This song I heard was good because the flow was nice and it hooks you on to want to hear it over and over again. It also a good song for a night walk or a walk in the beach.
Isabella Levine’s review of “Anthem of the Peaceful Army” masterfully analyzes the album. She exclusively uses lyrics from the album to prove her point, relying on the artist’s own words to tear into themself. She references how the music appears to succeed, uses lyrics as evidence, then quickly mentions other lyrics that show the lack of direction or meaning in their music. The argument is organized to highlight each individual shortcoming of the album, but it still isn’t a complete pan. Levine gives the band credit where it is due, and even claims that the lead singer for Greta Van Fleet, the band of the reviewed album, has a “howl” comparable to Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin. Every paragraph beautifully comes together to show that the album is attempting to revive the genre of music, but ultimately clings to a desire for downloads, and sells out any potential revitalization of Rock. The review itself is really quite admirable. It is very concise and knows exactly what to mention to convey the desired meaning. Despite being only five paragraphs, the review gives a complete idea of what to expect in the album. I have not personally heard any of the music mentioned, but Levine’s writing draws a pretty clear image for my imagination, and that is certainly something I would want to replicate in my writing. Isabella Levine seems to have written one of those reviews where reading the review might be better than experiencing what was written about.
I read two different reviews of an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” written by my uncle, Matt Opatrny. One review was by Laura Collins-Hughes of the New York Times and the other was by Regina Robbins of Theatre is Easy. I found the New York Times far more engaging. Collins-Hughes piece had excellent flow with the way she combined her opinion of the show along with highlighting details essential to the reader’s understanding of the review. For example, she makes statements like “A humanizing warmth flickers through this stripped-down, six-actor ‘A Christmas Carol,’” and “It’s the in-between that gets tricky in this production, which feels a little saggy in this wide-open and bare playing space,” charmingly combining opinion and information without being too wordy. On the other hand, Robbins’s review seemed to force plot summary upon the reader. Her analysis of specific details from the show came across as more of a flex of her artistic eye rather than the conveyal of her experience. While it is true that Robbins provided more information about the content of the play, she wasn’t able to give me a picture of what is was like for her to watch the production. Additionally, Robbin’s overly positive attitude towards the play devalued the review. Obviously I support a review saying good things about my uncle’s play, but it is clear that an exclusively positive review is not fully informative and is not in accordance with the experience of most viewers.