How I review music for Australian Guitar review

I am just a guy who loves music, so I review it on my Instagram page and here on the website, but I wanted to be a bit clear on how I score things, my likes and dislikes and everything in between.

So – to start, I don’t have a background in music theory, composition or anything like that – I play guitar and listen to music – that is it. So I am not coming at reviews from an academic angle

My likes and dislikes – I grew up in the 80s, but I didn’t have a massive exposure to music as a kid, just commercial radio and that was it. My love of music started in my teens when I listened to things like Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory by Oasis which then catapulted me into a bunch of other music of the mid and late 90s.

Eventually it was harder rock and metal that I turned towards and bands like Sepultura, Soulfly, Rage Against the Machine, Rammstein, At the Drive In – all became favourites along with a lot of the later 90s/00’s commercial rock like Foo Fighters. I would say that AlexisonFire is my favourite band of all time.

What don’t I like? I can’t really say that there is anything I don’t like overall – I think that there are standouts in all the typical oft-disliked genres – Pop, Country, Rap. But in saying that I don’t lean towards that type of music.

For my reviews

Anything that I review is something that I have been curious about, is from a band I like, or that I have got a recommendation for. I try to avoid looking at other reviews of albums before I listen to them (or reslisten) as I don’t want to have a bias. I get recommendations from friends, Reddit, Instagram posts or Spotify lists. I often will seek out bands that I see are other peoples favourites and then listen. I like to listen to bands that I have ‘missed’ and go back to them.

Ratings

I try to keep things somewhat objective, but hey, these are my opinions. So I tried to develop my way of standardising these scores. So I rate out of 10.

• /2 Flow and cohesion – how the album fits together
• /3 Musicianship/Lyrics/Artistry – how does it feel, are the lyrics cliche/poetic/something else, are performances tight, what is production like
• /2 Originality and Impact – what does it bring to the genre or music in general
• /2 Personal Taste – just vibes really, do I like it, does it scratch an itch.
• /1 Wildcard Bonus – is there a gut punch, a song that stands out, goosebumps?

Links

I will most probably post Amazon or other affiliate links in posts that I make to a. direct people where the can get an album and b. Earn a small commison to keep the amps on.