Is not liking a song, artist, painting, film, book (or anything) because it "doesn't live up to the hype" a valid criticism?

agreed, except when it's someone MINDBLOWING who you expect mindblowing stuff from, and then they deliver crap. that might be kind of a valid disappointment.

criticism or Criticism? it's certainly a valid reaction, like all reactions. disappointment is a real thing.

I think this is a good point.

In music criticism I feel like Christgau is pretty good at not letting hype and even dissapointment affect his reviews.

Like he gave Curtis by 50 Cent a B (pretty positive review), but at the same time called it the Dud of the Month and said it was a big dissapointment.

its a valid criticism of the critical community/media machinery, but its not a valid criticism of the work itself (recent ILM example that springs to mind was chuck eddy et al's complaints about Betty Davis "not being all that")

there's a great thread on this on rec.alt.music.alt-rockmusic, circa '93

It is a valid criticism of the hype. The thing hyped should be judged by standards consistant with how the critic judges other similar works of art.

you guys are insane!

i went to see children of men having absolutely 0 idea what it was about, or who was in it and was blown away -- a friend for whom this kind of thing is like caynip was like "eh" -- he'd been hearing about it for months, and how awesome it was.

music has a different kind of anticipation attached to it, but it can still happen. if i'd heard the black album by metallica without ever having heard another note of theirs before, or gone to see them play, or read about them in guitar magazines, i probably would have loved it.

maybe these feelings aren't "valid" but they're the ones i've got!

"caynip" = catnip