Many Negative Reviews of No Pier Pressure...

[Debbie Keil-Leavitt]

The agenda continues...

So every site that gave it a bad review has an agenda?  Right...

Well, yes they ALL have an agenda.  Selling magazines, newspapers, getting hits, re-tweets, etc.  Editors' jobs are focused on those factors more than actually editing a piece for good content at this point - or at least the manager above them has that job.  An attention grabbing headline and in the case of the internet, enough words in the body of the piece that will bring it up in Google and other searches is the focus.  And everyone is on the internet now, so...

Often, if not always, there is a "style-guide" for writers, as well. Interestingly, Aaron Sorkin's the "Newsroom" portrayed this in a segment of one of the last season's episodes (I think the one just before the final episode).  The "10 Worst" whatever gets more hits than the "10 Best" with most media - films, music, celebrities.  Anyone who thinks that there isn't an agenda behind most reviews is mistaken, I'm afraid.  

And this isn't an easy album to review.  Brian is again challenging the listener, so take that into account.  Good reviewers will at least give it a thoughtful listen and have some foundation for their opinions.  Those are few and far between.  I don't agree with the idea that someone reciting Brian's history and then giving a brief review is giving Brian "a break" of some sort.  It's just easy to go to Wikipedia, then Google Brian and quotes about the record for other opinions.  A lazy reviewer, or someone who doesn't know what to make of what he's heard will do that.  It's about selling their own product and re-tweets, folks.

I also agree that most of the reviews aren't negative.  I see a lot of confused reviewers who don't quite know what to make of it, though.  Should that really surprise us?

I don't disagree, but I think we all know that's not the agenda he is talking about. 

But if you think about my 3rd paragraph, it really is part of an agenda, if these reviewers are Googling and getting negative comments from places that could likely include SS - it comes up in searches regularly - they're influenced by it.  As far as the agenda here, well - I don't spend much time here these days because the consistent, and often contrived nastiness toward Brian and his work is downright toxic.  I don't find it anywhere else like this place.

[The Cincinnati Kid]

The agenda continues...

So every site that gave it a bad review has an agenda?  Right...

Well, yes they ALL have an agenda.  Selling magazines, newspapers, getting hits, re-tweets, etc.  Editors' jobs are focused on those factors more than actually editing a piece for good content at this point - or at least the manager above them has that job.  An attention grabbing headline and in the case of the internet, enough words in the body of the piece that will bring it up in Google and other searches is the focus.  And everyone is on the internet now, so...

Often, if not always, there is a "style-guide" for writers, as well. Interestingly, Aaron Sorkin's the "Newsroom" portrayed this in a segment of one of the last season's episodes (I think the one just before the final episode).  The "10 Worst" whatever gets more hits than the "10 Best" with most media - films, music, celebrities.  Anyone who thinks that there isn't an agenda behind most reviews is mistaken, I'm afraid.  

And this isn't an easy album to review.  Brian is again challenging the listener, so take that into account.  Good reviewers will at least give it a thoughtful listen and have some foundation for their opinions.  Those are few and far between.  I don't agree with the idea that someone reciting Brian's history and then giving a brief review is giving Brian "a break" of some sort.  It's just easy to go to Wikipedia, then Google Brian and quotes about the record for other opinions.  A lazy reviewer, or someone who doesn't know what to make of what he's heard will do that.  It's about selling their own product and re-tweets, folks.

I also agree that most of the reviews aren't negative.  I see a lot of confused reviewers who don't quite know what to make of it, though.  Should that really surprise us?

I don't disagree, but I think we all know that's not the agenda he is talking about. 

But if you think about my 3rd paragraph, it really is part of an agenda, if these reviewers are Googling and getting negative comments from places that could likely include SS - it comes up in searches regularly - they're influenced by it.  As far as the agenda here, well - I don't spend much time here these days because the consistent, and often contrived nastiness toward Brian and his work is downright toxic.  I don't find it anywhere else like this place.

