Does it make sense to review very old albums?

.."very old cds..."??

^ True dat...

Nothing beats the sound of "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" on the original Edison Cylinder. 

Yes, it does. 

Evolver wrote: Nothing beats the sound of "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" on the original Edison Cylinder.

Progosopher wrote: As I like to say, good music is good music, no matter when it was produced.  The advantage of the music biz these days is that not only do we have access to plenty of new artists, but also to the music of old artists.  Some of them are well known, such as Yes or Genesis, while others are obscure, such as Asia Minor or Gracious! (the exclamation point is part of the name).  If the music is good, if you like the music, what does it matter when it was made?  And you don't have to like it even if virtually everybody is saying you should.  That is one of the beauties of our era in time.  Almost nothing is lost.  If the latest releases don't interest you, there are older ones that might.  Or vice-versa.  So, yes, emphatically, it makes sense to review very old albums.  People new to Prog can use those reviews to explore and possibly find something they really like as opposed to what they may be expected to like by peers and music execs.  For example, I just posted one from 1976 - Floating World by Jade Warrior.  I gave it five stars.  Everybody should listen to it, but I know not everybody will like it.  That's okay.  I don't care for most of the Prog Metal albums that are so common these days.  And I am fine with that too.  By the way, I am in my mid fifties.  The world of Prog is much wider and diverse than most of us realize.  Fortunately, we have the means to explore that world to our heart's content, and we are not obligated to like or even appreciate everything we hear.  If we don't like the older or newer stuff, that is our prerogative.  We don't have to limit ourselves artificially, and for that I am extremely glad.

Floating World 5 stars

The Dark Elf wrote: But...I can't get rid of my CDs! I still have 78s in the house!

Edited by moshkito - April 30 2015 at 08:43

Evolver wrote: Believe it or not, there are albums from a half a century ago that many of us don't know about.  There are still bands from the 60s and 70s submitted for evaluation.  Reviews give all of the members and visitors here a clue as to what the band or album sounds like.

Thandrus wrote: Roland113 wrote: Thandrus wrote: It makes sense to review ANY UNREVIEWED album. From my part, I'd be happy if musical journalism (I don't mean PA here, it is definitely better than most other web resources in this regard) shifted to exposing the unexposed from overexposing the exposed.   While I agree with what you say here Thandrus, the one important thing that I think you're glossing over is that we, the Prog Archives, have no control over what the users of the site review.  Others have said this earlier in the thread, but I think it bears repearing.  You have people that focus on newer bands but you have just as many who want to review the music that they're most familliar with.  Shoot, I think I reviewed Selling England when I started here, I was probably the 857th review of it, but it was what got me started.  I think if we, as a site, start dictating what our new reviewers can or cannot review, then we're going to drive away any potential new members. I go with this theory, review what you'd like to review, if you want a specific album to get a bit of pubilcity, write a review yourself.  That's the beauty of this website, everyone has the ability to change it and add to it.   Well, funny thing is, I completely agree with your opinion, I just expressed it a bit clumsily  The second part of the statement was just my personal wish. BTW, I think I've read most of those "Selling England" reviews through years on here

 

There's people discovering older albums all the time, and if someone thinks they can write a well-measured review, or one better than anything released recently, then they might as well give their opinion to help a new listener understand what it's about to them and give them an overview of it. There's still so much out there that music fans haven't discovered yet (e.g. from the 70s) which could effectively be considered a new album? Also, it may take a long time to take in, say a King Crimson record, even after a few listens and develop all of your interpretations of the storylines and to even understand the musicianship. Furthermore, it can be irrelevant to write about something like "Hand Cannot Erase", which despite being a very recent release is being consistently reviewed at the moment, and not much can be said about it. And if you believed this, when would it become nonsensical to review something?