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DiS thnks it's well hard, and gives the new Beady Eye album 0/10
Keep listening to The National and thinking you're punk, boys.
An embarrassing review: http://drownedinsound.com/releases/17684/reviews/4146495?ticker
Hmm, interesting...
Keep listening to The National and thinking you're punk, boys.
An embarrassing review: http://drownedinsound.com/releases/17684/reviews/4146495?ticker
Hmm, interesting...
Have you listened to the record?
Good one, CG.
Wait...
Must have got a lot of traffic from the @reverendandthemakersgate.
Proper small time.
DiS didn't review the album
a guy called Dan Lucas did, it's his opinion not a websites.
While I don't care what score this album got,
I think that the individual reviewer is a fairly moot point.
DiS published the review and if it had received a 10 I very much doubt that you would see '10/10 - Dan Lucas' in the record's advertising campaign.
CG having a little cry there ;_;
the tricky thing
is that if I criticise the review I'll get a response that assumes I'm doing so because i've got the horn for beady eye.
drownedinsound thanks you for your patronage
:D
clearly a thread for this already
bit needy
second para
It’s easy to make fun of Oasis and its various spin-offs, so this review should write itself.
discard rest of review
Dunno if anyone remembers my freak out
at the other 0/10 review.
But this one might be right. Well, I doubt anything deserves a 0/10 - but it's a statement about this type of music infecting British culture - This insipid, uninspiring, nostalgic, swaggering wank that needs to end. That's ruined and held back art and creativity for decades now. That was spawned from the lad culture of the 90s. That represents everything bad and wrong about British music.
So whilst it's not actually 0/10 record, it should be.
I stand by this statemetn even though I've only read a bit of the review so far and not listened to the record.
However The National are total trouser wank too.
moker this'd this
:D
http://static.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/1333750160021_2478255.png
But with DiS not Facebook
But he blatantly only reviewed it so he could give it a 0
Likewise DIS probably only published it because of the score. You are right about lad culture but that's more of a society issue and for this album to get the blame whilst it's doing its best to get away the pub rock bollocks of the last effort is unfair especially when the likes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Miles Kane and Jagwar Ma get better scores for arguably more derivative output. I like most of it and if anything deserves a 0/10 it's the predictability of the criticism.
The thing I find weird is when the same reviewer gave Iglu & Hartly
0/10 everyone said I was wrong for objecting. Probably because everyone hated Iglu & Hartly.
Now he's done the same with Beady Eye - A far far far worse band if you ask me - everyone is crying into their Che Guevara t-shirts.
Therefore this odd change in attitude I can only put down to the changing variable - i.e. The album being reviewed. Ergo, Dissers actually like Beady Eye and don't want to admit it.
I'm not ashamed to like it
I cringe when I see the superfans with their pretty green scarves, sharp black jackets and mod hair who honestly think that the music industry's future lies with Jake Bugg and I'm not going to pretend that I think everything the Gallaghers have done is top notch. But, for me, this album's much more enjoyable than Noel's snoozefest which was universally adored on release. Sitek's production is great, the structures are interesting, the musicianship's good and the overall atmosphere is one that rewards with repeat listens. Still, without differing opinions the world would be a dull place.
A fair argument
I'll have to listen to it. I can say however, that the culture around the band, and the bastardisation of mod iconism (is that a word?) and the fans and the shit hair STILL going on from the 90s, which in itself was a re-emergence of a bygone era, fucks me off no end.
But yeah, it's the music that counts so I'll reserve judgement.
‘Likewise DIS probably only published it because of the score.’
How did you come to that conclusion?
The only reason most people on here would read a Beady Eye review is to see it get panned
If it was written by someone who gave it a half decent score (like it's been getting in most other places) it just wouldn't be as interesting to 90% of the people on here.
all of this.
I agree with you moker. It's a review of what the album represents.
Anyway - reviewers can write what they want, it's creative writing not answering an A-Level question, you ninnies.
I have given it 0/10 before hearing a note of it too.
Obviously made
his mind up before he'd even heard the record, cant really argue with that to be fair.
That's fine if you're going to write well and be funny.
As it stands it's just an awful bit of music journalism.
I like it more than I like about 90% of music journalism
Why?
