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IMO Length of Reviews should be 500 words or less. |
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Dr. Occulator ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: March 04 2006 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 642 |
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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. |
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My Doc Told Me I Have Doggie Head.
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octopus-4 ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams Joined: October 31 2006 Location: Italy Status: Offline Points: 14902 |
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It depends. Unfortunately since the advent of the web we are getting less used to read. Reviews, as well as journal articles or even e-mails are contestualised. We read the first lines trying to guess the whole content, but sometimes we are completely wrong.
The length depends on the writer. One can get bored after few lines or read a 300 pages novel in 2 hours. Of course you can't occupy the whole home page, neither if you are a Nobel prize winner for literature (like Bob Dylan ...) |
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I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution
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Hrychu ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: November 03 2013 Location: poland? Status: Offline Points: 5988 |
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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.
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progaardvark ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Crossover/Symphonic/RPI Teams Joined: June 14 2007 Location: Sea of Peas Status: Offline Points: 53656 |
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I think it would be neat for someone to write a review where they use every single English word one time. I think that would be around 170,000 words and might take about 10 hours to read.
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i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions |
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Syzygy ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Honorary Collaborator Joined: December 16 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 7140 |
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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.
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'Like so many of you
I've got my doubts about how much to contribute to the already rich among us...' Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom |
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MikeEnRegalia ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 22 2005 Location: Sweden Status: Online Points: 21812 |
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I'm a big fan of short "blurbs". At AP the maximum length for those is 300 characters, which forces reviewers to be really concise. I also enjoy reading lengthy reviews for releases which I know well, but when I am looking for new releases, I prefer blurbs or shorter reviews that focus more on why someone likes the release than on describing the music in much detail.
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moshkito ![]() Forum Senior Member ![]() ![]() Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 18632 |
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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 - Yesterday at 17:08 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Logan ![]() Forum & Site Admin Group ![]() ![]() Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 38729 |
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I think people should be able to write long reviews if that suits their style and feelings more. One can read the reviews or not. I commonly like reviews on the shorter side, but some of the most interesting, heartwarming and entertaining I have read have been essay length. Some people like ones that are just straightforwardly informative, and I can like those too, but quite often the ones I've loved cause an empathetic reaction in me in having sense of how the music makes the reviewer feel and might take me on a little journey into their experiences and psyches. I also tend to enjoy reading through quite long posts to seeing the very short ones. If people were paid to submit reviews than I would expect stricter controls on what the publication thinks the consumer will appreciate. Ultimately, I like to see a variety of lengths and styles, but I tend to like the reviews (and posts commonly) that I find more thoughtful and personal at places like this.
Edited by Logan - Yesterday at 18:37 |
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Watching while most appreciating a sunset in the moment need not diminish all the glorious sunsets I have observed before. It can be much like that with music for me.
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kenethlevine ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Prog-Folk Team Joined: December 06 2006 Location: New England Status: Offline Points: 9179 |
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Well said Greg, I concur
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rushfan4 ![]() Special Collaborator ![]() ![]() Honorary Collaborator Joined: May 22 2007 Location: Michigan, U.S. Status: Offline Points: 66795 |
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I had never really thought about this before. A Google search stated the 170k count that you mentioned. The Webster dictionary had this: How many words are there in English? There is no exact count of the number of words in English, and one reason is certainly because languages are ever expanding; in addition, their boundaries are always flexible. Consider such words as "cannoli" and "teriyaki," which come from other tongues but are established through use, context, and frequency as English. There are many other thorny considerations that complicate the task of counting individual words and tallying up the language in that way. For example, are all of the inflected forms of a word–for instance, "drive," "drives," "drove," etc.–one word or several separate words? Similarly, there are twelve different words with the spelling "post" entered in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged; they all have different parts of speech or derivations. Should these twelve be considered one word for the purposes of our reckoning? Some scholars would insist the distinct forms of "post" only be counted once, but others consider each one a separate word that should be counted individually. Another puzzle: should "port of call," another Webster's Third entry, count as a word, even though each of its components is entered separately? It has been estimated that the vocabulary of English includes roughly 1 million words (although most linguists would take that estimate with a chunk of salt, and some have said they wouldn't be surprised if it is off the mark by a quarter-million); that tally includes the myriad names of chemicals and other scientific entities. Many of these are so peripheral to common English use that they do not or are not likely to appear even in an unabridged dictionary. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, together with its 1993 Addenda Section, includes some 470,000 entries. The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, reports that it includes a similar number. Edited by rushfan4 - 11 hours 60 minutes ago at 11:43 |
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