Things you love and loathe about record reviews
Was having a discussion last night with some DiS writers about writing reviews, and the things other people do that irk us or that we worry we do that really piss off other people.
I guess a lot of the time I write some things knowing it will rub certain people up the wrong way. Not really in a trolling sense, but moreso because I hate the idea of compromising my writing for the sake of being agreeable. Perhaps that makes me a shoddy writer, but I personally love writing that tells you as honestly as possible what someone thinks, and if that is breathless glee, then I'll probably be swept up by it and find myself listening to the album before I've finished reading the review. Enthusiasm - done right - can be really infectious.
Pet hate: words like sophomore
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reviews that don't really tell you about the music but just serve
as an instrument for the writer to attempt to show off their writing skills.
I know exactly what you mean
I think some people think it's pointless to write about what something sounds like in an era when you can hear everything at the tap of a mouse...
there's a difference between a reviewer having a distinct voice
and being able to convey the emotional connection or resonance they had with music, how it triggered something in them, why its deemed worthy or not
and having someone tell you nothing or little about the music itself, and getting lost in their own sense of themselves and their craft.
i could have worded this in more vitriolic terms, but it wouldn't really aid the point im trying to make.
i like reading reviews where there's more sense of passion for the music (or music in general) which is being written about rather than someone's passion for the writing (or the writing process) itself.
If there's a passion for the subject matter i can often excuse a lack of craft itself, as its the music im fundamentally interested in.
Exact opposite of this
Criticism is literature and I want to be entertained and moved by the writing. I don't give a flying fuck for boring biography or whether or not the reviewer likes a song per se.
Wholeheartedly agree
I appreciate that it's not always easy to write intelligently and lucidly about what something sounds like, then draw comparisons, give a little background, and inject a smattering of opinion, all whilst sounding 'professional', or even (and fuck this) 'academic'.
Reviews that manage this are worthy of some praise, sure. But really, I think that I can only love a review (so give the review an 8/10 or more) when the reviewer invests as much in their writing as they do in the music they're writing about, when they fucking cut loose and dance a bit. True, it doesn't always work out, and it can be arrogant, self-serving, and lead to downright awful prose, but I've started to feel recently that the risk is worth it for the times it gets pulled off. A writer can be as knowledgeable and skilled as you like, but unless there's some indication in their review of the ecstasy that music invokes(whether the writer loves or hates who they're writing about)then I'm never going to love it, it's never going to be any more than another dried-up A-Level textbook entry.
but if you can do both, that's even better.
yes to conveying some sense of whether /I/ might like the music too
no to boring biography or dull descriptions.
neither boring biography nor personal evaluation is a mode of telling readers about the music, though
fair bit of discussion and reaction to this question over on our Facebook
http://facebook.com/drownedinsound
Hate: Reviews that give a score that in no way correlates to the review itself
Huge disappointment from a band we've come to expect more from: 7/10.
yeah
I kinda wish more people were harsher with their scores. a 5/10 shouldn't be anything but a 'meh'.
Contributors - perhaps rightly so - get so angry when you turn a 8 to a 7 or a 7 to a 6, and it seems kinda crazy that they have their own idea of what these scores are, whereas everyone else seem to have this idea that all DiS reviews are equal. I struggle with calling anything a 10/10 (although I have done so with Blondes this year, and nearly did with Chromatics... although I'm slowly thinking the latter is a 10/10 too). I find harsh scores much easier to give, whereas others seem to think anything below a 6 is so terrible and lacking any merit. I'd give most things I hear 4/10, and only begin to mark upwards if it moves me. Anything that makes me curious enough to play it more than 10 times gets nearer a 6/10 and then anything that I start to realise is truly special moves toward the 7s and 8s. It's only when I think it's the pinnacle of a genre or one of the 50 greatest albums I've ever heard do I begin to shift toward the 9s and 10s.
There are a lot of albums I'd give a 9 or 10 to that DiS has given 6s and 7s to (Panic at the Disco's debut LP, for starters) and vice versa. It's an imprecise science, which probably means it's no science at all.
i'd agree that scoring is no science at all,
given the review is subjective, and the review based upon the first batch of listens may be entirely different to a review made by the same person when they were in a different headspace, or any other number of other factors outwith the music itself.
Scoring is shorthand really and personal opinion is that it holds more import than it really needs to or deserves to. It's just the roughest of outlines of what the rest of the review holds, (generally speaking).
I totally agree
10/10 is for all time classics only in my opinion. 9/10 is for the peak of the genre/truly innovating stuff. 8/10 is great music you know you're still gonna be listening to in a year. then 6/7 is good and 4/5 is tolerable to average. so many sites give every bloody album they review a 7 or above. it's ridiculous. they seem to think giving any album less than a 7 deems it as having no worth at all.
