> I know for a fact that I've been lazy when writing
> CD reviews and relied on the sloppy reference to
> "Band X sounds like Band Y and Band Z" formula.
> I never said I was any good at reviewing, though!:-)
> In fact, I started to call that the "bathtub rail" review,
> you know, when you have that rail in your shower
> or bathtub and it's there if you need to lean on it....
> It's sloppy, for sure....Hey, they don't pay us to be
> geniuses every time we write a CD review, right??
> Kinda glad I gave that up...anyway....I was kinda
> wondering about Bob Hutton's comment because
> I was thinking he meant that writers should review
> "what" a record sounds like by describing the music,
> but I was trying to make a point that it's pretty hard
> to do that if you're sure the audience you're writing
> for has never heard the band at all....you have to
> draw some kind of comparison to give them a
> mental earworm or picture of some kind, right??
> It's sometimes practically impossible to describe
> a band's sound without making some kind of
> familiar reference....right?
>
> Bryan

Yeah, it's an extremely difficult task to convey, in some tangible manner,
the sound of a band without at least in part using some reference points.  I
used a lot of these when I started writing reviews in the mid '90s, then
tried to taper off as the decade ended, but I find myself again relying on
them very heavily.  Over the years I've read many reviews by various
journalists in which they try to capture the essence of a disc with nary a
band reference, and while many of these reviews possess an incredible
facility with the language (way better than I could ever hope to achieve),
as well as conjure many vivid images in my brain, they tend to make better
poetry than an actual depiction of the sound of the album, and I'm left not
knowing whether I should investigate further.  Of course, this isn't always
the case, but I generally tend to "get it" more when either reference points
are used or when a writer drops in enough tangible features (e.g. "there are
plenty of harmonies, sweet guitar chords", etc...but even this can mean
different things to different people) for me to get a pretty good handle on
what the disc is like.

I guess what I try when I write reviews is to use reference points as a
platform from which to draw upon, but expand upon these with some nuggets
that help paint a clearer picture of the actual essence of this disc, and
what might define it as being different from the band(s) which have been
referenced.

As an aside, I seem to recall a variation of this discussion taking place on
Audities a few years ago, during which a couple of posters complained when
reference points were *not* used in reviews.

As Mouse And The Traps once lamented, "sometimes you just can't win".  :-)

--
Pop Rules!!!!!
Take Care,
David