the critics sh!tting on MCHG.

[Kid McNamara]

Do people actually take critic reviews serious? I never even read them.. I feel like half of the musical critics go in having a biased on an artist to begin with and just play off that to come up with a half assed review of an album, part of a genre, they hardly even fukk with.

I have to disagree with you here, critics love to dissect pop music.

 

[JustCKing]

3/5 or a B is considered a positive score.

It's positive, but a 3/5 doesn't exactly scream enjoyable. It's basically says an album is above average.

 

[Non Sequitur]

It's positive, but a 3/5 doesn't exactly scream enjoyable. It's basically says an album is above average.

Would you say it's near perfect or completely perfect? Because that's what a 4 or a 5 would be.

 

[JustCKing]

Would you say it's near perfect or completely perfect? Because that's what a 4 or a 5 would be.

An enjoyable album would = 3.5-4. That's why those old Source reviews made the most sense to me. A four mic album was considered definite satisfaction.

 

[Dead End]

I've always taken reviews with a grain of salt. The white/rock focused outlets (Spin, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, etc) are just not made up of people that I'm necessarily going to listen to their opinion of hip-hop. Sorry. That's not because most of them are white, but because it comes from outside the culture. I get an offensive vibe from them that they expect their musical innovations from black culture at a higher level. You see 10th generation garage punk bands be raved about like they're doing something new, but Stillmatic or whatever gets slammed for reminding them of something from 5 years ago.

On the other hand, I've learned that reviewing outlets within hip-hop culture can't always be trusted either. I'm sure we remember some of the awful reviews in The Source and XXL. A lot of this is based on favors and access to artists. Honestly I think that's why Yeezus has gotten so many good reviews. Say what you want about it (I think its borderline garbage), but let's say I'm wrong about it being bad. I've gone back on albums before. What I have never seen is universal acclaim for an album, particularly one as polarizing and with as much backlash as Yeezus. Let's think about this...All Eyez On Me, Stillmatic, The Blueprint, The Fix and a plethora of other hip-hop albums most would consider classics received at least SOME bad reviews. Yeezus hasn't, and I think its because hip-hop journalism is afraid to do it, and say what the vast majority of people think. Kanye is at a point in his career right now where he's bigger than hip-hop media, he doesn't even need them. Compare this to 808 & Heartbreaks, which while mostly acclaimed, was nearly as polarizing, and yet did receive some critical reviews.

Moral of the story: Use reviews as a guide, but judge for yourself.

 

[JustCKing]

I've always taken reviews with a grain of salt. The white/rock focused outlets (Spin, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, etc) are just not made up of people that I'm necessarily going to listen to their opinion of hip-hop. Sorry. That's not because most of them are white, but because it comes from outside the culture. I get an offensive vibe from them that they expect their musical innovations from black culture at a higher level. You see 10th generation garage punk bands be raved about like they're doing something new, but Stillmatic or whatever gets slammed for reminding them of something from 5 years ago.

On the other hand, I've learned that reviewing outlets within hip-hop culture can't always be trusted either. I'm sure we remember some of the awful reviews in The Source and XXL. A lot of this is based on favors and access to artists. Honestly I think that's why Yeezus has gotten so many good reviews. Say what you want about it (I think its borderline garbage), but let's say I'm wrong about it being bad. I've gone back on albums before. What I have never seen is universal acclaim for an album, particularly one as polarizing and with as much backlash as Yeezus. Let's think about this...All Eyez On Me, Stillmatic, The Blueprint, The Fix and a plethora of other hip-hop albums most would consider classics received at least SOME bad reviews. Yeezus hasn't, and I think its because hip-hop journalism is afraid to do it, and say what the vast majority of people think. Kanye is at a point in his career right now where he's bigger than hip-hop media, he doesn't even need them. Compare this to 808 & Heartbreaks, which while mostly acclaimed, was nearly as polarizing, and yet did receive some critical reviews.

Moral of the story: Use reviews as a guide, but judge for yourself.

I agree with what you are saying. I think the biggest reasons why albums like AEOM, Stillmatic, Blueprint, The Fix etc. recieve bad reviews and albums like Yeezus and 10th generation garage punk bands recieve rave reviews are:

1) Critics (the professional critics) are more about making a statement than really just delivering a review that reflects what the reader wants to know going into the album.