That's a knock on from game reviewing
where virtually everything scores 75%+
Remember Amiga Power?
Best mag ever. They had the same principle of scoring: a 50% meant exactly average, 80% meant bloody good, 90% was extremely rare. But in a market where 'average' games got 78% from other mags, AP seemed incredibly harsh.
9/10 approaching pinnacle of genre is how I see it too. For instance, Koi No Yokan is brilliant and I love it, but I'd give it 8/10 tops, not 9 or 10.
The best album they've made in years, a huge development in their songwriting.
6/10
Pitchfork's review of the newest Mogwai was almost exactly this.
in fairness
they have panned almost everything they've released post-CODY.
or have they?
i double-checked and they haven't apparently. carry on
Ditto on 'sophomore'...
The tinymixtapes review of Instrumental Tourist is a classic example of pseudo philosophical nonsense masquerading as music writing. Whether it's boring or not, it's good to know:
i) what does it 'sound like' (glitchy, fuzzy, etc)
ii) who does it sound like (kindred spirits sort of thing)
iii) is it any good (subjective I know, but if it needs tunes, does it have them)
iv) would I like it if I like their other stuff or stuff by their kindred spirits
Reviews that suggest they're authoritative enough to assign 10s are annoying (e.g. the XX). To me, a 10 is something you award in retrospect after the music community has had time to assimilate a record, understand it in its context (cultural, social, political, whatever) and establish whether it something that stands the test of time. Pitchfork's Disintegration Loops 10 seems fair, after the event, but would it have been at the time, probably not.
Humour is good.
Novel approaches to reviews are good for a bit of variety (can't think of one off hand).
5 or six medium length paragraphs is good too.
Length discourse is a turn off.
Apologies for rambling. This is why I don't write music reviews.
*Lengthy
discourse on length would be fun (see 'euphemisms' thread)...
you should read the quietus review for instrumental tourist...
Highpoint 'Racist Drone' is the album's hallelujah chorus of cultural violence, forlorn chords masking the cries of a diseased koto.
dis just ate half my comment...
here's the link:
http://thequietus.com/articles/10767-tim-hecker-daniel-lopatin-instrumental-tourist-review
and the above is a quote from the review not my own word (tbank god)
wow,
that's just amazing! What a guy...
If and when I picture audio, I liken it to architecture
That's incredible! A beautiful example of someone who can string a sentence together, but can't actually write. Loved this comment: 'I wrote shit like this in my AS English class'.
Here's my Hate of the Day:
'That's ultimately where quick collaborators for cash wind up, do they not?'
Do they not? We're impressed by his formal language, are we not? Especially the way he mixes registers - 'wind up' is colloquial, but 'do they not?' is formal! Incredible word control! He must speak better English than us and therefore be more intelligent. We should take his opinion Very Seriously Indeed, should we not?
That must be it: otherwise he's just trying to show off with pretentious high-register phrasing.
If and when I press Alt-F4, I liken it to smothering this twat with a pillow.
I recall posting a link to a review of the same by tinymixtapes
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/tim-hecker-daniel-lopatin-instrumental-tourist
"I’m reminded of the famous scene from Koyaanisqatsi called “The Grid,” which, like Instrumental Tourist, not only speaks to the microcosm that is consumerism and metropolitan life, but is also both mesmerizing and spiritual."
I think Tim Hecker attracts twattish writing like a turd attracts flies. I don't know who these journos think they're catering for.
I don't necessarily always like humour in reviews...
I mean, it's good when it works. But the only publication I've ever read that willingly tries to enforce humour is NME and most of the time it just isn't funny. Music is something that should be taken seriously, and so unless you manage to weave humour in and turn it into an aspect of your writing style that IS entertaining, I don't think it has a place.
I know what you mean
But mostly because a lot of people aren't very funny.
Then again, I adored J.R.'s Loutallica review http://drownedinsound.com/users/johneggfish/articles
It would be better if it was a full on piss take, but yes, brilliant writing.
obscure references
Review begins like 'there's an ancient sanskrit saying that goes...'
shut up
The word bingo
that exists solely for music and film reviews - it's a postrock record so 'epic soundscapes' and 'wall of noise' are in the first paragraph, it's folky so pastoral scenes need to be cujoured up, the inability of almost anyone to write a meaningful review of an electronic record... perhaps there just aren't enough superlatives sometimes :D
But yes with the above, if the writer has a particular axe to grind with an act then either don't let it shape the whole article or please articulate your grudgeful feelings better so we don't feel like we're reading a blog of your shit life with incedental music.
