Should PA include music videos with album reviews?

Vompatti wrote: If a review would benefit from a video, it's probably not very well written.

Now you're catching on, Vamps. Most reviewers don't even try to describe the music that they are reviewing. Perhaps if more people read the albums reviews, they, along with you, would realize that. 

It's already possible to put a video link with a band, why add it to a review? To have every reviewer link the same video of the new single of the band?

SteveG wrote: Angelo wrote: It's already possible to put a video link with a band, why add it to a review? To have every reviewer link the same video of the new single of the band? If album reviews were not so musically vague or absent, I would not have brought this up, Angelo. I'm tired of reading reviews that make no effort to describe the artist's sound musically, and then have to track down what is newly offered by the artist on Youtube or on an artist's website. Why read the review in the first place? I find that I go directly to a source of the artist's sound, and dispense with reading the review altogether. I just eyeball the artist and the album name and move on.

From ELP to Supertramp and then to some overblown Las Vegas ballads. Or is it the casinos in Dortmund, Monaco or Manchester this band is aiming for with this album ? God knows, but not even the worst gamblers should be exposed to this album of Supertramp like ballads and pop. This album is pomp pop with fake tan, fake clothes and fake smiles. Say cheeeeeeeessssssssseeeeeee !!!!!!!!! Cheese, fake cheese made with soya beans and rhubarb enzymes is the a la carte menu here. This is as bad as it gets and I got ten more words to write. So why is it that swans are bigger than ducks ? I don't know. Neither do I know what made the band release this turkey. Birds flies. Turkeys just crashes into hedgerows. 1 star

My favourite line there is "and I got ten more words to write" as the reviewer (and I use that term in the loosest sense) knew we have a minimum word-count here but was struggling to actually meet it... perhaps if he'd actually listen to the album a few more times (if at all) and thought about commenting on the music it would have been a fart sight easier for him to find those missing ten words, but I fail to see how embedding a video would have helped the reader at all here.

Edited by Dean - January 12 2017 at 23:02

Dean wrote: SteveG wrote: Angelo wrote: It's already possible to put a video link with a band, why add it to a review? To have every reviewer link the same video of the new single of the band? If album reviews were not so musically vague or absent, I would not have brought this up, Angelo. I'm tired of reading reviews that make no effort to describe the artist's sound musically, and then have to track down what is newly offered by the artist on Youtube or on an artist's website. Why read the review in the first place? I find that I go directly to a source of the artist's sound, and dispense with reading the review altogether. I just eyeball the artist and the album name and move on.  The problem with the idea is that idiot-people (and let's not deny that such people exist in this world because we've more than enough evidence of rating-abuse to clearly demonstrate that not only do they exist, they also visit this site on a regular basis), reading the review will then write their own often contradictory review based upon one brief listen of the embedded video alone.  While reviewing a bog standard mainstream pop song from one listen of a YouTube video may perfectly acceptable, in Progressive Rock it most certainly is not and should not be condoned under any circumstances.  We endeavour to make this site as idiot-proof as we can, it would therefore be remiss of the PA to actively encourage these stupid idiots. As it is it's hard enough to prove that some of these idiots have actually listen to the album at all without making it even easier for them.  Q: name this album, or band, or both:  From ELP to Supertramp and then to some overblown Las Vegas ballads. Or is it the casinos in Dortmund, Monaco or Manchester this band is aiming for with this album ? God knows, but not even the worst gamblers should be exposed to this album of Supertramp like ballads and pop. This album is pomp pop with fake tan, fake clothes and fake smiles. Say cheeeeeeeessssssssseeeeeee !!!!!!!!! Cheese, fake cheese made with soya beans and rhubarb enzymes is the a la carte menu here. This is as bad as it gets and I got ten more words to write. So why is it that swans are bigger than ducks ? I don't know. Neither do I know what made the band release this turkey. Birds flies. Turkeys just crashes into hedgerows. 1 star My favourite line there is "and I got ten more words to write" as the reviewer (and I use that term in the loosest sense) knew we have a minimum word-count here but was struggling to actually meet it... perhaps if he'd actually listen to the album a few more times (if at all) and thought about commenting on the music it would have been a fart sight easier for him to find those missing ten words, but I fail to see how embedding a video would have helped the reader at all here.

My aim was never to actually put videos into an album review Dean, but to bring awareness to the vague album reviews that run rampant on the home page of this site. They are nothing more than opinions regarding if the reviewer likes or dislikes the music and nothing more. I don't want to tar everyone with the same brush, as PA has some damn good reviewers that can actually explain, in words, what a piece of music sounds like. I don't hold that everyone should be a music expert and stress technical jargon too sophisticated for the layman, but how hard is it to describe a piece of music as symphonic, or pastoral, or folk like as opposed to heavy with thrash riffs?

Edited by SteveG - January 13 2017 at 13:27