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Professional, Blog, and Peer Reviews

Methodology

Sources of reviews can be broken down into three categories: professional, blog, and peer. Professional reviews are produced by a professional reviewer hired by a music review website. Blog reviews are produced by an individual who creates and maintains a music review blog in order to publicly express his/her opinions on music. Peer reviews are submitted by everyday listeners through various means and for various reasons.

Pros and Cons

Each source of reviews each also has its value in music recommendation. Because they are associated with a professional website, professional reviews have a certain element of authority associated with them, and review sites generally have an element of review quality control. Blog reviews are also assumed to have been submitted by a knowledgeable, qualified reviewer; however, quality control can be an issue because generally only one person is running the website. Peer reviews are the most prevalent and common reviews, however they are often submitted by individuals with little or no experience with or understanding of music and there is no individual quality control. Therefore, peer reviews are typically analyzed using the average peer review for a track, album, or artist.