Prophet178: Review Advice

SeaAnemone 09.01.09	i'm reveiwing 9, sorry i'm probably not the best advice giver
SeaAnemone 09.01.09	and by 9 i mean 8
DaveyBoy 09.01.09	I hate to disappoint, but pretty much everything you said Alex is how I go about reviewing also. Maybe not listening to the album 20 times always, but not far from it. The only thing I should add to maybe try & help is to try and work out how you're going to start your review as soon as practically possible. Once you nail that introductory paragraph, you may find the rest comes a lot easier.
SeaAnemone 09.01.09	i don't really have a method... but i MUST be listening to the album while i review. anything else is distracting.
Prophet178 09.01.09	But I added 8 to the database! Haha its cool, you can have it. Thanks Davy, I've found that out too. Sometimes ideas for a intro come to my head and all the ideas just click together. Other times its tough for me to even get that far.
Douchebag 09.01.09	Yeah, agreed. Think about the intro during the day or at work or something when your bored. Then I usually listen to the album while i'm typing and then it just kinda comes.
Athom 09.01.09	I just listen to the album a couple times the day I write the review, look up some basic info on the band/recording on their myspace, wikipedia and other sites to see if they had guests, who they recorded with etc etc and then give it a go. Sometimes I make a brief outline of the things I want to cover in the review, but most of the time I wing it and then go through a series of edits.
MassiveAttack 09.01.09	I do exactly what Red does. I listen to the album 2-4 times on the day I'm reviewing it and research some key details on the album, their past history (if I'm unfamiliar), and give it a quote. I usually run through my review about 3-4 times to check for any errors, grammer or sentence structure wise.
Kiran 09.01.09	oh a new tiger lou album, hadn't heard about that. I reviewed there old one but I think it got deleted when the server crashed, ages ago.
Xenorazr 09.01.09	It's tough to really suggest how to go about reviewing but DaveyBoy is right, once you get your introductory paragraph the rest of the review should come pretty easily and (hopefully) flow well. Really it's choosing how you start a piece of writing that becomes the toughest part, oftentimes I find myself staring at a blank screen for several minutes before managing to start it off in a way I feel its satisfying. And of course it depends on how well you know what you're reviewing. This is part of the reason I haven't written more reviews yet, many of the albums I'm currently rating I haven't listened to (and I've been too lazy to go through my library till now). I wouldn't say I'd have to have listened to an album 20 times to review it, most of the time after 2-5 listenings I can get a grasp on my concrete thoughts.
MassiveAttack 09.01.09	I meant "go" not "quote"...lol tired.
Prophet178 09.01.09	Cool, thanks for the great advice guys. I'll probably take a stab at the Nordic Nomadic record soon, it's some seriously great stuff.
Kiran 09.01.09	re-discovered tiger lou's debut thanks to this list, you should get it, it's so fucking good. review it too.
Kiran 09.01.09	er, not debut, second album, "The Loyal".
Knott- 09.01.09	I just listen to the album a couple times the day I write the review, look up some basic info on the band/recording on their myspace, wikipedia and other sites to see if they had guests, who they recorded with etc etc and then give it a go. mmm pretty much this, jot a few things down about individual songs/impressions, try to tie them together in some cohesive way and link them to my feelings about the record. sometimes i write a full review in 20 minutes though if i know the album well enough.