JackFeenyReviews.com
Title
Jack Feeny Reviews
Contact
- StreamlineNet
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- Derbyshire
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland DE73 8DY
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- +44.8709220699
Description
Welcome to Jack Feeny Reviews. One man's quest to review the works of musical artists, artisans and charlatans. Over the years I have built up a sizeable and ever-expanding collection of CDs and it brings me some form of faint justification if I then pen a detailed abstract of their merits and demerits to convince people to follow in my footsteps or avoid making the same mistakes. The structure of this site is remarkably simple. Each artist is given his (I've yet to feature a 'her') own page which features a general introduction followed by a chronological tour through their catalogue of works. Clearly, not every artist is covered exhaustively but it remains my ambition to eventually make that the case. Either way, artists are only fully reviewed when I feel I am in a sufficient position to run the rule either over their entire career or the important parts of it. However, some individual album reviews are included, on the basis of genre. These are for artists that I do not intend to cover in full any time soon (or cannot do so, due to their limited catalogue) but I still wish to stamp my critical authority on. If I then decide to get the rest of their catalogue, though, I will not bolster the page gradually but leave it in its isolated state until I am ready to pen a full page. Long term readers will, of course, note that these reviews used to be bunched together on the same page but the system was getting cluttered and the new looser division means I have greater freedom to review albums I would otherwise have had difficulty accomodating.
As for the rating system, one should not worry too deeply about it. I've eschewed the fallacy of band ratings that other internet review sites nail their blind faith to (they know who they are as, in all probability, do you). I could go into depth about their logical inconsistency but I believe George Starostin does a pretty good job of that himself on his site (albeit indirectly). Therefore, as far as I am concerned, each album gets a rating out of ten with, unsurprisingly, 10* being the best an album can get and 1* the worst. The only anomaly to bear in mind is the fact that compilations cannot qualify for the 10* award. Given I regard albums as a work of art in themselves compilations must exist as a distinct entity - a collection of songs but NOT an individual, independent art-work. Truthfully I should probably not grade compilations at all, or at least use a different system, but I am loathe to overcomplicate matters. Long story short, the majority of Greatest Hits will get 9* and other compilations slide down from there, depending on how good a job they do and how good the material is. Live albums representing a complete gig may qualify for a 10* but not live compilations (eg. BBC Sessions).
People often accuse me of being too generous and, whilst I have tried to crack down on this lately, I am afraid I have to hold my hands up. I love music and therefore even when I listen to bad albums I often try to take out the good elements in favour of the bad. It never ceases to amaze me that so many people actively seem to want to find the bad in music, as if to justify their own musical misanthropy. As has been generally agreed by all other writers in the WRC, I am also the most obsessive about listening to albums as many times as humanly possible in order to make sure I am not missing out on anything before I review them. You can therefore be assured that whatever I review will have been listened to between twenty and thirty times before I feel confident to air a view on its worth. Obviously, this means I am usually a month behind on new releases but the positives make up for the negatives, as it were. I take music (too) seriously and am always a little offended when this is turned into a criticism. I am not for a minute suggesting music and reviewing should be reduced to some kind of science but music IS art and, as a result, is something that warrants proper appreciation. If you disagree, stick to your Pop Idols.
