Tips for Writing an Album Review

First things first: this is Joe K*** putting together this blog post, and I called it "Tips for Writing an Album Review," but I can assure that I do not consider myself an expert on the subject. For all I know, my reviews are dogshit and everyone hates them. The point of this blog post isn't to sit on a royal throne and deign to give out precious advice from up on high; I'm just the messenger here. (I.e. this is not a seminar.) I asked some RC regulars and searched around the web, and I'm putting it all together here, now, to answer the question: how the fuck do you write an album review?

There is no right or wrong answer, of course. Take a scroll through the 1000+ Record Club reviews so far, and you're going to find some weird ones. But I would argue that no matter how strange or obtuse or flat out stupid a review is, it usually answers the most important question: What do YOU think about the album?

I'm going to use the second-person pronouns "you" and "your" and "yours" a lot in this short guide, and if it weren't so annoying, I'd keep putting them in all-caps to emphasize that important point. The review that you write is about you. It's about how you feel. It's about what you think. This is why every review is different—each is written by a different person, and so can't possibly be the same, even with the same basic opinions.

Of course... some people might disagree with me on that point. For instance, Proofed's review-writing tips include "Avoid Bias," or in other words, "being objective." There are also the fundamentals of the "new criticism," which stress that everything you need is right there in the art, and takes everything else—context, author of art, previous art, author of review—out of the equation. I think those only works if you are the sole voice in the room. That's obviously not the case with Record Club. So I would argue that being objective is boring, and that the most exciting thing is putting yourself squarely in the middle of the review. But to each their own.

See? There are no right or wrong answers. I'm going to list some thoughts and general tips and suggestions below, but feel free to completely disregard any or all of them. For every suggestion, I can easily think off the top of my head of a great Record Club review that did not follow that suggestion at all. Cherry-pick at your leisure. This is all just supposed to be exist here so you can read through if you are stuck, that's all. If you write a review and it is more than a completely blank space, then you did it correctly.

Thanks to Pam and Rachel S. and Sunny and Nate for sharing some tips from their own album review-writing experiences. Consider everything below a collaborative effort between the five of us and also random sites on the internet.

BASICS

Obviously, you wanna listen to the album. Listen to it more than once. Listen to it in different contexts. Listen to it while you're reading along to the lyrics, especially on genius.com if available, since they sometimes have the lyrics annotated.

Write down your thoughts, possibly in bullet point format. Just freeform it. What are you feeling while you listen to it? Is there something about the music that is making you feel this way? Is there something about your life right now that is making you feel this way? Is there something about who you are a person that makes you feel this way? Is there something that might be different for different people in terms of feelings for this album?

Think about how you're going to organize these thoughts (or don't—leave 'em in bullet point form if you want, who gives a fuck?). Some might suggest having an introduction, a discussion, and a conclusion. It might be cool if the introduction presented a theme, the discussion digs into the meat of the album, and the conclusion connects that discussion and reiterates the original introduction. Or you could just go nuts and skip all of that. Do stream-of-consciousness. Write a song-by-song description as you are listening. Write about something completely different than the album (a TV show, a movie, a dumb thing your friend did) and then loosely connect it to the album as best you can.

Try talking out loud, or try having someone ask you a question about the album—your answers that you are saying out loud would also work written down! Maybe even use a voice translator? I am not familiar with those devices/apps, but they might help if you are better at speaking your opinion than writing it.

A good way to expound upon your thoughts is to ask yourself the question "How?" If you make a statement, for example, "This album reminds me of childhood," then the follow-up question "How?" should help you to think about what exactly it is about this album that reminds you of that. And that becomes the thing you can write about instead of just leaving us guessing.

There are no limits in either direction for length, by the way. Setting a personal minimum number of words might be a helpful motivation to write "enough" according to your own standards. In general, 100 words is probably the absolute bare minimum, but there have been successful reviews with less. Record Club's longest review is 7261 words, and its shortest is four words long. Do what's right for you! 

SOME THINGS TO INCLUDE

You could write about what you know about the artist. What is their deal? Did you like them before? Have you listened to them before? Had you heard of them before, or is this completely new? What were your expectations for this album based on what you knew? Were those expectations met?

You could also write about specific experiences you've had listening to this artist in the past. Maybe write about another album of theirs that you like or dislike. Maybe you only know of this artist because they were featured on a movie's soundtrack, or a mixtape your ex made you, or they are some fucking band your dad always talks about and you hate. Or maybe this happens to be one of your favorite artists ever. Why? Why not?

Next, you can try to describe the album in your own words. We don't do compilations or greatest hits or soundtracks or live albums in Record Club because the overarching belief is that the album should hang together as one singular piece of work. What is the theme of that work, in your opinion? No wrong answers. How do you interpret the album and what the artist is trying to say? And why are you interpreting it that way? What does that say about you as a listener? Ten thousand people can listen to an album and come up with ten thousand different "themes," so why yours? What about the music and the lyrics informs that theme? Absent of a theme, what does this album make you feel? In other words, what was the theme of your week of listening to this album?

