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.