time. Both can be done in the same piece, of course, and the longer reviews include some aspects of criticism at least to the extent of an after-action report: This work was good/bad, so let's explore what worked/didn't work to contribute to that, which is done in the context of the general language of whatever medium the work is in. On the other hand, reviews don't need to do that, and the shorter ones don't, and criticism certainly doesn't need to engage with the question of whether a piece of media is at all enjoyable. So a review can be right or wrong from my perspective based on how well it reflects my tastes.

chongli 4y ago
Yes exactly. Proper criticism tries to leave preferences out and instead investigate the context of a piece and how it influences other work, how the work was influenced by the context in which it was created. Look at a piece like Picasso’s Guernica [1] without any context and in all likelihood you’ll consider it an ugly, confusing mess. But then if you take some time to read the history [2] and it completely changes how you look at the work. [1] https://www.parisupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ParisUpdate-guernica-MuseePicasso2-1024x730.jpg https://www.parisupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Paris... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica
- Sakos 4y ago
  That's an important point. I don't believe reviews should leave out preferences. They should be explicit, yet distanced enough. I judge games through the reviews based on how I've contextualized a reviewer's likes and dislikes. My favorite reviewers might not like a game, but admit that the things that bother them might not bother somebody else and they point out things that might appeal to people with different preferences.
  - chongli 4y ago
    I think it's important to make a distinction between criticism as a formal, academic discipline and reviews which are meant to give practical advice about whether or not a particular work is worth the consumer's time.

atoav 4y ago

The decision what is good art and what is not is a decision indivdiuals and/or groups within society take. Those indivdiuals/groups might not necessarily be in total overlap with each other. You might e.g. have particular sub-groups who enjoy noise music, something the majority of people wouldn't even call music. That sub group might consider a overwhelming fraction of popular music bad music. Similar a particular country fan might consider rap and techno not music at all, or bad music while they like their own thing very much. Sometimes (often?) these critiques contain an element of social or cultural connotation as well. Techno definitly is hedonistic, rap and hiphop are connected to certain demographics and classes within society, as where the Beatles. That means a criticism should always also be seen in that light: Who criticizes whom from what standpoint? If that country fan dislikes the latest and harshest noise rock release that might be a good guide for fellow country music afficionados, but someone who likes noise rock might rather take that negative review as a compliment. Both sides could try to use the border they draw towards the other as cultural capital within their own ingroups. That means when the Beatles became popular a lot of the criticism they got was also criticism the old generations had towards the younger generations. It was not only about the music, it was also about who decides what good music is. Today (thankfully) we live in times where objectively good art is revealed as the delussional idea it always was.

bambax 4y ago

> as opposed to just being an expression of an opinion Well if you're a critic you're supposed to have an informed opinion, something that is not just your personal, knee-jerk reaction but a well thought-out intellectual construction that explains what's good and what's less good and why. Otherwise what's the point? I can get an opinion from any patron at any bar, or from dogs even.

cageface 4y ago

To completely dismiss Sgt Pepper is about as close to objectively wrong as you can get in music criticism.