Friday, April 23, 2010

The death of the "Review"

For a few years now (though admittedly in an inconsistent fashion) I have been writing "reviews" here at Progged.  Heck, I even had a brief stint as a writer over at Blogcritics.org.  In that time I have discovered something.

Reviews are rubbish.

At least as I have been trying to write them.  See, all reviews about entertainment are subjective.  Sure, there are objective things that can be measured and perhaps quantified: is the mix even, is the production done well.  But so much is ethereal.  Particularly when it comes to music.

There are albums that I love because of what I relate them to, the memories they evoke.  Likewise, many songs/albums evoke certain emotions that strengthen or weaken the music.  And those are unique to each person.  So trying to review objectively equals one thing only: Fail.

As such, here at Progged, after discussion with my bro, we are going to be moving to a less precise, more general type of review.  It will likely be a three tiered system that will break down something like this: Great music, okay to good music that is at least worth checking out, but maybe not owning, and crap.

Yeah, that middle one is long and awkward.  We're working on it.

4 comments:

  1. Now if we could only get a decent three-tiered system that isn't being used by anyone else...

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  2. As Mine and YourZ (truly) discussed when we started our little thang, we didn't want the fact we were supposed to be reviewing to get in the way of a good story. I like to think this is what seperates the wheat from the chaff (not that we're particularly gluten-tolerant but I'm sure you get my drift).

    The three-tiered rate is a winner, although it took us ages to come up with our headings. Good luck with yours.

    YourZ

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  3. YourZ: I won't lie, your blog is something of a model in this respect. Though, of course, we aren't going to rip off your three tier review headings. Braeden actually came up with the ones we finally decided on, and I think he did a nice job: Adore it, explore it, ignore it.

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  4. Your headings are great and I'm a little flattered you took some inspiration from ours.

    YourZ

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