Articles
Researching for reviews. A waste of time?
by Rich on 10 June 2004. Read 309 times.
Right, reviews. A certain member of a certain band’s message board keeps mentioning the word research when it comes to reviews, and how you need to research a band before you review them. This is something I disagree with. What do the rest of you think??? See my reasoning below. In music journalism there is obviously a need to research into band in certain occasions. For example whenever I write an article on a band or interview a band i will always research thoroughly as a mark of respect to the band in question, so i don't get things wrong and so I don't look like a complete tit. I mean showing up and asking a band a serious of questions about something that is damn obvious to anyone in the slightest know would be stupid. BUT........ When it comes to reviews I don't see the need for research. I mean there are two types of review. Record and live, I’ll talk about these separately. [B]Recorded. [/B] So you get a CD through your door from a record company. You go down to Virgin and buy it. You borrow it from a friend. Whatever, it doesn't matter. You put it on and listen to it, if you are going to be fair you listen three or four times all the way through. Now you KNOW weather you like it or not don't you. You know what you like, what you think could be improved what could do with being lower in the mix, the fact that the singer should be shot, or that tuning hasn't yet been taught to the guitarist, timing to the drummer. That’s what you have to say. As soon as you research you become biased, and get involved. For example if I heard a CD that i thought was outrageously terrible that I snapped it in half, then found out it was actually the love child of my favourite bands guitarist and my own uncle, i would automatically have a bias towards them and I’d maybe knock it up a mark out of ten, or just blame it on the drummer who I don't know. See my point??? [B]Live.[/B] Live will be my only SLIGHT come back on my words. The only way you can research this is to see the band more than once. Because one performance could be bad to the first time reviewer and a poor performance from a good band to a review who has seen that band before. But even this is biased isn't it. If the band a re playing SHIT then say they are SHIT. If the rock, let the world know about it. Again you know what you like so does it matter if it's as good as the Ozzy Osbourne gig last gig or that the bassist once was a circus clown, that the manager also manages x, y AND z???? Feel free to disagree, I’d like to consider other points of view, but overall I think it doesn't matter how much you know about a band, with music people know what they like and what they don't. So what’s the need to research a band before reviewing a CD?