Then why isn't every other album by others artists getting a lot of negative reviews? 

[sea of tunes]

I'm perplexed by "the agenda" talk.  It's obviously code for something that I'm not in on, but that's okay because I'm normally the last person to be in on stuff like that anyhow.

 

My opinion of NPP hasn't changed, I would probably rate it a 2/5.  There are 5-6 songs on it that are quite lovely and stand next to BWPS and TLOS as great BW solo material.  I still personally feel that BW '88 is his best and most consistent solo work.  There are tracks on NPP that I find not so easy to get through.  And, again, personally I would have preferred much less Joe Thomas collaboration on the production style.  

I don't feel any of what I've said there is unkind or mean spirited though.  And certainly, there is no agenda.  I'm grateful BW is still putting out music and we get little nuggets like the one's contained on the NPP Deluxe (In the Back of My Mind '75, for example).

If this is Brian's last album it's fitting that he close his career in such an eclectic way, I suppose.

[JohnMill]

The agenda continues...

So every site that gave it a bad review has an agenda?  Right...

Well, yes they ALL have an agenda.  Selling magazines, newspapers, getting hits, re-tweets, etc.  Editors' jobs are focused on those factors more than actually editing a piece for good content at this point - or at least the manager above them has that job.  An attention grabbing headline and in the case of the internet, enough words in the body of the piece that will bring it up in Google and other searches is the focus.  And everyone is on the internet now, so...

Often, if not always, there is a "style-guide" for writers, as well. Interestingly, Aaron Sorkin's the "Newsroom" portrayed this in a segment of one of the last season's episodes (I think the one just before the final episode).  The "10 Worst" whatever gets more hits than the "10 Best" with most media - films, music, celebrities.  Anyone who thinks that there isn't an agenda behind most reviews is mistaken, I'm afraid.  

And this isn't an easy album to review.  Brian is again challenging the listener, so take that into account.  Good reviewers will at least give it a thoughtful listen and have some foundation for their opinions.  Those are few and far between.  I don't agree with the idea that someone reciting Brian's history and then giving a brief review is giving Brian "a break" of some sort.  It's just easy to go to Wikipedia, then Google Brian and quotes about the record for other opinions.  A lazy reviewer, or someone who doesn't know what to make of what he's heard will do that.  It's about selling their own product and re-tweets, folks.

I also agree that most of the reviews aren't negative.  I see a lot of confused reviewers who don't quite know what to make of it, though.  Should that really surprise us?

I don't disagree, but I think we all know that's not the agenda he is talking about. 

But if you think about my 3rd paragraph, it really is part of an agenda, if these reviewers are Googling and getting negative comments from places that could likely include SS - it comes up in searches regularly - they're influenced by it.  As far as the agenda here, well - I don't spend much time here these days because the consistent, and often contrived nastiness toward Brian and his work is downright toxic.  I don't find it anywhere else like this place.

I have to agree.  I'll admit on the onset when it was reported that Brian Wilson was collaborating with artists with whom he hadn't previously worked with and whose styles differed (at least in my opinion) greatly from his, I took a wait and see approach on the project.  But once the songs started to materialize, I implicitly understood what Brian was trying to do with this record.  He was doing exactly what he's been doing his entire career and that is find the best means of casting his songs so that they are pleasing to the ear and spirit, if that doesn't sound too corny.  But that is essentially what he does and continues to do here.

I'm not perplexed at all by the agenda talk.  It's just a term.  What speaks to me more than any particular term is that some people are willing to move forward with Brian Wilson and his music while others want him to create music that revisits his past glories.  Neither camp is necessarily wrong but to criticize the man for wanting to think forward, yeah that is where I can agree with you that the "nastiness factor" comes in.  It's not like NPP is wholly uncommercial either.  I watched Billy's video the other day where he's watching "Runaway Dancer" and the excitement in his voice when he's enthusing about this track is palpable.  The track is certainly something you can term as being "out of left field" for Brian Wilson but Billy's reaction was probably the same as someone back in 1966 who gave a freshly minted copy of "Pet Sounds" a spin.  It's different, it's not something you'd expect as a listener and from there whether you like it or not is just your reaction to the song.

