How to Write an Album Review: The Musical Sales Pitch

The purpose of a review is to not only present a synopsis of what you are reviewing, but also to convince the reader to spend their money on what you are reviewing or not to spend their money on what you are reviewing while giving the reasons why. You never want to tell someone not to buy or invest time into a product or event and never give reasons and evidence to support why.

So let’s move on to why I believe having the knowledge of writing a review, and more specifically, an album review is practical.

1. For any English major, journalism major, or English education major, writing is most likely a component of interest. One practical way for me as an English major seeking to enhance my writing skills is by writing articles, more specifically article reviews on products or events. Writing album reviews stretches you as a writer and forces you to analyze the music you are listening to. Putting that analysis into a review is a great activity for enhancing writing skills.

2. The majority of this world listens to music and most likely you guys do as well. There are new artists arising all over in a rapid pace, due to the availability of the internet. New music and new albums are coming out weekly in a great number. We all have our favorite artists and favorite albums. Writing an album review allows for you to have a voice to convince other to listen to a certain artist or album. We have all been in that situation where we hear a new song and immediately send it to someone or tell someone about it as soon as we can. An album review is a great way to provide others with a resource for listening to or staying away from an album.

With all of this being said let’s move onto the actual steps of writing an album review. There are three steps into writing an album review: The first step is personalizing the album.

1. You want to actually listen to the album as a whole. Profound point I know, but in order to provide a sound and informed review, you must listen the entire album. Not only this, but you should listen to the album as a whole multiple times. Listen to it on the way to work, while exercising, on a walk, to school, with others. Every opportunity you can, listen to it. Another step that might easily be overlooked, is to listen to the album in the order of end to beginning. This is because some albums are intentional in providing a different perspective or concept when listened to from the informal order of end to beginning. An example of this, is Kendrick Lamar’s Damn album. When you listen to this album from beginning to end, the concept of wickedness is evident, but listening to the album backwards, weakness is the concept. The point Kendrick was making was about highlighting humanity in a world of wickedness, “Damned” to hell, and asking the question, is humanity wicked or is humanity just weak? Listening to an album backwards could provide more insight and a new perspective.

2. After you have done this, write down your authentic opinion and thoughts on certain songs and on the album as a whole. What did you like? What did you dislike? You could do this song by song or after listening to the album as a whole.

The next step in the writing process is doing your research for a draft or outline of the review you are going to write. The more structured your outline is, the more of a foundation of excellence you are able to provide to the readers. What do I mean by this? Well you want to know what you are talking about when it comes to objective information about the artist and album.

1. You want to first start by doing some background examination. Know the artist you are reviewing. Listen to interviews about them and about the album they released. Listen to previous albums and know how the current album you are reviewing works into the big scheme the artist has designed. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to read or watch other album reviews. Research. Research. Research.

2. Next, you want to know your musical terms. If you are going to write a review about music, you must know musical terms to describe the musical side of an album. You don’t want to make a fool of yourself trying to describe an album using foreign or incorrect language. This smooths out the review and makes it easier for the reader to follow along and understand.

The final step is putting the pen to the pad and writing your review.

1. Introduce the artist and the album. You want to do so in way that provides information on who it is and what album you are discussing. Not only this, but it should be clear from the start that the album is worth investing in or not.

2. Moving on, you want to dive a little bit deeper into the artist and past albums. This is where you research on the artist and albums from that artist are vital in introducing a potentially new listener.

3. After you have introduced the artist and the album. Describe the concept of the album, if it is a concept album and themes that play a role in the art. If there isn’t one concept overall, there will be topics discussed and themes presented. Include this.

4. After this, you want to describe two key points about the album. The musical side and the lyrical side. Again, these two should be described separately and be as objective as possible. When describing the music or lyrics, you want to be specific and cite what song and what the artist said or the instrumentation of a particular part. In an article written by Scott Wrobel, he says “There should also be an attempt to point out flaws and weaknesses in the subject, even if the review is positive overall.” You want to point out both sides of the album good and bad. This increases the objectiveness of the album.

5. Finally, you want to end the review by providing information on the artist and their next moves, whether that be a tour following the album or a break from music altogether. After you have done this, provide a summary of the review for readers to skim through the recap to obtain the main points.

And that is your final step in writing an album review. As for myself, I would post this on a personal blog for others to publicly view.

Overall, writing an album review is rewarding, satisfying, and useful for others. As Thomas Kelly, a professor at Harvard, writes, “Writing about music allows us to approach the inexpressible thing that makes a piece beautiful or powerful or difficult to grasp.” Writing about an album review is difficult, but a stepping stone in potentially altering the mind of a musical listener.