There is still a need for music reviews despite the 'product' being there for all to hear there and then. There's too much music to listen to out there and there is still a need for people who don't have time and budgets to get everything to fall back on a trusted critic for their opinion, especially when you don't know where the next great record is coming from (ooh, heard this on soundcloud, this band on bandcamp are great, reverbnation flagged up- scratch that last one actually).
I dunno
I quite enjoy reading someone giving an album a real slagging for reasons that are entirely personal and completely unrelated to what the album actually sounds like. I remember Everett True absolutely murdering Suede's Coming Up in MM back in 1996, purely because they symbolised the kind of stylised, glammed-up British pop that had blown his beloved grunge out of the water a couple of years previously. His review said little about the album & everything about the writer himself, and whilst I completely disagreed with it, it was great car-crash reading. Reviews should be subjective, not objective.
Fair point
Though from my perspective it was too much of self-indulgent writing that got Everett ostracised from the weeklies, that and the whole "my mate Kurt" in every article. There are masters at getting the personal balance, like Everett and Swells but a lot of bad imitators.
I've been reading the Lester Bangs book of articles recently, that guy knew how to write! The main thing I get out of it is the debunking of this myth that he slagged everything off, the writing in this book is amazingly inquisitive and naieve in its praise for a lot of it, which I just wasn't expecting. You tend to think of him as Mr Agreeable's dad...
I love the how-to guide to writing reviews that Lester Bangs did.
http://screamyell.com.br/musica/critic.html
Coming Up
Do you know where I can find that review? I really want to read it!
I just can't write electronic reviews
I don't know why. I've listened to loads of it in the last couple of years but for some reason. when I come to write about, tt just doesn't happen.
I mean, I even managed to review your band...
SAFETY WINK --> ;)
id find it difficult to review techno or house records
anything electronic of that ilk.
itd boil down to
THIS MAKES ME WANT TO DANCE.
or
THIS DOES NOT MAKE ME WANT TO DANCE.
as, for me, that's its function.
I'd probably have to fling some adjectives in to describe roughly what the sound is (heavy, moody, sexy, melancholic, raging, etc). it would hardly be enlightening, informative or entertaining but i can't see the point in writing 800 words on a techno track (for example) as its not particularly cerebral music at its core.
There's plenty of great writing out there on house and techno which would provide a counter-argument to your last, rather blase sentence.
links please
most of the interesting stuff to write about techno and house is for the most part proper spoddy stuff, the production, the process, synth sounds and effects, tracking the influences of the individual sounds used, how they've been manipulated, the topography and history of the genre and how it fits in with that.
Its a trainspotter paradise, but for most people who buy these songs on a single by single (12inch by 12inch, whatever) basis, it will come down to will this work in a set, will this make me or the punters move. And there's not a great breadth of material to pull from that.
basically it comes down to whether its a pure recommendation
in a review or you want to wank off and show to other spods how clever and knowledgable you are.
The expression "life-affirming"
Don't know why, it just gets right on my tits.
I'd love to know what the opposite is
I guess a record has never actually made someone commit suicide (but some have probably helped)
Have you ever listened to Pornography by The Cure
Or the Marble Index by Nico or The Holy Bible?
That sort of stuff is definitely the opposite of 'life affirming' (even though it might be excellent)
Perfume Genius
Is not life-affirming.
Just the words, really
Most people reviewing records see it strictly as a platform to show they own a thesaurus
Sounds like X shagging Y in a Z
eg "Track 7 sounds like Kraftwerk shagging Neil Young in a Moroccan souk".
Which would sound good, right?
Four blokes
grunting "Ja! Ja!", one bloke whining "Oh god no", and hundreds of blokes yelling angrily in Arabic/French.
ive been to that club
would not go again.
Hate this
See also: it's something ON ACID, which mercifully died a death after that Bill Bailey sketch.
...
http://www.ashersarlin.com/cartoons/hipster3.gif
I do this in conversation
It's tremendous amounts of fun, although you're right, in reviews it's pretty awful.
I really dislike that thing (and, I'm sorry, but it might just be you who does this sean), where you write something in that crossed out (struck through?) font.
Is trying to indicate it was how your thought process went but you disregarded it? If so, why is it still there? I understand you're trying to show a realtime experience of the record and how it made you feel, but that's not what the review is, it's a summation of your thoughts. If that thought it now invalid and irrelevant, cut it. If it is still worth us reading about, leave it in. It's like putting ummmm in a written post to approximate speech, it's attempting sincerity but actually doing the opposite, it's just drawing attention to the artifice.
