was the name of a book I much appreciated in my mid-teens, this being the then title used to describe the writing styles of Hunter S Thompson, Tom Wolfe and many others. Balance was jettisoned and bias deployed, giving as much of the writer as of the subject material and this has remained the style of (music) journalism I still like most. Mark Ellens subjective response is a first class piece of writing, and is as good a review of the show as I would wish to read. And no, I will not be going to B'ham NIA tonight, and I bet there will be tickets, judging by the very late in the day bill-boarding that has appeared all over the city within the last 3 weeks.

A review is a personal subjective response, or at least, it should be, rather than a load of PR nonsense. You can bang on about "unrepentant doo-wop harmonies" until the cows come home, but mostly it's "Band X did this, this and this, which worked/didn't work because of reasons A, B and C and it was a good/bad performance/record."

I've only reviewed albums rather than live performances, but the theory that "First impressions are the best impressions" does go against what the Word staffers were talking about on a recent podcast that it would be best to review records three months after release when the dust has settled. I agree that for live performance, this is not always the case.

One of the many reasons I enjoy The Word so much is the oft-mentioned lack of scores given to their reviews. The site I write for requires me to rate albums out of ten and I wish I didn't have to, because you end up being in the mindset of "is this a 5 or a 6?" rather than more important aspects. Plus, it kind of ruins the mystique of the review and people don't have to read it to gauge your opinion of said record.

But all in all (see what I did there?), reviews are subjective and it'd be nice if more people realised that. They are the opinion (however well-informed) of one person at one time. My reviews sometimes attract comments and I'm happy to respond to people who criticise what I write and vehemently disagree with me to the point of fury. I stick to Voltaire's maxim of "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

There are three words that strike fear in me, the three words I absolutely cannot abide in response to a review... "You are wrong." Misguided? Perhaps. Controversial? Possibly. Biased? Almost certainly, but unless there are factual innaccuracies, my opinion on something can never be wrong, just as yours can't.

The punter is buying the record/attending the concert because they wish to, the reviewer probably because they are being paid to. They will have taken the job because they enjoy the general area in which they work though not neccessarily the specific item under review.
I once published an 800 word review of a book I hadn't read*, and when I mentioned this to to an email friend she said that her sister, who reviews films for papers in New Zealand, often used to do the same. I suspect more of this goes on in news and arts journalism than most people realise. (Remember the pre-written copy on the killing of Saddam Hussein, which described him as hooded and cowering?).
Does this mean that many reviews are essentially worthless? It all depends what you wanted to get out of them in the first place.

* It was Thomas Harris' Hannibal. Owing to a misunderstanding with the editor of the local listings mag I had to submit a review within a couple of days. I didn't have time to read and review the book, so I just did the latter. It's surprisingly easy. When I got round to reading Hannibal a couple of years later I dug out the review and found out that I agreed with every word I had written, and probably wouldn't have changed any of it if I had read the book first. My friend says her NZ reviewer sister usually found the same. A lot of a review is inavoidable based on the reviewer's preconceptions and surprises are pretty rare.

a repentant doo wop harmony sound like?

I digress.

It is not a coincidence that, very often, the best critics are the best writers.

A review should - in theory - be quite simple:

Tell me what you have seen (or heard or observed); tell me how it makes you feel and why it makes you feel that way.

The theory is simple - the practice - to write clearly, concisely and resonantly about an artefact or event is very difficult.

What is good about Mark's piece and holds true for most illuminating reviews is that, predominantly, it concerns itself with the "what and "why" parts - rather than the "how"

Who are The Hepworth Five?

For me, Mark Kermode gives great review. He respects the need for hard information (this film works/doesn't work as a story...) and also makes it clear why he did or did not enjoy it (which may be at odds with the convention).

Here's an excellent example of the Kermodian approach:

I read Mark Ellen's piece and thought it was a great piece of writing, but didn't consider it a "review". In fact, if it had been flagged as a review of Bob Dylan at the O2, I'd never have read it.

