online music criticism is just words, words, words. why?

mp3 blogs are a start, sure. But I don't know of many mp3 blogs which have clips, comparisons, that sort of thing as part of a bigger review.

sorry about that

The cynic in me thinks it would if writing about shitty, boring music. The spell would be broken if you like. And the credibility nixed instantly.

Brainwashed have clips following each review (or at least did in the previous version, not sure about the recent makeover). Also many, many online retailers too.

I think if this worked as well as you'd expect it to in practice it would be more common, imo I'm not sure it does offer a massive extra amount of insight though. These days I expect it's more common to just go grab the whole bloody record off p2p if a review piques the interest of the reader.

as an aside, it would also make those a-meets-b comparisons a lot more accessible..

We don't wanna make it too easy for the readers, now do we?

An example: I thought Mike Powell's Kelley Polar review for Stylus was really good. I think it would have been even more interesting if Powell had selected the music he wanted readers to be hearing as they read the review; some italodisco here, a little R&B there, maybe some of Polar himself, whatever.

11V, your "tyranny of words" talk is OTM. And it's not that I don't enjoy a well-written review. There's still a lot of room for straight-up writing. It's just that I think internet reviews could go a lot further and become a lot more creative and interesting.

x-post -- HOORAY

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), November 25th, 2005 12:14 PM. (Ned)

...so much more entertaining.

what are the legal issues surrounding copyright - It can't be only two seconds - how does AMG do it?

Plus, if this became mainstream, I doubt that anyone would really fight it. It'd be a lot like the mp3 blog situation, I'd think.

or, maybe you're just pointing out that it's not just AMG breaking copyright - in which case, you're right - even more evidence that the two-second rule isn't the reason websites have avoided this sort of thing.

Plus, hell, look at podcasts...

Yeah, now Slate is more like what I'm thinking about (an example is this jazz & hip hop piece).

Why isn't this more popular?

as an aside, I think anyone who does this would be better off using those little embedded quicktime jobbies than linked files - if the embedded quicktime jobbies were just included in brackets after the text, it'd make listening to the music a lot less distracting from the reading (ie. all you have to do is click once and it plays - no new windows or anything).

WHY DON'T CARS HAVE LIGHTS IN THE FRONT TO HELP SEE IN THE DARK

you're right - the slate thing made me realize that this is more comon than I originally thought. But one website among many, many others is not exactly headlights on cars, is it? Why would other websites resist a move to more multimedia-oriented reviews?

This is more like "why don't they make cars that run off gas AND electricity"...

Isn't this the point here, really? Otherwise you've got some text/audio mishmash where you're reading through and have to activate sound at certain points while reading. It's either going to turn into some artsy review/slideshow where you see a paragraph of the review with certain background music or the sound clips are ala carte. While I'm scared to hear some reviewers' voices, I would think that having a background music with occasional breaks in the review for actual parts of the song (or the whole song) would work well. Doesn't NPR do some stuff like that, or am I hallucinating?

----

Otherwise you've got some text/audio mishmash

there are quite a few text/audio mishmashes online these days...if you used the right technology I don't think it'd have to be too intrusive or annoying.

the obvious problem with podcasts replacing reviews are (a)time (people can't exactly "skim through" a podcast and (b) the writing is lost. A lot of people (including me) really enjoy reading a well-written music review or article.

At this point it's pretty much either/or - you either sacrifice the writing and go with the podcasted review, or you sacrifice the multimedia and go with plain print. I don't see why this has to be the case.

tremendoid totally OTM

Which makes me think that this is a way that online-only mags could really entrench themselves; if online reviews offered a totally different experience (and arguably a more informative and interesting one), perhaps this whole "online as second-rate" thing would be finally tossed in the rubbish.

and as far as I've seen, the Voice has lots of links, but I can't say I've seen embedded audio or other media. Not a regular reader, though, so I could be very wrong.

Might be the whole "failed novelist" thing, too.

a lot of print magazines and books are making use of cover-mount CDs now, so it's surprising that the "reputable" (non-blog non-pitchfork) online entities don't do it more.

(a) They do, and
(b) BANDWIDTH

You're spot on. And I'm mystified at why so many people are huffing and puffing, trying to insult your inquiry.

My hunch is most people/publishers simply haven't thought of it, and if they have make that: lethargy and lack of imagination, The Slate example was cool, and I've wished for exactly that sort of review experience in the past.

I'd imagine many writers and publishers aren't that familiar with the technology--and still aren't thinking interactively. Partly a generational thing? In many venues, the people who do the web sites aren't the authors. So you've got the content people and the tech/web peeps. The web people may or may not have contact with the reviewers/writers, and if they do, may or may not be invited to give their opinion about the presentation of the writers' content.

Additionally, someone else started to say this, but if there isn't a pressing demand for it, pressure from competition, or demonstrable return on investment (to at least the more traditional, mainstream, and/or print-mindset), publishers won't bother with it. That use of imbedded clips isn't currently considered industry standard or "best practice," which is what often guides decision making.

In working on an e-commerce web site the credo was: "Do what you have to, and nothing more." If people complained--or if our competition was leaving us behind in some area--we'd change something. Otherwise it was "if it ain't broke..."

