i once read a review i'll never forget - not a formally published review, and not a music review, but an independently submitted review on a small gaming website. the review had some technical and organizational issues, but mostly communicated a sort of indifferent support of the game. (if it weren't so unenthusiastic, it would have read like an advertisement for the game in question, something that i advise aspiring critics never to shoot for. but that's neither here nor there.) after reading this review, i got the sense that the reviewer was bored by the game, or didn't like it quite enough to rave about it.
but, when i scrolled down and saw the score, my jaw dropped: it was a 10/10. the reader in me was befuddled; the critic in me was indignant. this wasn't like any other 10/10 review i'd read, where the writers would wax rhapsodic about every aspect of the work and talk about its far-reaching consequence. this was, to summarize it kindly, a dull bit of advertising copy for a game that didn't even seem to be worth the purchase - the equivalent of reading a fiery speech in a monotone.
now, i realize it's a bit petty for me to get all worked up about a review of that nature. it was an informal website, and i wasn't even interested in buying the damn game in the first place. but, nonetheless, my feathers were ruffled with righteous confusion. not only had the value of the game been diminished by the review, but the perfect score had been devalued by pairing it to the review!
as you may have seen in part 2 of this series, in which i wrote about numerical review scores and their symbolic significance, 10/10 is, by definition, the gold standard for an album (i'm switching back to talking about albums instead of games - i think you get my point). a 10/10 comes in many forms - 4 stars out of 4, 5 Zeus Slaps out of 5 - but all of its derivations mean, or should mean, the same thing: you think this album is perfect. that's right. not really really good. not only-flawed-in-one-minor-way-but-i'm-willing-to-overlook-it-because-it's-so-great. Perfect, with a capital P. you can't go higher than a 10/10. if you critique a work properly and extensively, and find that the only score you feel comfortable giving is a 10/10, chances are you've found a very, very special record. 10/10 albums - Perfect albums - don't come around too often, and the critics that review them and find them to be perfect inevitably, and quite understandably, gush over them.
which is why it pains and frustrates me to no end to see reviews like the one i talked about above. if i had tried to guess the score after reading the review, i would've guessed it to be a 7/10 at best. true, all the basics of the game were outlined, and there were a few qualifiers of enjoyment sporadically thrown in ("the missions were fun," or something of that nature). but it didn't convey any sense of urgency, any excitement, any joy at playing what the reviewer had labeled a perfect game.
if you're going to give an album (or a game, or anything) a perfect score, you absolutely have to convey as much honest excitement as you can. and if you can't get worked up enough by it to give it a 10/10, it doesn't deserve one. plain and simple.
=====
i once wrote a review i'll never forget. it was my first review for my first "official" writing gig. i made the mistake of reviewing an album i already enjoyed (i'm gonna write about that later - be careful of that), but, luckily, not one that i enjoyed enough to give it a perfect score. nonetheless, i thought it was a very solid record. a few dull songs here and there, but the bright spots were very good. i wrote a brief, paragraph-long piece about the album, and gave it a 4/5. but when i turned it in to my editor, he looked it over and said "no, that won't do."
i was taken aback. i'd worked hard on making my paragraph concise, easy to read, and all-encompassing. i'd named the best songs, alluded to great albums of the band's past and compared the new release with those records. i'd triple-checked my structure, grammar, and punctuation. what had i done wrong? but, as soon as he told me, i realized what was missing. from that point on, the direction i took my reviews was permanently impacted.
the advice he gave me is that which i give to you now: if the record doesn't deserve a perfect score, you have to explain why.
remember the advice i gave about communicating interest for a 10/10 record? (of course you do. the question's rhetorical, bear with me.) this is the flip side to that coin. if the album is a 9/10, or an 7.5/10, or even a 4/10, you have to make it clear to your readers why those points were docked. like i said, perfect records don't come around very often. chances are you're going to get one, maybe two per year at most, that you find no fault with. which means that you're going to find at least some minor fault with every other album you review that year. you're going to confuse the hell out of your readers if you write a positive- or neutral-sounding review, and then give the album a 6/10.
larger outlets for reviews - for instance, the website for the Guardian, or Pitchfork - are especially guilty of this, warmly receiving and talking up new releases while holding a 3/5 or a 6.8/10 like a knife behind their backs. i can't stress enough the symbolic importance of scores. there is a vast difference between a 7/10 album and an 8/10 album, and a bait-and-switch on the part of the reviewer, however unintentional, is jarring. as a critic, you can't be afraid to call a spade a spade, and you certainly shouldn't call it a club. that helps no one.
=====
now, chances are that a lot of the reviewers guilty of mismatched scoring believe that the score they gave was absolutely correct. and, honestly, in their heart of hearts, it probably was. i believe that the key problem in reviews like these is improper communication. in retrospect, it's very plausible that the aspiring game reviewer loved the game, and simply had trouble conveying his enjoyment for it on paper (or maybe he just found nothing to be wrong with it, and gave it a 10/10 just because it met all his expectations - but you get my point). i know that, in my own faulty review, i had forgotten to communicate the issues i had with the album. even though the score i picked felt right, i made the mistake of not showing the reader the steps i'd taken to get there.
with this in mind, the key to properly scoring a review is open, honest, direct communication with your audience. if you find something you really like about the record you're reviewing, don't be afraid to direct your readers to it. if an aspect of the album seriously bothers you, speak up. and, if you honestly believe that you've found, by your standards, a perfect record, go ahead and give that 10/10 - that is, as long as you preclude it with the fanfare it deserves.
No comments:
Post a Comment