Record Review Rules
Rule no. 1: This is a website about DUB!
Rule no. 2: I do realise good music and appreciate and respect it. But I am a DUB fan only. I didn't chose to be. I cannot change it. 99% of the music which I like is strictly dubwise. I don't listen to sunshine reggae, not to dancehall, not to ragga, not to oily roots, not to rocksteady, not to pop-reggae, not to bashment, not to dubstep... It's all about DUB.
Rule no. 3: I do review releases of other styles, such like a reggae album (without dubs) or similar. I do my best to get into the music and give it a fair review. But don't expect to get a raving review. It's just not likely. And I really don't like to be blamed afterwards if you, for example, give me a promo with music which is clearly NOT DUB music and then wonder why I don't give it 5 stars. Don't do it then.
Rule no. 4: As of 22.07.2008, I do NOT review free MP3 releases anymore because I don't want to support a free release which gets downloaded often enough anyway while the vinyl releasing label I review here suffer from not enough sales!
Rule no. 5: My reviews are 100% personal and also depend on my current mood. Sometimes I rate a record with 5 stars and a couple of months later I wonder what the heck did I take back then. Or I might rate something with 3 stars only and half a year later, I play it on heavy rotation. So, reviews are only a snap-shot. I don't change reviews in retrospective except if there is an obvious error in the content or similar. And yeah, I would like to change a lot of my old reviews. But I don't. It's all original and real here. ;) I am also no English native speaker. I might make errors or write stuff which is not understandable. That's not in purpose. It just happens, deal with it!
Rule no. 6: If you miss a review here, I propably haven't heard of this particular release yet. You might want to let me know about it. Thanks.
Rule no. 7: Don't take it all too serious! Even though it might not look like it, I am quite funny persons.
Rule no. 8: This is the DUB FLASH!!! There are plenty of reggae and/or rasta culture portals around. I visit these pages myself often, but this one here focusses on DUB and I ask you to respect this and do not claim that I am disrespectful to the roots, etc. I just chose one particular part out of it all and that is DUB. Nothing more, nothing less. Thank you.
Rule no. 9: Get a clean towel. You never know when you might need one.
Rule no. 10: Read rule no. 1 again!
About the stars:
The reviews have stars. That's to give a quick overview about how much I like a record. In addition, you are allowed to rate your own stars which might lead to interesting differences - or proves me right. ;) This is what the stars mean (read carefully!):
Killer release. Mostly full of heavy steppers, dubs, very few or no vocals at all and a lot of echos. If you see 5 stars, it either means you should rush to the shop immediately or I was drunken or in a strange mood while writing the review.
Very good. This is a record how I like it. But it misses one star because maybe the amount of killer tunes is not big enough, maybe the format is not so satisfying or it's a different dub style which means not heavy stepping or it has too much vocals on it. It's hard to get 5 stars from us, if it doesn't step and if it's not enough dub. But it can still be great nethertheless.
Good. It's a nice record. Not my prefered style maybe. It could mean it's rootical and from that side good. Also good produced, maybe nice cover artwork. Maybe melodic reggae and easy skanking. Or I like the record but it is not really dub or reggae. Sometimes I review "leftfield" (hello cupboard thinking!) reviews and to please you, the reggae-fan readers, I give it usually three stars. Nah, I wouldn't do that just to please you. ;)
Oh well. This means nice try but definitely not my style. Something is wrong for my ears but nethertheless the production can still be good, I just don't get it. Or it's bad and I just don't want to hurt the artists because they put a lot of work in their music. ;)
No. If you see one star, it really must be bad. It really must be because I am normally too nice to only give one star. So, just click the "back" button if you see only one star and concentrate on the next review. Thank you. Nah, that would be too mean, sorry.