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Why do you write music reviews |
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ProgMetaller2112 
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Joined: 19 Jan 2013 Location: Pacoima,CA,USA Status: Offline Points: 2490 |
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 Topic: Why do you write music reviewsPosted: 08 Jul 2015 at 12:13am |
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"Before you see the light you must die!!!!!!!!!!" - Slayer
"Today is born the seventh one, born of woman, the seventh son" - Steve Harris |
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ProgMetaller2112
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Joined: 19 Jan 2013 Location: Pacoima,CA,USA Status: Offline Points: 2490 |
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Posted: 08 Jul 2015 at 12:12am |
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  I write them for fun, to give my two cents and to recommend to others
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"Before you see the light you must die!!!!!!!!!!" - Slayer
"Today is born the seventh one, born of woman, the seventh son" - Steve Harris |
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bartosso
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Honorary Collaborator Joined: 31 Dec 2010 Location: coffin on Io Status: Offline Points: 1555 |
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Posted: 06 Jul 2015 at 11:12am |
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Vim Fuego
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Death, T/S/G, Grind, VA Teams Joined: 05 Jul 2015 Location: Canterbury, NZ Status: Offline Points: 6618 |
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Posted: 06 Jul 2015 at 12:08am |
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I started writing reviews back in 1999 because I was working as a newspaper reporter and people started sending me free CDs. The CDs were pretty crap though, so I used throw in a few of my own too. I put Nile alongside Kylie Minogue and Deicide next to the Spice Girls.
I also used to do them for my own amusement when I lived in South Korea, sticking them on Amazon just for something to do. I got up to about 2000 in their reviewer rankings, then they changed the way it's judged, so I'm now about 3,000,000. Posted a heap on Metal Archives, and two now defunct sites- Sonic Death and BlastWave. Haven't written a review as such for about 5 years, but I've been offline for the last 8.
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aglasshouse
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Honorary Collaborator Joined: 12 Jul 2014 Location: GoodAsNew York Status: Offline Points: 943 |
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Posted: 05 Jul 2015 at 8:32pm |
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We are all friends
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bartosso
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Posted: 04 Jul 2015 at 6:38am |
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I started writing reviews because I'm a recluse and apart from one friend in America with whom I skype every month or two, I don't really talk to anyone. Hence writing reviews is the only way for me to practice English.
I prefer writing over talking, tho. Cause no one will interrupt me, u know? no matter what I type. Down with the system! Kill all llamas! Oswald didn't kill Kennedy! Obama is an atheist!.. See? No one.
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aglasshouse
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Posted: 25 Jun 2015 at 3:09pm |
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The reason why I started writing music reviews is something that boils down to why I started writing in general. I have always been a fan of literature and have had a healthy understanding of the English language. These two factors inspired me to write stories around the age of seven. These short stories (stories that I presumed would become large books and bestsellers in my future) were pretty terrible compared to what I write today. One of my first stories was about one of the three sons of Father Time, a deity that controls the fabric of time itself. Along with his two brothers, one of them being more hateful towards the protagonist and the other being the eldest and one who is more kind. The protagonist son gets sucked into the real world and has to find his way back to his father. Maybe not the best story I've thought of, but of course I was young and didn't know how to develop a plot very well. Although this was not the best thing I've ever written it did inspire me to continue to where I am today. After awhile I started to branch out and I discovered Prog Archives, a site that Khaliq had told me about. Because I loved music so much and many of the bands that appeared on the site were of my taste, I started to share my thoughts of music on there. Khaliq and I started writing around the same time. We both did track-by-track reviews that took a longer amount of time than the ones that are more summarizing than going into more detail of every song. Mine tended to be much longer than Khaliq's, and made it so I couldn't write them often. Before I stopped using my old account I had only written a total of two lengthy reviews. You can actually see them on my old account here: http://www.progarchives.com/Collaborators.asp?id=51901 Some time passed until I discovered the MMA, a site where I could expound on a whole other subset of music, and even participate in the community and add bands. That's where I am today really, and I'm hoping I can do even more with my writing in the future. Sorry for the overlong sermon. Perhaps I should have just kept it more concise.
 Edited by aglasshouse - 25 Jun 2015 at 3:10pm |
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UMUR
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Posted: 25 Jun 2015 at 1:57am |
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Otherwise there is an official guideline here: http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=180&title=review-and-rating-guidelines
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Unitron
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Posted: 25 Jun 2015 at 12:11am |
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Yeah, Dream Theater is a bit more technical then they are creative. They recycle their own riffs and melodies sometimes, so I find some of their albums can get stale after awhile. You may like their Awake album though, that's a pretty creative album with quite the amount of variety.
Here are the review guidelines that I always remember: - Has to be in English - Be polite, don't insult people for having different opinions or insult the band - Profanity is okay as long as it's not used insultingly. Stuff like 'This song kicks ass' is okay, 'This is a piece of shit' is not. I hope this helps.