2) Critics allow the mechanics of the album to overshadow the entertainment factor/listening experience. For example, calling an album "ground breaking", "envelope pushing" etc. makes for great discussion, but it's not something that's going to make or break an album. It could very well be ground breaking and envelope pushing, but it doesn't make it a good or bad album.

Breaking down different instruments and song structures doesn't really affect whether someone is going to dislike/like an album either b/c everybody isn't musically inclined enough to grasp it. Some people might have the musicality to understand it, but don't really care. Others simply might not care it all.

Whatever happened to simply breaking down the pros and cons of an album, slapping a rating on it, and calling it a day?

 

[Urbanmiracle]

Sometimes these critics think they are stars themselves

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

There is definitely an element of celebrity to being a critic, especially if you are contrarian

That said, it is pretty fukking weird how universally positive the Yeezus reviews have been from critics. Yeezus and MCHG are both not great albums to me, but MCHG is at least listenable. I can see how MCHG's more straightforward production and Jay's less pretentious/ambitious content (on the surface.) would make his disc seem less worthy of critical praise. But at the end of the day, to me, what matters is what is more enjoyable and has more replay value. Hip hop is well beyond a place where any paradigm shifts or ground breaking albums can be made; at best now all we can hope for are decent discs worth listening to for more than 3-6 months

 

[ArchStanton]

I like Yeezus, I think it's a fun sounding "experimental" album.. and that's it.. but I hate the critics and the listeners who somehow think they're more enlightened because of it.

It like the equivalent to the Alex Jones and conspiracy nuts who go around calling people "sheeple". It's annoying.

Yeezus has it's moments, but I can't get over the way the critics have been trying to assign great meaning to lines like "hurry up with my damn croissants" and the 1500 times Kanye tells someone to suck his dikk, bytch.

 

[NigerianDonDada]

Magna Carta Holy Grail Reviews - Metacritic

64 average Metacritic score so far

 

[DontEemTry]

Magna Carta Holy Grail Reviews - Metacritic

64 average Metacritic score so far

lol, I wonder when it became acceptable for us to let cacs define what is good hip hop.

I must be getting old as fukk.

 

[Savior]

lol, I wonder when it became acceptable for us to let cacs define what is good hip hop.

I must be getting old as fukk.

True...when did people actually start paying attention to what these publications/critics say about hip hop? I remember when we used to just bytch about shytty source/xxl reviews. Now a bad review from a cac hipster website gets 10 pages .

 

[NigerianDonDada]

lol, I wonder when it became acceptable for us to let cacs define what is good hip hop.

I must be getting old as fukk.

I personally don't care about Metacritic. I just find it funny when posters where using Metacritic to trash other artists but now that their favorite rapper is getting trashed it's worthless now

 

[criminology]

True...when did people actually start paying attention to what these publications/critics say about hip hop? I remember when we used to just bytch about shytty source/xxl reviews. Now a bad review from a cac hipster website gets 10 pages .

I feel the same way about the Grammys. shyt has sucked for decades but all of a sudden hip hop fans care about them.

 

[WEKetchum]

I agree with what you are saying. I think the biggest reasons why albums like AEOM, Stillmatic, Blueprint, The Fix etc. recieve bad reviews and albums like Yeezus and 10th generation garage punk bands recieve rave reviews are:

1) Critics (the professional critics) are more about making a statement than really just delivering a review that reflects what the reader wants to know going into the album.

2) Critics allow the mechanics of the album to overshadow the entertainment factor/listening experience. For example, calling an album "ground breaking", "envelope pushing" etc. makes for great discussion, but it's not something that's going to make or break an album. It could very well be ground breaking and envelope pushing, but it doesn't make it a good or bad album.

Breaking down different instruments and song structures doesn't really affect whether someone is going to dislike/like an album either b/c everybody isn't musically inclined enough to grasp it. Some people might have the musicality to understand it, but don't really care. Others simply might not care it all.

Whatever happened to simply breaking down the pros and cons of an album, slapping a rating on it, and calling it a day?

A lot of what you guys are saying is true. In my reviews, I try to do several things:

-Literally describe how the album sounds and what it delivers
-Simply enough, say if it's good or not, and why
-Contextualize how it compares to other artists of that type currently, how it stands up to the history of the genre, and show how the album stands up to the current competition and past standards.

I think the last one is important because these publications have a responsibility of long-term documentation, too. But like you said, not enough reviews give readers what they're looking for, now. A lot of cats just want to show off their writing skills