saleens review of morillo

[Guest endymion]

I was saying that a better place for saleen's review was in a forum, not on the CJ website directly....especially during a time when CJ is a contender for a major award at the winter music conference.

Yes, and I'm saying that I completely agree with this. Editorial standards are more of an issue now.

We can publish columnists in a way that gives them enough rope to hang themselves though. I am setting up a system that makes it more clear when a guest columnist is speaking using his own informal voice, and I am providing a means for people to talk back when a contributor is inflammatory. Not just forums.

[Guest nickjunkie]

I think I can answer some of this stuff.

The CoolJunkie inbox has never had so many positive responses to articles since Saleen started writing.

There is a huge percentage of the clubbing population who love to read an article that shoots from the hip. And I'm not talking about people who necessarily have the same personality as Saleen, but people who like to see a fresh voice talking outside the boundaries a little.

I really believe that each of you guys who writes for us has a unique style and personality, and that's what makes the site so interesting. Just the fact that Saleen's reviews provoke so much discussion is justification enough to post them.

I'm willing to bet that although many of you are criticizing Saleen's style of reviewing, you probably make a point of reading his reviews as soon as they're posted. For me that's a prime reason to post them. We're not Resident Advisor or D'Vox or Xpander, and we don't want to be. There's a place for detailed deconstruction of DJ sets on our site, but we don't want to be only that, because a lot of people don't really care about the tracks that were played or whether they were played on vinyl, CD, or Final Scratch.

I'd like to think that the reason we're nominated for an award is that we've made good decisions and built CoolJunkie wisely, and that what we've built is a site that has some character. So trust us please

Try not to take it all so seriously and just enjoy the reviews. Most of the club owners do, or else I'd have an inbox full of complaints by now...

[ryan2772]

The voice of reason!!!!

[V. Barbarino]

for the record 99% of the time, i personaly include a link to the cj forums so anyone can comments, and i encourage others to voice their opinions and sign up. Anyone can write the reveiw, write it and send it in or put it up in the forum. I would like to think i speak from a clubbers standpoint, not someone connected to the industry.

anyone can pm me any time, and I only only one negative pm to date, and it's in my box right now..

[Guest pod]

It's like they said about Howard Stern back in the day...50 percent of his fans tuned in just to see what he had to say, and 50 percent of the people that hated him, tuned in to see what he had to say.

In my mind, Saleen keeps it to a dull roar, compared to what he could say. Are his reviews biased? Yeah, of course..it's his opinion of the set/night/club...reviews are just that, opinions.

Nick is right, there is a diversity amongst our contributing writers. Saleen shoots from the hip, Jorge just goes for straight information, etc, and the rare time I write something, it's "Club Systems International" material...

[Guest LeVeL]

Yeah I agree that you reviews have a personal opinion to them........you speak as a clubber......and sometimes you say the right things and I agree with them.

But your reviews can sometimes go off context and become a personal grudge of what believe should happen and ext. You sometimes forget your reviews end up in Cooljunkie(Miami) not Cooljunkie(NY).this website is being nominated for best Website @ Dancestar......and a review like yours can totally deminish this websites credibility. Because eventhough our nightlife to you in not better than Jerseee or NY.....u can sometimes bash Miami to the point that you wont connect with the rest of the people who visit this website day in and day out. And some of these people come to visit this website in search for a greater opinion on what to do on their weekends.

[Guest web_norah]

Yeah I agree that you reviews have a personal opinion to them........you speak as a clubber......and sometimes you say the right things and I agree with them.

But your reviews can sometimes go off context and become a personal grudge of what believe should happen and ext. You sometimes forget your reviews end up in Cooljunkie(Miami) not Cooljunkie(NY).this website is being nominated for best Website @ Dancestar......and a review like yours can totally deminish this websites credibility. Because eventhough our nightlife to you in not better than Jerseee or NY.....u can sometimes bash Miami to the point that you wont connect with the rest of the people who visit this website day in and day out. And some of these people come to visit this website in search for a greater opinion on what to do on their weekends.

i'd take the reviewing thing somewhat serious, sometimes, i dont .....but truly, i am tired of reviews being a RANT....

[Guest LeVeL]

i'd take the reviewing thing somewhat serious, sometimes, i dont .....but truly, i am tired of reviews being a RANT....

I believe Rants should be kept in the forums where we can all enjoy our personal rants..without afftecting no one.

[Guest endymion]

At the very least a story that is headlined as a review of a night at a club should be simply a review of a night at a club. I would not read a publication where columnists set their own word counts on contributions or where they are allowed to ramble off-topic. Even student newspapers at universities have higher editorial standards than that.

[Guest pod]

Apparently you never read the Miami Hurricane ;D

The whole "infinite monkeys" theory at work, except one of the stupid monkeys gets published.

[Guest web_norah]

I believe Rants should be kept in the forums where we can all enjoy our personal rants..without afftecting no one.

werk! i like that approach....

[V. Barbarino]

At the very least a story that is headlined as a review of a night at a club should be simply a review of a night at a club.  I would not read a publication where columnists set their own word counts on contributions or where they are allowed to ramble off-topic.  Even student newspapers at universities have higher editorial standards than that.

so a reviewer can't comment on the scene, the difference between nyc dj's and miami jocks, and the opinion of someone from outside the scene? cnet has these great articles called "the bigger picture", i provide the bigger picture...

ok heres my review...

Morillo was great..

the end...

[Guest coach]

And, you know, if you really disagree with the reviews of Saleen, or anyone, you can always write your own.