I know this is really minor and probably done by about two people and I'm usually a fan of 'experimental' things like this, but it just doesn't sit right with me.
I don't cross things out because it's part of my thought process
I do it so I can say two (often contradictory or somewhat contrary) things. Mostly I do it so I can say something really harsh, but not say it at the same time. For me it's just another - stylistic - way of using brackets and sub-clauses. I like to ramble. Sometimes that rambling is totally subbed away, but like with my Gaga review, it felt like the unedited nature of the blathering fit with the style, scope and length of the record. Sometimes writing perfectly succinct and snappy just doesn't fit the record you're writing about. And I have a bit of a thing about writing my reviews in a similar tone to the record (like my How to Dress Well review was annoyingly obtuse). I realise this makes me a massive cunt.
Fair play, you're entitled to your style and I admire the fact you're doing something different.
It's just my innate reaction to seeing it!
``...but that's not what the review is, it's a summation of your thoughts...``
says who boss? Neither of your solution conveys the imprecision and second-guessing indicated by the crossed-out words. Yeah it's a bit artsy or whatever, but it does communicate something that isn't quite done any other way.
Unless you're creating a stream of consciousness the likes of which has never been seen in prose before,
all reviews must be something of a summation. I understand it's trying to convey imprecision and second-guessing, but I think there are other ways of doing that that are just as effective.
I don't have a passionate hatred of it, it just jars with me when I see it.
Achingly Beautiful
this is the single worst phrase in the reviewer's style guide.
and immediately marks the reviewer out as a needy emotionally-retarded bellend
Thank you!
Sophomore's just an american expression
that younger British writers in particular tend to use because they've only read it in American reviews that are informed by a different cultural context. I mean, arguably the fact that we don't talk about sophomore years over here means that in a perverse way the scale of misapprehension of the word means that its meaning in British English really is 'a second album', but it looks rubbish and I always edit out of people's reviews. WHAT A FUCKING BORING POST.
I read music reviews for the same reason I read book criticism
I want to see if there are ways of appreciating a record that I've missed, or legitimate criticisms that I hadn't thought of, or more basically, just to see if people feel the same way I do about something.
They're also useful for finding out extra info about the band, other bands doing similar things or helping to understand the context of the music - e.g. the Disintegration Loops story.
And finally I read reviews of records I don't know, because if they're written well enough, or make it sound like something I'd like (and get a high score) then I might go and listen to it, which has happened with Death Grips and Purity Ring this year.
When the writer goes off on a tangent and starts crowbarring personal anecdotes/details into a review.
FUCK OFF!
except when it's done like this, righ'?
http://drownedinsound.com/releases/17107/reviews/4145185
Yeah, I tend to agree
but I know a few writers who do this really well. I think it's more fitting for blog-style writing really, or perhaps certain genres? For example, I think Oli at Sonic Router is great at this, using personal anecdotes to bring life to electronic music. There's only so many ways you can read descriptions of drum patterns before you fall asleep.
agreed about Oli.
I think this gets done, for the most part, very badly
because people who are now inexplicably 'writers' have grown up reading fantastic reviews with personal experiences incorporated. They've then made the half-boiled inference that 'personal experience=good review', and proceed to shoehorn a bunch of crap into their own reviews, which as a result come off self-indulgent and clumsy. On the other hand, if personal experience is used well, it adds a whole bunch to the character of both the review and its writer.
I blame Plan B / Careless Talk
I especially blame MissAMP for being such a revelation to read. I will never forget her piece about buying a Gonzales record and finding a used condom in the pocket of her jacket.
I feel much the same
about a bunch of stuff from Everett True's 'Live Through This', because I got it when I was fifteen and I thought it was the best thing ever. That said, reading his stuff on Collapse Board now just makes me feel a bit sad...
unless it's Mark Richardson
*Prindle
...
When said band gets descibed as other band 'on crack' or 'on acid'
Reviewers reviewing an album by a band they hate with the sole purpose of slagging it off
Even if it's total shit I want a bit of effort to enjoy it put in, not some vague references to the new album you've clearly only listened to once and the rest of the review being about all their older material being shit and the band being dickheads.
When it comes to reviews, there should be no rules at all other than being entertaining to read.
I personally find reviews that try to tell you what the music sounds like to be crushingly boring, and they are usually written by people who mistake description for insight, but there are no defined lines over which a good review mustn't step.
Most reviews (for me) are to inform a purchase...
so I think it's important to know what it sounds like (though not for a whole review)...it's good to be enlightened by a reviewer's interpretation of a record, but this is often something I'll only do after owning the record for a few weeks or months. Then the review serves a different purpose (along the lines of rainmaker's comments above).
