How to Write a Music Review

  Once in a while - no constantly - I get annoyed with the quality of the music reviews I read in zines. When I released CDs by the Criminals and American Steel, I sent copies to many zines that were on Lookout Records promo list. It turns out this was a bad idea, because most of those people don't like punk. Go figure. I got a bunch of reviews saying things like "I hate music where the singer yells, so this sucks."
   Now I've released a Hip Hop record, and I get the same thing: "I hate hip hop, so this sucks." Rhetorically, this is a difficult theory to prove. Here are some of my ideas for writing music reviews:
   You can't hide behind the "I'm not a journalist, I'm just making stuff up!" excuse. If that's the case, then your review section is for our entertainment, not for our information. Unless you're Lester Bangs, Rocktober or a very few others, your writing isn't good enough for us to enjoy your "non-informational" reviews. You should, instead, have a section of your magazine entitled "4 sentence blurbs I thought of while listening to music," or something to that nature. If your reviews section says "reviews" then you are trying to be informative or you are failing at being clever.
   It's quite a stretch to prove the argument that a whole genre sucks. I don't like much music, but I wouldn't stake my life on the idea that pop music or country or rap is wrong and should be wiped from the face of the planet. If you start a review with "this (insert genre) sucks," you are being disingenuous. What about the Sugar Cubes? What about Johnny Cash? What about the Coup? If you know nothing about the Genre, pass it on to someone it does or skip it.
   Start by describing the music. Can you clearly label the genre? Can you identify the types of instruments, the singers, the lyrics? What's the tempo, the dynamic range, the sense of melody. Are there hooks? Feedback? Pinging noises? Describe everything you can. Go beyond the promo sheet the label sent with the CD. I recently sent out a promo sheet for Pirx the Pilot in which I mentioned a favorable review that said we sounded like Government Issue. I got a bunch of reviews that said things like "this sure is a sucky Government Issue." So what band does it sound like to you?
   Using bands as a reference is OK, but it's a crutch, and seems mostly used to drop names by the reviewer. If you're the only one who's heard of a band, using it as a reference isn't going to help much. Saying that a band sounds like early Empty Offer doesn't tell you much about the band, does it? How about saying a band sounds like Born Against, which you might have heard of?
   Once you've described the music / lyrics / packaging, you can start to be subjective. How well does the band accomplish what they're trying to do? If they're playing a certain Genre of music, how well do they succeed at that Genre? If they are trying to be creative, how well do they succeed? Certainly, at this point, you can ask the question, "is succeeding at this genre enough?" Why or Why not?
   Then there's a second class of subjective statements you can make about the music, once you've completely described it. You are now free to say why it's not good enough for you, or why it really moves you. You can throw in personal experiences like, "I met the singer, and he's an idiot. That made me dislike this." Or "I was losing my virginity to this song, so I will always love it." If you start with statements like these, you haven't reviewed the record, you've only written a few sentences describing your personal taste. If you have adequately described the record first, the subjective statements can flow like wine.
   Oh yeah. Run spell check on your fucking reviews and learn how to use apostrophes. Why let the world think you can't read or write?
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