No matter what we think of the reviews / reviewers, we still read them and I would suggest we are influenced by them. That is one of the reasons we buy music / film etc magazines every month.

There are definitely certain reviewers we trust (based on how past reviews of some of our favourite albums / films over the years) and there are times when we will blatantly ignore the review if its an artist we like. I guess the key is that everyone has different tastes and if its a group that the reviewer doesn't like then there is no way it will be a fair review. I've seen this far too many times in magazines by supposed professional reviewers. I know it would be a logistical nightmare to match the reviewer with the appropriate albums, but in an ideal world I would like to read how this particular release compares with the rest of the artists output and not a biased piece that this artist is crap anyway....

With the growth of online music purchases, I find myself reading reviews on Amazon etc - i.e reviews by people that have (supposedly) bought the album. I know that these are generally biased the other way, but it does give a different perspective. Which is better in enabling me to make a decision whether to buy ? I really don't know.

On the same subject, I recently dug out an old copy of Microsoft Music Central which was some software back from the late 80s (I think) that had reviews all from early Q. You can search by artist and even reviewer - there are a few by a certain David Hepworth. I'll have to post some..... Interestingly there is only probably 1 or 2 from Mark Ellen - see things never change......

I want reviews that gush or reviews that stomp underfoot.

I miss the old mid-late 80s Maker and NME reviews; so many names I can't remember from those days, but Chris Roberts and Steven 'Seething' Wells come to mind readily.

Chris wrote the greatest flights of fancy in his reviews, if they were records they would have been a cross between late 70s Bowie, Sigur Ros, Chic, Kate Bush and the complete film soundtracks of John Williams. Produced by Trevor Horn.

I tell you, my musical tastes and own musical efforts were as influenced by Chris' reviews just as much as I was influenced by the bands I was into.

I never understood why people got grumpy, angry even after a review that wasn't in favour of the artist. If you like somebody you're going to buy their music, see their gigs. Surely a review isn't going to change that?

Yeah, give me more opinionated flights of fancy!

It’s curious even with online reviews by “civilians” checking if a reviewer has “previous” is for me an important part of evaluating whether to trust their views or not. If I see a splenetic review of a tune, pub or a digital camera it’s handy (on the sites that let you do this) to see whether the reviewer is just generally a whingey miserable type or if they are genuinely hacked off on this occasion.

On a separate note I do think that it’s odd that with film reviews we still have generic film reviewers (in the broadsheets etc) and yet have specific reviewers for all the different kinds of music, dance and even books. I only say this because I feel genre films like sc-fi etc can get a poor deal from general reviewers who as a broad brush generalisation prefer more art house fare.
None of this however explains why the Observer Music Monthly is in large parts such a dull read though!

It may have started life as an email, but to me it was definitely a review and read as such. That it is largely the background story to getting to and from the gig is as telling as is the phrase ‘the mangled corpses of songs began to pile up on stage’. I had the misfortune to pay good money to see Stephen Stills some months ago, and so appalling was the gig that I began mentally to ‘review’ members of the audience and the size of the band's foreheads, just to pass the time.

Mark’s piece was subjective, informative, funny and it provoked a debate. What else would we need or expect from a review?

or Wee Jimmy Krankie that said, "Just Gimme Some Truth".

I don't care if Mark Ellen's piece was a review, an email or a top secret message stuck to the leg of a pigeon and shot down over enemy territory. I was a brilliant, instant, Whicker-like report and convinced a non-believer in the majesty in all things Zimmerman that I make the right decision to stay in and wash my hair whenever his Bobness rides into town.

Bet they think twice about the free tickets next time though.

DH wrote: >>You can't get away from the fact that with big rock gigs the experience of going increasingly gets in the way of the entertainment. This doesn't happen with most other entertainments.

Indeed, and was doing so a long time ago. Martin Amis wrote a brilliant but sour piece called iirc "The Stones at Earl's Court", back in about 1976 about the pain to gain ratio of stadium rock. Sadly can't find on web but may type in a few choice phrases if can dig out.

friends are often good at reviewing an album for you.