Why reviews lost their sting - and what matters more, the song or the record?

Our pencil-chewing, critical assessment of this week’s news gets mainly * and *** reviews, among them …   …. Sting v Summers & Copeland over Every Breath You Take, the goose that laid the golden egg   … what John Lennon would have thought about the ‘cancelled’ track on Some Time In New York City   … when did “critically acclaimed” come to mean unpopular?   … the knock-about days when a critic was “a jerk, a crank and a spoilsport”   … Jonny Greenwood’s dad was a bomb disposal expert? Pete Doherty’s mum was a Lance-Corporal in the Royal Army Nursing Corps?   … what matters more, the song or the record?   ... Anthony Fantano, Rick Beato and the rise of the YouTube rock review   … “negative comments about a famous act’s new album are like graffiti on the walls of a hallowed institution”   … Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait, Andrew Ridgeley’s Son Of Albert (“half a star”) and the lost age of the crushing review   … and “you never mention Depeche Mode!” Find out more about how to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.