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Valdez View Drop Down
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Originally posted by lazland lazland wrote:

When I set up my website, I made a conscious decision not to have ratings and edit all my PA reviews to remove any reference to stars. They really do get in the way of a rational discussion of an album's worth.


That makes a lot of sense. What is the music about? Is it well produced? How did it make the listener feel? 
 Was it entertaining?  Is there talent here?   Is it dark, uplifting, moody, raucous?  Did I like it?   How much did I like it?  There are many questions a reviewer can answer in a few paragraphs without a rating.


Edited by Valdez - 2 hours 34 minutes ago at 14:05
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Atavachron View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

One thing I feel is that an album needs time, space and proper place to properly digest often.

There's also one's listening experience and age.   Music can get better or worse as both it, and the listener, get older.
"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."   -- John F. Kennedy
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Originally posted by Valdez Valdez wrote:

Originally posted by lazland lazland wrote:

When I set up my website, I made a conscious decision not to have ratings and edit all my PA reviews to remove any reference to stars. They really do get in the way of a rational discussion of an album's worth.


That makes a lot of sense. What is the music about? Is it well produced? How did it make the listener feel? 
 Was it entertaining?  Is there talent here?   Is it dark, uplifting, moody, raucous?  Did I like it?   How much did I like it?  There are many questions a reviewer can answer in a few paragraphs without a rating.


Unfortunately for me, I have to rate it.  This five-star system is especially grating due my 0-100 system.  But you're certainly right about the questions.  I ask myself four every time I check out a new album, movie, book, etc.

1. What's the goal of this creation?

2. Does it meet its goal?

3. Did the creator sacrifice or neglect anything important to meet its goal?

4. Were the sacrifices made up for by other aspects of the creation?

This has been stellar for helping me right the most in-depth reviews.  I've got a Sixth Sense one around Movieforums somewhere...
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Valdez View Drop Down
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I think the Number one GOAL of most music is to be entertaining , Right?

What other goals would a band work to achieve ?   Storytelling? Virtuosity?

Any others?

If the goal is to make a tense, unsettling, hard hitting album, and the reviewer prefers a gentle flower of symphonic woo. Then it’s a fail in most cases.

If the listener hates woo and likes it tense and unsettling then often it’s a win.

There are many who enjoy both styles of music. I like to think that I am capable of this, especially since I’m older and have heard it all. And enjoyed it all, depending on whether or not it Entertained me. And Logan’s point about a full album needing time to digest is exactly right, although I admit I’ve rated albums after a first listen… probably not wise.Goal

Edited by Valdez - 46 minutes ago at 15:53
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moshkito View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Atavachron Atavachron wrote:

Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

One thing I feel is that an album needs time, space and proper place to properly digest often.

There's also one's listening experience and age.   Music can get better or worse as both it, and the listener, get older.


Hi,

In my book, this is not an issue. In all my years, and up to 3K LP's I never had anything in my collection that required another listen, although I have to admit that now and then ... I could not remember what that one was, and had to go back and listen to it, but it re-kindled my feelings on the album and why I had it in the first place.

It has to do with HOW you listen. If you sit and listen to it, intently and completely, you might not need another listen, because you gave that album a solid attention and listen. But, the issue, here, is something that comes from "commercial radio" where the repetition is what reminds us that something is good, and weather it is or not, is another story.

I really think, that these days, folks don't listen as much as they could, or should, and I believe that a lot of the comments are so generalized as to give me an idea that the album was not heard all the way through ... and it's as if the comments are strictly about the one or two songs folks seem to like, and the rest of the work is ignored. In the toob, for example, everyone can hunt and peck, and not listen to the whole thing and then make comments on the work as if they knew it ... and many times, I find that those comments are not exactly on par with the rest of the work, and to me, that is not a listen ... that is hunt and peck!

At the very least, no one can accuse me of not giving an album, or band, a fair shot ... and if I have not heard them properly, I rarely comment ... for example, GENESIS after PG left ... ToTT is fine, and WAW is fine, but it all died for me, right after it, and I stopped listening, or wanting to say anything about any of the albums. But I stuck with GG to the end, for example, even though I have not reviewed any of the albums ... not that I don't like them, but in my mind there is so much going on that it is difficult to come up with the right words about it. The same with Magma ... which in my experience is more about its live shows than it is about an album ... the experience is fantastic, and no album of theirs comes close.
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Originally posted by Valdez Valdez wrote:

I think the Number one goal of most music is to be entertaining , Right?

