Quote:
Originally Posted by sidewinder
If anything they hype bands undeserving of as much attention, and turn people away from other good bands (because of bad reviews - not hip enough or something). They have a huge herd of sheep. But this is no different from any other mag, this one just happens to be one of the most well-known.
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Do they, though (in re: the huge herd of sheep)? Cos everyone I meet seems to pretty much have that same opinion. It seems more that different groups of people like different music and tend to be sort of compartmentalized about it. It seems sort of presumptuous to say that a band doesn't deserve attention if a lot of people like them. Which is actually sort of a weird balance cos everyone seems to realize taste is based on opinion, but people still act like it isn't. I dunno, I'm musing off on a tangent here.
I don't suppose it really matters, though, because 1) as you say, that's just what happens--it's part of the nature of having a critical ethos, which most publications do--and 2) that's the exciting thing the internet has done for music; it's made everything so much more available to be listened to and hyped and everything. No matter WHAT you think deserves the hype, you can find some other people who agree with you, plus people hyping things you've never heard of--that's part of why places like this exist. Which brings me to:
Quote:
Originally Posted by James
But anyway, the way I see it if hype bothers someone they can just ignore it. If you truly only care about music hype shouldn't be a factor.
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Cos I totally agree with that. If someone is turned off by a bad review on Pitchfork... well, so what? It doesn't seem like that's the kind of person that's going to be a hardcore supportive fan anyway (if they'd have been a fan at all) and even if the music is great, it's their fault for missing out if they're not smart enough to learn how to read a publication with a grain of salt. But I still think there are less people like that than we tend to assume.
I suppose it comes down to the idea that I find complaining about music one doesn't like to be sort of silly when that's effort that could be put into finding something new that you do dig. I'm also one of those people that's upset by the fact that I'll never be able to hear everything out there, though. So I dunno...