As I’ve mentioned before, I have a radio show on our local community station*. It’s mostly indie rock and alternative country, and while I occasionally dig into the archives (particularly when I’ve had a productive day of vinyl-hunting), the focus is on new music. Every week I feature a few brand-new albums, usually with a three-song set, and a whole lot of my favorites from the past few months.
I’ve recently discovered Chicago Public Radio’s Sound Opinions, an excellent rock-and-roll talk show by two longtime critics and writers. Each week they do a couple of long-form album reviews where they play a track or two and offer their opinions. I’ve been thinking about stealing their bit incorporating a similar idea into my show, and I did this last week for the new Girl Talk and Hold Steady albums.
Greg and Jim rate each album on a scale of Buy It/Burn It/Trash it. Buy It=worth paying full price for; Burn It=worth copying from a friend or downloading on the cheap (Emusic, etc.) but not $10-15; Trash It=don’t bother. I like the scale, because it’s simple, intuitive, and meaningful, but obviously I don’t want to use theirs.
So what can my scale be? I’d like something similarly simple and meaningful, without numbers pulled out of my ass (Three Spaceships, or whatever) or anything cutesy. I don’t suppose it has to be an actual scale, really; any ideas are welcome.
Spaceship of Fools, every other Tuesday night 8-11PM EST. Stream it here! Next show is this Tuesday, 7/8.
Wow. I was gonna suggest the monetary scale. That’s what I used when I was reviewing albums in the 90s. Basically I rated it by how much I’d be willing to pay for it. Occasionally I’d get a lifetime toptenner which I’d rate “priceless”–buy it whatever the cost. Otherwise, I rated most things as “look for it in the $5/$1/Free bin.”
I think dividing it into buy it/download it/don’t bother is about the best system you can make for most indie albums these days. I hardly ever review things without filler, or at the very least review an album that actually works as an entire album. Most have 1, 2, up to a half dozen good songs, with a lot of sawdust.
Random tangent, but have you heard the new David Karsten Daniels? No one is talking about it, but it is the only album I’ve heard all year that actually works as an album. It’s brilliant, all tracks lead to the next. So, he would be a definite “buy.” But, I’d say that Girl Talk is worthy of checking out on Myspace, and if you like, buy a couple of songs off of iTunes or download it for free from his website. Unless you are really into it, it’s not all that much of a milestone.
Further down the list, I have a 7 inch stack of CD’s that are garbage, but we never play them on air here in the Boro. They get resold, or trashed.
All systems I’ve come across on blogs are worthless. Tiny Mix Tapes has no consistency, You Aint No Picasso (by the by, do you read them? They are based out of Lexington, IIRC) has no system, etc. The only thing I find mostly reliable is good ol’Pitchfork, and all that tells me is that if it is 8+ I should be aware of it, 9+ I should find a way to listen. 7’s are average, 6’s have moments of greatness, and everything less than that is the endless barrage of CD’s they get sent by clueless promo companies, bubble wrapped hope of unlistenable dreck.
The scale I like best is roughly like this:
[ol]
[li]Must-hear[/li][li]Recommended listening[/li][li]Recommended for fans of a particular style/subgenre[/li][li]Worth listening to if you have nothing better to do[/li][li]Don’t bother[/li][/ol]
I know Matt pretty well; he works at the record shop I frequent when I’m in Lex and I run into him at shows all the time. I had him on the show as a guest sometime last year.
Every day when I read Pitchfork I read the blurb on the homepage and try to guess the score from it. I’m usually within half a point.
I’m trying to avoid the usual numeric scales because I’ll feel obligated to be consistent. “This one feels like 3 1/2 stars, but I gave this other one 3 1/2 stars and it isn’t as good as that one, but it’s way better than this one I gave three stars…” (repeat until head explodes). It would work fine if I could approach it with a more cavalier attitude, like P4K or Roger Ebert, but I know I won’t do that. That’s why I like broad groupings.
I review games in much the same manner - I use Find It or Fuck It.
Games that really stand out, though - 10/10 games like Psychonauts, GTA IV and Portal - gets Run, Do Not Walk. I only hand out the RDNW like two or three times each year.