What other goals would a band work to achieve ?   Storytelling? Virtuosity?

Any others?




It requires some research.  For example, IQ's Subterranea is supposed to be an intriguing adventure of an experiment who's let loose and tries to get revenge on his captors while being a more ambitious album with more playing with genre an an extended runtime and more melodic focus, while fleshing out the band's sound.  There are several goals here.

Does it meet its goal?  Fairly.  The story's pretty predictable and a little tropy when you take Mindcrime into account, and the genres are recycled.  The sound is easily fleshed out, though.

What did it sacrifice or neglect?  Really, it's the runtime that's the biggest issue.  The 20-minute epic that ends this album pales in comparison to the one that starts their debut.

Are the major flaws made up for?  The melodies stay fine, the lyrics are pretty poetic and the sound is fleshed out perfectly.  So about an 85/100.


Edited by Rexorcist - 25 minutes ago at 16:14
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Originally posted by Rexorcist Rexorcist wrote:

...
1. What's the goal of this creation?
...
Hi,

You're going to get in trouble in film, some ... because there is a lot of work that does not exactly have a goal, and that was the intent of the director. And some film makers, intentionally, play with your perception of things left and right ... you'll likely hate Godard forever, is my guess, because he is the ultimate bad boy with a camera in his hands, just as Fellini also was for a long time, after he became "famous" ... try the opening of INTERVISTA if you have courage ... that boy is Fellini, plain and simple! The only goal was that the kid needed to take a pee! Wow ... such great news!!!! 

Originally posted by Rexorcist Rexorcist wrote:

...
2. Does it meet its goal?

3. Did the creator sacrifice or neglect anything important to meet its goal?

4. Were the sacrifices made up for by other aspects of the creation?
...


There is an expectation here, that will only allow reviews of the commercially viable films that all do this to ensure that you "know" the story. The art stuff out of Europe is very different and the reason why so many don't discuss it, here, or anywhere ... a lot of these things are difficult to interpret as they might be considered closer to the LITERATURE of the times, than otherwise. This is not the case in the majority of Hollywood film, although trying this whole thing in a Robert Altman thing, will drive you nuts ... read Altman on Altman ... and you will know why ... even the actors didn't know why, and often something else was filmed and the "rehearsal" was more of a joke for the actors than a reality that was used! 

And many folks get confused, when the film is not clear in its ... anything.

For me, and I'm very well versed in the theater and film experiments, since WW2, and how it changed the acting and directing, this has been a far out journey that often ... has no words for it. You can't say that Marat/Sade (Peter Brook) is bad ... and even the filming of the play is crazy ... you really want to be in that audience!!! You can't say that Beetlejuice doing a Monty Python is a Shakespeare play is bad ... it was not only hilarious, it was perfect, but is an interpretation that is far out. Likewise, seeing Richard III on a Jeep saying a kingdom for a horse ... is likely to throw your smithereens to a pulp ... or worse ... try Prospero's Books, and figure out anything in there ... it's not gonna happen, but you will remember a lot of really well spoken words by Sir John Gielgud.

I have never, over 600+ reviews of film on my website, even thought of an idea of what it is, or should be ... it takes away the freedom of the art form ... PERIOD.

(And unfortunately, this is something that PA has a serious issue with ... and tend to dislike albums that the majority of folks dislike, more as a socialistic concept, than a personal point of view.)


Edited by moshkito - 42 minutes ago at 15:57
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Have to agree with Mosh, in that much art (music) has no other goal than to simply be entertaining. A concept or storyline of course has another goal to be met in the storytelling realm. Much music is simply music, nothing more. A lot of it reaches us, a lot of it doesn’t.

Edited by Valdez - 39 minutes ago at 16:00
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I did a song called “The Princess of Tisul”,   had I named it “Jazzy Jam” nobody on earth would have known what I was intending.   The title of the song is its only descriptor.   (It’s an instrumental) Hence suggesting, then cementing, the story in the listeners mind through the music. That was an intentional goal. Telling a vague story with few words is hard to do. I often think of the instrumental for Midnight Cowboy and how the music works the title so perfectly. But what if it had a name like “Tuesdays boner”… I would bet that there would be listeners who would hear that song and say to themselves “Ya know, that’s just what my boner on a Tuesday is like”.   Great song!

Edited by Valdez - 2 minutes ago at 16:37
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Originally posted by Valdez Valdez wrote:

Have to agree with Mosh, in that much art (music) has no other goal than to simply be entertaining. A concept or storyline of course has another goal to be met in the storytelling realm. Much music is simply music, nothing more. A lot of it reaches us, a lot of it doesn’t.