I think there's great potential to make it industry standard.

i've come across some (hopefully not being very true) statement that unsuccessful musicians become music critics, ha ha

also many (not all) rock critics are not in the habit of thinking about their readers ;)

and while this question is up i'd like to ask anyone - how does it feel to write a negative review? me, i only did some reviews on the records i love, otherwise i refused...
because i can't make myself write negative things about other people's music, well of course privately i might say if asked, this is hopeless shit or something like this, but not officially in a magazine in different words naturally.
so i wonder - is it hard to write a negative review or one can just get used to it or something?

Although nabisco is perhaps thinking of server-side costs?

There are two answers to this question, Jack:
(a) They do, and
(b) BANDWIDTH

I guess the bandwidth issue is a problem, both server-side and user-side. If using the embedded clips means frustrating readers, nobody's going to bother. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if most pitchfork or stylus or what-have-you readers already have fairly high-speed setups; hell, even some friends of mine from rural Canada have high speed these days. Plus, some fairly small websites are doing pretty heavy-bandwidth stuff online these days, so it can't be that expensive...

As for "they do", I just don't think that's true. Sure, a large number of websites (AMG, Voice, Amazon, and the many more mentioned above) have some kind of audio clips included on the same page as the review. But in how many of these cases could you really say that the audio or other media has actually changed the review itself? The way I see it, with the sometimes-exception of Slate, right now you've got regular, print-style written reviews, with a few audio goodies thrown in. What I'm talking about is creating a review style which is exclusive to and only works on the internet. With almost no exceptions, every music review I've ever read online would have worked if I had printed it out and read it on the metro.

And yes, bandwidth-wise, I am indeed thinking about the server side. If a place like Pitchfork started hosting audio clips for every review, that would multiply the server load several times over! And while it would be nice to have clips right there on the same page, what pressure is there for a site like that to invest all that money in serving them up when -- as has been pointed out here over and over -- anyone who was so interested could very easily bring up AMG, Amazon, the iTunes store, or the band's website in an adjacent window and check them out there? (Surely this is what everyone already does: "Hmm, this review makes the record sound interesting, lemme see if there are any clips I can sample online.")

But nabisco, you're still totally misunderstanding what I'm getting at here! I am NOT talking about "hmm, maybe I should check out this album, I wish there were some audio clips". I am talking about using media within reviews to make the reviews more interesting - these might be band influences, clips from interviews, reference points, similar bands, chunks of the album itself - all of this is stuff that is almost NEVER found in online reviews.

Anyway, if anything were going to happen anytime soon with Pitchfork offering more audio, I imagine it'd be in a form different from the clips you could already get lots of other places.

This is the sort of thing that I am talking about, and I hope that you're right!

Agreed, and I now understand where you're coming from with this. Why put the time/money/effort/risk into a review format that some people might hate when those who want it will be able to "cobble together" anyway? Good point.

In the end, I guess what it comes down to is how much value you see the multimedia aspect of reviews actually adding; to me, an article like the Slate "hip hop and jazz" piece (linked above) is really, really extra-valuable. It was nicely written, sure - but the reason I'd return to slate is precisely because of the added value of the experience. Without the embedded clips, I would never have taken the time to seek all of those references out. I've got other things to listen to. But because they were there - right there, on the page, embedded in the review - I was able to hear what the author was hearing, compare reactions, make connections.

And - I think you realize this, don't get me wrong - this new form could go far beyond merely sticking a Kitchens of Distinction clip into an Interpol review. It's not that I can predict what exactly it would be used for, because that would be more a result of a lot of people playing around with the creative possibilities of the style, but some ideas beyond those mentioned above would be: establishing a mood for the reader by selecting relevant music to hear while they read the piece; highlighting particular segments of the album/track, especially in contrast with previous work or other artists (difficult to just "cobble together" on your own as a reader), and so on.

Plus, I think part of the reason why readers get bitchy about the name-dropping is because those names don't mean anything to them; if I'm right, I think a more multimedia approach would actually help with this problem (because you could actually hear it). Plus, as somebody mentioned above, it would also mean writers who want to dive into more technical analysis would be more free to do so as well, because they could show the readers what they're talking about, making the technical jingo less alienating.

My questions generally have been answered. Thanks.

coinkidenktally, I just wrote about that.

http://www.themilkfactory.co.uk/reviews/afx_hab.htm

note the embedded player (+ mp3 shop advert) at the bottom of the review... I assume bandwidth is paid for by Bleep.com, not the review site, with this model?

also, note the flash player stalls the clips in 30 second segments, you have to keep clicking to hera more. I'd always wondered why that was (to prevent home taping?) but the copyright issues upthread probably explain why.

*I realise this isn't quite what you're asking for (I have read the thread) Jack L but still...
**Of course not all music ever is released on Warp, or via their webshop associated labels. Big weakness. I still massively prefer their business model to the sucky iTunes store though. They've been experimenting with selling lossless files too. I can see a time coming when "buy this now" links go to both 'hard' and 'soft' copies of the music, both being of an equal quality.

I suspect a lot of the non-uptake by online media is still due to some excessive flakiness that needs bashing out on a technical level.

The quicktime things could solve the problem of page load times (since I'm sure you could have the text load first and the quicktime files load at their own speed (like the apple trailers site)). Maybe.

Obviously, this doesn't solve the problem of bandwidth..

That little flash thingy is far, far better for being unobtrusive, undemanding and (afaik) NOT loading all it's data until asked.

http://www.splendidezine.com/
http://www.aquariusrecords.org/