Re: Julian Hirsch; The Godfather of Reviewing Art

"Scott Gardner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

>snip, not relevant to my comments<

> In general, my attitude is that the number of stellar performers is
> much, much smaller than the number of mediocre products out there.
> Why waste time on reviewing the mediocre-or-worse products.  If a
> magazine DOES decide to publish a clearly negative review, I think
> they should keep it as short as possible, to make more room for other
> evaluations.
>

The downside to this is that possibly the reviewer is in error or his system
has a serious mismatch, and the lack of supporting information makes it
almost impossible to judge that (it may not be possible in any case, but
sometimes there are clues.)

An example of the dangers of this approach appears in October/November issue
of TAS, in the "HP's Workshop" column.  Harry Pearson (who's ears I
generally trust) writes this (and only this) of the Grammy-award winning
Norah Jones album "Come Away With Me" and puts it under the heading "don't
bother".

  "She deserves better than the thin, anemic, and utterly unspectacular 5.1
sound she gets here".

Thin?  Anemic?  Not on my system.  Her piano is realistic, the bass is as
prominent and natural as I've ever heard, her voice is marvelously present.
And the 5.1 effects are used judiciously in support of the music.  In my
system, this album lives up to all of its hype and the Grammy award for
engineering that it garnered.

So did Harry not like the arrangement?
Was he suffering equipment problems?
Did he make a change in his reference system?
Did he get out of bed on the wrong side?

We'll never know.  Well, perhaps never.  I intend to write an email to The
Abso!ute Sound editor about this review and perhaps Harry will answer.

In my opinion a negative review, no less than a glowing one, deserves
context.  I've changed my mind on this over the years and now believe that
*not* reviewing bad stuff (unless it is insufferably hyped) is probably the
wisest course for all concerned.