Friday, December 28, 2012

Grammar Fascist

I like the AllMusic web site, I think it's a nice resource, but I have always felt - I have friends who think this, too - that it would benefit from having the sort of user comments that the Internet Movie Database has.  I don't necessarily need to read what everyone thinks about my favorite records, but when you have only a small group of people review stuff, you're bound to have some reviews that slip by with little or no editing.

Case in point: this review of the George Harrison song "Think For Yourself":

I have screen-captured it, & circled the two things that annoy me, &, in my opinion, invalidate the review.  One, the dude doesn't know the difference between "its" & "it's."  Can you imagine someone with a real writing gig making that mistake?  It's Grammar 101!

The second thing is that he misquotes the lyrics.  Never once does George Harrison sing "you gotta think for yourself" in the song.

I guess you can think that the song is "dated" but I'm not going to pay attention to your opinions when you can't even properly quote the song.  It's not like there aren't hundreds of lyrics sites out there.

If you were allowed to comment on this, you could call this dumbass out & perhaps encourage him to correct his errors.

Interestingly, the AllMusic Guide doesn't let you search for writers, so I can't see what other nonsense the reviewer - "Thomas Ward" - has written.

Some might think that I am making a big deal about nothing, but this little review is a microcosm of the biggest problem with the site.  It has an insularity that makes it far from the important resource it could be.  That's too bad.

Also, that's a pretty great George Harrison song.

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