| Author | Message | ||
     kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 862 Registered: 05-2005 |
Padraig, I'm looking for some insider knowledge. Do you know if music journalists have carte blanche when it comes to writing reviews and allocating star ratings to albums? Or does an editor say to them "no way is that Neds Atomic Dustbin album worth 5 stars, its a 3 maximum" Also, who decides what gets awarded Album of The Month? I would like to think the journalists all vote for what they think it should be and the one with the most votes get the nod. However, with the likes of Uncut and Mojo you know that the new Dylan, or Radiohead or U2 album is going to be album of the month 9 times out of 10. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 610 Registered: 05-2005 |
Kevin, my music writing was an adjunct to my journalism rather than my bread and butter. I mainly wrote about politics, courts, technology, crime etc. However, I'll answer as best I can. I know Rolling Stone magazine has an editorial committee reviewing all the star ratings, so I would imagine the UK magazines do something similar, at least for the major reviews. I was never asked to take a star off a review, though I was once asked to re-write my review of a Gilbert O'Sullivan album so that it actually mentioned the music and not just a series of lame gags involving Gilbert and Sullivan, light operetta and "Three little maids from school are we". Quite right too that I was asked to do that. It was a mistake I did not make twice. The resulting bowdlerised review is at www.myspace.com/padraigcollins In magazines, as you said, nine times out of 10 'Album of the month' is going to be the biggest name release that month, regardless of whether it's a good review, though mostly they are. In The Irish Times though, album of the week was often not the biggest name release (somthing that was a major credit to the reviews editor). My reviews were albums of the week a few times and I never did the big names. | ||
| Eke Member Username: Ekewebb Post Number: 97 Registered: 05-2005 |
I know someone who wrote a review of the Triffids' reissued Born Sandy Devotional for an online reviews site, awarded it five stars and found it had a star lopped off when it was published. Sorry it's a bit of a specific example but I thought it was worth mentioning. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 613 Registered: 05-2005 |
That was probably a production error Eke. I once gave something four stars which was reduced to three when it was published. It was just a mistake, though I was annoyed at the time. Can't remember which album it was not. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 865 Registered: 05-2005 |
Thanks Padraig, thats a great insight to something that has intrigued me over the years. Regards the "mistaken" deduction of stars from a review, I guess it gets more serious the lower the amount of stars that was awarded initially. While it would be annoying to drop from a 5 to a 4, the reader is still under the impression that the reviewer rates the album highly. However, I would think that a 4 that mistakenly becomes a 3 is more crucial becuause then a pretty highly rated album becomes average. I must admit to reading a lot of reviews that were awarded 3 stars and thinking that the wording did not fit the rating , eg it read more like a 4 star review. I guess some of these may have lost a star! | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 657 Registered: 04-2005 |
By the way, Padraig, I've meant to say I enjoyed reading your reviews. However, I wish mags, newspapers, etc., didn't feel the need to quantify things with stars. I mean, is that rating relative to everything that's out there, or the artist's own work? Or some combination of both that the writer is factoring mentally? I mean, take "Bright Yellow, Bright Orange" as an example. On a five-star scale, it's probably a three-star Go-Betweens album. But compared to most of the dreck out there, does it gain an extra star? | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 866 Registered: 05-2005 |
I must admit I quite like the idea of star ratings, mainly for 2 reasons. Firstly, because the standard of music journalism is now pretty poor compared to the 70s/80s heyday, and you dont have to read through a poorly written review to find out of the writer thinks it is any good. Secondly, if you are unfamiliar with a band and you keep seeing their album getting 4 or 5 star reviews it might make you more inclined to check them out. I get the impression that for people like Lester Bangs, Nick Kent,Robert Christgau,even David Fricke, that music journalism was their "calling" and they didnt want to do anything else. I've lost count of the amount of guys who started their careers on NME, Melody Maker and Q in the 80s who are now fixtues on TV and radio and who would now turn their nose up at writing music reviews. As for the new breed, dont get me started on them. Of the regular contributers on this forum I cannot think of anybody who doesnt know more about music than them, although age and family commitments might make it difficult to spend a whole tour ligging with Razorlight or Babyshambles!! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 618 Registered: 05-2005 |
My only beef with the star rating I had to use was that it did not allow for half stars. So there were often albums that I felt were a bit above average and deserving of 3.5 stars but I had to make up my mind on whether to give them 3 or 4. If they were a new artist who needed whatever help they could get I gave them a 4. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 867 Registered: 05-2005 |
Good point Padraig. Uncut used to do 1/2stars but not anymore. Of course Pitchfork take it even further by giving . scores - eg 8.7 | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 619 Registered: 05-2005 |
I hadn't noticed Uncut dropped the 1/2 stars. That's interesting. The Sydney Morning Herald has it both ways - its Friday CD reviews have star ratings but its Saturday reviews don't! It seems to be that the more serious artists, eg Dylan, are reviewed on the Saturday, but I'm not sure that's always the case. And anyway, one man's frivolous is another man's deadly serious. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 633 Registered: 05-2005 |
I said up above that I never did the big name reviews in the IT; but I've just posted some more reviews onto www.myspace.com/padraigcollins and realised that I did review a Prince best of a few years ago. See Abe, that's how to self-promote, build up 600+ contributions first! | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 886 Registered: 03-2006 |
Yep, at least you took us to dinner and a movie first... |