Album Review Paper

Album Review Paper
Vinyl albums, compact discs (CDs) and digital albums are a tremendous resource for discovering new music and learning about the artists who perform this music. To this end, you must complete an review paper of 3 – 4 pages on album recorded by an artist or group considered to have had a significant impact on U.S. culture and popular music. The album you choose to review may be from a streaming service such as Apple Music or Spotify, your own collection, borrowed from a friend or checked out from the library. If you are unsure about which album to review consider albums and artists mentioned in your APM text, however, please note that there are several albums which you may not review. Please consult the “Excluded Albums” section of these instructions below for more details. If you are not able to choose an artist/album one can be assigned to you. If you are unsure if an album will qualify, please contact me.

Due Date

Completed album review assignments should be uploaded to Canvas via the “Submit Assignment” Link provided at the top of this page. You may submit this assignment at any time up to the final due date of Tuesday, April 19, 2022 at 11:55 p.m. No late papers will be accepted.

Album Review Your review must be written in prose form (introduction, main body, conclusion) using appropriate college-level grammar and punctuation. Avoid colloquialisms – do not write with the same every-day voice/grammar you use when speaking.

Begin with a separate cover sheet with the following:

Your Name
Music 106-300/301 (Please look up the correct section number)
Submission Date
Title of the album reviewed
Artist or group performing on the album
For the subsequent page(s) following the cover sheet, please include the following:

Page entitled, “Track Information”
On the Track Information page(s) list:
Names of the primary artists and other musicians for the album along with the instruments they played
If you do not own the physical album, to find this information you may have to research the liner note information for your album using one of the following websites (or similar):
http://albumlinernotes.com/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.allmusic.com/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.discogs.com/ (Links to an external site.)
Titles of all the songs on the album organized by track number
Name of company that released the album (Blue Note, Columbia, Verve, etc.)
Album release date
Begin writing the introduction, main body and conclusion of your review on a new page following the “Track Information” page.

All pages must have:
1 inch margins all around
Double-spacing
12 point font (no more, no less)
Not counting the coversheet, track information and any endnotes, all reviews should be at least 3 pages long but no longer than 5 pages. The main body of your paper should be about 750 – 1,000 words.
All pages except the coversheet must include your last name and a page number in the upper right hand corner.
Excluded Albums
While, indeed, the following are landmark recordings which everyone should take time to explore, due to the APM textbook’s extensive discussion of these albums, and so as to encourage students to complete their own musical exploration and research, the following recordings may not be reviewed for this particular project:

The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Led Zeppelin: Zeppelin IV / Zoso (1971)
Michael Jackson: Thriller (1982)
Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)
Grades will be based on:
Argument – presence of an articulated argument that makes an evidence-based claim and expresses the significance of that claim
Be sure your writing holds considerable focus on the album and the music itself. Do not venture off tangentially to compose a biography on the band/artist performing. Consider that were you assigned to compose an essay about Huckleberry Finn in a Literature course, the focus would be on the story and characters and not biographical information about author Mark Twain. Proceed similarly in this album review essay.
Evidence – presence of specific evidence from various sources, especially the album itself, to support the argument
Reasoning – presence of a convincing connection between evidence and argument that links to the larger argument and its sub-arguments with logic and precision
Contextualization – presence of an accurate portrayal of historical contexts in which this evidence appeared
Style – presence of logical flow of reasoning and grace of prose, including:
an effective introduction that hooks the reader with originality and states a clear argument for the album review along with its significance
clear topic sentences that provide sub-arguments and their significance in relation to the overall argument
effective transitions between paragraphs
a compelling conclusion that restates argument and adds a final point
accurate phrasing and word choice
accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation
Special Instructions for Album Titles and “Song Titles” in Formal Writing Assignments
Within the body of your text, references to album titles are underlined OR italicized (not both) and song titles are in quotation marks. For example, if you were to review the album Abbey Road by the Beatles and were talking about the song, “Here Comes the Sun,” that is how you would format those specific titles. It is identical to how book titles and book chapters are handled in formal writing.

Submission Completed album reviews may only be submitted through the Canvas course-site Submit Assignment link above. Email and/or hardcopy (paper) submissions will not be accepted for any reason. In order to insure that your submitted paper can be properly opened and graded, submitted work must be saved in one of the following approved file formats:

Word (*.doc or *.docx)
Google Docs (*.doc or *.docx)
Adobe PDF (*.pdf)
No other document formats will be accepted. Please note that improper submission of the assignment, including failure to upload correctly to Canvas or submitting a file that does not open correctly will be considered the same as not turning in the assignment at all, thus receiving a zero (0) with no chance for late submission or making up the lost points.

Sources, Documenting and Upholding Academic Integrity
While the Album Review is not meant to a research project, per se, it is very likely you will want to consult additional sources in order to provide effective historical context for your album review arguments. Any ideas which are not your own opinion must be properly attributed with source citations. This includes, but is not limited to, information found online, in magazine/journal articles, the album’s “liner notes,” and etc. In addition to using in-text citations, please include a “Sources Cited” page at the end of your review paper documenting all sources referenced in completing this assignment. Use either the APA or MLA style guidelines (both are available online) for specific instructions on how to appropriately format your Sources Cited page and in-text citations.

When seeking additional information about your artist and album, consult only quality, credible sources in your research. As a rule, you should always avoid blogs, consultant sites, online encyclopedias (e.g. Wikipedia) and general online dictionaries (Quora). Furthermore, in college-level work you should avoid using the course textbook as a primary source. That said, quite often a textbook’s bibliography is helpful in identifying quality sources for your research. If you have a question about what constitutes an acceptable source for academic writing and research, please do not hesitate to ask your instructor or “Ask a Librarian” through the Moraine Valley Library: https://lib.morainevalley.edu/Main/AskLibrarian.htmlLinks to an external site..

Don’t forget! Be sure to cite the album as one of your sources! You are required to include the album itself as a citation on your “Sources Cited” page as you will have garnered a significant amount of information from this integral non-textual source in the process of completing your essay.

Collaboration with anyone else – classmates or otherwise – in the process of writing the concert reports without proper attribution is strictly forbidden. Please refer to the “Statement on Academic Integrity” listed in the course syllabus for more details on the academic penalties associated with such inappropriate collaborations and use of undocumented sources.

Moraine Valley Speaking & Writing Center
If you have questions about appropriate collegiate-level writing style, properly documenting sources, or would like help with becoming a more effective writer, I recommend contacting the Speaking & Writing CenterLinks to an external site. online.

However, you should always feel free to email me or see me during my office hours if you need any additional help with this assignment.

Last Completed Projects