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Endless Morbidity
Joined: 17 Oct 2007
Posts: 2108
Location: New York
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 Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 4:11 am Post subject: Zine Size |
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I sometimes see a lot of people complain about some zines being too thin. Are there any people who think quality over quantity when it comes to zines? I'd rather have 20 pages of interesting content than 40+ pages of boring scene garbage.
I think the last two issues of Isten were great. Perfect for today, with the lack of worthy material coming out. It's like cutting away the fat. |
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Asphyxiation
Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 998
Location: The Black Abyss
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| Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:01 am Post subject: |
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damn right!
QUALITY is definitely more important than useless quantity.
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Kapalika
Joined: 04 Jan 2008
Posts: 2109
Location: Germoney
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| Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:25 am Post subject: |
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Sure, but value for money is a nice thing to have.
The content has to be good, of course... and a thick zine loaded with lots of good reviews and interviews is the best and not mutually exclusive.
I am a fast reader so I like my zines to be a tad bit bigger.
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Black_Fire
Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Posts: 3520
Location: Poland
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| Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 8:25 am Post subject: |
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I like when zine is BIG and interesing. Usually zine with dumb interview and no-informative reviews are samll. Take a look on NECROSCOPE or RITUAL MURDER: really great and big zines (NECROS is about 130 or more A5 pages) 100% recommended
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Astaroth
Joined: 05 Oct 2007
Posts: 1306
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 7:28 am Post subject: |
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| The people who complain about zines being too thin should make their own. Quality over quantity all the way. |
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s.charlach
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 2740
Location: ...am Hexenstieg (Germany)
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 8:55 am Post subject: |
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I'm just wondering... Kapalika, Black_Fire, what makes a good and informative review to you? As for myself I think reviews are as superflous as ever possible coz it's just the reviewer's sight and I don't give a single fuck about it. No matter if an album gets roasted, if it catches my interest e. g. coz of its cover art or an interview with the band I'll take a listen anyway. Other way round, praised ones are often the biggest pile of utter crap to me. Or let's take -just for example- the ninth issue of Psicoterror. Read it at a friend lately as I was highly interested in that Negative Plane interview. Coming to the review section I found the repeating phrase "good music, but I won't comment on the lyrical/contextual side" quite annoying. If he isn't able to say anything about it then he should skip the record, but not lapsing into this dismissive undertone. This way reviews are nothing but a self-pleasing ego show.
*on topic* Yeah, I definitely prefer just a couple of pages with in depth interviews over dozen of mediocre standard question about the latest recording session anytime. If your question is a sign for the hopefully coming conjuration of Endless Morbidity then bring it on, no matter if you got all the answers to the announced interviews back or just the half of 'em. It will surely be worth a reading...  |
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Black_Fire
Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Posts: 3520
Location: Poland
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:46 am Post subject: |
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Informative review menas review with your opinion, where you say much engouh about a material (demo/album/zine) - sound, songs (not tracklisting he he), genere, maybe smillar bands, info about vocal, guitar, speed etc and of course opinion of editor. Ther's no gold recipe of good review, but from GOOD review - no matter positive or negative - you will know that this material is for you or no, even if never before heard this band.
In second issue of my zine reviews will be in polish, cause my english is not engough good to write as good reviews as I want. Dont have problems with inties.
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harmless
Joined: 13 Nov 2007
Posts: 1779
Location: Iceland
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:57 am Post subject: |
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| Black_Fire wrote: | | In second issue of my zine reviews will be in polish, cause my english is not engough good to write as good reviews as I want. Dont have problems with inties. |
So will the readers of your 'zine that don't speak polish receive discount as they will not be able to understand all the material included?