 Edited by Unitron - 25 Jun 2015 at 12:41am |
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If I say fuck two more times that's forty-six fucks in this fucked up rhyme
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iron_union
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Joined: 22 Jun 2015 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 19 |
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Posted: 24 Jun 2015 at 11:51pm |
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Hi Unitorn(I like reading your name, it look like unicorn but it's not
)I care most about the creativity too! And yes, the ideas must be authentic and original. I've never into Dream Theater tho. They are more technical than creative for me.
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iron_union
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Posted: 24 Jun 2015 at 11:40pm |
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Really, can I write reviews on this website too? I think I need more knowledge and more work about my expression tho...What's that MMA's review guidelines?
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Unitron
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Posted: 24 Jun 2015 at 10:07am |
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I don't know if I really look for anything in music. I have always loved the Phrygian Scale, which is most known for it's middle-eastern sound. A notable song I can think of featuring it is Dream Theater's 'Home'. I don't really look for it though, if a song I happen to like has it then awesome. One thing I do like is creativity, I don't like it when bands blatantly copy another. The main thing I look for in music though is really just anything that bring me enjoyment.
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If I say fuck two more times that's forty-six fucks in this fucked up rhyme
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UMUR
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Errors & Omissions Team / Retired Admin Joined: 25 Mar 2010 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 18250 |
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Posted: 24 Jun 2015 at 5:47am |
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As long as a review is about the particular release you are writing about and it follows MMA´s review guidelines, you are welcome to write reviews any way you like. Sad ones, disappointed ones, happy ones, praising ones...etc ...and yeah Adam writes great reviews  Edited by UMUR - 24 Jun 2015 at 5:48am |
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iron_union
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Joined: 22 Jun 2015 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 19 |
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Posted: 24 Jun 2015 at 5:19am |
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Thanks for the threads Jonas. I actually learnt a lot from Adam's reviews. His sentences look very clean and correct. My personality is that I always want to make fun and have a hard time to be serious. So I've been writing reviews very emotionally. I don't really care about the history or the musicianship of the bands. Basically I only care about if they have good ideas and are those ideas original. All about creativity.
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UMUR
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Posted: 24 Jun 2015 at 1:55am |
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I wrote thousands of reviews, and used Google translate a lot
 . And it helps to keep it simple. Have a formula. Maybe you can get something out of reading these threads: Edited by UMUR - 24 Jun 2015 at 1:58am |
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iron_union
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Posted: 24 Jun 2015 at 1:18am |
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Thank you for your replies, UMUR and Unitorn. It's nice to meet people here who take music more seriously
To Unitorn, Yeah people value different in their life and so also in music. It's kind of interesting to understand different opinions and different people! Do you want to talk about what is the most important thing for you in music? To UMUR, Haha, what did you do to improve your writing? I document some good sentences from others on a book and when I'm writing reviews, I'll steal some. Hopefully I can form my own beautiful sentences someday. |
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UMUR
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Errors & Omissions Team / Retired Admin Joined: 25 Mar 2010 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 18250 |
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Posted: 23 Jun 2015 at 2:14am |
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I´ve written reviews since 2007. Started out with relatively limited English writing skills, and now writing on a more satisfactory level (IMO
 ). I´ve always wanted to write about music, but before the internet days it was hard to find Places to write, and it took me many years to really start using the internet like I do today, so it´s been a long warm up period  .
So honing my English skills has been a great side effect (which I also use effectively in my job writing business correspondence with US suppliers). But like both of the Guys above, I primarely write reviews because it´s a great way to force yourself to really listen and dissect a release. If you´re going to write something about an album, I like the idea that you can´t just give it a shallow listen. You have to dig in. Not that all albums need 10 spins before I can write something about them, but I´ve found a way to listen and write reviews, that I think does most releases some kind of Justice.
...and although it´s always a bit embarrasing to admit, there is of course also a primal "see me/hear me" thing going on. Everyone writing reviews and posting them on a site like MMA of course loves it when other people read their reviews, as as mentioned above loves comments.
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Unitron
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Honorary Collaborator Joined: 30 Apr 2014 Location: Cypress Hill Status: Offline Points: 8051 |
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Posted: 22 Jun 2015 at 11:32pm |
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I started writing reviews probably about one and half a year ago. I originally just wrote simple track-by-track reviews or quick overviews when it came to games. My review of Rush's 'Vapor Trails' was my first more descriptive and thought out review, and was much easier to write then the track-by-track reviews. I felt it was easier to write because it's hard to say much about every song on an album, and reading track-by-track reviews aren't as interesting as other reviews are for me. |
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If I say fuck two more times that's forty-six fucks in this fucked up rhyme
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iron_union
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Joined: 22 Jun 2015 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 19 |
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Posted: 22 Jun 2015 at 11:12pm |
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I started writing reviews half an year ago. I found it asked me listen to the music more carefully. It made me think alone and understand myself better. At first I wrote on my own little book and then on the Internet hoping to get some feedbacks. I did find that I improved a lot because of it. Do you like writing music reviews too? Any interesting stories behind it?
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Unitron wrote: