Monday, August 09, 2004
Bias in reviews
This is yet another blog entry inspired by the debates on Berkshire Live. It's something that's come up many times and probably will again and again.
One of the problems of being a reviewer in a relatively small close-nit community like the Reading band scene is that you are inevitably going to end up reviewing bands with people you know in. This is a no win situation. If you say the band is good people assume you are just kissing their arses, if you slag them off you are going to piss someone off. In general, and there have been exceptions, I try and be constructive in all my reviews whether I know the band members or not. I don't see that there's much point in really slating a band, even if they do happen to be really bad.
I think for me bands with people I know in generally comes into three types:
1. I've got to know the people in the band because I really liked the band and then met them later. For instance Return to Zero, Rebus and Yankee 99er.
2. Bands where I knew one or more band members before I saw the band and then really liked them when I saw them. eg. Pete and the Pirates.
3. Bands where I knew one or more band members before I saw them and then didn't like them. eg. Well, you see this is the difficult category to review.
All I can say is that I try my best to be honest in my reviews and any bias that might appear is totally subconcious. I haven't given a glowing review to someone I thought sucked, and when I don't like a band I'll generally try and say it in a nice way, but that's true whether or not the band contains people I know or not. Possibly I should be a bit harder in some of my reviews but it's not really what I'm like.
In the case of the review in question this time (Pete and the Pirates at the BBBs) I know full well every time I review them I'm open for comments about bias because one of the Petes in the band is my brother. Problem is, they are in my opinion genuinely the best band currently playing in Reading and I want to tell people about them. I would be the same if my brother wasn't in the band, although on the plus side that does help me get little detail points to put in the reviews.
I don't even think that Graham who made the comment about this review was really that serious, he's such a joker, but it was still worth talking about.
One of the problems of being a reviewer in a relatively small close-nit community like the Reading band scene is that you are inevitably going to end up reviewing bands with people you know in. This is a no win situation. If you say the band is good people assume you are just kissing their arses, if you slag them off you are going to piss someone off. In general, and there have been exceptions, I try and be constructive in all my reviews whether I know the band members or not. I don't see that there's much point in really slating a band, even if they do happen to be really bad.
I think for me bands with people I know in generally comes into three types:
1. I've got to know the people in the band because I really liked the band and then met them later. For instance Return to Zero, Rebus and Yankee 99er.
2. Bands where I knew one or more band members before I saw the band and then really liked them when I saw them. eg. Pete and the Pirates.
3. Bands where I knew one or more band members before I saw them and then didn't like them. eg. Well, you see this is the difficult category to review.
All I can say is that I try my best to be honest in my reviews and any bias that might appear is totally subconcious. I haven't given a glowing review to someone I thought sucked, and when I don't like a band I'll generally try and say it in a nice way, but that's true whether or not the band contains people I know or not. Possibly I should be a bit harder in some of my reviews but it's not really what I'm like.
In the case of the review in question this time (Pete and the Pirates at the BBBs) I know full well every time I review them I'm open for comments about bias because one of the Petes in the band is my brother. Problem is, they are in my opinion genuinely the best band currently playing in Reading and I want to tell people about them. I would be the same if my brother wasn't in the band, although on the plus side that does help me get little detail points to put in the reviews.
I don't even think that Graham who made the comment about this review was really that serious, he's such a joker, but it was still worth talking about.
# posted by Mike @ 12:20 