Hate: Reviews with no point of reference
Give me an idea of what the Artist sounds like.
I LOVE: reviews of records
I LOATHE: endless fucking meta-chat about record reviews.
Stop killing music, sean.
hes not killing music
hes killing music journalism
at least get your accusations framed correctly. :)
Reviews where the writer spends more time having
A go at the musicians teat tosh behaviour than telling you whether the album is any good.
COUGH - every single dis review of a smashing pumpkins album / re-release, and WU LYFs album review - COUGH
*twattish
Not sure what teat tosh means?
writer referring to themselves as
this critic' or 'your critic
if they're doing that it's almost certainly because they're forbidden to write in the first person
still
It's a review, not a memoir. The whole 'it left this critic cold/your loyal reporter arrived at the venue 10 mins early' feel of some reviews makes writers sound kinda pompous and affected. I know reviews are rooted in personal context and experience, but I prefer reviewers that don't put themselves at the centre of everything they write.
oh it's something that should be done very sparingly if at all, agreed
Tell you what ground my gears recently - you using strikeouts in the Crystal Castles (III) review
http://drownedinsound.com/releases/17334/reviews/4145738
You've got a backspace key if you think of something better to write, you know
unwieldy writing, made up words, pointless references/bad puns.
I think reviews ought to be grounded
in the very boring: THIS IS WHO BAND IS, THIS IS WHAT ALBUM SOUNDS LIKE, AND THIS IS MY OPINION.
Then the writer may add reasonable stylistic flourishes around the basics. Respectfully, I disagree with Sean: there is NO PLACE IN PROFESSIONAL WRITING FOR RAMBLING. (Unless your name is Virginia Wolfe.) To my eyes, rambling reviews don't come across as being more authentic or honest. They just look sloppy and lazy.
A return to form
RRRAAARRRGGGHHH!!!
I hate it when the review
is not in line with my opinion. It means the reviewer is obviously a complete boob.
You know the worst reviews?
Those entirely pleasant and ok 6/10 records. Not without some merit, slightly forgettable and likely to be number 15 in your albums of the year. What the FUCK are you supposed to say about them. Eh?!?
I think I hate reviewers who treat criticism as serious business.
or believe their opinion to anything more than simply an opinion.
Or kid themselves that they can be in anyway objective or rational.
all criticism or music criticism?
Certainly any kind of art, film or literacy criticism.
dubious
What aspect of it?
I'd have said it was a relatively self-evident statement. Giving your opinion on stuff is a fun thing to do and reading someone's opinions can be fun but all they are is opinions - there's not really anything there to take seriously; certainly there's nothing massively meaningful or important about the whole process as some critics try to kid on.
in some cases, serious/meaningful is the only way
as long as there's genuine insight and perhaps a shred of levity, it's fine.
and I hate a lot of sarcastic/jokey/self-effacing journalism.
Ah - that's not quite what I mean.
I mean critics who consider themselves to be uniquely qualified and able to understand film, music or art on a different level to non-critics and hence take their opinions too seriously rather than people who write in a jokey fashion.
i think it could do with a bit of qualification
i do recoil a slight bit sometimes at some of the more self-important/pretentious music criticism/critics out there, but you'd have to acknowledge that there's a bit of difference between giving your opinion on something and the more longform kinds of music criticism or articles that take a wider sociological or cultural perspective.
as well the very nature of the game surely is that you are taking it seriously to some degree if you're wasting your precious leisure hours typing out 500-word articles for no tangible reward or return. yeah it'[s not massively meaningful but are you saying that if a reviewer puts genuine effort/research into what they do or aims for genuine insight that they look a bit silly? i wouldn't agree
* DOI
Sociological and cultural insight is fun and interesting to read of course
and that's absolutely fine if the reviewer wants to do that research and write it and I don't think that makes them look silly per se - if they want to it, it's up to them really. And I don't necessarily mean that everyone should be jokey or self-effacing reviews - or that people shouldn't take the work they're writing about seriously - of course they should.
I mean more when critics regard criticism or the fact they're writing criticism and socially or culturally important and place a great deal of importance in themselves as critics and arbiters of fine taste and judgement. They're people with an opinion - no more, no less. They're hopefully people who express their opinion well in writing and can be engaging and entertaining in doing so (hence why they get paid to write reviews in the first place) but that doesn't actually mean their opinions themselves should have more importance attached to them than anyone else.
*as socially and culturally important.
If by this you’re talking about
reviews that go around with a stick up their arse hammering on their opinion with backing it up in any meaningful or satisfying way, then I agree.
