The North Park Student Newspaper Since 2023
Music reviewers are unnecessary
OPINION/EDITORIALS
Pavit Arora
6/11/20262 min read
One of the few objective things that can be said about music is, weirdly enough, its subjectivity. After all, music is a form of art that combines many others. Directly, there's writing and production, but music also incorporates visual art, and performance, with each of these aspects containing its own nuances in themselves. Music’s non-binary nature is one of the most beautiful things about it, and opens many doors to discussion and discourse.
In general, discourse, especially music discourse, can be something incredibly valuable. Each person offers a different perspective and interpretation of the art shaped by their own worldview or personal experiences, something that can’t be replicated or shared by other people. In a proper discussion, one person's opinions can’t be considered correct or more important than others, something that the concept of a music reviewer fully eliminates.
Music reviewers come in all forms, whether its an entire company dedicated to reviewing new releases, such as Pitchfork or AllMusic, or singular people writing reviews, such as Theneedledrop. For many, it’s their profession, with large followings keeping up to date on reviews for recent albums or songs. The issue is that when music reviews are done professionally, it spawns a certain amount of titularity, and their opinions are treated more as fact by people.
This can commonly be seen in a lot of online discussions, where people compare critic scores and chart performance. This in itself isn't an issue, but it becomes one when people use these values to determine whether one album is greater than another, when the artistry should be the deciding factor, which is in itself up to personal interpretation.
A point that can be brought up is that music reviewers do in fact spark discussion, considering that their opinions are, well, opinions. They too can offer a different perspective and interpretation of the releases they review, but this idea can be shot down by the fact that discussions are very well able to hold their own with or without the help of professional music reviewers, such as on social media platforms (X, Reddit, etc.) or on websites specifically used to rate and discuss music (RYM, Aoty, etc.) rendering the need to pay someone to review music unnecessary.