all the things you haven't heard/seen/read?
A review (positive or otherwise) can introduce us to new and interesting art which may inspire us to experience something life-enhancing which we may otherwise have missed. Alternatively, it may stimulate us to re-examine or -evaluate works or artists which we have become familiar with, and approach them anew from different or enlightened perspectives.
You may not agree with a review - nobody says that you have to - but to dismiss them in such sweeping terms would inevitably lead to an unnecessarily limiting cultural life.

(superb name by the way - conjures up the beatific image of Cannock Chase-On-Sea) - but I wouldn't mind a music mag with some reviews AND the two sides of black-and white A4 listings. Am I being greedy?

My life without reviews of music would be an empty shell

It's about reference points. It's very hard to listen to everything you might like so if a review simply said "I like it and it sounds a bit like XTC crossed with Brendan Benson" then there's a record to seek out.

Reviews of artists that you already have an opinion on are not useful in deciding whether to investigate further but can offer extra insight even if it is just paraphrasing a press release that you may not have seen.

You seem to be taking the approach of "I know what I like and I like what I know."

For die-hard fans of a band, a positive or negative review won't make a bif of difference, but if you're unsure and just need pushing in the right direction or - as mentioned above - it's a band you've never heard of and the review makes them sound of your street, you can check them out. That's exactly what happened to me a few months ago, when a review of the new Neko Case album made me go and buy her album despite never having heard of her.

Also, a good review is just plain enjoyable to read. I write music reviews in my spare time (though it's partly to induldge my pretentious, solipsistic side) and aim to give any reader some entertainment. A well-written, detailed, thought-out review of an album in an esteemed publication such as, oh I don't know, The Word, is a good piece of writing regardless of whether you have any designs on buying the album in question or not.

Good thing about the word is the relatively small pool of writers meaning you get a feel for what they like and whether you'd like it to. Recently I've come to the, slightly disturbing, realisation that anything Rob Fitzpatrick likes, I like, be they Scandinavian indie-poppers or beardy, quiet folky types. These days I buy pretty much anything he tells me to...

But if he or anyone else for that matter didn't review them how would I know to buy them? Noones going to send me a free copy are they? And a list of apeople and albums I've never heard of wouldn't be much help either...

I am left wondering if the reviewer had any opinion on the piece whatsoever. I have read and reread some reviews searching for an inkling of whether the author thinks it good, bad, likes it or doesn't. I know that giving an album a star rating is frowned upon at Word but frankly, sometimes it is the only indication of the reviewer's opinion.

i put out an album a few years ago - and someone gave it a really snotty bad review, comparing us to "section 25"... so i checked them out, and guess what... i really liked their stuff!

The function of record reviews has fundamentally changed over the last ten years. When I would review the Amazing Rhythm Aces for the NME in the 70s, the people reading it would have had little chance of getting to hear the record, unless they had some very friendly head record store near where they lived. Their only input was what a few people wrote. Gamble on the basis of that and you probably come unstuck as often as not.

Nowadays you can get to sample all kinds of music with a couple of clicks: Myspace, band sites, Spotify, You Tube, our Now Hear This series and whatever technology may come next make it easy to listen to quite enough of a record to know whether you're likely to enjoy it. In the old days you used to read lots of rave reviews, go and spend a lot money and be disappointed because it wasn't what you imagined it would be. That's all changed.

A lot of the time I don't think people actually expect reviews sections to tell them what to buy. A well-turned phrase may persuade a waverer or confirm their decision to do whatever they were going to do anyway but it's only going to find its mark if you're ready to receive that message. If you have no affection for cricket and have never liked The Divine Comedy, you're probably not going to like The Duckworth Lewis Method.

As I've said here many times before, I think people's belief that star ratings tell them something is wholly misplaced. 90% of reviews, under a starry regime, are three stars. Three stars is roughly translated as "OK if you like them". And in most cases you know what you like. If Richard Thompson puts out a three star record I'll still want it. If he puts out a one star record (which: a) he's not going to do; b) nobody would dare call it such even if he did) then I would be even more curious.

If you've read reviews that appeared non-committal, that's because the reviewer is trying to strike a balance between an opinion he's arrived at too soon and the knowledge that saying anything negative can make the life of the act harder than it. Ask an experienced reviewer whether he regrets being too harsh or too kind and he'll generally say he regrets being too nice about records that after a while turned out to be quite ordinary.

I think reviews should draw your attention to things you might be really enthusiastic about, help increase your appreciation of them and, as systems of music delivery change, lay out some promising pathways through the enchanted forest of stuff that we increasingly have access to. And it's increasingly becoming a two-way process. I listen to a lot of stuff but nothing like as much as the members of the Massive. Many's the record (and book and TV programme) that I've discovered following the recommendation of somebody on this site. That's not to say I follow all of those raves. I have learned to tell the difference between something that's really impressive and something that a person wants to talk up because it ticks certain boxes. Just as I do with so-called professionals.

CSM and the late lamented Ian McDonald going head to head over "Low," Nick Kent begrudgingly admiring "The Idiot" Lester Bangs frothing at the mouth over The Stooges 1st and Charlie Shaar again with Patti Smith and "Horses", Parsons and Burchill on "The Clash" Not impartial by any means, but great writing all the same. I realise of course no-one can do this day in day out, (apart from Bangs who seemed to have an extreme opinion on anything), and reviewers have to be balanced, but a recent example was Hepworth's review of Speech Debelle which caught my interest and after dipping my toe in with a download went and dived in. That's what reviews are about, for me anyway.

I remember many years ago PM reviewing Soft Cell (in the NME), the entire content of which was a list of everything PM did while the LP was playing. Totally and utterly useless, and falling for the hype that The Reviewer is an interesting person in his/her own right.

A useful review, as a previous contributor has said above, tells you enough for you to begin to make a value judgement: whether or not the reviewer liked it is really superfluous information. For instance, if gloomy music is your thing, then you'll be interested in an album whether it's decsribed as "appallingly gloomy" or "wonderfully gloomy".

bought a CD based on the strength of the review, despite not hearing any of the music. A case in point is the debut album from The Coral. I bought that simply because the reviewer was unable to compare it to anything contemporary. They're now one of my favourite bands.

There's also judging an album by it's cover (A Fine Frenzy), or the song titles. Or even the bands name (which I did for both A Sunny Day in Glasgow and Hot Club De Paris). It's good to take risks.