Reviewing music is dull. And pointless. And repetitive. And dull, again. Yet I still do it sometimes for www.crowdsurfer.net. (Plug!)
It’s a good site and everything, and the rewards for doing it (free gigs, CD’s) are worth it, but the actual act of writing about music and talking about it from a very one-sided point of view is boring. I can only assume that no one cares what I think. Who am I to judge anyway? I don’t own thousands of CD’s, I’m not an expert on anything, and mostly I don’t really care. If I have to write about a band I don’t like I’m happy to pour on the scorn, regardless of how unfair it might be – just because I don’t like them. To me, that’s more entertaining. I’ve got enough favourite albums to last me a lifetime already, so if I don’t find any more absolute masterpieces I don’t really care. It’s good to find a new album I like, sure – especially when it’s a band I’ve never heard of – and when it happens I’m more than happy to compliment it until I’m blue in the face. Although I have to say this has never happened and I’d be very worried if it did.
I’ve found, from my limited experiences with it, that positive reviews get no comments, but negative ones draw in fanboys like a hooker to fat, useless businessmen. THIS is where things get interesting, this is what bumps up the site’s views. I’m not saying I would purposely set out to review negatively in order to attract these idiots, but it’s fun when it happens and I’m the type of prick who enjoys winding up obsessive music nerds. They’re often so outraged by negative comments directed at their favourite band, that they become unable to form sentences or make points – their words just mash together to form something resembling an insult. Then I go back to them, and childish comedy ensues (at least for me).
I’ve whined about this already, here.
It’s sort of easy to write a few hundred words about an album that is good and deserves the praise. The only real problem is making sure to not go over the top, and also trying to not repeat yourself. Especially with genre-specific albums. I mean, if you get two metal albums who are as good as each other, it’s easy to write the exact same things because they probably apply. But that’s boring – and what I prefer to do is make things a little different for each, even if that means talking absolute bollocks or going for cheap laughs to entertain myself.
Reviewing terrible albums is the most fun part of the whole thing, because if a band make terrible music it’s fun to tear them apart and criticise every little thing they do – on the basis that they probably deserve it, so I don’t feel any remorse. Also, I love complaining. It’s the best thing ever. Putting a CD on, sitting down to write about it, and being greeted by the most abysmal music ever conceived in a garage in Rhyl or something is a real treat. Hands are rubbed together and I whip out my mental thesaurus, searching for new ways to say ‘terrible’. Off I go, and usually I do go way over the top with these. I pick them apart too much, or keep it brief but insulting. It’s my aim to find a band so awful, their entire albumcan be summed up with the word ‘Shitbiscuit’. My other aim is to make bands cry their little socks off which is easier to do with certain genres than others, obviously. But not just the bands themselves – it’s also great to get a fan reaction because 9 times out of 10 they’re be illiterate rant-monkeys with nothing of worth to say. Like me! But less educated.
By far the most difficult bands to write about are the one’s that are just ‘okay’. There is only so many ways to say “meh, s’alright…” and all of them are very boring to read. Most of these bands just aren’t worth talking about, or appeal to only fans of a specific genre, but don’t do anything bad enough to justify a roasting. In a perfect world, the only music in existance would live at the sharp ends of the good/bad spectrum. There would be nothing made in the middle except for radio-friendly pap that no one cares about anyway. I could make a diagram but I can’t be bothered. Imagine it, it isn’t hard.
The main problem with talking about music in this format is that music, to people who care about music, is quite an insular experience. I can write and fill a word count quite happily and say absolutely nothing if I come across a band I care so little about that they as well not exist. However, you can be guaranteed that this will annoy someone somewhere who thinks that the band are made up of pure, ethereal musical genius held together by saggy slabs of meat marauding as band members – as opposed to, say, saggy slabs of meat with an hours worth of guitar lessons under their belt, marauding as a band more popular than themselves. I mean, some people even like Lady Gaga. Some people LOVE Bryan Adams. That can’t be right.
And it’s my pointless, repetitive and dull job to tell you why they’re wrong.
Now please, slag me off for this – it’s like verbal crack to me. It works best if you don’t justify what you’re saying, and just call me a cock.
Like
