Apr

12

Reviewing reviews…

Filed Under Babbling, The history of me, Writings/Rants 

I’ve been thinking for a while about writing more reviews for this blog, and its something that I’d really like to start doing. But the question is why don’t I just do that? I mean, its easy to really just quickly review something, so why not just do that? The fact of the matter is because of the time I spent working for the UCF Independent? Its just not that simple for me.

Back from 2001 through mid-2004 or so, I was a writer for one of two campus papers before it folded and was bought out by the main paper. And my specialty was writing CD reviews, so I got it quickly down to an art. And when you’re writing reviews, you need to have it all down to a formula, especially when you’ve got two to three albums that you’re working on weekly like I often do nowadays. So what’s my formula?

I start off with a casual listen through of the album as a whole from start-to-finish. I let it sit in the background and then just do what I need to do. If it catches my attention, I’ll let it do that. If it just sleeps in the background? It does that. I just let it pass by and be there. After that, put it aside. Over the next day or so, I’ll not listen to it and see if something’s stuck with me. If I remember any of it, if the riffs or lyrics have caught me. After this day or two passes, I’ll take another listen to it, trying to pay a little more attention to the album. I’ll let another day or two pass, and then after that, I’ll play the album a third time (at least) and start writing the review while I’m listening to the album. I find that when I do it this way, it lets the album grow on me and be a lot more than a precursory glance to the album. If you just listen to it once, or listen to it back-to-back in one day are you really doing it justice? You need to let the music exist with you. Music is not an individual process but part of the biggest picture of life and expression. If you just take it as music and entertainment? Fine. But really if you let it live with you, you get so much more from it.

And that’s why when I reviewed She & Him and Joe Hedge’s albums? I feel like I did a crappy job. When I did the album reviews, I had only heard both of those albums only one time. I felt like I didn’t give them that chance to really grow on me, but in my quest for content to fill on those days? I felt strong enough to write up more of a “commentary” on the album. I wish I could feel better about them, and maybe eventually I’ll write a “part two” to the reviews, but still. The originals stand as they are, and I just hope that they were enough to give my inital opinion…

Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.
Sign up for free and comment away!

    About The Site


    Thanks for stopping by, folks! My name is Adam J. Cohen, and I'm a guitarist/songwriter in Champaign, IL, recently relocated from Orlando, FL where I'm a UCF grad. Here, you'll find vignettes on my life, setlists and show reviews, and whatever else crosses my mind. Enjoy!