Record Club covered this album exactly five years ago. I gave it another listen this week. Here are some thoughts.
I think we've done this enough: "In the past five years, I've exposed myself to enough different kinds of music / genres / artists that I'm relistening to the album and feel like it's definitely not as bad/uninteresting/difficult as it felt back then." It is again true for Arbiter by Hopesfal. I really struggled with getting a handle on this thing at the start of the fall of '19. I listen to it now, at the start of the fall of '24, and it feels... not like a revelation or anything, but definitely something I can understand easily, and in some oblique ways even appreciate. In some ways, that is magic. In other ways, it's the very basic product of hard work.
But we've done that. The point has been underlined enough. Music is fucking awesome, it's magic, etc. etc.
When I think about Hopesfall now, I think about the reviews first, the small handful that we collected that week five years ago. I deleted Arbiter off my iPod and hadn't listened to it in 4.9 years, so this becomes an interesting opportunity. Do the reviews inform one's listening experience? Because that's what an album review is supposed to do, right?
I mean, look, I've spent five and a half years now preaching that it does NOT have to be that way. I'm more inclined to believe that reviews are still an expression of the self, with the music more as a guide than as the focus. So it went with my own Arbiter review, which I'm pretty proud of, in terms of creative writing. If you asked me to name my my earliest album review that I still enjoy reading, then it's probably this one. But now, after reexamining the album itself, and finding that all my personal anxieties from back then are moot, I'm forced to ask: is this a good album review?
I guess it just depends on what you're looking for. If you honestly want to know whether Hopesfall is the band for you, then you'd be better to look at the other reviews. Nate gives an honest comparison between this album and other albums in the genre. Pam gives the skeptical take, saying that it's not for her. That week's RC captain Brittany takes the fangirl approach, saying that listening to this album is an exciting opportunity. All of the reviews still manage to reveal something about the author of the review, without sacrificing the opinions about the music. Basically: "If you are like me, then you will like/dislike this album." As proud as I am about what I wrote, I don't think you get any sense of Hopesfall from my review. The most you can pull is "this dude is trying too hard." Which misses the main point of the exercise.
It would be different if I was saying "I thought it was bad then, I think it is good now." That change in mindset is natural, and welcome, and happens all the time, and makes documenting your changing opinion in real time all the more worth it. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm saying that my Arbiter review captured well my journey as a writer, but failed to capture any real opinion about the album itself.
I've gotten a little better at it since then, but it's still something I struggle with. But that's the hard work again, and the magic.
No comments:
Post a Comment