Reviews: Song-by-song or Not?

I prefer general ones, although if they describe a song or two as an example of the rest of the album or as sticking out from the rest that's fine too.

I think that if you're reviewing an album, you should review an album. Not one song after another.

I usually skip the track by track section when I'm reading a review, unless it's exceptionally well written. If I've never heard an album before, I honestly don't care what every song is about. I just want to know what the general feel of the album is like.

I used to write track-by-track reviews, but I stopped after a while. As I would revise my reviews, I would usually skip my own track-by-track section because I got bored. That's when I realized that it was time to stop!

Of course, it does have its benefits as well. I love hearing some other people's takes on some of my favorites, but I generally don't care much for this style of reviewing. I like it when a few highlights or drawbacks are mentioned, but discussing every song can sometimes get repetitive. In a (very) few cases, I enjoy reading the track-by-track section (Robert comes to mind), but usually I skip that part.

Just my thoughts...

-Jeff

I really like track-by-track reviews, when they go into detail about what makes the music so great.  TGM: Orb's reviews are fantastic.

It really depends. I think some albums really need a track by track synopsis while for others such a style would be ridiculous. Imagine reviewing Dark Side of The Moon one track at a time. There are ple ty of highly regarded prog albums thta would benefit from an individual track analysis, however. For example, I think Selling England By The Pound lends itself to this sort of review due to the very different style of some of the songs. Danicng With The MOonlit Knight is not the same as I Know What I Like and the review should reflect this.

Both types of reviews can be good, it depends on the writer. I enjoy reading general overviews and track by track ones, both of them bring very interesting points of view.

Whatever style suits the author best - some people's track by track reviews read like the phone-book while others relate each track to each other and to the album as a whole - since artists and producers put a lot of care into track order for a reason, some review can reflect that care and attention to detail without becoming a shopping-list or sounding like the announcer at Waterloo Station, while others can give a general overview of an album that's like painting a picture in words allowing you to get a feel from the review that would be lost in a track-by-track analysis. Of course, whether you know the album and each track or have never heard it makes a difference.

Edited by Dean - May 13 2010 at 02:49

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" - Frank Zappa

And yeah, a pirouette for every single minarette can get tedious after a while.

Other:
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Edited by Slartibartfast - May 15 2010 at 08:29

I do a mixture of both. It depends on what type of mood I'm in, how much time I have and what the album means to me. Sometimes I take the time to do song-by-song, other times, I don't.