Since I was there because I was waiting around to take a class on how to do freelance music reviews, I thought the Freelance Writer’s Handbook was particularly appropriate. As for the others: well, Pirates, Pirates, Pirates–duh! Pirates rule. There’s three SF anthologies there, which I’m totally a sucker for, especially when they only cost fifty cents. That one you probably can’t make out there is a year’s best from the seventies (I think) edited by Forry Ackerman. The Ten Tomorrows is an antho edited by the infamous Roger Elwood, who apparently flooded the market with anthologies in the seventies and almost single-handedly ruined the SF anthology market (because he put out so many, and they were shoddy). This book, however, looks to have a very impressive TOC, so this doesn’t look like one of the shoddy ones. And if it is, <shrug>. It only cost fifty cents. As for Herbert’s Space Trip–that looked so strange, I had to have it.
After plucking those gems off the cheapie shelves, I settled down to get some reading done, and discovered that the instrumental band Mastery is pretty good music to read by. I generally find music with lyrics to be too distracting, and I’d never have been able to concentrate with the sounds of people talking all around me.
So I read for about an hour, then headed over to 494 Broadway, home of the Media Bistro classes. The class was good–I feel like it gave me a better understanding of what I should be putting into a music review. At the end of the class, the instructor critiqued some reviews the class was assigned to bring in, and it was pretty helpful to hear his edits of the other students’ work.
As for mine, he read it during class because I’d asked a question and used my review as an example. He said it was “not bad,” and seemed pretty pleased with it. For everyone else’s reviews he critiqued at the end of class, he had a lot more negative remarks, so I took his lack of criticism of mine as a positive thing.
The assignment was to write a review of your favorite album ever (100-150 words)–no matter the genre, the original release date, etc. I had a hard time deciding on my favorite album, then just decided to pick a really great one I’m infatuated with at the moment. So I chose Slaughter of the Soul by At the Gates. Here’s my review:
In 1995, Swedish metal gods At the Gates released Slaughter of the Soul, the crowning achievement–and swansong–of their legendary and influential career. Whereas their “greatest hits” compilation, Suicidal Final Art, showcases the best of the raw talent and potential of earlier albums, Slaughter shows them realizing that promise, with its pure, relentless ear-crushing fury: the brilliant and complex guitar melodies, the primal anger of Lindberg’s (harsh, but understandable) vocals, the dark but deep lyrical content. Although At the Gates contemporaries In Flames and Dark Tranquillity are often credited as the founders of the Gothenburg melodic death movement, Slaughter is the album that paved the way, and every band playing that style now is standing on the shoulders of these giants.
First, I should note that I was wearing an In Flames t-shirt, which Wolf noticed and said “Cool shirt. I like In Flames.” (So he knows about death metal.) The only specific comments on the piece he had were that “legendary” is cliche and should never be used. He also initially questioned me calling them “metal gods,” but then reconsidered, as that sort of thing kind of goes along with metal reviews. He did question them being godly–saying, who are gods really? Metallica, Slayer, bands like that. I conceded the point, but added that perhaps I should have called them “death metal gods,” which they certainly are (and the rest of the review goes on to back up).
The rest of the class gave me lots of ideas of how else I could have written that review, and what other kinds of things I could have added to it to make it better, if I had more words to work with.
All in all, a pretty good learning experience. If you live in or near a major city, check Media Bistro out–they offer classes in several different locations, and on a wide variety of subjects. If you’re at all interested in freelance writing (non-fiction mostly, but there are some fiction classes), it’s worth checking out.
