Hardcore pop fans are abusing critics – and putting acclaim before art | Ben Beaumont-Thomas | The Guardian – on August 3, 2020 at 9:54 am

Taylor Swift superfans are ganging up on critics who haven’t given her new album a perfect score – a symptom of a culture obsessed with quantifying our livesThe album rating system at US publication Pitchfork is one of the most silly and nerdy things in music journalism. The Guardian’s five-star system looks neanderthal compared with Pitchfork’s decimal-point ratings, where an album can get 3.2 (oof), 6.5 (meh), 9.2 (wow) and so on. 0.0 has been used as a cruel joke; a perfect 10, only earned by Fiona Apple and Kanye West in the last decade, is the grail cup of hip culture.This 100-point marking scheme has since been adopted by the website Metacritic, who aggregate reviews from English-language publications to arrive at an overall percentile score for albums, games and films. It’s a useful tool for time-poor people to quickly see what consensus has formed around. Continue reading…

Taylor Swift superfans are ganging up on critics who haven’t given her new album a perfect score – a symptom of a culture obsessed with quantifying our lives

The album rating system at US publication Pitchfork is one of the most silly and nerdy things in music journalism. The Guardian’s five-star system looks neanderthal compared with Pitchfork’s decimal-point ratings, where an album can get 3.2 (oof), 6.5 (meh), 9.2 (wow) and so on. 0.0 has been used as a cruel joke; a perfect 10, only earned by Fiona Apple and Kanye West in the last decade, is the grail cup of hip culture.

This 100-point marking scheme has since been adopted by the website Metacritic, who aggregate reviews from English-language publications to arrive at an overall percentile score for albums, games and films. It’s a useful tool for time-poor people to quickly see what consensus has formed around.

Continue reading…