Hi,

The idea, or thought, that it "must reach us" is insane. The whole of the 20th century in the arts has had an incredible change, and it reached us, where before it was impossible .. there were no records, and no radio and it was only a musical score that got around, and there weren't many of them. And when the "new music" showed up, a lot of folks were simply ... wow ... what was that ... or as the fat ladies coming out of the Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar concert I saw in Chicago way back when ... you know what they said from their smelly confines? 

"How can all that improvisation be called music?"

Please don't do the same thing to film, or theater ... it's freedom is the most valuable experience in all the arts for the 20th century ... and we need to fly with that thought better ... the idea that so much these days has to have this and that is what is preventing new arts, in this case music, from coming alive ... we are wanting a commercial product ... another soap with a different smell, let's say ... instead of something that is more adventurous, experimental and far out. You'll never enjoy Midsummer Night's Dream in a child playground ... and its imagery was never lost for a single second. You probably never heard the famous all american scream at the biggest and best school of acting America ever had ... all of those folks became huge names in film and theater for a long time! Let's see if you know who that was! ... AND let me tell you that folks in England and France also heard it and immediately put it to use ... !!!


Edited by moshkito - 19 minutes ago at 16:20
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by Rexorcist Rexorcist wrote:

...
1. What's the goal of this creation?
...
Hi,

You're going to get in trouble in film, some ... because there is a lot of work that does not exactly have a goal, and that was the intent of the director. And some film makers, intentionally, play with your perception of things left and right ... you'll likely hate Godard forever, is my guess, because he is the ultimate bad boy with a camera in his hands, just as Fellini also was for a long time, after he became "famous" ... try the opening of INTERVISTA if you have courage ... that boy is Fellini, plain and simple! The only goal was that the kid needed to take a pee! Wow ... such great news!!!! 

Originally posted by Rexorcist Rexorcist wrote:

...
2. Does it meet its goal?

3. Did the creator sacrifice or neglect anything important to meet its goal?

4. Were the sacrifices made up for by other aspects of the creation?
...


There is an expectation here, that will only allow reviews of the commercially viable films that all do this to ensure that you "know" the story. The art stuff out of Europe is very different and the reason why so many don't discuss it, here, or anywhere ... a lot of these things are difficult to interpret as they might be considered closer to the LITERATURE of the times, than otherwise. This is not the case in the majority of Hollywood film, although trying this whole thing in a Robert Altman thing, will drive you nuts ... read Altman on Altman ... and you will know why ... even the actors didn't know why, and often something else was filmed and the "rehearsal" was more of a joke for the actors than a reality that was used! 

And many folks get confused, when the film is not clear in its ... anything.

For me, and I'm very well versed in the theater and film experiments, since WW2, and how it changed the acting and directing, this has been a far out journey that often ... has no words for it. You can't say that Marat/Sade (Peter Brook) is bad ... and even the filming of the play is crazy ... you really want to be in that audience!!! You can't say that Beetlejuice doing a Monty Python is a Shakespeare play is bad ... it was not only hilarious, it was perfect, but is an interpretation that is far out. Likewise, seeing Richard III on a Jeep saying a kingdom for a horse ... is likely to throw your smithereens to a pulp ... or worse ... try Prospero's Books, and figure out anything in there ... it's not gonna happen, but you will remember a lot of really well spoken words by Sir John Gielgud.

I have never, over 600+ reviews of film on my website, even thought of an idea of what it is, or should be ... it takes away the freedom of the art form ... PERIOD.

(And unfortunately, this is something that PA has a serious issue with ... and tend to dislike albums that the majority of folks dislike, more as a socialistic concept, than a personal point of view.)


1. That's just it.  Sometimes, the goal is simply to be a fun action movie or a cashgrab, but that can come in many forms: palatable sequel to a blockbuster, new thematic horror franchise, proper onscreen adaptation of a book, etc.  And if not, you can still skip ahead to question three in this instance and worry about the sacrifices.
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Mosh I didn’t say music (or film in your case) HAD TO reach us. I simply said it does or it doesn’t. That’s up to the listener. My point being that reviews and ratings will reflect that. Music is a free spirit that goes where it’s wanted and appreciated. If it’s not wanted we don’t play it again. The longevity of the 70s prog bands songs, proves permanence for that music.
https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/album/sleepers-2024
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