User
Reviews 33 Approval 98%
Soundoffs 41 News Articles 503 Band Edits + Tags 83 Album Edits 104
Album Ratings 843 Objectivity 69%
Last Active 05-19-10 11:56 pm Joined 03-22-09
Review Comments 6,397
| Review Advice
How do you guys go about writing reviews? I want
to write more
reviews, but I can't seem to get myself in a
writing mood unless I
really really love an album, or was really let
down by an album.
Even then, when I actually go to write the review,
I have to listen
to it about 20 times and take detailed notes on
each track as well
as my thoughts on the album as a whole before I
feel comfortable
writing about it, not to mention listening to the
back catalog of the
band to compare it to plus any additional
research. So I guess it
would help me out a bit if I knew how you all go
about writing
reviews, your process, motivation, stuff like
that. List is stuff I've
been wanting to review, I think all of these have
very little
ratings, but they are all great records, check
them out! | 1 | | Apres Vous Old Songs EP
A free album I came across. Sort of mixes indie folk and alt rock with some
Radiohead influence thrown in. | 2 | | Kyte Kyte
Like Sigur Ros, but with English lyrics. | 3 | | Lullabye Arkestra Ampgrave
The drummer from Do Make Say Think and his wife in a drum n bass band. | 4 | | Nordic Nomadic Nordic Nomadic
My favorite recent discovery, and the number 1 thing I want to review.
Absolutely stunning piece of music. Very acoustic driven, with traces of
psych and folk. Close to a 5 for me. | 5 | | Tiger Lou A Partial Print | 6 | | Tin Hat Trio The Rodeo Eroded
Jazzy prog, not their best record, but the first one I heard. | 7 | | UUVVWWZ UUVVWWZ
Some crazy indie. | 8 | | The XX XX
Really good indie rock, heard about this through the last Other Music
newsletter and have been hooked ever since. | 9 | | We Are Knives We Have Become Like Knives
Instrumental insanity. | 10 | | Parhelia First Light EP
Post-metal similar to Pelican. | |
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. |
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