The short answer is - Because the vast majority of people who post reviews on Amazon are amateur hobbyists who mostly review what they enjoy, and the Amazon rating system is very limited in its range of options. The long answer follows over the next several paragraphs.

I for one, am not going to waste time or money writing about stuff that I don't like. Occasionally, I write reviews of products that disappoint me in one way or other, the most obvious example being the CD "Good old country" supposedly by Barbara Mandrell, which I gave just one star. I felt that it was necessary to write that review to warn other people about the contents. I've also written several 2-star and 3-star reviews as well as plenty of 4-star reviews. People who actually read my 5-star reviews soon recognize that I'm much more enthusiastic about some of them than others. This would be more apparent if I were able to give marks out of 100. Amazon decided on a 5-star system with no halves because customers want a simple system. This system is difficult to take seriously. If you like something, you only have a choice of four or five stars. Two choices isn’t enough to cover the range of how much I like something. I'm told that Amazon once had a ten-star system (long before my time) but abandoned it because most customers didn’t use the middle values. So I never take anybody’s star ratings on Amazon too seriously. I always read the text. Anybody who reads my reviews will see that I regard some as more worthy of five stars than others.

As a contrast, professional reviewers are generally told what to review by their bosses. This inevitably means that they sometimes have to review stuff they don't like. (Of course, some bosses will try to select reviewers who they expect to like the material, while others will simply distribute the review material on an arbitrary basis, perhaps on a first-come first-served basis. Such variation will likely be reflected in the published reviews.) Also, professional reviewers have to do their reviews to fixed deadlines so they wouldn’t have the luxury of waiting till they're in the right mood. (Incidentally, the fixed deadlines mean that professional reviewers sometimes don't read the whole book - an accusation levelled at Amazon reviewers by some critics, sometimes justifiably but not always.) If I were reviewing professionally under those circumstances, the ratings I give would differ markedly from what I post on Amazon.

One other aspect that affects Amazon ratings is the customer base. Magazine readers aren't necessarily fans of the artists or authors whose material is reviewed and expect an unbiased opinion although they rarely get it. By the very nature of internet search engines, people surfing Amazon spend most of the time looking up stuff they like. Therefore, they don't necessarily expect to see bad reviews of stuff by their favorites, at least when it comes to books and music. Movies appear to be different but I'm not a movie fan so I won't comment further on those.

Despite all the 5-star reviews, it's still possible to describe the material in such a way that somebody else can decide whether it's suitable for them. In particular, if I review a CD by an obscure singer, I make clear what the style of the music is, which may or may not involve comparing the singer to somebody more famous. In that way, another customer may sometimes decide to ignore that particular album even though I think it's wonderful. That's fair enough because no two people have exactly the same tastes.

Another thing worth considering is that if people start reading a book that they expect to like but don't, they may not bother finishing it. In that event, they might post a review saying they couldn't finish it, whereupon those who complain about all the five-star reviews would complain that you can't review a book that you haven't finished. Nobody is going to punish themselves by finishing a book they don't like just to satisfy others that they write one-star reviews. Reviewing on Amazon is a fun hobby and should be seen as that.

So now you know why the vast majority of reviews on Amazon have 5-star ratings, while magazine and newspaper reviews don't - at least not those that I've seen. It's what the review actually says that's important - not the rating.

Reviewers cannot win.

If they review plenty of stuff that they don’t like, some fans of those products will retaliate by voting against those reviews, perhaps also voting against other reviews by the same reviewer. Alternatively, they may post nasty comments on the review in question.

On the other hand, if reviewers only review what they enjoy, they draw criticism and unhelpful votes for doing just that. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I assume that reviewers who tell it like it is (to use their phrase) feel that reviewers who only review what they enjoy are somehow not playing the game. I’ll criticize if I feel the need as I explained above, but I won’t go looking for stuff that I don’t like just to review it.

Identifying my dislikes.

Critics sometimes ask how they can tell what I don’t like. My answer is that, with over 3,000 reviews, it is fairly clear where my interests lie, at least where music is concerned. Just as customers can see what I’m into by looking at what I’ve reviewed, they can sometimes infer by omission what I’m not into. It is very easy to see which musical styles I prefer, while others are conspicuous by their absence or at least rarity. (Be careful as you'll find a few surprises among my reviews.) Within my preferred musical styles, there are artists that I dislike, though it isn’t always easy for customers to tell which ones. Nevertheless, a fan of one very successful female singer once sent an e-mail asking me why I don’t like her. It seemed to be a reasonable question until it occurred to me that I hadn’t posted anything saying so. I once said that I preferred somebody else’s recording of a particular song, but I often say that sort of thing. He probably realized that I would have reviewed at least one album by the singer in question if I liked her music, since I’ve reviewed so much material by other singers of her generation, and that may be how he was drawn to my reviews. Now, I could theoretically review one of her albums to fulfil some arbitrary quota of critical reviews, but to what purpose?

