The need to be sensitive, in an arty kind of way

One of my paid jobs is to write album/artist reviews. These reviews then appear on an American ‘reviewer’ website in their entirety. If the review is outstanding it usually appears (largely unedited) on the website or MySpace of the artist or band that was reviewed.

If the review is, how shall I put it, less than enthusiastic, the full review still appears on the ‘reviewer’ website. But sometimes a highly edited version appears on the website of the artist or band that was reviewed.

This editing isn’t as bad as the editing that is prevalent in ‘Theatreland’ where, for example, a billboard outside a theatre might say ‘OUTSTANDING… The Daily Telegraph‘ but the full context in the original Daily Telegraph review might have been a quote such as ‘This production could be outstanding if the entire cast were struck down by a terminal affliction tomorrow and replaced with the cast and director of Les Miserables’.

Don’t snigger. I’ve seen it.

But this editing – or potential editing – is one minor constraint that sits on my shoulder when I’m writing a review; try to avoid words or phrases that might be contextually extracted and applied with new meaning.

There is another constraint that sits on the opposite shoulder, adding unwelcome weight to the reviewer’s lot. A desire not to slaughter any innocents.

Because the truth is that (sadistic bastards aside) no one actually wants to write a review that buries the reviewee. I mean, I could sit here and say to someone nearby ‘Listen to this, it’s really really shit’, but there’s no way I’d write that knowing that the reviewee (and, possibly, their friends and relatives) would see the words. What’s the point? And anyway, I do believe in encouraging people to higher levels of expertise, not taking them outside and shooting them.

But every now and then the very lovely Kristie in New York throws an act on to my desk and says ‘review this’ and I might do my usual thing and want to have the reviewee taken outside and shot.

My process is simple.

If there’s a bio I’ll read it before I google the names involved, if there’s no bio I go straight to google. And while I’m fiddling with the interwebs I’ll load the album in to iTunes, import it and then move the tracks to my Review playlist and sync the lot on to my iPod. This handy little method enables me to listen to the albums as I’m moving around London or up and down the M40. Very handy.

I sometimes wish it wasn’t. Today I wish I didn’t have the sense of hearing.

I have just finished writing a review for a band that is, frankly, shockingly, painfully… awful. I can’t give any further details, it would be most unprofessional. But this was the very first time as a reviewer that I want to use phrases like ‘audio hell’, ‘Grievous Bodily Harm of the Hearing’, ‘not so much wall of sound as a concrete block of noise’, ‘hysterical high-school C-list musicians performing in what sounds like a drug-induced screaming session’ and ‘please take my wallet, take anything you like just put those instruments down’.

But car-crash incidents notwithstanding, the vast majority of artists have been interesting to listen to, and talented in no small degree.

But there is a line to be drawn.

I just wish that today, I could have drawn it in another place.

B.