Probably because it isn't sitting on the fence or giving established artists obligatory 8's and 9's
yeah but that doesn;t really answer my criticism which is being vitriolic is fine
and a Beady Eye album almost certainly deserves it, I can't be sure as I have no intention of listening to it, but that review is terribly written, not very funny and the guy comes across as a complete belm.
Oh I agree
but it does break the from the monotony a tad... even if it's bile.
it's no worse than the average dis review
it's perfectly fine
seems perfectly reasonable to me
This Dan Lucas seems to be trying really hard to be iconoclastic
And maybe the album deserves it - haven't listened to any Beady Eye, so I've got no frame of reference.
But this is so badly written, such an obvious look-at-me-I'm-edgy hit job, that it doesn't do what a review is supposed to: guide the reader in their decision of whether or not to buy/listen to the music.
I probably won't hear this record, but this review had absolutely no influence on that decision. The review isn't for us, it's for the writer. And that, I think, is the root cause of music journalism wankery, from godawful Pitchfork 'concept' reviews to Mike Diver's florid me-me-me-isms.
I thought my ears were burning.
Though I suppose given the context my eyes should be.
MY ears, MY eyes, jeez, enough of the ME ME ME stuff already!
QUOTES doesn't do what a review is supposed to QUOTES
there is no such thing as this.
An album review is just one person's response to listening to the album. They can involve whatever they want in that and write whatever they feel appropriate. It has nothing to do with imparting anything to the reader.
Who the hell is the reader? Why should I care about what they want?
I agree with this but there are limits
(posted for the hundredth time)
http://drownedinsound.com/releases/3039/reviews/4637
the intent behind that is fine though
it's just that the execution is so very, very poor.
"Why don't you just go to a fucking listening booth in HMV you fucking cunts"
lovely little time capsule that
"You're not even worth educating. Stay ignorant. Flip me a fucking burger."
:''D
It's a shame that all the other (old anonymous) comments have disappeared
They were almost as good as the review itself.
What you're describing there is a blog post, not a review
There, you can write whatever you like: emotional responses, your life story etc. A review is a bit different - there's a responsibility to the reader to impart some useful information, such as (but not limited to):
Who is this artist?
What does they sound like?
How does the music compare to other notable records of theirs?
How does the music compare to other artists in their genre?
And most importantly:
Is it any good or not?
All of these will be answered subjectively, or course, but that's what a review tries to do. It's trying to get something across, be useful to the reader. Bad reviews are ones where you're left wondering if it was any good, or when you get the feeling that the writer is trying to show off rather than communicate. Diver.
Pitchfork example:
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5016-see-it-another-way-ep/
The reader is the person who reads the review btw. Writing is communication, from one person to another or others. If you discount the people on the receiving end, if you don't care what they want, then why are you writing? You're just talking to yourself, then - which is fine, on a blog. Just don't do it in a review.
I'd have more sympathy for this point of view
if you were paying to read the review.
This is such a swing-and-a-miss
a review is as free-form as a piece of music. There is no responsibility (especially not, as Raanraals said, if it's a review you've paid money to access, because that's where expectations by the readership can reasonably come in). You've gotten turned around about objective and subjective information too: the only thing that's objective about a music review is, for example, whether the CD is actually a CD or a piece of veal, and even that might make for an interesting artistic statement.
There are no walls between a blog post and a review.
Oops
didn't mean especially not if it's a paid review: I meant except not. I think expectations are okay if you've paid to access a review.
But reviews aren't as free-form as music can be
See terrible Pitchfork concept reviews like http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5018-bedhead-loved-macha-ep/ or the DiS Remote Part piece, http://drownedinsound.com/releases/3039/reviews/4637-.
They're free-form, completely liberated from notions of 'communication' and 'criticism', and they're useless. What do the records sound like? Are they good?
And if readers aren't paying money, they are paying time. The writer is asking for their time and attention in exchange for an opinion and maybe even a critical appraisal if they're lucky. There absolutely is a responsibility, and it's the same one that all writers have - the responsibility not to waste people's time!
And music isn't free-form at all. It has rhythm, tempo, keys, chords and all that: it's incredibly structured and rule-governed. Even improv jazz only happens within strict parameters, within which a player can do what they want.