Another thing that is cool to do is the opposite—you looked at the album as a whole, but now look at it like a collection of songs. What are your favorite songs, and why? What are your least favorite songs, and why? The "why"s in those last two questions aren't strict questions. The answer could be "because it makes me feel good" or "because I fucking hate it, that's why." Or you could go into specifics. Why do you like the song, while understanding that others might not like it as much as you? What is it about you yourself that makes you drawn (or repelled) by this particular song or songs?

Next, you can compare songs. Are all the songs equally enjoyable? Do you typically find that some songs are better than others whenever you listen to an album? Is there one that stands out as great, so great that the rising tide lifts all boats? Is there one that is so bad that it kinda ruins the album for you? Would you have preferred the songs to be in a different order? A.k.a. is the sequencing correct, in your opinion? Is there enough variety? Does the lack of variety hold the general theme tightly together? Does the variety create a sense of confusion as to what exactly the artist is trying to do? Etc. etc.

Finally, you can give a sort of "final impressions" or "conclusions" on the matter. No shame in repeating what you've already said, or summing it up. Some people give a numerical score to sum up their overall opinion on the album, but a concluding paragraph that says something like "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" would do the trick too. Or skip this part if you feel like the rest of the review already adequately answers this question.

VOICE

I think a lot of our Record Club regulars and semi-regulars already have done a great job developing their "voice," i.e. the way they write that differentiates their reviews from others' reviews. Unfortunately, I think the only way to really develop that voice is to keep writing as much as you can. I think I look at it like this: we all have a different way of speaking out loud and conversing, and developing the writing voice is getting as close to that verbal voice as possible. But that might be off-base, so bottom line: keep writing, and see how your voice gains clarity and distinction.

I also feel like sometimes "voice" translates to "this is something that they always do or talk about in their reviews." Different people have different quirks in their writing. That's not something you should shy away from. It's okay to have "your thing." One added benefit is that you can eventually mix things up by writing "against voice" and purposefully doing things in a different way than usual. But all this takes time!

Something to remember is that there is already an "established" music critic voice that review writers across the internet seem to use, especially in paid publications. Professional music critics tend to use the same language and write their reviews in the same way. WikiHow says that you should "familiarize yourself" with this language and these terms. I don't agree with that. You wanna sound like a Pitchfork review? Go for it—I will be impressed. But if you're developing your own voice, then I think you gotta establish what that sounds like on your own instead of trying to sound "professional" or whatever. (Read about "disabling inherited language" in this interview.) We're not professionals here. This is a hobby. It's something cool to do with friends in your spare time. Don't put pressure on yourself to sound like hot shit. It's better if you're just you.

OTHER

Get creative! The weirdest review hasn't been written yet. Maybe you are doing the stream of consciousness thing. Maybe you get drunk and see what words pop out. Maybe you aren't using words at all. I had someone tell me one time that she wanted to draw pictures for each album instead of write words. That works! My favorite review of all time is just a monkey peeing in its own mouth—it's a good review because I know exactly how the author feels about the band Jet without even having to read a single word.

Get subversive! Don't listen to anything this blog post is suggesting. You could in fact do the opposite of everything written here, and it would still be a good review. And don't forget that you can get meta too if you want. If you're purposefully not following directions, you could lampshade it by literally writing "I'm not following directions." Insert yourself into the review. Write about how hard it is to write. Write about how it's easier to write about how hard it is to write. Don't make any sense. Apologize for not making sense. Say how much you hate Record Club in your Record Club review—we can't kick you out!

I will include more information here if anything else comes to me or anyone else passes anything tips or tricks along. Let this blog post be a living document.

CONCLUSION

Here's a question I asked music critic Steve Hyden in an AMA a few years ago, and his response:

JOE: "I love listening to music, and I would to get better at writing about it, but I feel like everything I write is terrible. It's just so hard to translate from my ear to the page. Any general tips you can to someone hoping to become a better music critic/writer?"

HYDEN: "The only tip I can give you is to keep writing, even if you think your stuff is bad. First, you are probably better than you think. Second, the only way to get better is keep writing and (this is equally important) putting yourself out there so other people can read it. In that regard, being a music critic isn't that different from being a musician. You play a lot of gigs where you suck and nobody cares, and then you gradually get better and people start to care more. I wrote for a LONG time before anybody cared."

You heard him, folks. Keep writing. When I respond to your emailed review and say that what you wrote is great, I'm not lying. I really do think that all our RC contributors are great writers in their own way. But this blog post is for those of you who don't agree with me, and who think that their own writing is not up to snuff. Please see the above two-pronged advice: 1) shut the fuck up, you're great, but 2) keep using Record Club as an excuse to write and you'll be amazed at how quickly you start to like your own writing.

Thanks for listening and writing and caring, Record Club family! You're awesome. Keep it up.