Good morning and thank you for um…setting aside your schedule of busy Sputnikmusic comment posting (we all know you’re just wasting time on your loo break) and left click debauchery to get to the nitty gritty of “how to review music”, hacks, roms and workarounds. In this segment we’ll be cross checking different staffers’ approaches to putting words together. Maybe you’re a budding reviewer, on the cusp of greatness, searching for that piece of the puzzle lost on the floor or maybe your mum just logged you on to the household’s singular trusty laptop and you don’t know what to do with your fifteen minute screen allowance before the older sibling demands the computer for…research? In short, thank you for coming to the right place!

Today (or sometime this week more likely) Ben stumbled into the wrong room. The door locked behind him (oh no!) and now he’s stuck to a chair until a rescuer appears at an undisclosed time. You guys can tell creative writing isn’t a strength of mine right? Um…

First off. Who are you and how did you get here? Are you asleep?

Zzz.

In your own words, how does one review a piece of music?

Tl;dr: No idea lol.

Engaging brain … erm … ig there are two uncircumventable goals: (a) engage reader and (b) express self.

Importantly, (a) > (b): the audience must, necessarily, come first. Everything else is secondary. If, as a result of your words, you have convinced someone to listen to something that they wouldn’t have otherwise heard, then you have won.

Around 6 months ago, I would have had an entirely different (more boring) answer e.g. have clear thesis, do the good words, have the grammar, provide the sentences etc. Lately, though, I’ve come around to the idea that “the rules” are mere guidelines (aka bullshit) and so long as you seek to achieve the two golden goals above, with earnestness, then it’s a job well done. Other misc. advice: follow any/all guttural creative instincts, be open to that juicy cc, listen to more music + keep writing (trial and error is invaluable).

Do you have a style? Explain it in words easy enough for a simpleton to follow please.

I go into this in a lot (too much) detail in the Staff Wars that Johnny may or may not have published at the time you are reading this (pls read that too in order to stroke my flaccid ego).

If, however, he has been a tardy boi, I’d say: sporadically punctuated short-form word-salad w/ colourful imagery-focused descriptors and a light-touch approach to context. More often than not, I worry I flip the (a) > (b) priority in favour of deliberately indecipherable pieces because that’s how I naturally produce words but idk you be the judge.

Is a dictionary helpful to budding writers or should a thesaurus take priority?

Both should be set on fire immediately in favour of making up words that you wish existed.

Other synonyms for the word “album” please.

Eek(!): LP, release, outing, effort, record, 12-track, shitshow, etc.

How relevant is a music reviewer these days, before and after release day?

Good question!! I do worry that the written format has been beaten to death by the artist formally known as MELON (transition). Regardless, I still think the music-reviewer-do-the-writing thing has an essential role in getting the next best thing on as many radars as possible – see the recent success of SOUL GLO and Chat Pile who I bet my bottom dollar were, at the very least, helped up the ladder by nerdy music-zines and the things that they publish. In terms of post-release, I think we can provide a much-needed archival function; the written review format is unchanging and endlessly referenceable which, when so much music is being released so quickly, can collectively provide a vital data pool / navigation tool / cultural spirit level and is therefore (imho) a net good.

Define word salad? How many ingredients make for a good review?

Word salad is a pejorative term that I am trying to repurpose as my core identity.

To your second question: you need salt (angst), sugar (nice words), spice (a hot take) and celery (celery).

Is there a style here that you think reviewers on this site (and elsewhere) should emulate more? 

Again, see Staff Wars, but in short:

• I’d love to be able to confidently and succinctly place an album within its context (be it temporal/cultural or re influences, genre, style etc), and think others should aspire to the same, particularly in aid of the archival role mentioned above. You excel at this, as does Papa Dewi and le Jonathan and TheMarsBro and many others – you should therefore all be cloned/emulated/worshiped etc.

• Sowing and Chan and Row also have this delicious personability that I wish we could bottle and sell. I immediately buy into everything they write and immediately want to listen to whatever they’re writing on and, tbh, I’ve had the damndest time trying to figure out precisely, mechanically, why. There’s a confidence and a friendliness and a graspable personality within their pieces that is admirable and should be aspired to.

What about track-by-track specific reviews?

A hideous relic of a best forgotten era that I nonetheless think contains some babies and bathwater worth sifting through.

What would you like to see in reviewers here and elsewhere in the next five years? More Sabbath references? Comparisons to Taylor Swift on every feature?

More and more writing on more and more obscure releases; well, not necessarily obscure, but I’d love more light to be shed on less appreciated genres for Sput (electronic, jazz, salsa, and no doubt more that I don’t even know the names of).

Your favourite review found in the dusty catacombs of Sputnikmusic’s dusty servers?

Hold onto your seats, boys: https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/40747/City-of-Caterpillar-City-of-Caterpillar/

And separately, the review that first inspired you to write for Sputnik, become a contributor and eventually become Staff?

Athom’s review of Home, Like NoPlace Is There (the feels!!!) and literally every staff/emeritus write up on The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me (also the feels)

I want you to abuse a thesaurus for me. Words are hawt! How would you do it?

I have already burnt my thesaurus to a crisp so am unable to abuse it further (apologies).

See also Ablaze, On Fire, Ignited, Up In Smoke, Smolder, Cinder, Ash, Dust, Gone, Poof.

Parting words for new faces, scribes or people who only type using their respective pointer fingers?

Bye.

Words for everyone else?

Also Bye.

Neato!

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