there aren’t any other relevant youtube reviewers listed because fantano is the only one who has still been doing it, had been doing it for a long time, and has gained such a high profile from it
there aren’t any other relevant youtube reviewers listed because fantano is the only one who has still been doing it, had been doing it for a long time, and has gained such a high profile from it
Great argument.
im convinced people hate fantano because he doesnt bullshit his audience and regurgitate opinions to make readers happy. its become the norm for all media thats reviewed
Actual stupid and braindead take
Like someone said on Youtube comments, his “reviews” are just private opinions, not more. He has certain likes and aversions, and maybe he’s just rating for a specific audience. Therefore, one cannot include his rating. At least not without the other countless Youtube raters that are still out there. Either you add them all, or leave out Youtube ratings altogether.
Also keep in mind that he may give more extreme reviews (mostly in the negative direction) to increase his click and subscription numbers. A (serious) music magazine wouldn’t do something like that.
Also think about, if Fantano e.g. gives a 20 (which is not unusual), twenty magazines an 80 and two other a 100 rating, the album has an average rating of less than 80, so not Must Hear! Again, 22(!) said it’s at least Must Hear, and one not, and this one is who counts. So the average rating of aoty.org should be revised, otherwise downraters like him have too much influence.
The idea that someone can be an expert on something as subjective as art has always been a bit…stupid to me. Certainly some people have more credibility than Joe from work but at what point is an “expert’s” opinion a fact? Imagine Dragons have a huge audience despite being almost entirely revolted by all critics. Art isn’t a science, and although there is objectivity to art, there is also plenty of subjectivity-- much more than people are willing to say. Fantano might be a little out there in taste for me, but he’s still by every means a “professional” critic, and I don’t see why he shouldn’t be viewed as such.
Music magazines also hire individual journalists to write a review and give their opinion. To be writing as a music journalist doesn’t mean you got a degree in music theory or in music journalism. In fact, it doesn’t mean you have a degree in anything.
Anthony Fantano does have a degree with focus on communication which is a strongly affiliated field to journalism. His reviews are approved by a large audience no other YouTube critic can even remotely assemble. What makes journalists who write for a magazine better than AF, a journalist producing his own video content? Yes, he is not under redactional control, but isn’t the approval by an audience itself enough? I mean, he makes reviews of up to 15 minutes in length and undermines his takes with a lot of arguments. Most articles aren’t this detailed. He also is a musician himself and clearly knows music theory and at least the history of pop and rock music. There is no music critic as known as AF and no individual music critic has his reach. I think it’s very well justified that he’s taken into account on AOTY.
Also, to assume that professional journalistic magazines wouldn’t clickbait with negative or at least biased reviews, is very naive. Look at Pitchfork, they gave extremely low ratings to some classic albums. Or look at The Rolling Stone, they give extremely positive reviews to nearly every popular artist. I mean, they loved U2‘s last albums for example.
The third problem you state is a problem of statistics. The arithmetic mean (commonly referred to as average) is by nature vulnerable to extremely positive or negative scorings. Other music magazines give out of the box negative or positive reviews too and alter the overall score in a disproportionate way. Using this as an argument against AF is unfair.
Dude’s way more relevant than any other working critic, it’d be pointless to remove him from the site.
Most of the time he is off the mark and contrary to what other critics say
I mean, he may have some opinions that you disagree with, but it isn’t a music critic’s job to be in agreement with every other critic out there. He gives his opinions on music and gives reasons as to why he feels a certain way about an album/ep/song/artist/etc. Him being “contrary” doesn’t invalidate him as a critic. As far as I can tell, he gives genuine reasons as to why he gives scores to certain albums, and he’s probably one of the most relevant critics on the internet rn, so there’s really no reason he shouldn’t be on this site.
absolutely not a good take. music is always subjective no matter what. and fantano’s contribution to actually being the most interactive, yet in depth youtube music rater should actually put him up on the ranks. who are you to judge what he does? just for an album or a few is insane. because I don’t see people complaining like this about sites like pitchfork etc. because they suck sometimes at giving good albums a good rating. anyways it’s all still subjective, unless ur like pitchfork who gives an instrumental album a label of experimental rap.