If you care about music and music criticism — and if you’re on this site, I’m guessing you might have at least a passing interest — you might have found it curious to read this week that Pitchfork has gone back and updated the scores for some of its old reviews.
Well, as a guy who spent nearly 20 years assigning star ratings to nearly 20,000 albums, I can totally see why they’re doing it. Some albums grow on you with more plays, while others don’t really stand the test of time. And honestly, sometimes, no matter how much experience and knowledge you have, you just get it wrong. I know I have. Hell, I wish I could go back and change ratings on countless albums. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I don’t use stars or numbers or any kind of rating system on this site. For the most part, I only post something about things I like — and if I love something, I generally rave about it — so what more does some arbitrary number or symbol really add to the whole proceeding? Anyway, that’s what Eric Alper and I are jawing about on today’s Sonic Reducers episode. If you’d like to hear more, click above to check out what we’ve got to say, and hey, if you could click through to the YouTube page and subscribe, that would also be a nice thing. Sonic Records. One topic. Two music nerds. Five minutes. Everything you need to know. And zero ratings.
