Reviews discussion

Oh well, some day I may have the time to write somewhat longer reviews in here as well; where I can go more in depth. Case is though, that my reviewing time is towards other sites which supply me with plenty of music; and they all kind of want the long versions for themselves. Hence summaries from me posted here; which is kinda bad as I -often- have the first review of an album.

Sometimes I do manage to be a bit more than extremely brief though, like here: http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=181841

But still, if possible I'd think most of you would have liked this one instead...: http://usaprogmusic.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_simple_review&Itemid=28&review=192-Suspyre-When-Time-Fades

Anyhow, if there is to be an even longer minimum words attached to review rule; a consequence will be that we'll get fewer people coming in here to review. Higher quality probably, but not as many I'd think.

When it comes to description of an album, I used to follow this setup rather closely (and still is a guideline for me):
1. Introduction to the artist
2. Influences on this particular album
3. Analysis - how does it sound and why
4. Conclusion - who would want to buy / listen to this release in my opinion

I used to say a bit about justification of a rating as well, but doesn't do that as often these days. There's a limit to so many phrases to use to describe an album as very good, mixed, average and below average according to one's personal taste ;-)

Same goes for favorite tunes really.

zafreth wrote: I read many reviews and info regarding the album, before doing mine, i see that the job of do reviews  of an album  is like write a book, you do some search and research and use the info that have like a bibliography.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: NotAProghead wrote: ..., in case of popular albums, rated hundreds of times, writing long reviews is madness!    Why? Your review can be the definitive one

@Windhawk: I don't think we'll change the minimum number of words required for a review. I think the discussion was more about people setting that lower limit of 150 for themselves, in order to write something proper.

@NotAProgHead: We have members following certain reviewers - it would be a shame if one of those would not write a review for an album because others had already done that. Their followers would not get their regular portion of information. It may not be your way, but we have quite a few members who work that way. Oh, and stop hijacking Peter's color schemes

NotAProghead wrote: zafreth, it seems we'll never make "lazy readers-active writers"  to change, even a little, their mind.  They tell they dob't want to be influenced, but I guess in fact they are only lazy to read.

hahaha i agree with you

Angelo wrote: @NotAProgHead: We have members following certain reviewers - it would be a shame if one of those would not write a review for an album because others had already done that. Their followers would not get their regular portion of information. It may not be your way, but we have quite a few members who work that way. Oh, and stop hijacking Peter's color schemes

Edited by NotAProghead - October 19 2008 at 16:25

I don't think that all reviews should follow rules and formula, part of the magic of PA reviews is that many of them are unprofessional and unstructured, that they have no point or objective other than expressing the joy or disappointment of hearing an album.

Dean wrote: I don't think that all reviews should follow rules and formula, part of the magic of PA reviews is that many of them are unprofessional and unstructured, that they have no point or objective other than expressing the joy or disappointment of hearing an album.   The most important thing about writing a review is reading it to yourself before hitting the send-button.

There's no definitive rules for anything in art, I only mentioned what I look in a review when I want to buy an album.

Short reviews can be very nice here and there, and personal touch and diversity are just good. You can think the short "reviews" as a part of the whole review that all reviews makes together. The amount of them can be a problem. But if they are invisible unless clicking that "show all reviews" or for example "show all reviews over 150 words" button, what's the problem? And I say recklessly that even 30 words can be considered, for example. There are some people who are not encouraged to write longer and "better" reviews in that case, but so what?

And for example now there stands "showing only reviews with more than 200 characters" in "Show all xxx reviews (and ratings)" But it's a mistake, too (there's also other mistakes, maybe I just go to the bugs forum :D)