Just noticed your referral to Muse.ie, so I thought i’d respond to let you all know what our ‘editorial policy’ will be.

In short, we don’t have one.

Muse.ie is being developed with a focus on moderated user generated content i.e. we provide the best tools possible to help our users review gigs, albums, and other yokes, upload personal ‘top ten’ charts, and generally have a say. By moderated, I mean that if someone goes on and calls a band or musician a ’stupid f**king w**nker’, we give the review the boot, and give the offending contributor a bit of a clip on the ear because being a w**ker has nothing to do with the music the aforementioned w**ker creates.

The reviewing contributor can give a 1 - 10 rating to the act, but the best bit is that users can reply to the initial review, give their own review, and give their own rating. The rating is then based not just on the initial reviewers rating, but an aggregated figure based on combined reviews and comments.

More groovy things we’re doing include tagging: lets say someone reviews a band they think sounds a bit like Jerry Lee Lewis (or something!) - they can then add ‘jerry lee lewis’ as a tag, so other users who might like Jerry Lee Lewis can browse through the site and stumble across a review of this particular band someone else reckons sound like Jerry Lee Lewis. Kinda Last.fm’ish really.

For me personally, there were a few reasons to revive Muse.ie. For one, I used to read it back in the day and even applied for jobs with them (they never replied - booh).

The other reason is that the music business is a money churner for many, and it’s very easy for those in the money making chain to have their opinions formed by record companies, and not their own god given ears.

By giving full control of the users, we’re aiming to get rid of the biased, pointless articles you mention above.

Cheers,

H

By the same token, I don’t have to agree with someone’s view to enjoy their writing. (I rarely have the same view as Mark Kermode about film, but I respect his writing). And yes, Paul Morley IS one of the better music writers out there.

I never said (and certainly don’t believe) that the “is it good/bad” concept is the point of the review. Christ, imagine! Personally, I don’t write reviews based on an “good/bad” premise, but that’s all some (not all) people want from a review, particularly if it’s a film or a play. They don’t want to know about the post-deconstructionist subtext: they want to know if it’s good enough to fork out 35 quid for a ticket.

I used to write quite long reviews here (you can find them in the various categories on the right) but I just haven’t had the time of late.

“one of the better places for writing about music”.
Phew, for a minute there, I thought it was me who’d said that.

If I can finish by digressing, Muse.ie the music review mag is relauching soon so I wonder if they’ll go down the longer review route or keep things short. Should be interesting to find out.