Review Etiquette and Rationale

adg211288 wrote: I'm going to be honest but I find most very short reviews, as in single paragraph ones, next to useless, especially the ones printed in the UK's Metal Hammer magazine.

I rarely read that mag, and when I do, I never read the reviews, but I have read my share of similar reviews in other mags (and here I have to be honest, I think that most main stream print metal mags are next to useless). I think that the type of very short review that you refer to is often next to useless - so we agree there. There can be good reviews of that type nonetheless, but the writer will really have to know the art of information packaging and information compression. And, I think that we do have some reviewers her on MMA who are very good at that.

I find it surprising that the Metal Hammer reviews are as bad as you say they are, because the Metal Hammer writers have worked within that format for ages (and they kind of have an excuse for writing those short reviews, since their mag is a physical one with word limits and layout conventions etc.), so one should expect that they have developed some strategies to get the most out of whatever space they have to write reviews in.

I should say that I did not bash long reviews in the previous post of mine... it's just that I do not have the patience or the time to read them because of the amount of reading I do in my day job, so, when it comes to long reviews, I generally only read the ones about releases that I am really interested in.

Yeah there is definitely a thing about flow and a sometimes a failing muse that has to be taken into consideration. I�m much happier about some of my reviews than others. Especially the reviews I do for promos, where it�s not necessarily music I personally favor or know much about, can be hard to write.

Edited by UMUR - 05 Jun 2012 at 8:40am

Man, I'm struggling right now to write a review for a favorite artist - the artist is a favorite of mine, but I don't think his new album is all that great.  I mean, I loved some of the tracks, but over all I don't think I'd recommend it.  So I'm struggling to write a positive/negative review - positive about the artist but honest about the fact that I didn't think the album was his best.

I've only ever written one absolutely scathing review, and I probably wasn't respectful but dang it, I was mad, haha!  I never put it up here - it's over on Prog Archives, but I'm telling you it seems like no one gives anything by this artist anything but 5 stars, and when I was listening to it it just seemed so out there and weird - like, come on, be honest that this is NOT for everyone, you know?  5 stars should mean that you would instantly recommend it to anyone and everyone, and it seemed like anyone should be able to recognize that this one was NOT for anyone and everyone, by a long shot.  I don't know if that makes sense, but there it is.

Rant over, haha!

dtguitarfan wrote: Man, I'm struggling right now to write a review for a favorite artist - the artist is a favorite of mine, but I don't think his new album is all that great.  I mean, I loved some of the tracks, but over all I don't think I'd recommend it.  So I'm struggling to write a positive/negative review - positive about the artist but honest about the fact that I didn't think the album was his best. I've only ever written one absolutely scathing review, and I probably wasn't respectful but dang it, I was mad, haha!  I never put it up here - it's over on Prog Archives, but I'm telling you it seems like no one gives anything by this artist anything but 5 stars, and when I was listening to it it just seemed so out there and weird - like, come on, be honest that this is NOT for everyone, you know?  5 stars should mean that you would instantly recommend it to anyone and everyone, and it seemed like anyone should be able to recognize that this one was NOT for anyone and everyone, by a long shot.  I don't know if that makes sense, but there it is. Rant over, haha!

UMUR wrote: I think people have all sorts of different systems and reasons for rating as they do.

  

If I went through all my oldest ratings there'd probably be a few 5's that would get downgraded to 4.5 now. 

One of my 0.5's is for a single, sorry I mean for a man who's a table. Another is for the album that spawned that single. 

UMUR wrote: adg211288 wrote: Yeah sometimes no matter how hard I look I can't find much to say about an album, especially ones I gave mid-range ratings to.  Of course negative reviews are the hardest to write. But I think the important thing to remember is that honesty is the best approach, and in my experience artists appreciate that. It's definitely possible to write a negative review while being respectful.  Actually thinking about it, on the talk of professionalism with reviews, I think that the ability to write a respectful negative review is about the ultimate test.    You�re damn right about that. It�s extremely hard to write a negative review in a respectful manner. "ultimate reviewer test" is definitely the right term for it.

UMUR wrote: Yeah and I would be lying if I didn�t admit that I find such reviews entertaining, but they are not very respectful.

...well there are actually people out there who like music like that...