That said, I’m not sure about your above point that (broad sense) ‘art’ critics shouldn’t consider themselves to be better qualified when it comes to their chosen form. If somebody reads books and literary criticism 14 hours a day, then I’ll presume they’re a better reader than me. Why can’t we apply the same logic to music?
Because we can't honestly apply it to literature so why would we transport a claim that's demonstrably false to another medium too?
In what sense would it make them a better reader? What would that even mean?
Sure, they'd have knowledge of a wide range of books and probably be good at talking about the context of a book. But realistically critics aren't purely employed on the basis of the range of their knowledge alone - it'll also be whether their opinions fit in with the views and aspirations of the readership of a particular publication; someone could listen on loads of music and have an immense knowledge of the history and context of music but if their favourite music ever was, say, Chris De Burgh there's a fair chance few music publications would deem them appropriate to their readership. Plus there will of course be people with an intricate knowledge of films or books or music but choose to have a different career instead, or simply cannot write eloquently enough to become a critic.
But more fundamentally, however many books you've read, however well you state your opinions, it doesn't make your opinions more correct or more worthy than anyone else's. People enjoy something or they don't - it's pretty much an instinctive reaction (albeit one you'll later justify with reasons and explanations) and it's entirely entirely ludicrous to say one person's enjoyment is worth more than someone else's.
And - what's far worse, perhaps especially within art criticism - it alienates people and makes them feel art isn't for them because the self-declared experts try to pretend that they're the only people who can say if a piece of art is good or not. Which means they constantly hold up the works that reflect their own beliefs and interests and exclude the ones that do not creating a self-fulfilled prophesy of what' becomes 'canon' (at least for a time). To me the function of art is to express things, communicate and reach out to people and to turn int into an exclusive club for intellectuals utterly defeats the entire point.
Furthermore, it's easy to see from past history that critics views on what's good may well be utterly reversed in the future and are only correct within their own context. Look at the way people like Van Gogh and Blake were largely ignored by the critics of their day in favour of people who are long-since forgotten.
Yes, critics will have seen more of a particular medium and, yes, they will probably know more about similar artists and what to compare it to etc. But it's manifestly a misguided misconception to assume their opinions are in anyway more correct.
Ah - I never said the critic’s opinions are more correct.
You’re right, that would be elitist and depressing. To the best of my knowledge there’s no amount of research that can alter the rightness of a person’s opinion.
Here is the statement of yours I disagree with most strongly: “I mean critics who consider themselves to be uniquely qualified and able to understand film, music or art on a different level to non-critics and hence take their opinions too seriously.”
You don’t think a good reader exists? A person with a better understanding of the art form than another person? I’m wary of stating the obvious here, but we know the quality of being a good reader exists because we feel it as we read. I can finish reading a certain book and henceforth feel better qualified to tackle other books that previously I may have deemed beyond my best perception. I imagine most literary critics are better readers than me in the sense that I imagine I’m a better reader than most children. There are certain analytical skills we expect of critics and good readers - basic understanding of the text, analysis of literary context, analysis of intent, analysis of broader social influence - and you’d be hard-pressed to invent any kind of academic test of these skills that would be *better* answered by a child than a critic. It doesn’t make their opinion more right, but by my definition it does make them better qualified.
I won’t address the second paragraph - yeah, certain publications use critics with different frames of reference - because I don’t think the presence of a known readership invalidates the critical qualification argument or in any way contradicts my opinion. In fact, it further helps measure a critic’s degree of qualification by establishing a more specific framework by which to judge exactly what said readership requires. Again, it doesn’t make the critic’s opinion more right, but if they’ve been accurately deemed by their editor to have a broader knowledge-base and sense of perception on a given topic than the average reader (which is a primary goal for most critics, isn’t it?) it does make them better qualified to express that opinion in that publication.
As for the Van Gogh/Blake argument, predicting how a work will be perceived in future is only one facet of criticism - if that - not the sole purpose. There’s no need to devalue the entire form based on failure to fulfill a single criteria. All that said, I’m not sure that at the core of it we actually disagree. Feel free to prove me wrong.
Wow
this conversation looks boring.
Bullet points?
I like it when they're written with a sense of humour
possibly a bit rose tinted, but it does feel like a dying art. There's a certain school - which DiS is as guilty of as anyone - of rant reviews being the only time people seriously attempt humour, but there's really no reason why you can't put a gag into a positive review, it's only a bunch of fucking musicians.
Yes yes yes
The po-faced music journalist. Taking something fun and that you love and turning into fucking academia. PISS OFF. Observer Music Monthly was so so guilty of this.
