How an album review made me question the conformity of music journalism

Billie Eilish’s album ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’ has received rave reviews. But it left me cold – and made me worried that maybe I’d lost my touch

Reviewing albums in 2019 is a slightly odd endeavour. You wonder sometimes if there’s any point – do people actually care what critics think of a full-length release, when statistics suggest they barely have the attention span to listen to the album itself? Yet it is still part of the job, and one that I enjoy as I sit down and spend quality time with a piece of music, and contemplate it for a while.

That said, there are also moments where reviewing an album can make you doubt yourself – such as when you seem to be on a completely different page to everyone else. This happened to me this week, when I pressed play on Billie Eilish’s album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

There’s a lot of hype around music these days. Much of it is due to the hyperbole that dogs social media. You could also put it down to the fact that critics – and fans – are desperate to discover the elusive “next big thing”, whether to be there first or simply to see something they love go on to enjoy success.