Reviews on Artistic Pieces are Useless

I enjoy the work that Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino, puts out. But Camp was rated 1.6 on Pitchfork. I learned that from this video. After reading the interview, it was quite infuriating, but I remembered something about reviews and what makes them so unlikeable (well at least, to me). 

I went on and on about Frank Ocean's "Blond" to everybody. I thought it was this moving and beautifully raw album with amazing sound. Now; I'm sure that part of the reason it had some negative feedback when asked about it was because I kept nagging on them to listen to it, but some were serious; that it simply didn't sound good to them. It's that art is subjective. It depends between person to person. What might seems like utter trash to one individual might seem like beautiful and amazing to another. Reviews who put a objective number to something that's subjective are hard to take seriously because of how it simply disregards so many opinions.

Now, I understand that there are some things in music, film, writing, and really any art form, that has some objective aspects that are not influenced by opinion. Things such as the "flow" to a story in a film, or color palette in a painting. In some way, I can respect that kind of criticism, because it's based on logic, facts; well-established theories in the arts. Obviously, some "rules" are broken in different types of art to create a desired effect to the audience that's viewing that rule-breaking piece.

In modern art, that seems to be the theme as that's what the people of today want. We want to be surprised, to see something revolutionary; to see something new. And so, the line here get's blurred, making it difficult to trust a lot of reviews nowadays that give an artistic piece a number. I believe that we should never base whether they like or dislike an artistic piece based off of a number. That kind of thing is reserved for products on Amazon. One should base it off of the impression and message that the piece evoked in that individual.

An unfortunate consequence of popular individuals or groups plastering that objective number for the masses to see is the hive-mind mentality. The degrading of one's individuality and opinion. To quote one of the songs on Kauai, by Glover, "We don't even know what we like anymore / We just know what the most hype is". Nobody knows what they themselves, genuinely love when it comes to art. Because of the internet, mistakes are forever. So if you like what not everyone likes, you're berated and told that "it's trash", etc. So many of us conform because we want to be liked. Who doesn't want to be liked? I'm not saying to go against every single thing that's mainstream. I myself like a lot of mainstream styles and art. But I try not to let it shape me. Be an individual, not a group.