1a (4): The sound of a forehead repeating striking a keyboard, with attendant groans
Yes, indeed, the way many of us feel when faced with our first review. There's a real temptation to think “look, I just love this album, man, so why doesn't everyone else?” and not to put too much effort into your review. But as I mentioned in the last post, no matter how great you think an album is, there will be those that a) disagree and b) don't know the album. Regarding the first category, people who don't like the album, or indeed artiste, you're probably doing something in the wind there that is not advised if you want to stay clean. People who dislike an album are
very unlikely to be suddenly swayed by your argument, no matter how well you write. It's just a fact of life: people make up their minds and it takes something momentous to change their opinion, if it ever does change. Chances are, they won't even read your review as they won't be interested in it. As for the other category, the ones who don't know the album, these are the ones you have a good chance with.
1a (5): Setting the scene
So try to explain all you can about the album: any contribution it made to music history (“Black Sabbath” redefined a whole new sub-genre of metal”, for instance), perhaps where it comes in the artiste's catalogue (debut, third, most recent, last etc), any notable people who played on it, like guest musicians, arrangers, producers. Was the cover art created by anyone famous? Has it become an iconic image in its own right (Dark side of the moon) and so on.
The key thing to remember is make it interesting: don't just bombard your readers with facts and figures, but don't make the information too sketchy either. There's a fine line between what people are prepared to read and what they're not: when it gets boring or you're overloading their minds they may lose interest. Some, of course, may thrive on this sort of mega-information, but they are likely to be in the minority and you can't take the chance, as you're trying, generally, to appeal to as many people as you can, in order to get as many readers as you can. And preferably, repeat readers.
1a(6): Track performance
There's nothing wrong with going into some sort of detail on each track on the album --- I usually do this --- but you have to know how much space to allow for discussion on each track. You may love track 1, hate track 2 and be ambivalent about track 3, so do you spend four paragraphs describing how great track 1 is and just barely touch on tracks 2 and 3? Preferably not. You don't even have to go track-by-track. Many people just cherry-pick from the album, using certain tracks as representative of it. You've no doubt read those short reviews in the music press, where they have a limited amount of space, and just barely nod to one or two tracks. You can do this too, if you want. There are no real rules, no right way or wrong way to review an album.
But remember, though this is your journal and, for the purposes of your review, your opinion is the only one that matters, in reality that's not the case. If you make a big noise over a certain album or track and someone reading it disagrees, and they're prepared to post a comment, be prepared to take their opinion with good grace. Answer them if you can, but --- and this shouldn't have to be said, but I'll say it anyway --- refrain from unseemly “flame-war” tactics.
In other words, don't start shouting down someone who doesn't agree with you, or expresses a differing opinion to yours. Posts like “You don't know what you're talking about!” or “Go back to listening to boybands!” may fly on general music forums, but here within the members' journal section you're expected to be a lot more cordial and tolerant. Think of this journal as your home, or office, and behave accordingly. Don't steal the paper clips, though.
Similarly, if someone posts nasty messages in your journal (this is very unlikely, as the mods monitor all posts --- yes, yours too --- and won't allow anything to be posted which they consider inappropriate) respond with a polite rebuff, and if necessary seek aid from the mods. But these things should not happen if your reviews and other posts are well-written and balanced. Just about everything that goes into a member's journal is taken to have the invisible prefix IMO, and that's all it is: your opinion. Unless it's a clear, solid, undeniable fact, like sales figures, chart positions, names of musicians or stuff like that, everything else is opinion, and everyone is entitled to one, but yours is not the only one, or necessarily the right one. Couch your posts in that manner, so that people reading them understand that this is what you think, not to be taken as fact, nothing carved in stone.
1a (7): Words don't come easy to me...
Lyrics: should you quote them? Often it helps, particularly if you're trying to make a certain point about what the artist is trying to say, (Don Henley in his song “Goodbye to a river” mourns humanity's need to control everything:
”They put that river in a box/ It was runnin' wild/ Man must have control””) or to back up something in your review. Quoting lines and lines of lyrics is really not the thing to do: it will get boring and detract from your review. I usually throw in a few, though not always, and only when they illustrate the point I want to make. If you are going to quote lyrics though, make sure they're correct. Either use the album liner notes (unless you know the song so well or it's such a famous song you couldn't possibly get the lyrics wrong) or search for them online. There are many websites dedicated to providing album and song lyrics. Just search in Google under [artist name] lyrics. If you can't confirm the lyric but are reasonably sure that it's correct, say so in your review. Something like “I think this is what he sings” or “It sounds to me like” and so on. Nobody's perfect, other than me,
so don't try to present your knowledge as encyclopaedic. Of course, that's not an excuse for just not bothering to look up things either. But if you've tried and failed, throw in your disclaimer.
1a (8): Don't drop that ("F") bomb on me!
One small, somewhat amusing but often frustrating point: no forum allows swear words --- well, very few, and this is not one of them --- so the system is apparently setup to automatically catch any words that it should be flagging: the “f” word, the “c” word, the “n” word and so on, but this can lead to quite ludicrous occurrences, because the system is unable to determine when a “banned” word is used out of context in a totally innocent way, so that when I tried to use a word for laughs that rhymes with biggers and begins in sn, the “n” word, as the system saw it, was asterisked out. I had to use snickers instead. And only today, I tried to say something like rock-***-country, and as you can see here, it blanked out the three letter word that begins in c, ends in m and has u in the middle, because its use is banned. Never mind that it was being used in a totally non-abusive or obscene way: once it saw the word the system immediately raised a flag and I had to find another way of saying what I wanted to say.
So, again this is something that should not need to be said, don't use bad language in your posts. In the first place it looks and sounds unprofessional, and in the second, your posted article (if it gets that far) will look ridiculous, with asterisks all over the place, and people probably unable to make out what it is you're saying. Even if these “f” or “c” words are in lyrics (or album titles) you want to quote, you'll need to find a way around them. Of course, you can always box clever: fkuc is I think still able to slip under the radar, as is cnut or ctun, but best of all is not to use these words. I also don't think appealing to the mods for an exception will work, though I could be wrong: I think the system is automatic and there's nothing they can do about it.
So the idea of reviewing the album “**** you!” by **** and the ****ers is probably not going to be a good one...
I'm off to bed now, more tomorrow.