Gramophone Magazine Tosses Its Own Salad: "This CD Sucks, Now Buy It From US"

As an avid gamer, Opera Chic has long learned to deeply distrust the videogame reviews on gamer sites because, obviously, so many of them live on revenue from gamer industry ads and, really, the bad games are generally the ones that get "omg masterpiece AAA+++ go buy nine copies NOW".

Then, there are the games they really praise (it's stuff that makes your average college grade inflation memories look like the Spanish inquisition in comparison).

Now, cash-hungry classical music magazines seem bound to follow the same path, building a more shiny version of the usual Amazon Associates plan: August Gramophone magazine, the New York Times reports,

plans to allow readers to buy CDs and downloads from its Web site. This means that it may profit from recordings on which it is passing critical judgment.

Even if we seriously doubt that many people buy or download classical music based on reviews they read on the Internet (including, with all due respect, on Gramophone's site), unsurprisingly record companies are thrilled at the idea -- they fully realize that ad copy stinks less if it's coated by some sort of journalistic veneer.

Comments

[Andrew Powell]

The "omg masterpiece AAA+++" stuff has been a problem at Gramophone for 12 to 15 years, starting with the end of the industry's 1980s CD ride (which even Unkle Normy correctly reported) and a clutch of big-money-losing projects at Universal in 1992 (the Solti "Frau" and Dutoit "Troyens"). About 10 years ago, Penguin began allowing Universal to issue CDs with the imprimatur of its record guide's "rosette." Both of these sources have lost credibility. In a sense, the news about the website sales is welcome because it ends the pretense -- or at least makes the conflict of interest more visible. Alan Blyth might turn in his grave; then again, he would probably be writing independently if he were starting today.

[Alex]

I don't see the problem: reviewers analyse a range of CDs and make their recommendation. The magazine's publisher gets the commission from sales of the best recording of particular work regardless of which recording is recommendated.