From striking pieces to major misses: 666 album reviews from 50 years of Oor collected in Review Bible. How does that work out?

A reading book? A reference work? In any case, there is a big pill filled with criticism on the table: Oor Review Bible – Between Heaven and Earth: 666 albums that colored our lives . The compilers have not randomly listed 666 reviews (after all, it is a Bible), but opted for a chronological division by genre, country, theme or movement. Good for readability and the big picture .

The ‘fringe figures, sleepers and night owls’ are discussed first. Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, Nick Cave, Scott Walker and other pop music outsiders. Have we had that? This is followed by rock, soul, punk, Dutch pop, hip hop and even Belpop.

Reviewing is a profession

Let’s get straight to the point: nothing is as personal and pragmatic as a review. As a pop journalist you often have to explain and explain your opinion about a new record under time pressure and with a limited number of words. One person does this with a serious undertone, while the other turns it into a piece of art based on creative inspiration. As long as a level of knowledge and enthusiasm shines through, if food for thought for the reader’s opinion and taste.

The in this Ear- gospel recorded ‘best, sharpest, most beautiful, most relevant and most readable reviews’ date from an era in which the music magazine was a leader in the field of pop journalism.

Nowadays, any well-intentioned ‘attic room critic’ can fill a website with album and concert reviews, but often the explanation and depth is lacking, opinion pieces remain hanging in a vacuum, they consist of a glorified biography of the act in question or they are mainly written to appeal to artists or record companies. to keep friends. Not to mention the countless YouTube album reviewers.

After all: reviewing is not only an art, but also a profession. One in which you don’t mince your words or hold a sign in front of your head.

Taste-determining and trend-setting

While browsing, this anthology feels like one trip down memory lane. Some reviews make you run to your record cabinet to retrieve the album in question after decades. Gang of Four, John Martyn, Peter Tosh, Arno, Liz Phair or Coil: on the turntable with it!

As you read, this book gradually reveals itself as an ode to the crème de la crème of pop critics of yesteryear. Bert van de Kamp, Peter van Bruggen, Corné Evers, Harry van Nieuwenhoven, Constant Meijers and the recently deceased Hubert van Hoof wrote down their criticism in a sharp and linguistically beautiful manner and were at the same time determining taste and trendsetting. They peeped on new sounds with which the reader could then form his own opinion.

Tune in Ear a rave review, then you would believe it. But if the scribe let himself go and burned an album to the ground (like Hans van den Heuvel in 1983 with Black Sabbath’s Born Again did), then curiosity increased per linear letter.

Historical Reviews

Some album reviews are of historical and timeless value. Constant Meijers’ passionate plea for Neil Young’s rock requiem Tonight’s The Night . The inspiring Americana reviews of the late Geert Henderickx. Peter van Bruggen who smoothly handled The Clash’s debut in 1977 Live at the Star Club by The Beatles links: ‘Two new punk groups that seem to have everything going for them’. Van Bruggen gets twelve points for originality anyway.

But it can also be done differently: current Ear Editor-in-chief Erik van der Berg likes to start his discussions (see Wire and Fountaines DC) with a rhetorical question to which he immediately gives the answer. His colleague Koen Poolman deals in metaphors: include his discussion of Boards of Canada Geogaddi but after that. Every reviewer has his own style. Beautiful.

From chunks of text to compact discussions

It’s hard to imagine now, but reviews are in Ear In the 1970s and 1980s, there were still blocks of text full of extensive descriptions and background information. The compact and concise, but sometimes also volatile, discussions of the 21st century are still a long way off.

Roberto Palombit, for example, devotes hundreds of words to Zappa’s Joe’s Garage Act I , while he then struggles with his final judgment. And with that Zappa album from 1979, which was way ahead of its time, you immediately wonder how Ear that would judge in 2024, amid Lankum, Caroline Polachek and Elmer. The cover alone would be the subject of criticism in this age of diversity.

Northern contributions

Not that the number (read: fewer) words per review had any influence on the quality of the interpretation and the final verdict. If city resident Nanne Tepper heard a shitty or shitty song, he literally wrote it down like that without any fuss.

Speaking of the late Tepper: we occasionally find reviews of albums from or related to Drenthe, Groningen and Friesland. Street and Sphritsz by Herman Brood – both discussed full-page by Jan Libbenga, who grew up in Veenhuizen – are included. Like Hope and Love by Jan Rot. Then you’ve had it. The discussions of dance experts are also included in that northern context Leeuwarder Courant- colleague Jacob Haagsma worth mentioning. He sunk his teeth into the influential debut records of Daft Punk and The Chemical Brothers, among others.

Also nice: halfway through the book, the ‘Golden Age of Hip Hop’ block with reviews by Kees de Koning shows the development of 50 years of hip hop in a nutshell. Years later, De Koning founded the leading hip-hop label Top Notch. He started as a reviewer at Ear.

Misses and goofs

Finally, the section you knew was coming. The straight-to-the-point reviews: even pop critics are sometimes wrong. It’s funny to read how Oene Kummer and Monique Aerts got the wrong end of the stick with Björks respectively in the 90s. Debut and Rammsteins Sehnsucht . Shortly afterwards, both albums were widely regarded as crown jewels of that decade.

Notably absent is in fact the biggest mistake published in the magazine in the past half century: the review of Golden Earrings Radar Love by Felix Meurders. He predicted an international flop in August 1973, but the single became one of the country’s most important musical exports of all time, selling a quarter of a million copies in England and breaking through in America. But let’s be honest: this is a single, while this book only contains albums. Meurders’ failed judgment is also mentioned in that other anniversary book, under the heading ‘riots and gossip’.

What the 444 pages undeniably demonstrate is that reviews are snapshots. Just like photos; sometimes slightly less well exposed or a bit out of focus. Taken from a broader perspective, they show the development of musical genres and Dutch pop journalism in many flavors and colors – and in passing they are also essential reading material for would-be reviewers.

What would the taste of the above-average music lover have been like without it? Ear- reviews developed? The reader can answer that question himself. Just like the real Bible.