Why reviews lost their sting - and what matters more, the song or the record?

Our pencil-chewing, critical assessment of this week’s news gets mainly * and *** reviews, among them …

…. Sting v Summers & Copeland over Every Breath You Take, the goose that laid the golden egg

… what John Lennon would have thought about the ‘cancelled’ track on Some Time In New York City

… when did “critically acclaimed” come to mean unpopular?

… the knock-about days when a critic was “a jerk, a crank and a spoilsport”

… Jonny Greenwood’s dad was a bomb disposal expert? Pete Doherty’s mum was a Lance-Corporal in the Royal Army Nursing Corps?

… what matters more, the song or the record?

... Anthony Fantano, Rick Beato and the rise of the YouTube rock review

… “negative comments about a famous act’s new album are like graffiti on the walls of a hallowed institution”

… Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait, Andrew Ridgeley’s Son Of Albert (“half a star”) and the lost age of the crushing review

… and “you never mention Depeche Mode!”

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