have long though that music reviews were pretty pointless. You either like a type of music or don't, and the only useful review is comparing one band to another.  If there's a new metal band I might be interested in, compare them to existing bands.  Do they sound something like Metallica, or Limp Bizket, or Godsmack, or what?  Metal fans are the only ones interested in the review, and they want it in terms they can relate to.

Music critics don't seem to have grasped this yet.

For example, I'd give every R&B album ever recorded an F, since I can't stand that type of music. I'd give every pop album the last 10 years an F, for the same reason. If I had to review two CDs, one of which was very good pop and the other was bad, my review would be something like:

• Album 1: Hated it, it's shit.

• Album 2: Hated it, it's not shit.

That's assuming I could make it through two hours of that music in the first place.  This is not a safe assumption.

So really the only meaningful music review is in a relative sense.  Is an album better or worse than other albums by that artist, and how is it compared to other music in the same genre.

This came up to me based on a four-album review of various Nü Metal bands in Entertainment Weekly. The reviewer gives all four of them a C, and quotes lyrics he doesn't like.  Utterly worthless review: if I ran the mag I'd probably fire him, or would at least have the music section editor beaten with rusty chains, for not refusing the worthless article. The reviewer didn't like metal, so why is he reviewing it in terms of zero use to anyone who might buy the albums?

I'm not talking about this because it was metal; the same holds for R&B or Rap or Pop or Country or whatever.  You can't compare Garth Brooks to Ozzy Osbourne; there's just no frame of reference.  Fans of one have nothing to do with the other.

They review four CDs in one article, and give them all a "C".  In depth there, eh?  But the review is what's so dumb.  A quote:

Every day is the same old gauntlet of abject, intense, horrid torment from which there is no escape, even worse no one listens (Puddle of Mudd. Default.) Your friends can't be trusted or counted on; the ones you thought loved you, in fact, don't (Hoobastank). Even when you go back home, the old aggravations haunt you; your parents still don't understand (The Calling). Everywhere is a bleak, ink-black hole of loneliness, pain, rejection and two-faced friends (all of them).

Now that all may be from accurate lyric quotes, picking out one or two songs from each 10 song album, but who gives a shit?  I have no idea what the lyrics or songs are about on 90% of the CDs I own, and I like it that way.  What I buy music for is the sound of it, does it rock, is it catchy, is it well-played and recorded. In fact lots of music I'd prefer to not know the meaning of the songs, since the artists are generally drunken idiot junkies, whining about love lost or everything sucks or overblown sentimentality.

Plus now there are all of these Christian bands who have the same sort of sound, but their songs are mine fields of "don't make baby Jesus cry" lyrics, so you're beginning to enjoy the track and then you realize the whole thing is about praying about how your dead friend is playing Basketball in heaven or something equally ridiculous, but since there is decent guitar it's hard to hate it completely.

If I'm buying rap or spoken word or poetry (not that I do) I care about the lyrics, since that's what it is, lyrics, words.  Rock, metal especially, just enjoy the sound.  I have every Slayer album but the last couple, and most of their songs are about human sacrifice and such, but you look at them as short stories, fictional accounts, whatever.  Something sorta interesting and creative, something you can't hear every stoned, backwards ball cap wearing, poorly-tattooed, wallet-chain jingling, twenty-something and still running from the mall security guards, loser, whining about.  And yes, I realize I just described every lead singer in every metal band today.

Rammstein is great and they speak fricking German.  Just regard the voice as another instrument, try to ignore whatever the idiot is yapping about, and see if the music is good.  Most of it's not, unfortunately, and all the metal bands now sound the same, I will admit.  I can't tell half of the songs apart, or keep the bands straight, but that's true for most musical types.  Generally there's one original band, and then two dozen bad imitations as the sound gets beaten to death.

The larger point is that since this reviewer doesn't care for that type of music, his reviews are useless as presented. So why have him review it?

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