The phrase 'game-changer'
makes me fucking cringe like the mother of an outed paedophile. Over-used and past its sell-by date.
I like angry writing, as long as you can tell that there's some justification for the anger, a real indignance at the insulting naffness they've been presented with and a believable sense of deserving and demanding something better, rather than the mere desire to show off and try (fail) to be David Stubbs.
And reviews where you could tell that the writer didn't know what the hell to say about the record, felt totally out of their depth and just burbled something to fill the word count. I think lots of writers have written those reviews, and I guess depending on yr situation sometimes it's unavoidable but I'd rather not write the review at all, and ideally pass it to someone with a worthwhile opinion/understanding of the band or record, than churn out something rubbish for the sake of it.
the main issue I have with music reviews/ music writing in general
is that 99% of reviewers are not good writers
when somebody reviews an album and they clearly have no interest in that type of music
just seems like a waste of everybody's time.
Scholars have a facebook advert
that reads "like at the drive-in covering the smiths".
I hate that kind of comparison, and it's also hugely inaccurate because they are no where near as good as at the drive-in covering the smiths, which by the way, sounds like this;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_b2xbA7JXg
it seems like
a great deal of reviewers don't possess
adequate knowledge to provide accurate reference points, so they just draw tenuous comparison to the acts that they do know with any kind of superficial similarity.
Regviews that tell you all the band members names
and where they come from and how they formed.
FUCK OFF WITH THAT SHIT I DON'T CARE
Hmm, not realising that Harvest Moon is a cover version..
http://drownedinsound.com/releases/17381/reviews/4145845
subjectivity...
...is fine up to a point, but there's nothing that bores me more than reading a review written by someone i'll never know, slinging his/her jizz all over the page like anyone should give a fuck. i like a few facts followed by a few personal interpretations of the music, that regardless of the writers opinion, has been elucidated in such a way that will give me an idea if i might like it or not. its not fucking rocket surgery.
Radiohead have really pushed the envelope with this record
No they haven't, they've made another album of self-indulgent electronica.
See also: the idea that music that dispenses with things like melodies, chord sequences and traditional song structures are unoriginal and derivative. Fuck off, so's everything.
The worst comment I ever read
was in a review of a George Michael album in Word, think it was about 2004. The reviewer didn't like the album's lack of melody & said something like "the most damning thing I can say about this album is that none of the songs could be played on an acoustic guitar". So fucking what? You could say the same about the entire discographies of Kraftwerk, Public Enemy or Miles Davis. So many reviewers are still in thrall to the Dylan-inspired singer-songwriter paradigm that they don't take anyone seriously until they've "gone acoustic" - look how much more critical kudos Nirvana got when they did Unplugged, as if Nevermind wasn't enough.
Writers who review Scott Walker albums
& begin with a lengthy discourse about his career history - Walker Brothers blah blah, bigger than the Beatles blah, nervous breakdown, Jacques Brel covers blah blah, Scott IV commercial disaster blah blah, working men's clubs, Nite Flights blah blah & so on. Every fucking album he releases, same thing, as if anyone reading a Scott Walker review in 2012 would be unaware of his history.
To be fair
In the time between Scott Walker albums, a whole generation of listeners can come of age who might not know who he is. The new one only being six years since the last throws this off a bit, but still.
Agreed that the 'potted history' approach is often a convenient way to reach a certain word count without having to talk about the record.
That's another thing about Scott Walker: his stuff takes time to process, and how do you say if it's 'good' or not? I would hate having to file a review after only hearing it for a couple of days - I wouldn't say I get The Drift even now.
So what do you do? You either fill the review with history, waffle about avant-garde atonalism or come clean and say 'I don't know, it was like a load of buzzing and wailing wtf. Prefer Pablo Honey'.
We should do a list
of facts about artists that reviewers always mention to pad out the word count.
For example
has anyone ever reviewed Def Leppard without mentioning their one-armed drummer, or reviewed Marianne Faithfull without referencing Mars Bars?
Smashing Pumpkins review without mentioning Billy Corgan's a bit of a prick
Future of the Left started after mclusky ended
So let's review mclusky's career while we're here!
Manics -> Richey
They'll never get out from under this, and probably rightly so: Richey is a huge part of who they are. But his story isn't always relevant to the record at hand (Journals for Plague Lovers aside). Loads of their reviews still get a little 4REAL nod in there somewhere.
New Order - Ian Curtis
...who died in 1980. But to this day you'll struggle to find a review of any of their albums or gigs that doesn't mention him.
