Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall was released 8/18/09 on Matador Records

I am new to the whole Jay Reatard thing. I was first turned on to him from my good buddy, theneedledrop. Watch Me Fall is a very very catchy garage rock with pop and punk elements thrown in. Jay is a very talented song writer. His songs are short, to the point, and did I say catchy? Drums are very old sounding, guitars are pretty twangy, and his vocal style is very unique. He also makes great use of organs, cellos, and more! I could of gotten more aggression and fuzz on the guitars but this was a pretty laid back, happy at times record.

8.5/10

Listen to the track It Ain’t Gonna Save Me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG65eqfg6bc

Website:
http://www.jumblejunkie.com

Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/jumblejunkie

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#!/pages/Jumble-Junkie/287800892512?ref=search&sid=1009485850.2856535252..1

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But when you heard it later on absolutely loved it!!!! I can think of dozens but I’m currently listening to ‘Under the Red Sky’ by Bob Dylan didn’t buy it in 1990 cause of the bad reviews and when I heard it about 5 years later I adored it, one of my favourites, how about you?

i never listen to reviews for that exact reason!

often i love music which has been criticised by critics.. just because some guy writing an article doesn’t like it doesn’t mean I won’t like it.. everyone has different tastes, so thats why I never take too much notice of them.

I was reading the reviews and many were one star rants telling me not to buy the album. I wasn’t planning to, I just wanted to see what was on there. I couldn’t really find a pattern. What’s wrong with the album?

A lot of people hate Greatest Hits and those sorts of compilations. They think it takes away from the album it cam from. Silly sort of, but I see where they are coming from

I asked before the Album was released and got some repsonses saying it’s better to hear the album as a whole….Now that it’s out, I acutally did go buy it and think it’s a good rock album about love/relationship, not my favorite topic when it comes to rock and I don’t like the idea of dedicating more than a song or two to a woman (in this case the whole f*cking album) but to me him and tim skold did a good job. I like it… it’s not the anti-christ trilogy but nevertheless a decent album, don’t regret buying it.

I actually answered your other question and was one of the ones that wanted to hear it in its entirety. I bought it Tuesday and I have listened to it and I think it is OK. I don’t think it is the best thing that Manson has done. I am with you on the whole album being about relationships and I think that is what made it a little boring(for me at least). I like it when Manson has a more developed concept for an album (like Antichrist Superstar) You can hear a definite shift in the music since some of the core members have left. Wow, this is getting long, so I’ll close with it is an OK album but it’s not my favorite.

Hi, I’m wondering how to approach a band’s management to get an album early so I can review it? My manager made the introduction, now I don’t know what to say. This is new to me!

Any of you that have done this before, I would appreciate the help so much!

A letter/fax is appropriate because they sometimes require you to sign a non-disclosure agreement which requires you not to post the review until the artist’s management deems it appropriate. An album’s roll out can be carefully managed.

I know of an occasion where a major band held an early album listening party for select music journalists. Afterwards, a few of the writers rushed out to post the largely positive reviews on the net, but you better believe that the management’s lawyers forced all of them to remove the reviews.

On how to ask, a version of smooth playing it often works, "Hello, (management) I’ve been hearing really good things about the new album, when can I get a copy to review?"

The album didn’t do to well to little promotion, and the tour has been postponed to who knows when. Raven in my opinion killed this album with a little promotion this album could have definetly reach the top 5 on the bilboard charts.

I love raven and her new cd is really good… I was sad to see she didnt promote it at all.. I didnt know it was out until i was looking in the store and i saw it.. So i bought it cause i love her and the cd is really good.

I like Girl Get It, Green, and What Are You Gonna Do.. it could have easily been in the top 5 with good promotion but she didnt want that i guess…=(

Hello there,

I have a band that just came out with a really great full lenght album and I am looking to send it to get reviews so that I can get more exposure. Do you know of any good places to send it to?

I did a bunch of searches, sites do come up, but I don’t know if they are good or not. I just don’t want someone to throw out my cd if I send it.
What do you read for reviews, what would you recommend?

Try Spin.com

They feature alot of up and coming artists. In fact, alot of the bands I’ve seen at local shows have ended up in their ‘reviews’ section.

You could also contact MySpace.com and ask them about being a Featured Artist.

Good luck!

