Thanks to everyone who helped us ring in the New Year at Write the World! Our January Album Competition was our biggest yet with hundreds of writers, from dozens of countries around the globe, sharing their thoughts on pieces of music they hold near and dear to their hearts. If you’re looking for a playlist refresh, we highly recommend checking out all of the stellar published pieces. And to find out who took home the top prizes, be sure to read on for Guest Judge Megan Washington’s picks for Best Entry, Runner Up, and Best Peer Review!
From Megan:
BEST ENTRY
“how to be a human being” by ih29
I’ve chosen this review because of the writer’s strong ability to describe the gorgeous, scary, multicolored world of the album, without using stuffy technical musical language. I haven’t heard this record but I got the strongest sense of how it might feel to listen to this music, rather than how the music sounds, thanks to phrases like “…Vividly dreamt, shocking and soft-lovely lyrical.” Top shelf.
As a reviewer, revealing your own strong bias toward an artist can be delicate (a reader is less likely to ‘trust’ a review when the writer of it is clearly the band’s number one fan),so I appreciated the way this reviewer included just a little bit of themselves in their piece while still remaining focused on the band’s work.
RUNNER UP
“Album Review: Beck’s Colors” by Autumn Finch
This is a well written, intelligent, balanced review that gave me a strong sense of the context of the album, where it sits in Beck’s artistic chronology, and how his music has evolved with this album. I appreciated the reviewer using the artist’s own words to describe his intention, the nice, punchy use of a little research (apple flower doggerel, etc) and the overall summation of the album in the zeitgeist of its year of release. I felt that having read this review I know enough about the record to talk about it, or at least pretend to! Concise, informative and entertaining.
BEST PEER REVIEW
Autumn Finch’s review of “For Emma, Forever Ago - An Album Review”
These edit points were very clear and economical. Autumn assisted the writer in giving suggestions for how to polish her final draft, while, at the same time, staying out of the writer’s way and not diluting or swaying the review.