Reviews: Opinions Change

My opinion never changes. Roger Waters is a God and everybody else sucks.

I try to avoid rating or reviewing any albums until I've had them for a real long time (a year or more).  Not just because my opinion could change, but because I really don't have much interesting to say until I've lived with the album for a while.  I've changed one "4" to a "5", and one "5" to a "4" since I've been here, and both were cases where I wrote a review within a couple of months after receiving the album.   This is also a reason why I never get rid of any of my CDs or records any more.  So many times I've pulled some long-neglected album off the shelf and it ends up hitting me in the right way on a particular day.

I've gone back and changed a few ratings before - mostly rated an album down, because the circumstances at the time of the original review suddenly weren't there anymore. I'm not sure how else to put it, but there's been a few occasions where I've listened to an album with friends out in tall grasses, drinking beers and just having a funky good ol time. Sometimes this has overshadowed my actual enjoyment of the release, or at least warped my sharp senses (hoho) to the extent of over rating the music. Not to the extreme though, when this has happened, it's usually changing a 4 to a 3 or in two instances where I've had to change a 5 to a 4. 

I too have changed ratings but not too often. And I am confident in the ratings I give, it is just that it is true that opinions change, mine included. Any rational person would acknowledge that and we need to include ourselves in that possibility. Even the greatest thinkers in the world have changed their views. Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote a significant work in the 1920s but changed his view on the same subject drastically thirty years later. Mahatma Gandhi is famous for his desire to find and express truth rather than be consistent with his earlier views. If we do not allow ourselves the option to change our opinion, then we are drying up and not growing any more. We become the past, and that is not progressive now, is it?

I am often surprised to see that albums that I rate highly for PA fail to stay on my listening rotation or that others that I reviewed rather "harshly" eek their way up my list of favorites. That is why I have consistently created two categories: 1) quality music in which I try to be more objective, and 2) favorite music which reflects my personal (and changing) tastes and biases. Some of my favorite albums of all-time I could never give 5 star ratings to on PA cuz they aren't really prog or because I know that they are flawed (e.g. [non-prog bands I love] Sade, Swing Out Sister, Everything But The Girl, or [albums that are, IMHO, flawed] Foxtrot, Selling England, Novella, Even in The Quietest Moment), whereas some albums that I have given very high marks to I rarely listen to (e.g. Haken, The Mars Volta, Steven Wilson).    

I do change my reviews sometimes, and I think it's perfectly fine. Moreover, when you rate a new (to you) album, I should say it's a good practice to revisit the review a few weeks or months later and see if the first impression has stood the test of time. 

How can you be sure that your current opinion is more "real" than the old one?

octopus-4 wrote: How can you be sure that your current opinion is more "real" than the old one?

richardh wrote: octopus-4 wrote: How can you be sure that your current opinion is more "real" than the old one? if the original one was 'prejudiced' by circumstances. For instance I gave Glass Hammer If a 2 star review becuase I didn't want to give the new line up a chance. I realised some years later that this was a actually a very strong relase and I hadn't given it proper attention. Does that answer the question?

partially. The example is specific, the thread question is general.

It can take a while for some albums to sink in e.g. it took quite a few months of listening before the Lifesigns album revealed itself fully to me. If I had reviewed it soon after purchase it probably would have been 3 stars, now it's a 5 all the way.