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How in the fuck do you write album reviews?

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Right, so I'm stuck again. I'm trying to review Bearsuit's album. I love it.

And I'm frigging stuck. I've just written a paragraph and a bit about Rodent Disco and deleted it in order to start all over again. And I'm stuck. Nothing is coming out. I haven't actually reviewed an album in... well, certainly not since the end of last year. And I would very much like to. I have lots of albums I want to write wonderful words about to make people go 'Ooh, that's quite interesting, that is' or possibly something more enthusiastic. And I can't. It's...

What exactly am I doing wrong here? I don't want to just list the noises, cos that's what I always do and it reads like wank. It's... dear god, but this is fucking frustrating.

― William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Friday, 30 April 2004 18:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I hate writing record reviews. I almost always beat my head against the wall for about 4 hours for each review, and then write something I wouldn't want my name under, but I have to freakin' meet the deadline, and cripes. It drives me crazy. When I started, 7 yrs ago, I could write 20 review a day and then come back for more.

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Friday, 30 April 2004 18:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Just make a bunch of references to German philosophy. The kids'll love it.

― dieblucasdie (dieblucasdie), Friday, 30 April 2004 20:20 (twenty-two years ago)

In all seriousness though, I always appreciate it when a writer does actually talk about the record rather than just trying to be snappy. Just describe what you're hearing and your passion for the record will hopefully come through.

Violated this rule many times myself, though.

― dieblucasdie (dieblucasdie), Friday, 30 April 2004 20:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I fucking hate it, writing record reviews. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Friday, 30 April 2004 21:25 (twenty-two years ago)

As Billy Joe Armstrong once wisely said, "You can't go pushing something if it just ain't right".

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 30 April 2004 21:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Like this crayon here.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 30 April 2004 21:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I dig it unless the amount of text requires exceeds what I have to say

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 30 April 2004 21:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I think that my radio career has killed my drive to write reviews as well. Cuz now I'm just like, "fuck, if you wanna know what it sounds like, here, listen to it, make up your own damn mind!"

― Huck, Friday, 30 April 2004 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

typo in my post. It should read the amount of text required. I definitely prefer saying less than I could about something than more.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 30 April 2004 21:51 (twenty-two years ago)

consult bangs how to be a rock critic. some nice formulas in there.

― ken taylrr (ken taylrr), Friday, 30 April 2004 21:53 (twenty-two years ago)

A number of injudicious dunderheads have shown a concuspiscence for impishness in my email in-box after perusing my reviews.

Many of them have discarded my texts as sesquipedalian grandliloquence, but I find that all to be a complete load of flapdoodle

― Vaudeville Steve, Friday, 30 April 2004 22:34 (twenty-two years ago)

If the deadline is far away enough, walk around with it on headphones lots until your head is bursting with words to say about it.

That there Rerdbrerk didn't give me the album I wanted, so I think my reviewing days are over.

― ferg (Ferg), Friday, 30 April 2004 22:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I think that dieblucasdie's statement is closest to my personal approach. Write about the album in the way that you'd talk about it -- if it blows you away and you'd like to turn the world on to it, the review will come easily. If it's an absolute stinker, that will come easily as well -- savaging bad art is practically a parlor game among the critics that I know. If a salient review really calls for a lot of contextualizing/sociopolitical observation/qualifying viz. the artist's previous predilections, so be it, but honestly consult your senses and you'll know whether or not this is the case (some of the plethora of reviews for "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", ""Kid A", and "Speakerboxx/The Love Below" which approached Times Literary Supplement-length might have been avoided if some had adhered to this dictum).

I'm also a grad student and teacher, and your question reminds me a bit of the tactic for checking whether or not you really understand something that you've read; namely, to try explaining it to your parents. The strengths and weaknesses of how you're attempting to convey your thoughts on the subject to others will become readily apparent.

― Nom De Plume (Nom De Plume), Friday, 30 April 2004 23:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Just crank them out like this! :)
sometime i read christgau and am amazed...

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Saturday, 1 May 2004 02:40 (twenty-two years ago)

From a practical point of view, I often write down (in a notebook or Word file or whatever) lots of random sentences about whatever record it is I'm planning on reviewing, either while listening to it or else just as they occur to me. I them write up the header for the review (Artists, Title, Label, Year, Rating, Blahblah), and hit return a load of times so there's lots of space after the header - then I write out or cut&paste all the sentences at the bottom of the page, with linebreaks between them. Then I start writing, and start to drag the sentences into the review and work around them till they fit. I probably do that about 50% of the time.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Saturday, 1 May 2004 07:14 (twenty-two years ago)

SN/NS OTM.

― mei (mei), Saturday, 1 May 2004 07:47 (twenty-two years ago)

The other 50% of the time I get hideously pissed, sit down in front of the PC with (or without) the record in question, and see what happens.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Saturday, 1 May 2004 07:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Just make a bunch of references to German philosophy. The kids'll love it.

OMG I just did this in a country music review.

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Saturday, 1 May 2004 11:48 (twenty-two years ago)

A text-book example...learn from the masters:

"Lou Reed’s Berlin is a disaster, taking the listener into a distorted and degenerate demimonde of paranoia, schizophrenia, degradation, pill-induced violence and suicide. There are certain records that are so offensive that one wishes to take some kind of physical vengeance on the artists who perpetrate them. Reed’s only excuse for this kind of performance (which isn’t really performed as much as spoken and shouted over Bob Ezrin’s limp production) can only be that this was his last shot at a once promising career. Goodbye, Lou."

Stephen Davis, Rolling Stone, December 1973

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Sunday, 2 May 2004 07:37 (twenty-two years ago)

So *that's* why Bette's never covered Lou.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Sunday, 2 May 2004 08:01 (twenty-two years ago)


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