The title of this post is pretty misleading. Reviewing isn't maths, after all, and boiling a review down to a simple formula is anathema to reading something new and surprising (although it seems to work pretty well for the Daily Mail website, which operates on a strict formula of liberal baiting + contrived outrage x gross hypocrisy - basic human compassion = mad web traffic).
Of course I'm not going to argue for some inane system for reviewing; each one has to be written in its own way. But writing (and reading) a lot of reviews makes you think about what exactly it is that you like or dislike about an album or a film, about the process you naturally go through before you sit down to try and express your conclusions. Exactly why are you willing to forgive those crappy lyrics on that album you just bought? Exactly why do you love that beautiful film that has no plot or dialogue?
Reviews are my favourite things, both to read and to write. As a deep down obsessive, I'd generally rather spend my time deliberating about chord changes and camera angles than trying to vicariously be friends with the people behind them. So I tend to give a lot of thought to qualifying what it is that makes a great album great, or what makes a guilty pleasure guilty, or what makes a film that seems so brilliant on paper such a chore when you're sitting through it.
The best I've come up with so far is a variation of the classic "style/substance" idea that we've read in so many reviews. I always thought the "style over substance" phrase was a little dismissive of the "style" part, given that it's the style that makes an immediate impact on the listener and appeals to the oft-underrated gut. I'm going to explain my idea in relation to music, but I think it applies just as much to film (not so much to games, which I'll touch on in a bit).
It's helpful for me to split an album into two broad, subjective scales - the satisfying scale and the interesting scale. Satisfaction replaces "style" in the aforementioned metaphor as representative of that instant gut reaction that you can't reason with - in essence, it's that feeling we all got from listening to The Darkness' first album and now feel a little ashamed of. The interesting scale is the "substance" that comes after; all the opinions on pacing, lyrics and the musicians' choices that form after bedding down with a record for a while. All the stuff that gets channeled through a thought process rather than a cocky toe tap, in other words.
I think an album generally needs to captivate me on both counts to feel like a lasting classic. An album that you'll love in the moment for its immediate impact, but revisit month after month to plumb its depths. I love all three of Arcade Fire's LPs because they fill my brittle bones with the urge to stomp around like a mad baby rhino, but in the long-run they offer me three very different worlds to explore, from Funeral's inner-city carnival through Neon Bible's great foreboding plains to the restrained desperation of The Suburbs.
An album can be excellent just by nailing one of these two criteria. Biffy Clyro's 2009 album Only Revolutions had me caterwauling up and down the walls of my flat, but the songs didn't quite match those on Blackened Sky or Vertigo of Bliss for atmosphere and strange rhythms. This doesn't detract from my enjoyment of Revolution's bombast, but it gives the album a natural shelf-life that the very best records transcend.
On the other side of the coin, an album can connect with your intellect and build a fascinating space for your ears without ever really grabbing you. I can recognise the poetry and character of Bob Dylan's music, but it has only ever impressed me. It never ambushed me, pushed me up against a wall and had its way with me. When people patiently, sighing all the way, try to explain to me why Dylan's songs are so powerful and timeless, I can understand and agree. But my gut remains stubbornly unstimulated. Give me Springsteen any day of the week. When that guy revs his engines, he leaves tire-marks all over my heart.
This satisfying/interesting balance tends to help me when thinking about films and movies, but falls down a bit when it comes to videogames. Partly as a result of the games industry's relative youth, combined with the prevalence of interactivity over passivity, games can often be considered masterpieces for simply delivering truckloads of sensory pleasure. Genuinely interesting concepts are a bonus, but at the moment they're optional. What developers really have to nail is providing game mechanics that are satisfying to interact with. Games like Bioshock and Braid might be pushing the medium to new heights, but their exploration of the human condition doesn't make them any more fun to play than Tetris or Pac-Man, even after all these years.
So this isn't my "system" for reviewing. There is no system. It's just a broad categorisation of the feelings I get from listening to an album or watching a film that helps me formalise where those feelings come from when I want to express myself about it in the clearest way possible. In order to express myself with clarity, I find that I need to delve a little into why I've reacted to an album in the way I have.
So are there any albums or films that max you out for satisfaction but feel a little empty after the first few spins? Or those that you can appreciate on a cerebral level but leave you yearning to be swept off your feet? Let's compare notes in the comments below. Also feel free to let me know if I'm talking a load of bollocks. I find it hard to tell sometimes.
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