Album Reviews: Your Take
 

In interested in doing another discography, but I'm a little disappointed that most reviews, beyond this site as well, are all done in the same manner.

1. Lay out the review
2. Give a little history maybe
3. Concerns about the record
4. Close with something that ties it all in and leaves the reader wanting more.

So when you guys are reading album reviews, are you looking for something a little more engaging than the traditional big media spin-off, or do you want just the facts?

A review is virtually an opinion piece. Easy enough to give that (Positive and negative), plus a little background on what lead to that result for the band, as well as a chance for the reader to form their own opinion (ie youtube that ****).

I don't get how you could make it more engaging really. The techincal side of things can get a bit muddled up, especially if its a long review though.

I don't really think about doing reviews any differently when I try to and, as Zarko says, there aren't really many more things you can put into with them than the four points you've brought up anyway. Originality isn't really part of the picture for me. If something's well-informed enough with a bit of a personal spin on things (ie what the said album means to the reviewer and why, or at least something along those lines), that's all I'll look for in an album review myself.

The reason why reviews are usually set out like that is because that's the format that works for most readers, generally. In my personal opinion I don't think people need to go to a huge effort to make the review some postmodern piece of writing deconstructing all the conventions... I think the way most of the reviews are done are fine.

One thing I'd like to add though is that most people don't have a very big attention span at all and it's sad but true but most shorter pieces of writing get more attention than lengthy ones.

Noted.

Thanks everyone.

When reading a review, I'm not too concerned about the factual density or level of language used, provided it's not overly ostentatious. What matters to me is that the writer has presented their opinion and judgement on various aspects of the album; it's better still if they can draw comparisons across the board and relate it to the bigger picture. That's not to say I wouldn't be impressed to see a review in sonnet form. :D

And yes, short reviews tend to garner more attention (and allow you to be more prolific!). I've learned this the hard way as I feel some of my sprawling King Crimson track-by-tracks suffer from overprolixity, but the first non-track-by-track I wrote was the Bowie - Low review which was published in the campus magazine and very well-received.

I wish I had more time to spend writing reviews (ok that's mostly because I'm lazy). Anyway I look forward to reading some more of your reviews Brennan.

Another really important thing to bear in mind when you're doing reviews is to not get disheartened when you don't get a lot of replies, if any. As long as there's evidence that people have read what you've written, it's job done in my eyes.

Mmm I read many more reviews than my response rate would suggest.

Same here. I really appreciate loads of reviews on here but don't feel adequate enough to respond mostly.

This goes for me as well .. I read a lot more reviews than I respond to!

I too don't feel that album reviews have to be written in unconventional ways for me to think they are interesting to read. What I like in album reviews the most I guess is background, something interesting about the artist and about the album. Opinions on individual songs, although this is something I tend to do in my own reviews, is only interesting to a few so I try to keep that section easily separated from the rest of the text basically so that people can skip it unless particularly interested.