Critical Reception

[monobloss]

GTA V on Metacritic is 98 so. GTA V > Eminem obv.

[Kill You]

The fact that so many shittier albums are ahead of all of Em's albums, even his best works, say enough. Fuck the critics, numbers and the fans will be the real judge.

[kkaniff]

Interesting read, although your final conclusion is wrong.
First off, bear in mind that reviews are basically the opinions of people, and as such are liable to be influenced by personal bias, personality quirks, trends and prolly even whether the reviewer had a bad day or not.
And then Metacritic makes shit even worse by taking an average of critical opinion, an idea which is stupid in the extreme. Why the fuck should I care what, for example, Playboy has to say about Recovery? A combination of both factors is prolly what is responsible for the abomination of Pink Friday > Relapse.
However, using that to claim that album reviews suck generally and should not be paid attention to is just wrong.
Music critics do know a heck of a lot more about music than the average forum go-er, which is why they're paid to write about the subject in the first place. A better alternative would be finding a music critic whose opinions you respect, and saying fuck everything else.
Pretending that critics opinions arent relevant/ dont matter is just plain silly.

[King Lance]

when you review an album, you have to take everything into account, the production, lyrics, the cohesiveness of the album, its structure, the number of fillers, the concept, everything...

being a good technical rapper doesn't give you more points ! Snoop Dogg isn't even a good rapper but Doggystyle is easily one of the best hip hop albums of all time.

with that said, some of his albums were underrated, but some albums were rated just fine imo

[King Lance]

Nobody is being force-fed anything. You don't have to agree with the critics. I don't think an album is good because the critics gave it a good score and vise versa...This is music, cats are gonna stan and cats are gonna hate. So there are gonna be pleas copped/flimsy justifications and irrational gripes. My whole point is that the culture, something a lot bigger than some Trshady posters is going to dictate the legacy this album has.

And the whole critics thing: the critics can put an artist out there but they can't force people to feel that artist, they can pan an album but they can't force people to dislike it.
mmlp and sslp weren't "universally acclaimed" by the critics but these albums got an overwhelming amount of love from the industry and most importantly by the fans. if Encore and Recovery are considered as "bad or average albums", it's not because they were panned by the critics, it's because there are more negative than positive opinions about them.
Is Encore a bad album ? I don't know, what I know is that I don't like it and a lot of critics don't like it, but I also know that this album isn't really loved byt a lot of hip hop listeners.

people really don't care if XXL or rollingstone give a bad score to an Eminem album. What matters is what YOU think but you know there is a problem when an album is panned by both the public and the critics. (Encore, Recovery,..)

[kkaniff]

^ Makes sense.

[King Lance]

I agree with you...

imo, critics shouldn't affect the fans's opinions but good reviews can definitely promote an album.

But you also have to keep in mind that things have changed !! Now, The journalists go to the most popular hip hop forums/blogs (boxden, ktt, ign, the coli, Rateyourmusic.com) and give a high score to an album if people love that album.
it sounds crazy but it's real, 90% of the complex lists come from KTT. if the members on KanyeToThe make a "top 10 rappers with the most beautiful teeth" list, then you can be sure that complex will make the same list a few days/ weeks later.

"Complex stealing KTT's shit again: 25 Rappers With Great Teeth"
http://www.complex.com/music/2013/04/fl ... eat-teeth/

2 days ago: http://www.kanyetothe.com/forum/index.p ... c=434631.0
Same pics, same comments, same rappers.

albums scores, hip hop lists, these shits come from us.

look at the most critically acclaimed albums of the last 3 years (mbdtf, gkmc, LIG,..), it's 3 of the highest rated albums by users on the internet (hip hop sites, rateyourmusic, ebay, forums, blogs).
if an album is very well received when it leaks, you can be sure that critics will give it a very high score, if it's not well received, critics will pan it (Jay-Z - MCHG, Eminem - Recovery, Li lWayne - INAHB2... )

You can also estimate the social media power of an artist and you can calculate the amount of positive and negative comments about him and his albums with the help of a Software.
example: http://ebengregory.com/2013/07/14/drake ... er-rapper/

Networked Insights also analyzed more than 50 million social media conversations pertaining to the release of Magna Carta and Yeezus. The firm used SocialSense technology, the marketing-decisions platform used by advertisers, marketers and entertainment companies to extract real-time trends from social data.

Among the findings: Magna Carta generated 5.7 million conversations leading up to its release, vs. 4.2 million for Yeezus, and West drew far more negative reactions than Jay-Z, particularly among older consumers.

in conclusion: from what I have seen these last 3 years, bad scores by users when your album leak = bad scores by the critics when your album is released.

[Kill You]

You guys agree with each other but somehow still are arguing lol.

[King Lance]

You guys agree with each other but somehow still are arguing lol.

I agree with him, I just wanted to add other things because this discussion is mad interesting

[M15HKA]

Critics are no different to me or you. In fact they rush out a review without properly assessing the material. Releasing a review on an album 1-3 days after it drops is ridiculous.