posted 01-19-2002 08:23 PM               

That said, I can usually fudge my way through if I can talk about stuff I really like or really hate. It's the middle ground that gets me. Now someone with actual musical knowledge can probably work around that and say something halfway intelligent. Is what they say going to convey the nuances of a particular piece, hell no! What would be the use of listening to the music then? When you write about music, you should make people want to listen to what you've described, not make them feel like they've already heard it. Yes, even if you're writing a review for something truly bad - you should make them want to hear for themselves how bad it is. That's my opinion; it's something I've never been able to do, but I know it when I see it.

BTW, Kevin, Dave is itching to point out that John Mayer and Five For Fighting share a label (Aware) in addition to sharing a potential audience. Since that's the kind of minutiae Dave likes to point out, I figured I'd beat him to it.

posted 01-19-2002 08:24 PM               

I don’t go to SonicNet often, but they are a reasonably good source for links and articles about a lot of bands, even if they’re not exhaustive. I don’t have the high-speed access I would need to really take advantage of the Post’s site, but it’s a great idea. Certainly seems better than the Philadelphia Inquirer’s music site, which in and of itself isn’t half bad either.

As for Underground – I liked its diversity a lot, and I would like to dive into more of their features. But a small sampling of the reviews tends to reinforce Costello’s point. The reviews are for the most part either interpretations of lyrics – words describing words – or rundowns of the content of compilation discs, or perhaps comparisons of one work to another, statements that album X sounds a lot like album Y. They’re not bad, in fact they’re informative, but they talk around the music more than not.