Yeah I like this record.  I like it a lot.

[rab2591]

Agenda talk isn't so perplexing if you look at the post history of some of these people. One guy last week said some very awful things about Joe Thomas (won't go into detail, thankfully the post was deleted by a mod). The poster KittyKat from a while back had nothing but negative comments to say about Brian's new music (and other things involving Brian). The brand new posters who showed up recently with indescribably intricate 2 sentence reviews of how much the album sucked...that was great. Another poster compared some Brian fans to terrorist martyrs last month. Even the bullshit about Brian not singing at all on Conan the other day....really?? There are plenty more examples strewn across many threads relating to Brian's new album.

Hey, if you're a fan and you don't like NPP, I'm not saying you've got an agenda. I'm talking about the people with clearly obvious post history full of nothing but Brian negativity. There are some posters on here, who I greatly respect, who haven't really gotten into this album....doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's just annoying to read through these threads, to see people's likes and dislikes, and then having to sift through the obvious trolling that has plagued this board for the last half year, especially the last couple weeks. Call it an agenda, call it whatever you want, point is there is an obvious pattern of unnecessary negativity from certain posters here and it's getting fairly tiresome.

Back on topic. Critics speak their mind, sometimes it doesn't jibe with public perception (RS Pet Sounds 3 star review for instance) and sometimes they're on the money (AGD's earlier posted examples). I'm not too concerned about critics negativity (or rather lack of enthusiasm) impacting sales. In the day and age of computers, people don't need to really rely on critics anymore to decide if they want to buy an album. We now have previews on iTunes, we have youtube. Brian's on the front page of iTunes right now, most people will click to check it out regardless of the critic reviews.

[HeyJude]

There are some obvious names where we can usually tell where that person's "review" is coming from. I don't know if "agenda" is always the right word; that kind of implies more effort and planning. I think it's more just engrained into certain folks to always be negative (or always positive) about certain things, for whatever reason.

But I do think some fans can come across as unwilling to acknowledge or accept criticism. Bad reviews are defamation? Really? Maybe that was just a vocabulary issue, or hyperbole.

I'm still digesting the album and working up a review. I'm enjoying it. I don't think it's Brian's all-time masterpiece. And, while everybody is (duh, obviously) entitled to their own opinion, I am a bit off-put by both all-negative or all-positive reviews. One line "this sucks" reviews are worthless. If a LOOOONG review of the album, going track-by-track, doesn't discuss one (substantial) thing the reviewer didn't like, I *may* come to the conclusion that they're predisposed to not write anything negative rather than truly LOVING every moment of the album. I'm not a big fan of those types of reviews either. I don't dig the reviews that read like a  "say something positive about each song" exercise. Nor do I enjoy those that read like a "say one positive and one negative thing about every song" exercise.

[Wirestone]

Agenda talk isn't so perplexing if you look at the post history of some of these people. One guy last week said some very awful things about Joe Thomas (won't go into detail, thankfully the post was deleted by a mod). The poster KittyKat from a while back had nothing but negative comments to say about Brian's new music (and other things involving Brian). The brand new posters who showed up recently with indescribably intricate 2 sentence reviews of how much the album sucked...that was great. Another poster compared some Brian fans to terrorist martyrs last month. Even the bullshit about Brian not singing at all on Conan the other day....really?? There are plenty more examples strewn across many threads relating to Brian's new album.

Boom. And there you are.

That's certainly what has raised my hackles.

Folks have every right to react to music in whatever way they like. But semi-coordinated campaigns to de-legitimize albums -- well, it's pretty clear what's going on.

