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I think that's a great idea. I also think it would be good to include a note on the home page stating that you only keep and review albums that meet a certain minimum standard — I'm sure other readers will be wondering whether that's your modus operandi, just as I did.

 

Good point - thanks, although I'm sure some people will question my standards and ask who appointed me to set standarts.... I've been there before

 

After reading this thread, I looked at Adam's site.
Of course I didn't read all, but IMHO if it was a website about movies, I'd say we have mostly the plots and often some words of critical analysis. Sometimes, not.

Review is: ?


Then, I focused on some italian prog albums; let's see:

Review is: "Very strong instrumental work by a sextet of musicians and Considered to be on of the true classic albums of Italian Prog".

Review is: not sure where, since it just lists members of Perigeo and says that they were

.
Just a few words, but I guess it gives an idea of what's going on when you play "Azimut"

Review is: Heavily influenced by Symphonic groups such as Yes, but with a richer instrumentation (flute, violin) they perform masterly and flawlessly.

I guess this is a review that may work for several PFM's albums. No problems.

Now let's go to "Photos of Ghosts"

Review is: they possessed incredible instrumental powers, compositional ability and vocal delivery and harmony, which was almost unparallel with any other Prog group at the time. Long and complex instrumental passages, performed mostly on keyboards, quiet contemplative moments of gentle flute and deeply melodic and harmonic compositions and arrangements turned their albums into Prog heaven.

Now we have more meat indeed, after the obligatory writing about historical context and the personnel involded in the recording. My only problem is that this review has been cloned for PFM's "The world became the world"

Review is : they possessed incredible instrumental powers, compositional ability and vocal delivery and harmony, which was almost unparallel with any other Prog group at the time. Long and complex instrumental passages, performed mostly on keyboards, quiet contemplative moments of gentle flute and deeply melodic and harmonic compositions and arrangements turned their albums into Prog heaven.


With the exception of the titles and some minor changes (2nd album here, 1st album there) the "Photos of ghosts" and "The world became the world" entries are almost identical.

Applying this criterion, one review should be enough for most of the early Genesis albums, one review warrants an analysis of the first Yes albums and so on.
Honestly, I don't think the cut n' paste thing should be done when reviewing albums of the same artist. But that site is Adam's home and seeing that he praises many albums I love, I don't think he could steer me wrong and I'm willing to check some of his recommendations, even if there's just some basic info.

Just as "The soundtrack of my life" is Adam's house, SH.tv is a top mastering engineer's house.
And as he happens to be from the USA, I think this is where things started to go wrong.

Post #21

I want to express it in the friendliest way possible, but there's explicit bashing and subtle bashing, I think that phrase was uncalled for and unnecessary. Sorry

There's good and bad music released everywhere in the world, and always it will be.

 

Not trying to be controversial here - but in all fairness I don't get your point. Many of my friends and people I admire are Americans. I love America for the great things it stands for and hate it for the bad things - as all intelligent Americans I know do? So what's the point?

Now you surely must be aware of the attitude that quite a few Americans cling to, that anything not done in America / by Americans can't possibly be any good? Never heard of it? Very many American Jazz players call European Jazz a joke, and often worse. I happen to think this is a proof of narrow-mindedness, and condescending attitude towards the rest of the world. Am I wrong?

And where is the bashing here? Explicit , implicit or any other kind?

 

As to your comments about the actual reviews:

Certain amount of cut & paste is logical to me, especially in view of the fact that the musicians themselves - and in Prog especially - do the same with their music, which is often quite similar album after album?

The other point is that people usually enter the site to see just one specific album's description and do not read about all the albums by a certain artists, and therefore a certain amount of duplication is sometimes neccesary?

But please read the short reviews of the first 5/6 Yes albums - not a word of repetition there? They are short as millions of words have already been spilled about these albums....

 

I see this thread was moved to the "Music, Movie and Hardware Store Guide" - oh well.... buried alive

Why am I not surprised?

 

Thanks! I'm almost as obsessive about album reviews as I am about albums.

 

The issue here is simple. A review is a critical evaluation and what this offers is mainly biography; what is evaluative isn't critical, and I don't just mean negative. Hence some of us are expecting something different that what we got.

 

I have absolutely no problem with that.

Although I disagree as to your and others judgment - the majority of the entries are full scale reviews, but let's let this rest.

 

Awesome...thanks..!!!

 

Good to know we have a Review police, the world is a safer place.