IMO Length of Reviews should be 500 words or less.

I don't know if anyone agrees with me or even thinks about this but I find some of the reviews of prog albums to be mind-numbing long!
I feel someone should be able to do a very insightful review at 500 words or less.
If I start into a review & see it goes on & on while I scroll the pages then I don't read it.
Does anyone else feel this way and would it be a good idea for the administrators to advise on an adequate length of a review.

I think it's fine the way it is. What I'd like to see implemented is giving the reader the option to sort reviews from newest to oldest, so that the old ones (a lot of which aren't up to today's standards) are at the bottom.

I don't have an issue with longer reviews, but in general I find 300-500 words is enough for most albums. I admire those who churn out lengthy track by track analyses, but I rarely have the patience to wade through them.

Hi,

Tough subject, and it ends up being about the person as a writer and how that person sees the music.

I'm not a great fan of the current trend of "NO READING" that comes with the Internet, and lots of folks think that a blurb is better, and I won't disagree with Mike on this ... a well stated blurb goes a long way, however, I tend to think that at times there is something missing ... it feels just like the state of the art in music ... everything has to be short and sweet and end the story.

The downside of short and sweet, is that we do not always find out who/what the person/artist is really about, and it is much easier for a blurb to misinterpret the whole thing, than a more detailed and complete review.

I come from the time of the "movie reviews" and how many well known folks have done in terms of reviews ... I find it weird that the Internet has no room or attention for reviews and in many cases won't even bother to find out if they are good/bad/interesting ...

I, believe or not, do not write for length at all ... but I like to let go and just write and sometimes it is long and other times short, and it was a situation where a decision was made to make it so and so and so and so!

The sad days, for me, is that it is hurting the art form a lot ... more and more folks want the simplified Cliff Notes version of a review so they don't have to read, and reminds me of my days at University when we had to read about 10K per quarter for almost all literature classes, or a lot of the classes where information was a major issue ... and nowadays, regardless, you're not going to learn a whole lot about the depth of a piece of music in a blurb, I don't think ... it will get the general feeling and idea, but not the more complete thought and idea about the work. On top of it, even more significant is the idea that a long piece of music is going to have issues here, because so many folks like the simplified version ...

Reminds me of the old days in FM radio history, when the long cuts got LP's cut up in parts so the DJ that never listened to music anyway, could play their favorite part, and ignore the whole thing ... let me tell you that seeing this for CTTE and TAAB is very distasteful and (for me) insulting to the artist ... and I want my review to me on par with the art, and for me a blurb is difficult, though I have been using them on JMA.

I, rarely, do piece by piece reviews, and tend to find how they all fit into one album, instead which would be more interesting for me.

Edited by moshkito - June 05 2025 at 17:08

Well said Greg, I concur

moshkito wrote: Hi, Tough subject, and it ends up being about the person as a writer and how that person sees the music. I'm not a great fan of the current trend of "NO READING" that comes with the Internet, and lots of folks think that a blurb is better, and I won't disagree with Mike on this ... a well stated blurb goes a long way, however, I tend to think that at times there is something missing ... it feels just like the state of the art in music ... everything has to be short and sweet and end the story.

This is why at AP you can write both a blurb and a lengthy review for a release. We seem to agree that both can be useful depending on the circumstances, so reviewers should not be forced to decide between the two.

I dunno. Yes, sometimes reviews that dissect each track and give a blow by blow account of each phase and verse and chorus and bridge and the instrumentation employed can get a bit tedious. As balance, especially amongst the young uns, saying a track has a very 'Kraan like sax', whilst pithy and to the point, is a reference lost on them.
But like many epic/long tracks, there are very very few that you could honestly say 'all that is in it is justified'. Some repeat a theme to death, some are so obviously 'you have this bit, I have this bit, he's got that bit so lets put them in the same key and find a few bridges and tack it all together'.
As a voracious reader of books, as well as listener re music, without putting my opinion out there ie my favourite novels, the 5 books that would go on a desert island with me are all well under 200 pages each, as the best writers can evoke with the fewest words. Having said that, I would include an Earthless track on my desert island music compilation....all 57 glorious live minutes of it!

We look forward to your review of John Cages 4:33 with interest...

I am still searching for the scientific formula that states the direct co-efficient relationship between the length of a piece of music and the number of words required to review it. Link?

Why stop at limiting reviews to 500 words?

Why not keep it to grunting "album good" or "album bad" while scratching at your privates?