MrNepathy's Blog

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I know Jonah Knight. His wife, Lisa, has been a friend of mine since high school. When asked about writing a review for his album, I was a little hesitant at first because it’s a little hard not to be biased. Or hard to be honest, if you’re timid.

So I looked at doing the review from two possible directions. The first is the, “ah, you made a movie, so I’ll judge it like a student film or something I’d see on YouTube.” The second approach is to compare it to professional films, putting it against the likes of Stephen Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer. Please note that’s probably the only sentence where those two names will appear together. While the first one seems like the more fair route to Jonah, if the end goal of any review is to help people decide if they should spend their money or not, then only the second type of review is honest. After all, if I write a review of my mom’s art, and you don’t know my mom, you’re not going to buy it just because it’s hers.

With that in mind, I approached the music as if I did not know Jonah. I treated it like I would a review of anything else, like when I wrote a review of Juliana Hatfield back in college (didn’t like her album by the way). Or when I wrote a review of Clash of the Titans... which made Juliana Hatfield seem like a wise purchase in comparison. In other words I threw his music up against the likes of everything else in the music universe.

Also Jonah provided me with a link to the songs so I could download them, but fortunately or unfortunately, my iPod did not like the tracks because when I imported them it flagged them with those angry exclamation marks. Also it wasn’t copying over anything else, but that battle is well documented elsewhere on these pages.  In order to listen to the songs, I downloaded them from iTunes, which means I was back on footing with everyone that would be paying for them. In addition to removing the freedom from buyer’s remorse, this also meant I was contributing to an artist and encouraging him to continue with his art. I just like doing that when I can. Plus I’m one of those quirky people that pays for all of the music I have.

When I wrote the review, I wrote what I honestly believe. Some of you won’t like it, simply because it’s not your style of music. That’s not a knock on Jonah, it’s just how the universe works. I’m sure Niel Young is quite talented, but he doesn’t play my kind of music, so I don’t buy his stuff. Same with Bruce Springstein and any other number of artists. And I do like some tracks more than others on the album, but that’s fairly common.

Having spent the money for the album, I consider it a good purchase. Now that the review is done, I’ll still listen to both albums and some tracks more than others. A few have made it on to my various playlists. Also I wouldn’t steer you wrong when it comes to your money. There are a lot of things you could do with it.

Last, as an unrelated note to this review specifically, I’m not a music expert. I listen to a lot of music, but I don’t understand the various terms associated with it any more than I know what anti-aliasing is in a video game, or certain film terms for a movie. As someone once said, “I don’t understand art, but I know what I like.” So don’t expect my music review to be technical. Just expect it to be honest.