A review doesn't have to be dry or formal, there's a place for emotion and artistry in the writing, absolutely. Music is hard to quantify, it can be emotional and ineffable - but that doesn't mean a review has to be.
The common factor here
is that in talking about both music and reviews, you're sticking to your own personally-held definitions of what these things are allowed to be. Ambient and drone artists would dispute your claim that music has to be rule-governed and structured. Hell's bells, the OP in this thread is a noise artist.
I wondered if you might have posted the Jet-monkey-wanking video as an example up there, because that's something that fails entirely as a conventional review, but isn't often talked down at. Because it's funny. And it says everything the reviewer wanted to say about the music.
And I'm usually the one to be found arguing for the rights of readers as generators of ad-revenue, but to say that readers' time is important enough to influence what the reviewer writes on a non-paywalled site is a staggeringly entitled view. Good lord. The reviewer seriously owes you nothing, and neither does the site! The time you've spent debating it on here goes far beyond the amount of time you spent reading it.
The underlying problem here is not just that 'good' and 'bad' are useless descriptors of both music and music criticism. (It's part of it though: people like things for different reasons, and makes stuff like metacritic depressingly useless for music.)
It's that 'good' and 'bad' become about taste. There's nothing objective to review in a world where an offbeat rhythym sampled on a hacked gameboy can be seen as a positive thing. I love reviews that are based around personal response, because they're up-front about being just that. They give me an example of what I might feel, not colour my judgement about whether I'll like it or not.
(Incidentally this whole debate is mirroring the New Games Journalism thing in videogames, which followed this pattern on a much shorter timescale)
People can write what they want. My concern here is the usefulness of the review
The Jet review is an interesting one. It gets the writer's opinion across more succintly than anything else on Pitchfork for sure. But, yeah, it does kind of fail in the critical appraisal department. Jet are shit, I get it, but why exactly? Something about culture recycling itself in the basest way possible, I guess. If you want to know what the album sounds like - which isn't an unreasonable expectation when you're reading a music review on a music site - you have to go somewhere else.
I think that's the difference in our opinion. Correct if I'm mischaracterising your view: you're saying the reviewer can say whatever they want to say, however they want to say it - the writer has primacy. There are no rules or expectations, and a totally emotional response can be appropriate. Readers are owed nothing by the writer, and should basically take what they're given.
My view is actually quite similar. People can write what they want, however they want. But there are places for these things. If Michael Billington decided for his next theatre review to file a half-finished emo diary entry, he'd get canned: people expect criticism from him, and an answer to 'is it worth it?'.
I'm saying the reader is an important part of the exchange here. People generally read with the expectation of either getting pleasure, utility or both from what they read. Music reviews should do both, for sure, but the utility of it can't be forgotten. And it doesn't have to come at the expense of being expressive, not at all - like you said, a personal response can be just as illuminating if that's what works.
-
I absolutely stand by the assertion that writers have a responsibility not to waste people's time (in fact, so does everyone in society). Doesn't matter if you paid for it or not; you'd be more annoyed if you paid for it, sure, but being free doesn't mean that being crap is okay. The logical end of this is that it's okay for me to waste your time provided I don't charge you for it.
I'm saying that if you write an actual review - not a blog post or thought piece - you are taking on the (minor) responsibility of providing some utility to your readers. You're asking for their time, and in exchange, you're giving them something useful in there somewhere.
This utility can take the form of personal opinion, emotional response, monkey vids etc, but without that, the review isn't meeting that responsibility. What this utility actually is varies enormously (I've been saying 'what does it sound like and it is good' because that's what I want), and it's subjective - people want different things. But you know when it's absent, because then you have a bad review.
On the internet, readers' time and attention is currency - a site shouldn't waste it, because then people won't come back.
-
You might say that there are no lines between reviews and opinion pieces and
the totally unclassifiable stuff on my blog, man. It's all writing and it's all art and fuckin' passion, man. You can't tell me what to do.
To this I say: shut it.
You know if you're writing for your own benefit, or for the benefit of others, if it's purely for your own enjoyment, or if you're trying to communicate something. Have I said what I want to say, or Will someone else find this useful? Me first, or others?
