Willjlevith's Blog

Dear RRR readers:

Howdy! Glad you could make it. After much moaning and groaning and attempting to talk myself out of doing this, I’ve decided to take the leap into the blogging world. I’ve also decided to start a podcast series, which I will be beginning as soon as I can figure out how to do it.

Now, I’m not going to be one of those faux novices and say, “Oh, woe is me! However do I use this thing they call a blog!?!” No, I’m not going to waste your time or mine. I know how to blog because I know how to write. It’s as simple as that. Anyone who says otherwise is cheating you. The simple fact that I’m communicating these words to you right now is proof that I can blog. (i.e. I don’t need to be writing for the New York Times or Rolling Stone magazine to be able to know how to blog correctly.)

By way of a mission statement, this blog and podcast series will be named the Rant-Rave-Revue and will be focused on music of all genres: pop, oldies, indie, alternative, alt-country, folk, country, country-pop, et cetera, ad infinitum. On the blog, I will write a continual stream of reviews (i.e. long-form blogs/reviews) about the music that makes its way to my kitchen table weekly (by way of credentials, I regularly publish album reviews for The Hartford Courant [Tribune Co.] and American Songwriter magazine), as well as any other music I’m listening to or hear on the radio each week. I may give rave reviews at times. I may also rant and rave negatively about particular types of music. But the focus is on the music and reviewing it.

RRR (and its soon-to-be-accompanying podcast) will be the beginning of something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time and only am just getting around to doing seriously: freely reviewing all types of music at will. I get much too much music in the mail from record labels to have it sit around and not get listened to. And there are only so many reviews I can pitch to editors that will get the green light. If you should get anything out of reading the reviews here, it should be this one notion: all music should be leant a fair ear, however good, bad or ugly it may be.

Note: As much as I hate giving albums star ratings and such, I will, unfortunately, be handing out a simple category: 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s, with 6s being the very best and 1s being the very worst. Be forewarned, as I listen to more music, it is possible that these reviews will change based on the full body of work for certain artists. Is that fair? That’s for you to decide.

So there you have it! Let the reviewing begin …