Robbie Williams vs Wolf Parade: a better way of doing reviews
This morning’s On-The-Go play list is Robbie William’s new album, and Apologies to The Queen Mary from Wolf Parade.
Both of them have had pretty good reviews in the paper And, they’re both pretty good albums, but very different. And I don’t just mean different in terms of genre, I mean because the minute you hear Robbie Williams album, you feel that you know every song, and you’ll be hearing chunks of it at a karaoke bar near you very soon (I should add, that’s a compliment).
Wolf Parade is that little bit more interesting, but obviously nowhere near as polished nor as immediately easy to listen to.
At the moment, we have two elements to a review: first you get the written review, next you get the number of stars. Some (like Word) don’t do stars - however, I imagine many ADD sufferers such as myself realise that by reading the last sentence of any review, you should pretty much be able to decide whether or not to buy it.
Yes, we like a quick at a glance guide - but five stars is too simple by half. The idea that there’s a linear progression for all music to an agreed point of five stars, is obviously daft.
So - I have a simple recommendation, which is to split the star system into two: with marks from -5 to +5 on the x axis for originality and excitement and marks -5 to +5 on the y axis for listenability. You are then left with a neat matrix, that all albums can be plotted against.
The top right quadrant is obviously where it’s at (I have to put Arctic Monkeys in there at the moment) . But at the same time, the top left (listenable, but not very original/exciting) can also been lauded for what it is (yes, Robbie, you have a home), while we can finally acknowledge down in the bottom right, that some music is highly original/exciting, but frankly unlistenable (from two very different corners of the spectrum: insert Dizzee Rascal and Animal Collective).
As for the unlistenable and unoriginal/exciting - well, I think that’s a pretty clear message.
A magazine can now introduce it’s reviews section with a handy chart showing where all this month/week’s releases fit on the chart. You can chose your purchasing based on how you feel…
Am sure the system can be refined…I might get round to introducing it on here, and start to plot everything…