Ask the Critic: Robert Hilburn

Question: What’s your process when listening to an album for review? Do you listen several times? At home, or other places? What kind of sound system? Do you read the lyrics when listening?

Todd Hinkley

Torrance

Hilburn: Let me take your questions in order. The first step, of course, is choosing which albums to review from among the hundreds of candidates each month. Because time is limited, I tend to turn first to albums by artists I admire. If an artist’s previous work was lame, I assume the new work is too -- unless something changes my mind (hearing an interesting track on the radio, getting a recommendation from someone whose taste I respect, reading an interesting review).

When it comes to new artists, you have to go by your instincts a lot. I’ll notice what label the act is on (some have shown more taste in finding new talent) and who manages an act (again, taste can come into play). I’ll often sit down with 20 debuts and play just one or two tracks from each.

If the sample interests me a lot, I’ll go back and listen to it all. If it is mildly interesting, I’ll resample later. If it’s not promising, I’ll just discard.

You have to keep listening to an album until you feel confident with your judgment of it. That can come after one listening; sometimes it takes two or three. I rarely listen more than that, unless I’m doing a long piece on the CD. The album I listened to most before writing was the Rolling Stones’ shadowy “Exile on Main Street”: at least a dozen times.

I sometimes listen to a CD in the car, but generally in my office at home. I have a modest sound system, and I do read the lyrics when possible.

The most important thing in all of this is trying to judge each record fairly, being careful not to overpraise it because it is by an artist you generally like, or undervalue it because it comes from an artist you haven’t liked.

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