Josh H

More or less, I think pretty much all critics are useless be it music, movies, books etc. I really don't give a crap about other peoples opinions on movies, music, books etc. I just want to watch, listen, read, for myself. I'm perfectly capable of forming my own opinions. As for finding new stuff, I prefer to read opinions from normal people on sites like this, or hear about stuff from my friends, than listen to what a snobby critic reccomends.

SAShepherd

How can you say you don't care about other people's opinions, and then three sentences later say that you find new music from friends or people on forums?

Are you saying that you don't like reading reviews of music/movies/books you've already heard/seen/read? Well, sure, who does? I mean, maybe I read the occasional review that solidifies your opinion (positive or negative) after the fact, but it's not like I read old reviews, UNLESS I'M LOOKING FOR NEW MUSIC.

How exactly are critics' opinions different from "normal people" or your friends? Maybe you haven't found any useful critics yet, but can you say that you weight all your friends' opinions equally? I mean, I'm sure you'd ignore some of your friends' music recommendations, too, based on your past experience.

Look, I'm not knocking your approach -- any way you want to search out new music is fine by me -- I'm just trying to point out that for a number of people, music criticism (and not just that found in Rolling Stone) is useful in helping music lovers.

Besides, we seem to have a number of music critics here (and I'm not one of 'em), and you've already said you find stuff from your fellow forum readers.

Josh H

My point about preferring opinions from friends and normal people is that I usually don't agree with critics because I'm not a hardcore music or movie fan. Most critics will bash stuff just because it's popular, especially movies, and only praise Indenpendent and foreign stuff. I want opinions from people that just listen to music to enjoy it and to fill in the back ground, and go to movies to be entertained, because that's more or less the extent of my interest in these areas. So the opinoins of people that are more compassionate about these fields, and use them more to enjoy the artistic value, rather than pure entertainment value, just aren't going to connect with me in most cases. Usually if I check something out that one of my friends tells me about, assuming it's a friend with similar music tastes, I'll love it. But with critics, I rarely find something I like. For example the critics have been raving about The Strokes for months, I checked out some of their songs and thought they were horrible.

So basically I'm just happy with trying to find stuff on my own, and from suggestions from friends whose music tastes mirror mine. I don't really need assistance from professional critics. I mean I probably only buy around a dozen CD's a year anymore, so I usually find all I need by myself and with suggestions from friends. I have around 250 cd's and most of them don't even get listened to more than a couple times a year, so I slowed down my cd purchasing and spend more money on other stuff.