Example: Amerie’s In Love & War received generally positive reviews from music critics but charted of the top 40 on billboard 200 at #46

as a listener i always read what critics say i mean real critics not the rolling stone magazine i think they are usually on point like when they say an album is bad you gotta believe them but on the other hand the charts performance is the last thing i would trust in the music sense , i just checked itunes BEP , kesha , justin timberlake are on the top of the charts EWWW
but it sure hurt the musicians when their albums didn’t sell imagine the bitter when they see the shi%ty singers doing well and their works got no love.

I just listened to ‘Come On Die Young (1999)’ by Mogwai and it is amazing! I give it a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. It is original and good. Is just as experimental as ‘Mogwai Young Team (1997)’, but in different ways. Where’ ‘Mogwai Young Team’ is like being in a raging storm – ‘Come On Die Young’ is like stumbling upon a beautiful lily-covered pond in a forest; and then taking it all in. It is minimalistic and there is some musique concrete elements to it. It is almost like the mathematical inverse of ‘Mogwai Young Team’. Way cool!

PROFESSIONAL REVIEW (for ‘Come On Die Young’)

1. "[Come On Die Young] received a somewhat muted reception when compared to Mogwai Young Team. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, writing for Allmusic, wrote: ‘Perhaps Come on Die Young wouldn’t have seemed as disappointing if it hadn’t arrived on the wave of hype and expectation, but the truth is, it pales in comparison to their own work.’"
Cite: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_on_die_young

2. Allmusic gave the album 2.5 out of 5 stars!
Cite: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_on_die_young

I know some albums that are 2.5 for 5 and this ain’t one of them! You know what I think happens here? This has happened to me too, so I can admit this. Sometimes you love an album so much that your mind gets wrapped around it to the point that that’s what you expect the band to sound like. Then, when that band’s new album comes out, if it is radically different from what you expected – you might not like it at first. But, say you throw that album on a year later – after you may have moved on from all those passionate preconceived expectations – then you might be in the space to hear that album with an open mind, and it might hit you all of a sudden. It has happened to me many times!

My take on the whole thing is that a reviewer is just another person, granted a music fan who listens to a lot of music, but just another person with their own criteria and their own way of seeing things (or more applicably hearing things). It also can depend on what that reviewer’s process is. I mean, I know I’ve listened to a record and not liked it, only to find that it either grew on me over a little time and I allowed that to happen because something dragged me back to it. IFor instance, let’s say I was a reviewer when I first got my hands on Elliott Smith’s XO. If I had written a review of that record right after getting it and listened to it once or twice, I would have most likely called it hit and miss, splotchy. Bouncing from a wonderful song to one that was not so interesting. After a few months with it, and to this day years later, I say it’s somewhere in my top 20 records of all time. Those types of factors can be taken for granted. Sometimes simply the mood of the reviewer can play a role I’m sure. Lots of factors.

I don’t really read professional reviews although if I’m just sort of throwing darts blindly at a band’s catalog sometimes I’ll look to a "critic’s pick" though I usually don’t concern myself with the language.

I’m much more likely to either ask here, where there are a handfull of people that I know see music similarly to me, or a couple other sources. I’ve never really been one to read a ton of reviews. I’m much more into word of mouth. I’m just as likely to be scanning iTunes user reviews to see if someone touches on some language that gives me a window into their tastes and what they like or don’t like about a record than I am to be reading a professional. A professional is just someone who is paid for their opinion. Still just an opinion, even if it can be implied to be a bit more well rounded, or in a manner of speaking, educated. Who knows where on the spectrum their tastes meet yours.

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I definitely agree with Kool Thing about critics though. The fact of the matter is that they’re doing a job. Publications, websites, etc. solicit their opinions and readers look to them to both sift through music, highlighting certain selections and to articulate aspects of a record, hopefully finding things that will or will not be appealing. Personally, I get this information in different ways because I’m lucky enough to have people who I know I have a common ground when it comes to taste but many people find critics who they have a similar connection with and use them as guides. If you follow a critic enough you start to get a feel for what you have in common, or where you differ from them.

I guess the short version is that, critics may not be for everybody but that doesn’t mean it’s for nobody. They provide a legitimate service. I think we tend to beat up on critics more than fairness would allow. I know I’d be a critic if I had the skills and it would give me a solid paycheck.

I normally use ultimate-guitar because they give great reviews. My only issue is that it is, of course, limited to rock and metal genres for the most part and I would like a website that gives reviews for albums in hip hop, acoustic, jazz, etc.

I like Pitchfork
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/

I don’t trust rolling stone. Sometimes i look in that magazine at the reviews and the people reviewing the music don’t know what they’re talking about.