Formalism aside, the difference is intention. Reviews give primacy to the reader. Don't mistake that for needing to be rigidly formal, or going through a checklist, or trying to answer everything. If Will Self writes a review, he does it knowing that people are expecting his style. But it still has to serve a purpose.
-
As for time wasting - that's what forums are for. Like most users I think, I spend 90% of my DiS time here rather than on the actual site - that's the value that I get. Far more interesting than the actual Beady Eye record, I'll bet. And if you think this was too long and I've wasted your time - hey, it's okay! I haven't charged you for it! :)
It is a slow day at work
I read it all.
I have understood what you've been getting at from your first post. Good writing is the only thing we agree on, and really it's the only one that matters. Writing that elicits an emotional, intellectual response.
I have a bit of an issue with the way you're differentiating "actual review" from "a blog post", as if there's a difference. I'm just being pedantic, might be just semantics. Like you said, you use the word Review when you describe writing that panders to a reader, so I guess you feel blog posts are more self-indulgent. Or you might be confusing Review with Criticism. Or at least, your preference is to read a more critical analysis of an album (or whatever). There's plenty of passion in criticism. Don't mistake my flippant idealism for lacking substance or consideration. I am not suggesting that abstract writing would be worthwhile without a lucid, learned mind behind it. I'm not explaining myself to the full (very busy day in the office)
I don't agree about writing reviews for other people to meet their expectations. Writers who do that are going to get tired, formulaic.....is that why you mentioned Will Self?
and yeah, 100% sure I am enjoying this conversation far more than I would the Beady Eye album.
That second to last
paragraph sums it up: sometimes a piece of writing that is written ostensibly for personal enjoyment is a lovely read for others. In fact, I think the majority of music journalism that I enjoy nowadays has this flavour.
It's not even a matter of principle: it's about better journalism, and a better service to the reader. Seriously!
The breakdown of lines between blog and article/review content isn't a hippy-dippy thing either. Blogs became successful because people enjoyed reading personalised content: a direct reaction to anodyne, box-ticking writing. This is why sites like The Quietus have found success in writing articles that are pretty much styled after blogposts; entirely personal, and couched in individual experience of the writer.
And finally: I am baffled by the stuff in there about timewasting. Absolutely. You have complete freedom of choice in terms of what you read, whether on the internet or elsewhere. Like: text content is something that must be absorbed actively. If a voice chimed up as you turned on your computer and made you listen to the latest review by Dan Lucas, that would be wasting your time. I think, maybe, what you mean is that the article was misadvertised as a review, and you were somehow lured into the promise of an informative review of Beady Eye on the website drownedinsound, which turned out to have no information. I would question whether that promise was based on actual information or your own preconceptions about what a review should be (I also think it clearly laid out that he didn't enjoy the album). It's down to the people running this site however to decide whether they're looking to appeal to those looking for dry information (indeed, why wouldn't you go to metacritic for that?) or people looking for the more personal view of music criticism.
yeah.
the timewasting thing is curiously oblique.
when I write
I know I have readers, but that doesn't mean I am writing to try and accommodate all the things they might want me to consider for them. I couldn't possibly include everything anyone might want, nor would I be interested in doing so.
If I was writing for other people, I wouldn't be doing it.
Bit self-contradictory there
You write for your readers, but you aren't interested in accommodating their needs. Why would you expect their attention then?
Bit of a straw man too: nobody expects a review to address literally every single consideration for every reader. But that doesn't mean you should ignore them all instead. Some things are key to a review: what does it sound like, is it any good.
When you read a review, isn't that what you want to know? And if it doesn't get that across, doesn't it feel like it's missing something - no matter how otherwise well-written it is?
I didn't say I write for my readers
almost the opposite. I write for myself. My reactions to music are entirely my own and the verbal expression of that is what goes on the page, there's no intervening third-party to consider. At no point do I think "Have I said whether this is good or whether someone should buy it". The only consideration is "have I said what I want to say". Sometimes that might include explicit recommendations or evaluations, other times it can just be non-sequitur association. The reader could probably ascribe some value judgement by the tone of the writing if they wanted. Also, by virtue of the fact that I bothered to write something, they could determine that there may be something worthwhile in it for them.
