Weird reviews

Music
#1

Just came across this gem from a review of an album I just listened to, and felt the need to share it:

"The album sounds like it would be a hit with ballerinas on anxiety pills or something like that. The music is crisp and clean, and it is quite something to listen to. However, the new album Face Yourself, and Remove Your Sandals by Small Leaks Sink Ships tends to have a leak that can sink the whole thing. That leak is called “a little boring.” [https://www.axs.com/review-face-yourself-and-remove-your-sandals-by-small-leaks-sink-ships-52731]

Anyone else come across some random turns of phrase or read a review that made you go “huh?”

#2

Oof, that whole review is really quite badly written.

They’re clearly very proud of the “but the album has small leaks!” line though as they insisted on repeating it at least 3 times

3 Likes
#3

the recent p4k miles kane one was weird:

“I initially misheard a lyric as “Fuck you like a monkey with my makeup running.” The true line begins, “Funky like a monkey.” That was a mild relief at first, but then my heart sank further upon realizing that the former could as easily have made the cut”

I think miles kane is absolute shit but it does seem a bit unfair to get annoyed about a lyric that doesn’t actually exist

17 Likes
#4

I just can’t read music reviews any more. Every single one of them, without a single exception, contains something awful within.

5 Likes
#5

Not sure if you can classify this as a “review” as such, but it really is worth mentioning as it is, by far, the most smug and pretentious article I’ve ever read:

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=21396.30;wap2

1 Like
#6

He.

1 Like
#7

“Legendary journalist Paul Morley.”

1 Like
#10

The Quietus review of the new Drake album is properly weird.
The tag line makes you expect a piss take. But then the itself review reads like a half way point between being serious and just copy pasting a press release.

#11

I’d expect a lot more from a Quietus review.

#12

One of my favourite Amazon reviews still

image

4 Likes
#13

It’s one of those reviews where you can tell the writer had planned to do a hatchet job on the guy regardless of what the album might have sounded like.

#14

You shouldn’t, they’re terrible.

#15

ouch :frowning:

#16

Do you review? It’s nothing personal. It’s not you, it’s me. Seriously. It’s my problem. Nobody should be able to maintain a mental list of the worst music writers in the world. It’s not healthy. I don’t know why I care so much.

1 Like
#17

This BSP review always seemed so bizarre to me. It’s one thing to give a bad score to an album I like, but when that score is based off of a total misreading of the work (I don’t get how this sounds especially like any period of U2) then it’s pretty irksome.

Score used to be U.2 for those who don’t know, for some reason it’s now been modified to 8.2 even though that in no way reflects the tone of the review. Extra weirdness there.

2 Likes
#18

for this very website no less, but I know no one reads that (but also for other places!)

2 Likes
#19

Before I gave up on reading about music, I gave up on writing about it. If it helps, a lot of my contempt for the form comes from the amount of self-loathing I used to feel when doing it myself.

That doesn’t help at all, does it?

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#20

ha it’s fine, I agree it can be very frustrating at times.

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#21

Also from P4K (surprise) and their review of the excellent new Ophelias album:

So it makes sense that the contributions of violinist and pianist Andrea Gutmann Fuentes form the backbone of Almost . By the album’s final track, “Moon Like Sour Candy”—as Fuentes’ plaintive violin underscores cute-then-revolting lines like “Tongue like bubbles floating down my rotten skin”—that spine is in desperate need of a chiropractor.

It’s a pretty neat line but I genuiely don’t know what they were trying to convey with it. The album starts strong but ends badly? There isn’t enough violin on the last songs? What.

#22

If you genuinely don’t know what they’re trying to convey, then I’d argue that it’s not a pretty neat line.

1 Like