[Ang Jones]

I don't mind reviews that are critical but it is the reason for being critical to which I do sometimes take exception. To criticise it because it doesn't include all the Beach Boys, for example, and I'm referring here to more than one actual review, is a silly reason. It's like criticising it for not having lyrics by Shakespeare or collaboration by Mozart.  It's a Brian Wilson album. It isn't even Brian's fault that Mike and Bruce chose to go back to their own band - it was their decision.

There is nothing about No Pier Pressure that I actively dislike but some tracks appeal to me more than others. I still need to listen more before going into more detail.  I haven't liked all of Brian's work - I like one or two things from Getting In Over My Head but very few and hardly ever play it.

As for having an agenda, it seems to me that some of the fans ARE in that situation. Some are so invested in the Beach Boys that nothing less than another reunion will suffice. Others, fairly or not. do not want Brian to work with Mike again and prefer the artistic freedom that they believe Brian achieves by doing his own thing - what some believe No Pier Pressure really means.

[SMiLE Brian]

Agenda talk isn't so perplexing if you look at the post history of some of these people. One guy last week said some very awful things about Joe Thomas (won't go into detail, thankfully the post was deleted by a mod). The poster KittyKat from a while back had nothing but negative comments to say about Brian's new music (and other things involving Brian). The brand new posters who showed up recently with indescribably intricate 2 sentence reviews of how much the album sucked...that was great. Another poster compared some Brian fans to terrorist martyrs last month. Even the bullshit about Brian not singing at all on Conan the other day....really?? There are plenty more examples strewn across many threads relating to Brian's new album.

Boom. And there you are.

That's certainly what has raised my hackles.

Folks have every right to react to music in whatever way they like. But semi-coordinated campaigns to de-legitimize albums -- well, it's pretty clear what's going on.

That campaign here at SS is what I meant exactly by "agenda", not the reviews in magazines.

[beatnickle]

  I am not too impressed with the album. I like about half of it and love only one song...... On the Island.
On the Island has a little of that old quirky Brian. ( love the whistling)
 C'mon Brian..... give is one more album and make it all bossa nova. I'm all in with that. 

[puni puni]

I don't spend much time here these days because the consistent, and often contrived nastiness toward Brian and his work is downright toxic.  I don't find it anywhere else like this place.

This is demonstrably false. Beach Boy-related forums, social media, and product pages are probably the only places you'll find more than slight praise for the new album, since they are predictably filled with people who savor anything with Brian Wilson's name on it. The reception from most other critics is totally in line with whatever I've seen people say about the album elsewhere on the web.

I'm curious to see what reviews people are speaking of that are 'critical for the sake of being critical', or are written as clickbait. On this board, most of the negative feedback on this album amounts to 'I don't see much special about the album'; most of the positive feedback is 'This is the best album since Smile!'. The terse, or highly-vocal negative reviews are a minority here, but a majority elsewhere, since nobody wants to bother getting flamed for having a dissenting opinion among those who are very devoted to The Current Product by Our Favorite Artist. (There is also the added factor that people who were involved in the album's making are reading these posts, awkwardly).

[ArchStanton]

Reviews are trash. Don't pay them any mind. You like it or you don't. I am a huge Springsteen fan, but without opening the latest Rolling Stone when he releases an album I know they will give him 4.5 to 5 stars. Period. His last album, High Hopes, a collection of odds and ends, was named the #2 album of the year. I enjoyed the album fine, it was clearly one of his lesser artistic statements and that's fine, but they didn't see it that way because Bruce is one of their protected guys.

I love older hip hop. If a legacy hip hop artist releases a competent album, Rolling Stone will give them 3 stars. Period. The review might read as a 4 star review but they are getting 3.

[Summertime Blooz]

  I am not too impressed with the album. I like about half of it and love only one song...... On the Island.
On the Island has a little of that old quirky Brian. ( love the whistling)
 C'mon Brian..... give is one more album and make it all bossa nova. I'm all in with that. 