I haven’t reviewed so many books, though a higher proportion of my new reviews are books than used to be the case. The only fiction I‘ve reviewed so far is "Captivity" by Debbie Lee Wesselmann, but I hope to do more fiction reviews someday. I have most of the Dick Francis novels but I haven’t reviewed any of them yet.

Inferring dislikes by omission only works when there are enough reviews on which to base a judgement. Even then, customers can never be quite sure, as they would be if they could see a critical review.

I know of people who had bad experiences as a result of using the internet and I respect their desire to avoid using their real names, where they have an identifiable pseudonym that they use whenever they participate. Anybody who comes across these pseudonyms can use Google to find those other places on the internet.

Those who simply use pseudonyms (especially untraceable identities like anon) to express strong opinions have to be judged accordingly. Even where I agree with them, I know that I cannot regard them as well as I would if they were more open.

As for myself, I started posting anonymously because I wasn't sure if it was a safe place or not, but even then I had an identifiable pseudonym (petethemusicfan). Eventually, I decided that if anybody who knew me personally were to discover my ramblings on the internet, they'd manage to figure out it was me anyway, so I abandoned anonymity.

Subsequently, I realized that as there are a lot of people in the world called Peter Harris, several of whom are on Wikipedia, it was actually quite difficult sometimes to find stuff relating to me. Hence I now use my middle name. No other Peter Harris on the internet shares my middle name. If another one (or an imposter) shows up, so be it, but meanwhile I've completely exposed myself to any dangers that may arise. So far, it's not been a problem despite many of my personal details being out there on the internet, making it really quite easy for a determined person to track me down.

One way or another, my internet identity keeps me from going over the top. I know that any troublemaker - or any potential employer - can easily find whatever I've put out there. So I just make sure that if I really don't want something to come back to haunt me, I don't put it anywhere on the internet. It's that simple. It doesn't stop me putting strong views across where I feel the need arises, but it does mean that I restrain myself in ways that I might not in a verbal exchange.

One noted troll, who posts anonymously, has said that he actually rates anonymous people more highly than those who post under their real name. This is perverse, but his logic is that people who post anonymously can say exactly what they think without fear of retribution. The counter to this is that they have no accountability whatsoever. Anything I say is traceable to me, so while there is some stuff tht I could post on the internet but don't, you can be sure that whatever I do say, I mean. For example, I'm not going to post a glowing review of something I don't like just to avoid retribution. In any case, as I said earlier, I think somebody who knows me would be able to work out who I am anyway, so posting anonymously wouldn't suddenly allow me to open up in the way that the troll suggests. That troll may rate anonymous posters more highly than those who post under their real names, but although he's not alone in his thinking, he's definitely in the minority.

I started contributing to Amazon in early 2000, mostly lists at first with the occasional review. I started serious reviewing in 2002. A few months later, I had the chance to review for a specialist music website. It didn't work out for me (and I fell out with the webmaster big time) though I know that it works well for other people. A few months after, Amazon gave us all the chance to review websites. This seemed a great idea, but the system never worked as well as reviewing stuff that Amazon sells and the idea was eventually dropped after two or three years.

I never really got into reviewing websites but I did a few including one about the other website where I posted reviews. I still don't think the review was that critical (I gave it four stars initially) but the webmaster was (and probably remains) very thin-skinned. Amazon pulled my review at his request, but not before I'd copied it somewhere in my archives for posterity. I've come across it while looking through those archives and I'm wondering if it really is that bad. I've modified it very slightly to remove the name of the website and to make a couple of other minor changes, but none of these amendments change the tone of the review.

So it's not only authors who can't take criticism. When we were able to review websites, webmasters couldn't take it either.

Here's what I wrote, with those slight changes.

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A bad experience for me

This is a website set up and run by people with a passion for music, who hope to give increased exposure to little known artists by providing CD reviews of their music. The website is not limited to music as it also has sections on books and other things, but music provided the motivation for setting up the site. The website aims to provide one review for each featured products and it is this aspect of the site that my review focuses on. The people who run the site occasionally do their own reviews but unpaid amateurs (euphemistically called website staff) do most of the reviews, for which they are provided with free review copies.