There's this rapper Nas
Whose debut was called Illmatic. Let's talk about how good it was and how it moved hip-hop forward and how nothing he's done since was as good (or was it), how he lives in its shadow etc, then on the last paragraph say 'The new one is 69 minutes long and is pretty good I guess'.
Also Tupac was murdered
Which doubled his output
Bon Iver's Log Cabin
Just read this in a review
"Is it more like the crunchy peanut butter cousin of CocoRosie, or Joanna Newsome with tunes? No, neither."
Why is it that reviewers feel the need to constantly ask pointless rhetorical questions?
people usually don't know how to describe the music
"folktronica", "psych" - all those stupid bullshit terms. Just tell us - does it rock, is it Bon Iver crap, is it twerpy bleep stuff, hip hop bullshit. Hell, even those are dumb. Just link us to samples of the tracks, we'll figure it out for ourselves.
When writers knowingly revel in their "I'M A TOUGH MISANTHROPE WITH THE SWORD OF TRUTH"
thing.
Like...I'm going to RANT now!!1111 Rahhhhh!
and just sit waiting for bumlicks.
You're writing about indie music on the internet for fucks sake.
I barely read reviews.
All I need to know is "Is it out?" "Who is in the band?" and a very very rough description of what it sounds like in about one sentence. I can take things from there.
When reviewers review the artist
rather than the album. Bob Dylan is invariably the beneficiary of this, so occasionally is Tom Waits (look at the gushing reviews the awful Glitter & Doom live album received), and Nick Cave seems to have joined the pantheon too. It's almost as if they're afraid that, by correctly pointing out that a legendary artist's latest album is a bit crap actually, they'll be kicked out of the Serious Music Journalist club.
Pretending that a classic artist's new album is a RETURN TO FORM when it quite obviously isn't is related to this, with pretty much every Bowie album since the early 80s being prime examples.
isn't this what Mojo/Uncut base their whole M.O. on?
Pretty much, yeah.
I'd imagine the Uncut offices need hosing down every time Dylan announces a new album.
the use of the word "wonderment"
which seemed to feature in every other record review for a while and nowhere else.
Any review that says
So and so are all XXX and YYY, like "Los Campesions! are all cardigans and racket". It's getting to "achingly beautiful" levels of annoying..
Reviews by males in their early 20s.
Reviews by people who have no life beyond posting on message boards such as this one, no perspective, littered with sweeping statements about things of which they know nothing.
I rarely read reviews on here because I feel I know who is writing them and the search by this person for meaning is utterly worthless; frustrated, rotten and self serving.
I'm all for playfulness in reviews because its just music. I love Wendy's singles reviews, that stuff is magic and has introduced me to so much music in a positive, funny and honest manner.
Yep
Wendy’s column frequently contains some of the best review-format music writing around, not just for being positive, funny and honest but exciting, smart and literate.
Your paragraph about reviews on here is a bit too vague to be as outrageous as it claims, but I’m very happy to agree with your first point.
Its entirely personal, sorry to be vague.
The funny thing is that I think I just don't want to read a review by myself 10 years ago, because that person is wholly uninteresting to me now...
I wrote a couple reviews for Plan B years ago and am ashamed of that because I thought I had something to say, but I was just a nerd fumbling around.
without wanting to criticise a lot of the guys who write reviews on this site/other websites, I completely agree with this
self-serving is the key phrase...
as for own pet hates
comedy and biography.
you're a critic, not a comedian and 99% of people aren't nearly as funny as they'd like to think, so I dislike people who constantly try and inject humour in their reviews.
and people who use a music review as some kind of catharsis for whatever personal problems they're enduring at the time. go see a therapist or write a blog.
i like reviews that are quite forceful/authoritarian. you're offering your opinion, not entering a debate, so as long as you're backing up your rational and train of thought soundly and are actually knowledgeable of what you're writing i really enjoy quite polemic and almost 'snotty' (not quite the write word I'm looking for but it's late) reviews.
Interesting reading this thread and noting that
although it's called 'things you love and loathe' it's 99% loathing in the comments. Conclusions:
-there's more stuff about record reviews that winds people up than otherwise.
-people on here love to moan.
I enjoy reading and writing reviews on here to be honest. The things I love best about music reviews are when you get that sense that the reviewer really clicked with a record and they infect you with your enthusiasm and made you check it out. Anais Mitchell's Hadestown would be an excellent case in point. Never heard her before, read the review, thought 'that really sounds like it's going to be amazing', got the record and it was.
Quoting lyrics but getting them wrong
http://www.thestoolpigeon.co.uk/features/news/an-a-z-guide-to-music-journalist-bullshit.html
lolled at some of this