Reviews Are Pointless Now

I've done music reviews, game reviews, comic book reviews, movie reviews and just about everything else. One of my favorite YouTubers is Luke James, who does music reviews. It's needless to say that I value his opinion and I hope people value mine when I do a review. The thing is, reviews don't really mean anything to me most of the time anything. I don't mean I don't put work into those that I write. I mean that when I read a review I often discard it. The opinion doesn't mean much to me. That happens with maybe 95% of the reviews that I read. I'll tell you why that is.

Let's start by looking at music reviews. One of the smartest things J. Cole ever tweeted was "Your 1 listen reviews are fucking up hip-hop." That tweet was most likely inspired by the fact that his album Born Sinner was almost universally proclaimed to be garbage. However Kanye West' album Yeezus that was released the same day was said to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. When the dust settled and the sales reports came in J. Cole outsold Kanye. Most people just don't like Yeezus no matter how much critics loved it. Meanwhile Cole was written off as homophobic based on the lyrics of the first track and it was said he created the best nap time rap album ever. Even with all the background to that tweet. He's right.

When I write an album review I tend to be wordy, I've reached 8,000+ words on some. When Luke James does a review for an album (not a mixtape) he usually goes somewhere from 6 to 14 minutes. It's clear we both have a lot to say. Luke's said it at least a hundred times before, he always listens to an album more than once. I do to, just in case I miss something. Time is put into it so it's rare that you'll get a first day review from either us. Meanwhile people are releasing 200 reviews about how someone has release the worst album ever and it seems like they didn't even get through the whole album. First impressions aren't always the best. I hated Tech N9ne the first time I heard him, then I heard him again and it wasn't so bad, in fact I kind of liked it. That's the way it is for a lot of albums.

I'm not saying J. Cole is the best rapper alive, seriously, I'm not saying that. But, artist like J. Cole, Wale and to some extent Kendrick Lamar suffer from one listen reviews. They don't create albums that put you in the zone the first time you hear them, but they create albums with replay value. Some people complained that To Pimp a Butterfly was a bad album because it lacked "bangers." These same people believe Dirty Sprite 2 is the best album of the year because it "bangs," but does it have any lasting value? Do you get the same feeling when you hear it again or has it already faded from memory because it sounds like a lot of music out right now?

Movie Reviews might just be worse than album reviews. I'll be blunt; movie reviews have a lot of bias, they're minimalistic at best, misogyny and even racism. That's right, all of that is true. Mad Max is feminist propaganda because one of the leads is a woman. In 1991 Roger Ebert called The Five Heartbeats a bad movie because scenes that tackled racial issues made him uncomfortable. Since then reviewers haven't been shy. Race in movies makes them uncomfortable. Not minority actors, just mentioning race.

There's a bias, specifically in the super hero genre of films. Marvel has had the genre locked down for a while. They've also had some pretty bad movies. Don't argue, you know it's true. Any film that comes out not produced by Marvel it's considered a flop before it's out. There's more reports about how Fantastic 4 and Days of Future Past got bad reviews than there are actual reviews. People read these "reports" and they start downing the movie as well. People start deciding not to see the movie, but they have no problem telling others why it's bad. In cases like this there's bias, and crowd thinkig at play. Leading to a bunch of half cooked reviews.

But, there's a bigger issue. Have you noticed most movie reviews weigh in at a whopping 200 words? That's because that's all it requires to be an accredited review from Rotten Tomatoes which everyone seems to trust for some reason. It doesn't have to be a good review at all. You just have to be able to talk about the movie for 200 words. That doesn't exactly seem like it has all the basis covered.

It's not just movies and music it either. Comic Books and video games suffer from the same problem. People playing games on easy mode to rush through then complaining it's too easy. Reviews are supposed to be unbiased, detailed and fair. They're supposed to point out the flaws as well as the strengths. Reviews aren't meant to make a decision for you, they're supposed to help you decide. But how can you trust these people to help you when they only see flaws. How can you expect them to provide a thorough review if they only hear an album once, or can sum up a movie in 200 words?

I write reviews and I don't even trust most of them. I can't trust your review if you just regurgitate whatever is popular on Reddit. I can't trust your review if it's 200 words about why you hate a movie. I don't agree with Luke James on every review, seriously Luke, reconsider that Rae Sremmurd album. But, I trust Luke because he takes time to craft his opinions and provides well thought out descriptions. No matter how many reviews I read, most of them are just pointless.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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