Since the beginning of 2020 I’ve been writing for a blog of mine and my friends, reviewing new albums. However, as I only do about releases and the number of projects I have to write about is huge, I end up not having time to do bigger, more “professional” reviews on older albums I’ve heard in the past. However, for some reason, I feel bad about registering scores without a text about, even a small one. Are you like that too? Any tips for me to lose this neura? xD
i can imagine that. i have the same neuratism but with another things. yep, this is some neurotical thing which based on dophamine(!). i think u need to do a “challenge” or any goal…i mean lets say u need to listen 50 album of some genre or artists or 2010-2020 indastrial albums. 50 albums. and u write only on top5-10 from them. with this “strategy” u can write more better reviews. with details. and u save a lot of time and get out from some musical escapism (lol wut?). cuz write on all 50 albums this is…not what u need maybe. just write on some TOP albums. and some honorable mentions. somethin like that. u can change this strategema. this is the way imo. OOOOR! do a YT channel. and u can take attention on what u do on every joint. and take more dophamine and can feelin ursefl maybe better idunnoe.
Me personally, I tend to almost exclusively write shorter reviews (a paragraph or two or maybe even a sentence) when I rate an album, and if I have a bigger more professional review I want to write I’ll put it on a separate blog and link it in my AOTY review.
I tried to when I first joined AOTY months ago, but now I don’t. I prefer quality over quantity. Every now and then I’ll do a short review.
i used to be exactly like this (still not far from it), and i dont really have any tips to help combat it as it is a largely self imposed thing. if you force yourself to write something substantial constantly, even if you aren’t feeling it, you will eventually burn out. i consider my big burnout to have happened in autumn 2019, and i never got back to the same volume of output i was at before; i used to post a few reviews a day, but since then, its not uncommon for me to go weeks if not months without writing anything.
POINT IS, dont force yourself to write something more substantial than you feel like, or more often. writing shit is hard. if you force yourself to do it, it gets harder. if you only have time to write small reviews then keep it small and have as much fun with it as you can.
if you would really like to write longer reviews, maybe give pre-determined reviewing structures a shot (for example, you could go track-by-track and discuss individual songs, which will lead to discussion about other aspects like tracklist flow, thematics, consistency, etc.) challenges can be fun, but like i said, try to avoid holding yourself to strict schedules. sometimes you just dont feel like writing and if you force yourself to do so to adhere to a self-imposed schedule, youre just hurting yourself–you end up stressing yourself out to meet meaningless deadlines, and your writing will probably suffer if youre forcing it out of yourself. trust me, i should know–reviewing challenges are the only things i do anymore.
at the end of the day, reviewing is a hobby and there are no big stakes at hand. just have fun with it because thats all its supposed to be : - )
This was very much myself last year. I thought it would be “unfair” to the artists/albums to not explain in some way why I gave the record a particular score. Like Jimpy, the constant writing meanit I ended up feeling burnt out which just led to me not writing or rating things for a while, which was the exact opposite of why I signed up to this site.
What personally helped make that final push was making an end of year list and realising that some of the albums that were making the list were ones that were popular to talk about (so I’d written a review), but didn’t care for that much e.g. Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways.
Currently I now just try to write at least 1 review a week and if a new album is an 8+ I’ll push myself a little to write about that, otherwise I’m much happier to just rate things at the moment. Forcing myself led to poorly written and usually rushed reviews and in the end hurt me, so I feel much better with this situation.
Like Jimpy said, finding a review structure you can lean back on can be a helpful tool when writing longer reviews. I personally use this one, or some variant for most of mine:
1.Short history of the artist, particularly my connection to their previous works
2.Any general aspects to the album i.e. regular lyrical themes, genres that are consistently explored, any features that appear multiple times, even particular instruments etc.
3. Individual songs. Depending on how I feel about the album I either:
a) focus on a few favourites and my least favourite track, or
b) if I really want to I’ll go song-by-song.
4. Any general issues I have with record whether that’s songwriting, production, mixing, whatever.
5. Short paragraph concluding my thoughts, focusing on positives and even hopes for the artist’s next work
Jesus, “few reviews a day”! But I totally agree with you, I used to be like this with movies. Every single thing I watched I forced myself to write about it, but it got to a point when I even stopped watching movies because I was not feeling writing about it or that I wasn’t going to write something great. But thankfully I “got free from that”
Now with music, for the past two years I only rated albums that I reviewed on my website. But now that my site got bigger, and now we are a team, I have time to visit older and “classic” records, but some reason I still got this thing in my mind that leave me with a step back in just rating them. Anyway, have to work on it.
Btw, what’s your AOTY/RYM user?
Yeees, I feel the same, “unfair”. But this is more directed to old albums rather than the new ones. Like Bjork’s Homogenic that I would totally give it a 10/10, but I don’t because I’m not feeling writing a review about it and I kinda feel bad about rating without writing. I even talk about a similar situation on the response for Jimpy, but with movies. I guess I have to work on it.
Btw, what’s your AOTY/RYM user?
For me in 2020 it was both old and new, I felt the need to review whatever album I was going to rate, which slowly became I only rate albums I can find the energy to review.
This is me: https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/jamobo/
Ohhh you’re the guy with the doggo on the picture, nicee
in fairness, those few daily reviews were often pretty lackluster and much shorter than what i write now. giving myself time to polish my writing has definitely improved it since then
here is my aoty https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/notbuzzzila/
I always review my ratings bc I feel like there’s more to it than just a score. A numerical score puts into perspective how much I enjoyed the whole listen, while a review literally tells you everything about my thoughts during and after listening to the album, what i liked, what i disliked, how it compares to their other work, standout songs, etc. It’s even better when it’s a more unpopular opinion, it gives you room to explain why you liked it or disliked it significantly more than most people rather than making it look like you’re a troll who just tries to stand out for attention