I miss Plan B. The abstracted commentary, the unreadable stream of conscious, the personality, the fuckin' passion, man.
Just because I know people read my writing doesn't mean I take their requirements into account. I think I said that already.
No reviewer has any responsibility to not waste people's time. That's a funny notion you have there.
I don't expect any attention at all. I'm grateful for any I get, of course. Whose ego doesn't like a bit of attention?
I'm writing this in the present tense as if I still write. I haven't written anything for ages.
I'm also writing in the first person, but it needn't be.
I'm not saying there's no place for the kind of reviewing style you are talking about, but you were saying that something can't be considered a review unless...., which I don't agree with at all.
I don’t actually need to be explicitly told in a review what it sounds like or whether it is 'good'. The last album I bought based on recommendation from the NME as to it sounding interesting and good, as per their Review was Shuggie Otis' Inspiration Information, and that album is neither of those things. So what does it matter one person's value opinion? The practical application of it amounted to very little.
There's no rules, regulations or limitations. You can impose them on the world if you like, but it’s only you who’ll be missing out.
this is a lovely post.
pretty sure that review answers all those questions anyway
"The review isn't for us, it's for the writer"
Wonderfully put.
the sausage-lipped troll has a point
bit silly that review
Liam should have come in and done an interview for DiS
that would have scored him a 6 or a 7 out of 10
te DiS facebook reaction differs a bit
I have a message for everyone itt
get of your high horse, get the pretentious dildo out of your middle ass and just enjoy a simple pop rock album
my pretentious dildo is in my left ass buddy
i laughed so hard
Best thing about the comments on this thread.....
is that the majority are disclaimed with "I've never listened to Beady Eye and have no intention to..." One thing as aggravating (perhaps more so) than judging something before you hear it is to render judgment without and having no intention of listening to it. Unfortunately, otherwise fine arenas for music discussion on the Internet like this board are riddled with opinions for the sake of having opinions...not opinions with actual substance behind them.
how do people who get defensive and insecure about online music reviews get by in day to day life
such a mundane thing to get riled up over, you must flip up tables and smash glass when the girl at starbucks gets your order wrong.
I'm flipping tables
at the mention of Starbucks because I'm INDIE
Here's the great irony
Beady Eye may be bad and an easy target but Noel Gallagher's solo album is worse. Some of the blandest, watered down MOR ever made by a member of a once celebrated rock n roll band. At least Beady Eye has some attitude, some energy, has some stylistic differences between the songs and has a so bad it's good vibe. High Flying Birds sliding through as an acclaimed album while Beady Eye serves as the laughing stock proves that no one is really listening to these albums very close.
And thank goodness for that
For well over 15 years both these brothers' music careers have been living on borrowed time, as they took the piss with weaker and shitter music. Album after album of insipid piss. Not to mention creating a sub culture of fucking idiots whilst simultaneously pushing out any real trends or music or creativity that would have come along in their absence.
Fuck them both. They've been dining out on Definitely Maybe for too long.
A 0/10 is never neccessary for any artist
not even if they sound like Mr. Blobby farting his pants and cackling at the mass slaughter of angelic infants by Nazi martians dressed as TOWIE characters. Give it a 4 or something..
And only serves to carry on the Oasis legacy further by making them martyrs to their fans' cause.
but then you're fucking up the rating system even further
in an ideal world a decent, acceptable album should get 5/10. If you give one of those really awful albums a 4 then the whole thing's off - a decent album would become 7/10, a good album would be 9/10 and there'd be no way to truly rate something as spectacular or outstanding
The problem with 0/10
is that it comes off as reactionary and amateur.
Erm, it *is* reactionary and amateur.
With all due respect, Mr Lukowski shouldn't have printed it.
Why should the full 0-10 marking scale
not be available to the reviewer? Why is zero any different to any other mark on the scale?
with all due respect (genuinely, not snippily)
I think that's absurd - the 0-10 scale is simply a single (or double) digit, totally unscientific summary of the writer's sentiments, so given Dan clearly didn't think there was any merit to the album, then why not 0/10?
Ultimately, some dude designed the back of the site to accomodate a 0/10 score, so if anybody has a philosophical problem with it, er, I guess go speak to that dude.
