Reviews reporting thread

We should charge him $ 40 a minute for writing reviews like that. It is exactly the same principle. But he now gets this service for free in PA and that is unfair towards the hard working telecommunication workers in dingy offices around the globe.   

Evolver wrote: toroddfuglesteg wrote:   Four weeks ? Please tell me what you did and what you read on the 27. May, please.    I don't understand your attitude on that last statement.

My point was: If I read a review on the 27. May; will I today on the 21th June as a record buyer, and I mean a casual record buyer here and not a die hard fan of Yes, remember this review ? My answer is no. Then again, there is far more intelligent persons here in ProgArchives than myself so I may be out of line here.   

Evolver wrote: [     Granted, the promos I received were sent to me as a record store manager, and not a reviewer.  The few sent more than a week before the albums release were never sent with any statement not to do anything with them before a certain date.   If you receive one with such a notice, the honorable thing to do would be to not review it until that date.  However, it is not in any way a legal contract.  If the sender is upset, they can take the reviewer off of their promo list.

...... Ahh...... I have slightly shot myself in the foot here. I know the record store managers has a very different life situation then pure newspapers and magazines hacks. 

I hope you have read Graham Jones highly entertaining book on this subject. 

Good luck with your shop.  

Evolver wrote: toroddfuglesteg wrote:   A review made four weeks before the publishing date is also a waste of the record label's resources if a legal promo copy was reviewed. In this case, this review is also premature and not based on the usual listening criterias according to the reviewer. If I still ran a record label and a review like that of one of the albums I had invested large resources in was published in PA, I would had been absolute furious and taken actions.  I disagree. While it is rare for a promo to be sent out more than a week or two before the release date, it does happen. The main reason is to generaste buzz about the album.  Either through in-store play, or reviews.  Even if the review is done early, especially if it is a positive review, I doubt the label would be angry at all.  Otherwise, what's the point of sending out the promos?

Four weeks is a long, long time in the mind of a human being/record buyer. Most people's attention span is around one week to 24 hours. A review 4 weeks before release date in the shops does not create buzz or any new buyers outside the diehard fanbase (ie which is e x a c t l y the whole point of a review) unless there is a sustained 5-6 weeks long promotion campaign around the release. Who can afford that ? Not Frontiers and hardly EMI/Warner Bros either these days.   

Most promos is sent out with a "do not publish before date X". I have sent out promos and received promos this way myself. A review need to hit the new buyer (disregard the diehard fanbase here) excactly some hours or just when he/she is able to order the album. You know, one click order at an online store or a travel down town to the record store.

Four weeks ? Please tell me what you did and what you read on the 27. May, please.