Liking music more when you try to write about it

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Is this wrong? I reviewed Richard X last night and the ideas flew onto the page, in the end I felt it was the best review I've done in ages. But before I sat down to listen to the album in the context of reviewing it I didn't like it as much as I came to. I did like it alot, of course, but I felt very easily able to give it an excellent review, it really made me use my imagination.

Does this mean the album is better or am I just cheating?

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess a more succinct question is, can somethings be easier to praise/review than others? Can you be lured into giving something a good review because the good points about it appeal to your style? Is your style your taste? Is this an album's originality shining through?

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Reviewing things almost always puts me off them, it exhausts a record (temporarily) for me. That's one reason I don't like doing it.

One exception was that PSB singles thread, because it was more a spontaneous outpouring than a 'review' I suppose. I'm turning it into a 'piece' at the moment and trying to work out how to keep that quality.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I often find I like something more if I write about it because I'm beating it and understanding so I'm making myself feel a little better / cleverer and this is inserted into all near-future listenings of the album. But I'm a raging egotist, I like being able to articulate why I like something and I often find that my favourite things are the things I most 'understand' or don't as it were. (I once started a thread on what majority of the music you love do you write about, Tom said the vast majority of music he loves he doesn't write about, it's just there, visceral and large in view. I think I would subscribe to this to some extent but I definitely think that I can improve my liking of something through writing / reading about it.)

― Cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:36 (twenty-two years ago)

"I'm beating it and understanding it" = a poorly phrased way of saying, I'm thinking about it more and I'm happier when I'm thinking active thoughts.

― Cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I find myself listening much closer when reviewing, be it for lyrics, or themes, or barely-noticable shit going on in the background or whatever. I think this can work either way depending on the record in question - my appreciation of the Dizzee album increased massively when I realised how amazingly quotable it was.

With Amnesiac a couple of years ago it kind of ruined the record for me - I'm not sure I would've realised how empty it seemd as quickly had I not been reviewing it.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:37 (twenty-two years ago)

yes, similarly I also reviewed the Neptunes album last night and was forced to give it a 6. I really hope the bloody mag prints the Richard X thing though.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:40 (twenty-two years ago)

short term listening'll mostly improve the song for me: a mix of cozen's 'triumph of understanding' and matt's joys of investigative listening. post-review i'm often exhausted. like tom. (can't i be my own man?)

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Reviewing can/may help you focus. And thus get/find out more of/about the stuff being reviewed in a shorter period of time.
Which rather often, I recall, did indeed lead to what Tom said in regard to 'exhausting a record for yourself, temporarily'.

Shortly after stopping record reviewing a coupla years ago, I certainly noticed enjoying listening to music (much more) again.

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:53 (twenty-two years ago)

It works both ways. Some stuff I fuile inot my mental 'outbox' as soon as I'm finished writing about them, whilst others totally open up to me. I can't put my finger on what might cause either of these reactions.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 11:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I profiled a local indie band recently, and found the purple prose I used to describe their in-the-studio activity as so completely over-the-top in retrospect that I made them sound like fuckin' Elmer Bernstein (when they're, in truth, much closer to Elmer Fudd).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 12:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I kinda agree with Tom insofar as I find writing a piece on an album tends to exhaust my ability to say much more about it or even think much more about it, although I don't necessarily enjoy it less. Which is why writing a second piece or rewriting something can be incredibly difficult.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 3 September 2003 00:12 (twenty-two years ago)

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