To become a reviewer, you simply send an email with at least one sample review. As I already had plenty of reviews on another website, I simply selected a batch of these that fitted the theme of the website, designed to show that I was interested in a variety of music. The webmaster was suitably impressed although he pointed out some things that he didn't like. One review didn't actually mention any specific songs, while other criticisms, largely cosmetic, applied to all reviews generally. I considered those criticisms were fair enough and re-submitted all the reviews except the one omitting song titles, which I planned to improve (I never did, but I still hope to one day, and I don't think I've repeated that mistake). All the re-submitted reviews eventually appeared on the site (albeit some took a very long time to appear, sometimes modified by the webmaster). So I became (briefly as things turned out) a reviewer for the website.

The webmaster sends out lists of titles to be reviewed and asks everybody to say what they're interested in. It is important for reviewers to make the list as long as possible because only one copy of each item is available. Once everybody's lists have been sent in, decisions are made about who gets what, ensuring that everybody gets some of what they want. Reviewers are then told what they can expect in the post. While this system is not perfect, I didn't mind – after all, with my eclectic tastes, anything that the website had to offer would appeal to me on some level.

The trouble began for me when I returned my reviews. I quickly realized that this website regards it as part of their duty to criticize the reviews they receive and to demand ever-higher standards. I wish this sort of criticism had been made on my original submissions, when I would simply have decided that this wasn't my kind of website. I therefore reviewed what I already had then quit.

Some people write long and detailed reviews as a matter of course. I am not a professional writer nor do I aspire to be one. My purpose in reviewing anything is to help people decide whether or not to buy the product or not. Occasionally, I write a long essay-type review (this is one of them) but I wouldn't write many reviews if I wrote every review this way.

Another source of irritation was being told what order to review stuff in. I mainly stuck to that, but then I noticed that when (eventually) my reviews started to appear, they didn't appear in that order. Having to work though a list of priorities makes it like a job (even more so when combined with all the criticism) – there is no fun in that .

So I'll continue to post my reviews on the internet, but on a website (Amazon) where I don't have to worry about deadlines or priorities and I can write reviews of whatever length I like, in a style that suits me and where I can include as much or as little detail as I choose. That website has its own problems but I can cope with those. As for getting free stuff to review, there are other sources although I've never been that bothered about looking for freebies.

If you are thinking of reviewing for a specialist website, be sure to know what you are doing. Do you really want it to be like a job, with many of the pressures but without the salary? Don't be deceived by any initial enthusiasm – remember that the webmaster was VERY enthusiastic when I first sent in some of my old reviews as examples.

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I write longer reviews generally now than I did back then, but I still don't want the process of writing reviews to be anything but fun - unless somebody actually pays me a salary, which would create a completely different situation.

While my experience is confined to one specific specialist website, I get the impression that other such sites can be a bit like that, even if the method is different. Perhaps this helps to explain why I like Amazon despite all the faults. At least on Amazon, I can do what I like, when I feel like it.

Country is country ... pop is pop ...  R&B is R&B. So suggested another country music fan on the Amazon country music forum, at which point I decided to post my thoughts. I originally set up this blog entry by combining three separate posts with minimal other changes to clarify things, but I've since added a few extra thoughts.

It's never been that simple to categorize music, because the various musical styles feed off each other and always have done, not least because rock'n'roll was itself a blend of R&B and country music. As has been discussed elsewhere, Ray Charles drew on a variety of sounds and styles in his career - jazz, pop, rock, blues, soul, country - and anybody who tries to pin him down to one category faces an impossible task. Even trying to put the six categories I just named in the order of greatest influence in his music would be tricky. While Ray is, perhaps, an extreme case, there are plenty of other examples. Nobody doubts that Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton will be remembered as primarily country singers, but their music is by no means all traditional country (whatever that means). And trying to draw the line between country and non-country has always been impossible. The most accurate definition I ever heard (many years ago) wasn't really a definition at all, but went something like this :-

"Every individual makes up his or her own mind up about what is or isn't country music, usually based on whatever country music was at the time they got into it in the first place."

In other words, if somebody got into the music because of Merle Haggard and George Jones, then that's likely to be how they define country music. But if somebody got into the music because of Alabama and Sawyer Brown, they are likely to think differently. And those people who listen to country radio hearing Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood - well, that's what they call country. And if you go right back, you'd probably have found that a lot of the old-timers brought up on Roy Acuff and the Carter Family resented Hank Williams when he came along. Indeed, what I've read at various times suggests that this is exactly what happened. Of course, I wan't even born then so I can't speak from experience on that.

