Are film music reviews relevant for today's music streaming world? Discuss

I think about this topic off-and-on and thought that I would ask the question in open forum to see what kind of a discussion we get going.

As with music buying, the role of the film music review has changed a lot from when I first started listening to film and TV music. Back then (late seventies and early eighties) there was very little chance to get an idea of what the music was like other than to go see the movie or watch the TV show. Then, based upon that experience, you would either buy or not buy the music (if it had been released).

As the amount of music was increased (on LP and later CD), there was very little opportunity to hear what the music was like save for watching the film or TV show. As the internet started to become more popular and I found places like the FSM store clips of 3-4 tracks began to appear so you got a sense of the music. But, the sellers would showcase the best bits so you still didn't really get a good idea of what the whole album was like.

Then I came to magazines like Music from the Movies (?) and Film Score Monthly became essential reading and these featured album reviews to albums you couldn't hear or to albums you didn't know existed. Reading these reviews allowed me to get a sense of what the album would be like and I could decide whether to take a chance and buy it. Also, I would probably be forming my opinion on composers and their music, beginning to know what the chances of me liking another Jerry Goldsmith score would be based upon my previous experience of his music.

So, for ages this was the status quo.

Then, with the appearance of places such as Amazon, you got a chance to sample 30 seconds of all the album and you could listen to these alongside the reviews I was reading (in magazines and, increasingly, on websites). As time went on streaming services and places like YouTube allowed you to listen to entire albums and you could decide yourself whether to buy an album or not buy it but bookmark it to listen to online from now on.

This is where I wonder whether film music reviews are worth it nowadays? Or whether they are still useful but their role has changed? Why read (or write) a review if you can listen to the score yourself and form your own opinion. Do we need 4-5 reviews of an album everyone knows has been released and you were probably going to buy/listen to anyway? Is a review today not about finding out something about an album you couldn't otherwise know anything about but rather abdicating your own need to listen to something and have someone else tell you you need to listen to it?

Perhaps today reviews need to move away from reviewing albums that everyone knows is available and focus rather on finding titles that people don't know are available and signal to them that they should be listening to it? (I may be a bit biased towards this since I feel my own reviews fall into this latter category.) Should reviewers be actively hunting for the top-quality obscure titles or waiting for composers sending them the top-quality obscure titles to review?

This is just a stream-of-consciousness post to get a discussion going. The points may not be in much of a coherent order but hopefully it makes sense enough for a discussion on any of the points to get started.