I don't know about an album of all Bossa Nova, but I think an Exotica album (maybe at least half instrumental/wordless vocals) that included Bossa Nova, Samba, Hawaiian, and Cha-chas would kill. Bring on the guest vocalists. I'm not particularly interested in this purported Rock"N Roll album that BW mentions every time he has a new album come out, especially if it would be cover versions.

[Debbie Keil-Leavitt]

The agenda continues...

So every site that gave it a bad review has an agenda?  Right...

Well, yes they ALL have an agenda.  Selling magazines, newspapers, getting hits, re-tweets, etc.  Editors' jobs are focused on those factors more than actually editing a piece for good content at this point - or at least the manager above them has that job.  An attention grabbing headline and in the case of the internet, enough words in the body of the piece that will bring it up in Google and other searches is the focus.  And everyone is on the internet now, so...

Often, if not always, there is a "style-guide" for writers, as well. Interestingly, Aaron Sorkin's the "Newsroom" portrayed this in a segment of one of the last season's episodes (I think the one just before the final episode).  The "10 Worst" whatever gets more hits than the "10 Best" with most media - films, music, celebrities.  Anyone who thinks that there isn't an agenda behind most reviews is mistaken, I'm afraid.  

And this isn't an easy album to review.  Brian is again challenging the listener, so take that into account.  Good reviewers will at least give it a thoughtful listen and have some foundation for their opinions.  Those are few and far between.  I don't agree with the idea that someone reciting Brian's history and then giving a brief review is giving Brian "a break" of some sort.  It's just easy to go to Wikipedia, then Google Brian and quotes about the record for other opinions.  A lazy reviewer, or someone who doesn't know what to make of what he's heard will do that.  It's about selling their own product and re-tweets, folks.

I also agree that most of the reviews aren't negative.  I see a lot of confused reviewers who don't quite know what to make of it, though.  Should that really surprise us?

I don't disagree, but I think we all know that's not the agenda he is talking about. 

But if you think about my 3rd paragraph, it really is part of an agenda, if these reviewers are Googling and getting negative comments from places that could likely include SS - it comes up in searches regularly - they're influenced by it.  As far as the agenda here, well - I don't spend much time here these days because the consistent, and often contrived nastiness toward Brian and his work is downright toxic.  I don't find it anywhere else like this place.

Then why isn't every other album by others artists getting a lot of negative reviews? 

I'll repeat, I don't think NPP has predominantly negative reviews- there just seems to be a real desire to post links to the negative ones here.  And other artists DO get a lot of negative reviews.  I don't even understand your question.

[puni puni]

It's already been said that if you think there is an unjust prevalence on negative reviews being posted, then anyone is free to post the positive reviews that are supposedly being withheld.

[Mike's Beard]

Let's all play a drinking game, everytime the word 'agenda' is said you have to down a shot. We'll all be shitfaced before the day is out.

The general vibe I'm getting here is that 'all reviews are worthless unless they happen to be postitive'.

[Joel Goldenberg]

My criteria is, does the album sound good while I'm driving, since that is now where I do most of my non-headphone listening. It sounds great in the car, including Runaway Dancer. And I can listen to The Right Time and In the Back of my Mind 100 times and not get tired of them. The critics are irrelevant to me.

[Ang Jones]

I don't spend much time here these days because the consistent, and often contrived nastiness toward Brian and his work is downright toxic.  I don't find it anywhere else like this place.

This is demonstrably false. Beach Boy-related forums, social media, and product pages are probably the only places you'll find more than slight praise for the new album, since they are predictably filled with people who savor anything with Brian Wilson's name on it. The reception from most other critics is totally in line with whatever I've seen people say about the album elsewhere on the web.
.

From the reviews I've read, this is also demonstrably false. I have seen mixed reviews from the music Press - some very complimentary and others less so, although not many really bad ones - most manage to write something good about it.

