As a music record review writer I have found the form itself has been cheapened considerably over the last couple of years. Of course the fact that anyone can start up a blogspot and write about music makes the writing landscape so varied and interesting and colourful, but it also means there’s no filtration device. The degree of quality writing in reviews has cooled significantly.
I believe a review has it’s own art form; the writing has to be informative of the subject that you are reviewing, but it must also be entertaining and persuasive. Pure information is a pamphlet. A well-reasoned and thought-provoking discussion is a review.
This is not only restricted to digital media, which is a common misconception, printed media too have been on this slippery slope and continue to flail in their shallow puddles of vocabulary. To appeal to mass audiences does not mean the writing has to be dumbed down to the bare-essentials: clichés and a formula.
In the Music and indeed the Art industry, nothing else is as important as having your work be quality and unique, so why should it be different when you’re writing about those industries?
Here I break it down where I think the quality of reviewing is going awry, and follow with how I think a review should be.
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