I don't know whether I'm being naive or super chill or an unwitting pawn in Evil Sean Adams' machinations here, but much as I knew it'd get a few comments, I'm baffled by the scale of the reaction to the review, on grounds of a number alone, as far as I can tell.
It inevitably looks petty and childish though.
The thing is that Beady Eye clearly aren't aimed at the DiS target market. I'm sure I'd utterly hate the album if I heard it but I obviously won't. Similarly I'm pretty sure the average Beady Eye fan isn't going to be reading DiS and won't really be affected by the review.
If DiS aspired to review every album released each month then it'd obviously make sense to slag a few things off. Similarly if a band of note making the kind of niche alternative music that DiS covers best released a bad album, DiS reviewers would obviously be completed justified in pointing it out.
But, in this case, it's just a reviewer slagging off an album that isn't really aimed at them. I don't want to slag the reviewer off per se because I don't think it's representative of his general reviews for DiS but I do think, however you dress that up, it comes across as a bit pointless and childish.
Ultimately there are fuckloads of bands releasing albums in any given week. What DiS does best is focuses on and picks out music from bands it really likes that won't have much of a profile. I don't really see the point of reviewing an album that clearly DiS is going to think is shit. Whatever the merits of the album, the score has nothing to do with the album itself and everything to do with the fact that Beady Eye make mass-market lad rock and isn't DiS's thing.
PS That said, I'm as surprised to you that this has created so much as a stir.
But I do think 0/10, 1/10 reviews of albums that the reviewer was never likely to like in the first place only serve to make the reviewer and website look bad.
I dunno
the question of 'relevance' of bands to DiS is always a bit of a weird one for me (I don't think once relevant artists can really be said to step over an invisible threshold that stops them being fair game), but actually the bottom line with this is that I think it was important that the review addressed whether or not Sitek - who clearly is a 'DiS' artist - had made Beady Eye into something better, and Dan does answer that.
I guess the Sitek point is fair enough.
I still think reviews that savage something to this extent tend to end up reflecting far worse on the reviewing site than the artist but I can see the justification.
can sitek make beady eye a relevant buzzband?
here he is
mr. 'i used to write reviews for DiS'
This just means that its EXACTLY as bad as 'ANThology' was great.
Pretty sure that's how this works.
Really liked the review
Cheers.
Chimp pisses into its own mouth.
In this day and age
IN 2013 FFS
Are people still reading reviews, never mind thinking about them, never mind getting all riled up and questioning the integrity of music journalism about them?
pretty much this, really
they're certainly still insecure enough in their tastes to get grumpy when someone is spiteful about something they like
that this one was presented in the form of an album review is kind of a minor detail I think
Still a better review than this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2336374/Review-The-Last-Us-PS3.html
Literally reads like someone heard this game was good so just went FIVE STARS
and called it a day
I have heard from multiple reliable reviewing websites
that the game is absolutely stunning though. Like, best-game-of-the-generation stunning.
But yeah, 2 sentences for a review is a bit lazy. Kind of defeats the purpose of having one in the first place.
The Daily Mail reviewing PS3 games :sigh:
It's like Prussian Blue reviewing a Caribbean carnival
Worst thing about scathing reviews
Is that it gets talked about on the bands' message board and you get tiresome new users signing up to troll the site.
Happened with Babyshambles too and when I gave Garbage 5/10. I welcome new users and chat, but not fanboys picking a fight.
Was that the last Garbage album?
I like Garbage, but the last album WAS a 5/10.
Yeah it was
I like them too but as a record it was all over the shop. The anger seemed to stem from the score not being a 6 or 7.
All the album reviews on this site are SHIT.
JUST YOU WAIT
DiS does reviews?
oh that joke again
... yay
y'know, the Jimmy Eat World review that went up today wasn't half-bad...
I actually felt like I'd been informed by reading it. So, there's that.
Yeah, I had no idea they were still going
Eductional indeed
starting a new thread on this
Every time I come across to the music board and see *DiS thinks it's well hard* it makes me laugh
Thanks, CG
Heard about half this
the worst thing about it is probably the production. dave sitek - most over-rated person in music alongside 'im what records cymbals and nowt else and 'im what used to know curt cobain then made a fanzine.