A quick observation about Metacritic -- which, if you haven't come across it before, is a site which collects reviews of music, films, games, etc, in one place and combines them into a 'meta-review' for each item.
The observation is that music is reviewed much more leniently than film and video games. Take a look at the music pages -- almost all releases get 60+/100. But for films and games, the picture is much more patchy -- films, especially, are incredibly harshly reviewed and most get below 60.
I wonder why this might be? Are music critics just lightweights? Or are film critics overly, er, critical?
Last updated
3 hours ago
2 comments:
I think it's easier to judge films and games as whole pieces. With music, it may be technically boring for a lot of the record, but an album could very easily have a stand out track that everyone remembers, which in turn lifts the opinion of that album.
With Games and Films, they're effectively one piece. I mean, you might have an action sequence that makes you go "cool", but generally, if the rest of the film is rubbish, that's what you'll remember. In fact, films might be the exact opposite: because you watch them in a logical order (it's easy to skip album tracks), a good film with a disappointing ending could easily leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, and lower a given score.
The other thing is interactivity. You can very easily listen to an album passively while driving, or doing work. With films and computer games, you're generally involved in what happens.
While I realise that a music critic should attack an album in that same 100% focused way, how many really do? And also, how many are musically trained enough to appreciate them technically? And then how do you compare a technically sound, creative, masterpiece (Radiohead) with a great pop album (I dunno, Abba? Mika?). For instance, I'd rate Alphabeat's recent effort (72) higher than most things I've heard from Kraftwerk (Ave: 77). Obviously, I know Kraftwerk have brought more technically and creatively than Alphabeat - I just enjoy hearing them more.
And yeah, maybe this is guilty-pleasures syndrome. Maybe, you could say the same as I did with regards to Alphabeat about Crank 2. And maybe, the issue actually is, that there are way more "good" music alternatives than "good" film alternatives (I find that a really good film, particularly released by a big studio, is a far rarer commodity - usually released around Oscar season ;-D).
What do I know, I'm a stupid consumer!
Thanks for the thoughts, Si -- lots of what you say makes sense. And I think I should have considered in the original post the (pretty plausible) simple conclusion that there's just more good music out there than films or games.
As for the 'guilty pleasure' syndrome -- I think this can occur with films too, and even with games, so I'm not sure we can attribute anything to this. But it is a very interesting syndrome...
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