Monday, March 09, 2009

The star rating revisited

The reaction to the 5 stars in The Guardian, along with a review in Saturday's FT was dramatic. Over 60 orders online - and still they come in. Just great to get people to be aware of the Babel stuff too. If they'd just gone into a shop then they would have bought the album and someone else near them alphabetically, e.g. Ayler.
Meanwhile, I spoke to Paul Clarvis about his Starry Starry Night album with Liam Noble. Sound quality, recorded at Abbey Road, matches up to the musical quality. I congratulated him on the range of reviews achieved over the past week - Guardian, Times, FT etc. His reaction was one of disappointment, as none of them seemed to get what the album was about. They were all 3 stars. I suppose he wonders if people are going to buy it with the wrong awareness of what's going on. (You can make up your mind if you want to buy it from our Babel shop on Gillett Square, where it's one of the opening offers!)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have recently dropped the star ratings from my reviews at thejazzbreakfast as I believe they parcel criticism too conveniently into four or five categories and often mean readers scan the star ratings and don't bother to read the reviews themselves. I leave you to assess what my review of the Paul Clarvis/Liam Noble Starry, Starry Night disc would have added up to in stars...