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Black_Fire
Joined: 20 Jan 2008
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Location: Poland
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:33 am Post subject: |
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| harmless wrote: | | Black_Fire wrote: | | In second issue of my zine reviews will be in polish, cause my english is not engough good to write as good reviews as I want. Dont have problems with inties. |
So will the readers of your 'zine that don't speak polish receive discount as they will not be able to understand all the material included? |
Interviews in second DOOM issue will be in english, only reviews in polish. I think the better way is do something good for a smaller number of people, than crap for evryone. Anyway first isse was 100% in POLISH, but I'm still thinking about english version of DOOM#1 (ther's only 3 inties to translate into english, rest 12 exist in english anyway)
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Last edited by Black_Fire on Sun Jun 15, 2008 2:06 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Chit019
Joined: 04 Oct 2007
Posts: 2282
Location: California
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Quality AND quantity sounds better! |
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Malder666
Joined: 16 Nov 2006
Posts: 675
Location: Mexxxico
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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| i hate the zines with 1000 reviews, i prefer interviews against reviews |
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HELLTHRASHER
Joined: 16 Nov 2006
Posts: 270
Location: Where No Life Dwells
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:34 pm Post subject: |
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I personally don't really enjoy doing reviews. I'm more of a interview person.
And if I do reviews, they are full lenght and not shitty 2-3 paragraphs.
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Kapalika
Joined: 04 Jan 2008
Posts: 2109
Location: Germoney
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:34 pm Post subject: |
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| s.charlach wrote: | | I'm just wondering... Kapalika, Black_Fire, what makes a good and informative review to you? As for myself I think reviews are as superflous as ever possible coz it's just the reviewer's sight and I don't give a single fuck about it. |
For me, a good review contains some information about the band, e.g. country of origin, number of releases so far, more or less "objective" description of the style, possibly with some references like other bands, more or less accurate description of the production (guitar tone, balance between all instrumentation/vocals etc) and the playing, style of riffing/drumming/vocals, possibly also with comparisons or illustrative enough language.
Some words about artwork, packaging and of course lyrics are also a plus for me.
All the aspects above should be as matter-of-factly as possible. Some personal statement at the end is fine for me.
So, this would be the ideal review for me. Similar to Black_Fire, I want to know how a release sounds/looks like, not how great/shitty it is in the eyes and ears of the reviewer.
Thatīs why I stopped reading any of the bigger German magazines years ago, beside the fact that I donīt want to read reviews skewed by bought advertisement space... and the "ego show" aspect unfortunately rings true for most of those as well.
Heavily opinionated reviews can be fun to read when done by a knowledgeable person, though, and sometimes they are also justified; then the reviewer should give clear reasons for his/her decisions and of course still be descriptive enough to give a clear idea about style, sound etc.
As I said - thatīs the ideal case.
Doing reviews myself from time to time I am naturally guilty of not following these guidelines all the time, shame on me. When I canīt stand a style or approach (and nobody else does the review instead) I have no qualms mentioning that, sometimes also with strong words but at least I will try to give some orientation.
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IntoTheAbyss
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 12:39 am Post subject: |
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Good zine is the one with thick size, not so big fonts, lots of interviews and reviews.. Probably over 50 pages so there are lots to read!
People who released zine with thin size plus it's A5 size seems hurried up and didn't work hard for the contents! Enough said! |
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Mastubator
Joined: 05 Jan 2008
Posts: 323
Location: Sodom
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 5:33 am Post subject: |
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It's best to get a mixture of the newsletter sized zines as well as the thicker ones (the shorter ones tend to be written by young editors, so even if they aren't well written, at least they're more enthusiastic and more willing to experiment with the layout. Older editors always turn out to be bitter cunts! Must be all the porno-grind core and Black metal winter forest promos they get...). And large zines tend to cover the same bands as other mags anyway.
Regarding reviews, they should work like the sex ads in the newspaper, more on a subliminal level to catch your eye than to give the entire bands bio (that's what interviews are for...) I don't need to know who the sound engineer was (who the fuck keeps tabs on engineers anyway?!?) just the band name, where they live and what they sound like will do.
| HELLTHRASHER wrote: | | I personally don't really enjoy doing reviews. I'm more of a interview person. |
Yeah, reviews are a bitch to write! |
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