Reviews for a music album or a movie can be super useful for the audience to get a gauge as to whether the general public is enjoying that piece of art or not. However, it does come with its flaws as well. Sometimes the reviews or ratings of a piece of art gets can influence how the public receives it and whether they like it or not.

For example, a Youtuber named TheNeedleDrop, better known as Anthony Fantano, makes music reviews and almost any album that is released. Whenever he gives an album a good or bad review, it heavily influences the public opinion of that album because he is seen as a credible source for music reviews. Fantano is definitely a credible source in my opinion, but at the same time his views on an album are all subjective and should be taken with a grain of salt, but that doesn’t always happen.

Anthony Fantano shares his thoughts on Summrs' latest album "Stuck In My Ways" 🤔 pic.twitter.com/fhGHU8dcyc

— Kurrco (@Kurrco) March 27, 2023

People will sometimes see what Fantano has to say about an album and then his review will determine whether the album is good or not rather than the viewer having their own opinion. And sometimes people will use those reviews as fuel to argue why an album is good or bad. Obviously, you can agree with Fantano’s opinion, but it seems there are too many people basing their opinions on Fantano’s opinions. Sometimes they won’t even watch what he says in the review and just skip to the end where he gives a rating.

You can see that with things like Rotten Tomato reviews as well. If a movie has a bad score, you may just avoid it altogether. And I can’t lie to you, I am guilty of doing this at times. You want to spend your time watching or listening to something you think you will enjoy. But at the same time, you shouldn’t be making opinions on something based on others’ opinions.

The reason I bring all this up is that I think that the amount of weight we put on reviews is a bit concerning because I think it can make us lose some authenticity. Reviews are definitely a valuable thing to have, but maybe we need to learn to not put so much stock into them. It can be difficult at times to do this as you may not want to seem like the unpopular opinion, but honestly, who cares! Enjoy what you enjoy regardless of what people say.

What are your thoughts on review culture? Do you also think it can be bad or do you disagree?