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I think that this is my favorite record. I mention this partially to warn you of any bias you might find in this review, but also to let you know how hard these few paragraphs have been for me to write. When you love something as much as I love Pink Moon, description and judgment skew dangerously close to the nonsense of the drunk and the passionate: “I know I’m not making my case very well, but can’t you just feel it, man?” This ever present fear led me to try a few different prosaic approaches.
At first, I thought to frame the album with the story of its creation and aftermath, but we all know this tale. It’s a story that has become a nearly mythic archetype in the world of independent music: a shy, young folk musician releases two albums that don’t make much of a splash, leading to a depression that, in two midnight (I mean, Jesus, come on) recording sessions, spawns his masterpiece. Of course, the melancholy of this record foreshadows the creator’s eventual death by accidental(?) overdose, ensuring that he misses the great love it would engender in later musicians and fans. No, no, you don’t need to hear this story again.
After this failed tactic, I thought to simply describe the sound of the album. But no adjective I can come up with will capture the breathless and spare beauty of “Horn” or the thrilling entry of the album’s lone piano overdub in “Pink Moon” or the moody perfection of the chord progression in “Place to Be”. These sounds are perhaps not indescribable to everyone, but are too difficult to my meager reviewing mind.
And I’m unsure how to conjure the musician’s voice in your mind. Solid and affirming in “Road” (“You can take the road that takes you to the stars, I can take the road that’ll see me through”), cynical and pleading in “Things Behind the Sun” (“Open up your broken cup, let goodly sin and sunshine in”), and finally hopeful and wonderfully fraternal in “From the Morning” (“So look, see the sights. The endless summer nights! Go and play the games that you learnt from the morning”). He simply covers too much ground for me to describe in any way that feels satisfying. No, this is a “feeling” album if I’ve ever heard one, a record that I think I can only even sort of describe in moments and images. So I’ve arrived at the following short paragraph:
Sometimes I walk home from parties, sort of drunk, with a bubble of elation firm in my stomach. Sometimes I drive around my city with the windows down, listening to my stereo and the humming in my head. Sometimes I have warm, honest conversations with good friends that end in smiles and a sort of happy-sad that is unique and unforgettable. This is a record for those times.
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Album Rating: 3.5
As much as I like this review, it needs pargraphs and it to be less personal to you
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
Paragraphing please and I'd recommend perusing through a couple reviews from the staffers/contribs to get a feel for how to properly format and write reviews...
| | | Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off
Presented with a small disclaimer, in case you couldn't tell by my name.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Doesn't really deserve a neg but paragraphs would be kinda cool
| | | Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off
Paragraphs added.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Ahh much better. Well if it's from a personal review stand point, it's pretty good and passionate, so have a pos
| | | Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off
To clarify my intention: There are 7 other reviews for this album, all of which are pretty heavy on description, so I didn't think it useful or interesting to add another one. I decided to try something a little different and personal for an album I love.
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not a good review try to avoid talking about yourself this much unless you're very very good at it
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I
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Cute username
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album rules yea
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
Bryter Layter.. just as good
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
All his albums are great, just in different ways
Also, I don't like easy speculation like: "...releases two albums that don’t make much of a splash, leading to a depression" nah, plenty of other things going on in his life that could lead to something like that.
Besides, it's kinda derogatory to a man who didn't play live, to assume that he had no idea about its effect on his sales - of course he must have known it would somehow effect the popularity of his music that he couldn't perform on stage.
I hope that paragraph was intented as an example of sensational writing and not your actual opinion of a man's situation, which we don't really know a lot about - that is his charm, that we will never really know how he was like, other than a handsome and mysterious singer with mad guitar skills.
The last paragraph, or your entire actual review, was the best part indeed.
Besides, not doing something while doing it (here is all the things I could have done, but I won't - oh no, that is beneath me!) is actually the oldest trick in the book, but I admire that you didn't write a piece of mythologic garbage entitled: "The man, the myth".
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gentle moon>
| | | Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off
It was just an attempt to summarize the narrative as I've usually heard it characterized. I wasn't trying to be reductive or flippant or dismissive. Apologies if it came off that way. I'm sure that there were many factors leading to the decline of Mr. Drake's mental health, and I don't pretend to know all of them.
Nor was I trying to claim that writing a traditional review was beneath me. I used the sort of meta-writing device (a) in an effort to communicate how ineffable a lot of the appeal of this album is for me, how it hits my emotions really hard and leaves me unable to analyze it, (b) because I've seen the device used well in the past by writers that I really like and I thought it would be fun to try, and (c) because there are 7 other (mostly very good!) reviews for Pink Moon, and I didn't that adding another one that was description heavy would be interesting or useful for anyone to read. Clearly it was less than successful and I'm sort of bummed that the consensus is that it comes off as insincere or obvious.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. I plan on writing a review of Bryter Layter in the next couple of days that will be more traditional and less personal.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off
Also, NorthernSkylark, that's a really good point about his charm being so tied to the mystery surrounding him. If he had done Top of the Pops or something and really tried to promote his records in common industry fashion, I wonder how we would regard him. Perhaps as less genuine or sincere? I don't know.
Like, what if some video footage of him somehow surfaced? Would you watch it? Because I'm not sure that I would.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
Personality is a quality, private ruminations on the other hand, they are all yours (to have) - that's the best advice I can give after reading countless of such reviews here, that made me feel like reading a diary instead of a review.
I wasn't lashing out at you, and the "beneath me" part was attempt at high-brow humour I guess, not something I hold against you as such.
Next time write more in a way that feels natural to you and less on how you don't wanna do it, because it's already been done. If you do it well, people won't care if it's been done before. I'm sure you will be a great reviewer in time.
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