If you receive a bad music review for a release or a show, it’s important to keep two things in mind: a) The old adage “Any press is good press” is a cliche for a reason: because it’s true; and, b) music journalists have differing tastes and flaws, just like humans do.

What one journalist loves, another will hate. One bad review isn’t the be-all, end-all final word on your act. Your favorite artists had bad reviews and likely still get them from time to time. It’s easy for a young act to get discouraged, or even morbidly depressed, over a first negative press review. That’s because they aren’t used to it. Many talented and uber-successful acts, such as John Mayer, received a heaping of unflattering criticism starting out, and still do. In fact, if you’re a few years into your career and haven’t received one line or blurb of less than flattering words in a newspaper, blog or zine somewhere, you’re probably doing something wrong, like a married couple that never fights, ever. No couple is that perfect. Take risks and you’ll be rewarded, but you’ll also take on some flak along the way. It’s all part of the process.

You just have to let bad press roll off your shoulders and keep plugging away. Whatever you do, don’t respond to the reviewer. That will get you nowhere. Chances are, it will just give him a bigger head and make him feel more influential than he actually is. Many local music journalists are failed musicians themselves (not all, mind you, but enough), but they are talented with hurling stinging barbs and overused music journalism cliches. They aren’t right or wrong about anything they write, just stating an opinion. Perhaps the journalist who gave you a bad review doesn’t know your genre as well as others, so he’s unqualified to make judgements. Yet that’s what he does, time and time again. And then’s there’s another famous quote to keep in mind: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” usually attributed to Frank Zappa, but the phrase was used in one form or another long before he said it.

If you happen to encounter the reviewer at a club or anywhere else in public, introduce yourself, offer to buy him a drink, but don’t confront him about his writing. Show that it didn’t get to you (even if it did). Be the bigger person. It’s often the case that local journalists don’t write bad things about musicians they’ve had friendly encounters with, so get chummy with as many local music critics as possible.

If anything, a bad review should inspire you to promote yourself to more critics and publications until you garner a bunch of reviews. If every one of those reviews is negative, perhaps you need to consider another profession. But it’s rare that an act with even a modicum of talent will get a string of bad reviews, unless they’re doing something horribly wrong.