Once I realized that's what all the arguments are about, I took a more relaxed approach to the whole issue. I just accept that what counts as country music depends on the time in which it was recorded as well as the actual sound of the music itself. Some pop music from the fifties and sixties (such as the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and the early Beatles music) actually sounds more country than a lot of modern country does, but because it didn't count as country when it was recorded, it ain't country. Actually, the Everly Brothers have been inducted into the country music hall of fame, so obviously their contribution to the development of the music is been recognized in high places. The new stuff being played on country radio is a very different type of music, but I accept that, somehow, it fits within the broad spectrum of music classified as country. That doesn't mean I have to like it, although I certainly like some of it.

All styles of music have evolved over the years. The argument that "the music ain't what it used to be" doesn't just take place in country music. The same debate can also be heard in discussions about jazz, classical, pop, rock, and folk music, but it works both ways for me. The watering down (as some would see it) of classical music means that I find some of it now that appeals to me. I don't suppose I'd have shown any interest in it if it stayed stuck in a time-warp - and there's a lot of others who feel the same. So while I find less to interest me in modern country than I do in the old stuff, I know that despite the current downturn in sales reported elsewhere, country music reaches a lot more people than it once did, and I can see the other side of the argument about change when I look at what's happened with classical music. Traditionalist fans of any type of music will always end up on the losing side, sad as that may seem.

Many of the legendary singers we now call traditional country were once new kids on the block that were regarded with suspicion. Johnny Cash and Hank Williams were, in their young days, progressive singers with something new to offer. You can verify that for yourself by looking at what was around before them. So they weren't "traditional" at the time. Indeed, I remember hearing Crystal Gayle say that while she was dismissed by some traditionalists in the seventies as a pop singer, her old music now sounds very traditionally country compared to what is played on country radio these days. In another 30 or 40 years time, it is quite possible that Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood will be regarded as traditional country singers, if the music continues on its present evolutionary course.

Of course, the funny thing is that anybody who records in a more traditional style these days isn't necessarily counted as country. They are more likely to be described as "alternative country", whatever that is supposed to mean. The husband and wife team of Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis come to mind. They're not exactly George Jones and Tammy Wynette but their music comes closer to that illustrrious couple than a lot of the contemporary mainstream country artists.

It is true, as somebody else pointed out, that artists weren't stricken from American country radio playlists once they reached a certain age as they usually are now (but not always, as George Strait proves), but it all changed in 1989 when Clint Black burst onto the scene. He sounded very much like Merle Haggard vocally, but he had new songs that people got into quickly. Suddenly, he had three country number one hits. Also that year, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Lorrie Morgan, Travis Tritt and Brooks and Dunn started making big impressions, though they weren't as quick to get going as Clint. For good or ill, it was clear that people wanted to listen to new singers even if (as in Clint's case) they didn't sound new. And to be fair, Clint's debut album Killin' time was way better than what Merle was doing at that particular time.

While most people remember 1989 as the year the Berlin Wall came down (and we can all be thankful for that happening), I will remember 1989 as the year that most of country music's old guard were swept aside. Not all of them, because George Strait and Reba McEntire kept their careers going into the present decade, while others such as Tanya Tucker stayed in the charts for a few years before being swept aside by the many new singers and bands that arrived on the scene after 1989.

The process of weeding out the old was no doubt hastened by the marketing men. A lot of older people have commitments that younger people don't have, so even though there's a lot of people who love the older style of music, they don't have so much money to spend on it as the younger people. Of course, those younger people sometimes prefer to spend their money on other things like computer games and that's one reason why the whole music business is in decline right now.

As for me, I developed a liking for country music in the early seventies but I was limited initially to what I could hear on the radio. The BBC country DJ's at the time (David Allan and Wally Whyton) were very determined not to play any of the crossover stuff, but having bought Dolly's Here you come again album once I had a record player, I knew that some of it was brilliant - and having bought the follow-up Heartbreaker, I knew that some of it definitely wasn't. But it is ironic to see the traditionalists using Dolly's more recent music as an example of what country music should be like, when she did at least as much as anybody else to push country further in a pop direction all those years ago.

And yet, if you actually look at today's music scene, country music is just as far from pop music as it has ever been, because while country music has changed, pop and rock music have also changed.