People power | 14 July 2007

If this column has any overarching theme, it’s that critics know nothing and shouldn’t be trusted. (Which obviously applies to me as much as to anyone.) But this intransigent suspicion of mine does create difficulties. In the never-ending search for the next fantastic record I didn’t know existed, I will look anywhere and consult anyone for advice, which in practice often means scouring the reviews by punters on Amazon. Book reviews on this website, as all writers know, are usually contributed by our friends, our rivals, our enemies and our agents, but the record reviews are much more varied and informative.

Fans write in crazed superlatives, or occasionally in rueful disappointment, although the most entertaining reviews are often by people who thought they were buying one thing and turned out to be buying something else. Here, expressed in a handful of splenetic and often misspelt sentences, is the rage of the person who heard a song they liked on the radio, bought the album it came from and realised almost instantaneously that that was the only decent track that artist has ever recorded and will ever record in his or her otherwise pointless career.