Miscellaneous - Metacritic

  by Fiona Hutchings

published: 29 / 4 / 2010

intro

Our ‘Website of the Month’ is Metacritic, a site which gathers together critical opinions and thought on music, film, games and television

Thank God the world wide web doesn't rely on aeroplanes to survive or I don't know where we would be this month (possibly waiting in vain for Eurostar). With our editor at large stranded in Amsterdam for a while (though he is safely back on these shores now) I have gone for something a bit more wide ranging. Metacritic www.metacritic.com deals in the business of criticism on everything from movies and music to games and TV. In a time when we all have blogs, websites or even our facebook status to broadcast our opinions, its increasingly difficult to know just whose opinion to trust. With the economy still a little on the dicey side some of us are less inclined to take risks with our purchasing. Even I, the Queen of impromptu (and often ill advised) raids on 'HMV', have started to look before I leap. The idea behind 'Metacritic' is that the "unique Metascores show the critical consensus at a glance by taking a weighted average of critic grades." Quite a mouthful. So basically it saves you the hassle of searching for several different opinions on the latest 'big thing' (although of course if it is music related and featured on www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk you can trust our impeccable critical credentials). The reviews and opinions don't just come from the big hitters either. The readers' comments and votes are there too. So it's a nice, neat idea. Gathering lots of opinions in one handy place for you but does it really work in practice? I decide to look up the Archie Bronson Outfit having reviewed them for this very site a month or so ago. They have a green 'metascore' of 72 based on 13 reviews from 'NME' and 'Q' amongst others. Even the short explanation of metascores is too long to include here. But basically if most people liked it it's green, quite a few is orange and red is pretty self explanatory. So clicking on the link provided gives a gist of all those reviews with the option to read each of them in full. There is also the option for user comments and voting for the album. If you can get your head round the maths and metascores this is well worth a look. If you can't it is nicely colour coded, very enlightening - and still worth a look.