[Summertime Blooz]

With 17 reviews averaged out, NPP is now rated at 58  (out of 100) on Metacritic, which is on the high end of the 'average or mixed reviews' range. Only 1 of the 17 reviews is classified as 'negative'. Our perceptions get skewed by our own personal tastes,  but in truth this album in total is getting a lukewarm critical reception not a negative one. Lukewarm might seem ridiculous to some who wish this album could be a massive commercial and critical sensation but there it is.

[Mikie]

Let's all play a drinking game, everytime the word 'agenda' is said you have to down a shot. We'll all be shitfaced before the day is out.

The general vibe I'm getting here is that 'all reviews are worthless unless they happen to be positive'.

YES!!  Serious!  There seems to be an agenda here in that regard. 

[Debbie Keil-Leavitt]

I don't spend much time here these days because the consistent, and often contrived nastiness toward Brian and his work is downright toxic.  I don't find it anywhere else like this place.

This is demonstrably false. Beach Boy-related forums, social media, and product pages are probably the only places you'll find more than slight praise for the new album, since they are predictably filled with people who savor anything with Brian Wilson's name on it. The reception from most other critics is totally in line with whatever I've seen people say about the album elsewhere on the web.

I'm curious to see what reviews people are speaking of that are 'critical for the sake of being critical', or are written as clickbait. On this board, most of the negative feedback on this album amounts to 'I don't see much special about the album'; most of the positive feedback is 'This is the best album since Smile!'. The terse, or highly-vocal negative reviews are a minority here, but a majority elsewhere, since nobody wants to bother getting flamed for having a dissenting opinion among those who are very devoted to The Current Product by Our Favorite Artist. (There is also the added factor that people who were involved in the album's making are reading these posts, awkwardly).

I’m afraid a reply to your post would go on and on for pages listing all the insistently negative posts from a fairly consistent group of people.  However, it’s easy to just click on a name on this Board to read the string of latest posts and see a distinct pattern.
 
Anyone here can do this obviously, and it’s almost entertaining in an obnoxious sort of way.  Just watch when a poster won’t be swayed by the facts.  Sometimes it’s someone who is insisting on “autotunafish” being present on a song, even when another poster has actually spoken to the person in charge of the mix and production who provides the actual techniques used.
 
Yesterday had a great example on the Conan show thread.  There was a video where Brian could clearly be seen playing the piano and was easily heard among the vocals, yet the person refused to drop the argument that Brian wasn’t singing or playing.  Just check the series of posts from some of these folks, and you’ll see what some of us are talking about here.

This doesn’t apply to regular posters here who don’t find this, or other recordings to their liking.  Why would I, or anyone else even care?  But the relentless bunch who keep repeating the same garbage over and over make it pretty obvious that they have some sort of issue that they are driving here. 

[b00ts]

Let's all play a drinking game, everytime the word 'agenda' is said you have to down a shot. We'll all be shitfaced before the day is out.

The general vibe I'm getting here is that 'all reviews are worthless unless they happen to be postitive'.

Bingo. It seems as though some posters are twisting themselves into knots to discredit negative reviews. I understand that the state of music journalism is quite poor... But nevertheless, even if a reviewer thinks Brian was one of the Bee Gees, I don't think anyone here seems to mind as long as it is a positive review.

Personally, I like NPP. It's not my favorite solo album of Brian's, but I've been enjoying it. Many of Brian's lead vocals on this album are among the best of his solo career, and there are a few small masterpieces on the record. In my book, the harmony blend brings NPP closer to a true Beach Boys record than TWGMTR was.

Some of my non-Internet friends - longtime Brian fans - don't care for the record. Are they actually sleeper agents, sent to discredit Brian's work? Maybe I should confront them about this, in Brian's honor!

