Don't churn to earn (How To Write A Good Music Review)

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	How To Write A Good Music Review
Date:	17/08/09 (103 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Makes the review contain everything

Disadvantages: Some thing it's rather "cookie Cutter" ish

The record shows I took the blows And did it my way!

I used to do a lot of album reviews compared to reviews of everything else, to me they seemed the easiest to write, often pre-writing themselves to around 1600-2000 words just due to the simple fact theirs often a lot to write about. In more recent reviews about music (which I've not done a great deal of) I tried a different formula and yet still found myself wanting to go back to the original way I was doing it as it felt more complete than cutting corners. Everyone has their own desires in a review, what they expect to be there for a review to be useful, very useful, or even not useful, some people don't care how the band was formed, or how many previous records they've have, whilst others want to know everything. When writing I'm usually in the "I want to tell the reader everything, they can then pick out what they need to know", the idea you can write too much in a review of an album is a bit of a false truth, you can find yourself rambling at times but on the whole as long as it's on the subject matter you can't write enough.


This could be the start of something big

So to start an album review (or a live DVD/Concert review) introduce the band, this is the foundation to your review. Not everyone knows who most bands are, no matter how big a band is, someone won't know a great deal about them, so tell us who they are. Not just "Band A if from town C in Country B and have done X songs including D, E and F", but how they formed, the history of the bands success and member changes and any other routes. Often bands have some sort of funny story behind them or their name, so let the reader learn about that too, they already feel like they know what the band are like well before you get to the bulk of the review. Tell the reader of any other releases if possible or where they might have heard certain tracks (adverts? TV shows? Movies?) and whether the band have had any decently selling singles or albums.
This may seem like a lot of effort but it'll be rewarded when you look at the complete work. Think of this section as a length prologue.

The introduction then talks about the albums (or DVD/live tour) relevance, is it a modern record? An old one? A come back tour? A best of? Things like this may again seem trivial but to some readers they want to know that this is the fourth record the band has had under the EMI label and the 6th of their careers including the independent released debut LP. This helps set the stage for the bulk of your review.


Glaciers melting in the dead of night And the superstars sucked into the supermassive

The bulk of the review will be about the contents of the product, you've told them about the band and the album, now review the album, tell them your views on the product. This will take up the bulk of the review so this is where you put your time and effort in, this is the heavily opinion based section of the review so fill it with your own feelings.

This is where you review the product, with an album review there is 3 ways to go:
1-The easy route: This sees the writer reviewing the full album quickly mentioning maybe 3 songs and it looks like it's a churn job which the writer almost seeming like they couldn't be bothered.

2-The middle route: This sees the writer mentioning a few more songs, pointing to the low points and the high points of the product. This can some times looked like it was rushed, but for multiple CD collections this is usually the best idea, as some can feature in excess of 40 tracks (or in some cases more than 70). This review format works exceptionally well with longer albums, but with shorter albums it can seem a little bit underwhelming and incomplete.

3-The whole hog: This is the route I preferred, but by far the most time consuming of any of them, this often see a track by track review of the album with the writer focusing on break the album down to it's integral parts. Some readers don't like this and I acknowledge that, but are those the readers your review is aimed at? Personally when I review an album it's got to be aimed at perspective buyers the ones who want to know about every song on the album and any hidden tracks.

Which ever option you take you will alienate some readers, but remember this is the bulk of your review and where the time should be spent to make it thorough. Reviews for tracks including things like tempo, vocals, music and lyrics as well as length and if anyone else was used in the track? If someone is doing a song by song review, it can also be nice to add a bit on each song with just a line or two from that track so show how good the lyrics are.


Last night I had me a dream son The end of the world could be seen

The ending is the easiest part conclude on whether or not the album is worth purchasing, also whether it comes in different versions to the one you've reviewed what format it's available on and whether theirs any freebies. Whether the disk comes in a clever packaging, or multiple colours, or whether there's just a simple CD case staring back at you. If you remember to write your reviews like a story you'll find it easier to write a good one and lets remember all story's have a beginning a middle and an end. Don't skip the start or finish straight after the bulk of the review as readers want to know if it's worth buying. You might have loved every track but think it's a terrible purchase due to a re-release having more on it at the same price (the Jeff Buckley album "Grace" had the Anniversary and Legacy editions out at the same price about 4 months apart, one had 11 tracks, one had over 20...).

The most important thing however is that if you don't like it, tell them and tell them why, you don't need to tell someone they should buy something a good reviewer will review things they don't like as well as those they do.


For those interested in the lyrics used in this review:
The opening one is from "My Way", infamously sung by Frank Sinatra
The second one is from "This Could Be the Start of Something" by Steve Allen
The third one is from "Super Massive Black Hole" by Muse
The final one is from "The end of the world" by The Living End

Summary: Use the tips now, rather than churn