It may be worth considering the possibility that a significant amount of reviewers - regardless of their journalistic skills - simply don't care for NPP. And that's OK. This shouldn't affect your love for the album. Many people don't care for "Love You," but it doesn't change my undying affection for it.

There are also trolls - posters with one or two posts to their name - who post negative stuff just to get a reaction from the fans here. Well, mission accomplished on that front! Everybody should know: don't feed the trolls. Still, this is a major new release, and I wouldn't be surprised if many of these posters are longtime lurkers who legitimately don't like the album. Clearly something is very wrong with their minds, and they must be fixed!

[b00ts]

I don't spend much time here these days because the consistent, and often contrived nastiness toward Brian and his work is downright toxic.  I don't find it anywhere else like this place.

This is demonstrably false. Beach Boy-related forums, social media, and product pages are probably the only places you'll find more than slight praise for the new album, since they are predictably filled with people who savor anything with Brian Wilson's name on it. The reception from most other critics is totally in line with whatever I've seen people say about the album elsewhere on the web.

I'm curious to see what reviews people are speaking of that are 'critical for the sake of being critical', or are written as clickbait. On this board, most of the negative feedback on this album amounts to 'I don't see much special about the album'; most of the positive feedback is 'This is the best album since Smile!'. The terse, or highly-vocal negative reviews are a minority here, but a majority elsewhere, since nobody wants to bother getting flamed for having a dissenting opinion among those who are very devoted to The Current Product by Our Favorite Artist. (There is also the added factor that people who were involved in the album's making are reading these posts, awkwardly).

I’m afraid a reply to your post would go on and on for pages listing all the insistently negative posts from a fairly consistent group of people.  However, it’s easy to just click on a name on this Board to read the string of latest posts and see a distinct pattern.
 
Anyone here can do this obviously, and it’s almost entertaining in an obnoxious sort of way.  Just watch when a poster won’t be swayed by the facts.  Sometimes it’s someone who is insisting on “autotunafish” being present on a song, even when another poster has actually spoken to the person in charge of the mix and production who provides the actual techniques used.
 
Yesterday had a great example on the Conan show thread.  There was a video where Brian could clearly be seen playing the piano and was easily heard among the vocals, yet the person refused to drop the argument that Brian wasn’t singing or playing.  Just check the series of posts from some of these folks, and you’ll see what some of us are talking about here.

This doesn’t apply to regular posters here who don’t find this, or other recordings to their liking.  Why would I, or anyone else even care?  But the relentless bunch who keep repeating the same garbage over and over make it pretty obvious that they have some sort of issue that they are driving here. 

Hi Debbie! I assume you are THE Debbie Keil, and it's so cool to me that you post here. Everything you wrote above is fair, but don't you think it's a waste of your time to engage with trolls who are posting simply to get a reaction out of you?

[Larry Franz]

With 17 reviews averaged out, NPP is now rated at 58  (out of 100) on Metacritic, which is on the high end of the 'average or mixed reviews' range. Only 1 of the 17 reviews is classified as 'negative'. Our perceptions get skewed by our own personal tastes,  but in truth this album in total is getting a lukewarm critical reception not a negative one. Lukewarm might seem ridiculous to some who wish this album could be a massive commercial and critical sensation but there it is.

I wouldn't mind if the album was a massive commercial and critical sensation -- well, maybe I would -- it might feel like the masses discovering your favorite little restaurant -- but after four complete listens, I'm still amazed at how consistently great NPP sounds to my old ears, even though I had low expectations. Unfortunately, that makes an average rating of "lukewarm" seem ridiculous. I mean, what music are these people listening to that sounds so much better?

To answer my own question: of the last 50 or so albums summarized on Metacritic, I count 4 albums that got lower evaluations than NPP. Which means (let me see here) 45 albums that were ranked higher! Comparatively speaking, "lukewarm" may be a bit generous.

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/albums/release-date/new-releases/date

[runnersdialzero]

They would have said this exact same crap about "Sunflower".  or "Friends". 

Uh.