[Guest coach]

Heh, so I just went and actually read the review. This thread finally got me curious enough. Saleen, you're 27 and you think you're an old-school clubber?? Puh-lease. Not to be mean, but you're still a kid, you just don't know it. Nothing wrong with that, either. Being young is great. And most mid-twenties think they are all grown up. I sure did, until I hit my mid-thirties and realized how little I understood back then. And I expect when I hit my mid-forties, I'll look back to now realizing how little I still know. I know, it's an old routine, and I didn't believe it when I was 27, either, so I don't expect you to. I just found it amusing that all this time, from your "smack-talk", I really thought you were older but immature for your age. Knowing you're only 27 really puts things in perspective.

I do agree with and have also long preached the "entertainer" point you were making. Lots of people think that you can just throw down some records and do some clean mixing and you're a DJ, but that just isn't true. That may have been true in the discotheques of the 80's when, really, all the DJ was there for was to keep the music going. But with the expansion of the DJ as artist movement, it is very important to do more than just put one record on after the other without missing a beat. It is about totally entertaining the crowd. Something I've been saying for a long time.

One thing I thought was a little amusing is how you praised Roland, Space resident, and denigrated Miami jocks at the same time. Isn't Roland a Miami jock?

All in all, I thought it wasn't a bad review. It could certainly use a pass through the old spell and grammar checker, but other than that, it was much less negative than your earlier postings.

One thing I do have to ask, if you dislike Miami so much and love NYC, why don't you move back. I moved here from Dallas a year ago for that exact reason. I couldn't stand it there, and I love it here. Just picked up and moved, me and my girl. Miami is a fantastic place, but only if you are a certain type of insane, which I am, which you, obviously, are not. Seriously, why not just go home? No insult meant, just wondering.

[LESjunkie]

At the very least a story that is headlined as a review of a night at a club should be simply a review of a night at a club.  I would not read a publication where columnists set their own word counts on contributions or where they are allowed to ramble off-topic.  Even student newspapers at universities have higher editorial standards than that.

You are very on point and I am with you on this, although I wont really argue it any further--- If saleen's article was one that received the most praise to the editors from readers, than that is a bit concerning but not really my concern...as i said before, I think his opinions have so much to offer, but when the rambling ensues it kind of ruins the thesis..

that's it from me!

[Guest Eddy Guerra]

my personal opinion is that he makes sense but at the same time he rips clubs apart, i just think its really funny, i love to read his stuff i laugh every time i see it. i just dont understand why people get soooo mad when he writes, when it all comes down to it, its just a matter of opinion, and who cares if you agree or not its always gonna be up on cool junkie because its gets alot of hits and thats what matters to the site. and no mater what any 1 says all reviews are biased. so i say if u read it and dont like it, then fuck it. responding to him and saying he is an idot and doesnt know shit isnt gonna change his futre reviews.

[Guest endymion]

Negativity pisses me off.

[Guest bcnjunkie]

And, you know, if you really disagree with the reviews of Saleen, or anyone, you can always write your own.

I do write my own, Sonar, Layo & Bushwacka, in the archives Quivver, the scumfrog, josh wink

[Guest bcnjunkie]

Well my thought is as follows:

Should you want to bash anyone that's fine, but when you start to discredit a dj unreasonably it's damaging not only to the dj but the scene. Promoters, club owners and booking agencies work hard to try and bring quality nightlife. How can they do that when a local site bashes everything about it ? it encourages people "not" to go out ! making it seem that it's not worth it. Or when you bash a dj that's very good, simply because you didn't like the tracks or the perticular style of music.

If you want to bash a dj, back it up !, why were these dj's bad ? the style ? the mixing ? the track selection ? I mean put some logic in the reason why or why not the dj "sucked"

Finally, this is my city and I'm proud of it. As long as the NYC wanna-be wants to bash it, so then do I also have right to bash him and his reviews ! I also happen to love Europe and will give credit were credit is due, and 90% of what he says about Europe is simply false.

BRING IT ON GUIDO BECAUSE THE MORE YOU TALK THE MORE YOU DISCREDIT YOURSELF !

[Guest coach]

Well my thought is as follows:

Should you want to bash anyone that's fine, but when you start to discredit a dj unreasonably it's damaging not only to the dj but the scene.  Promoters, club owners and booking agencies work hard to try and bring quality nightlife.  How can they do that when a local site bashes everything about it ? it encourages people "not" to go out ! making it seem that it's not worth it.

This is an extraordinarily good point. One of my favorite hobby publications had a policy of only running "official" reviews of products that it could review in a favorable light. So, if a product wasn't reviewed, you could either take it to mean that they didn't have time to review it or that they didn't think it was good. That was always left purposefully ambiguous. Of course, they'd run most anything in their letters column, positive or negative.

I think that is a very good policy for a publication (web or hardcopy) that is in existence mainly for the purpose of suppporting a particular hobby or activity. If you want to help expand a business, negativity, in any form, does not help. By producing only positive reviews of good events, you help guide people away from the bad stuff without sound negative and making the scene look worse. By producing only positive reviews, you get people excited about going out because they don't want to miss anything fun. You put a brighter spin on things. There is plenty of good stuff as well as bad, why focus on the negative?

[V. Barbarino]

lol, now you are saying, lets only post good stuff...

wow i really need to smash my stapler on my desk into my skull for an hour, because you make NO FUCKING SENSE!!!!

THEN FOR THE OTHER IDIOT, BASHING THE AGENCYS ETC.. DUDE, I PRAISED MORILLO, SO HOW WAS I BASHING HIM OR HURTING HIM ETC? I DIDN'T MENTION ANY MIAMI JOCKS BY NAME NOR WOULD MY REVIEW HURT THEM IN THEIR FUTURE GIGS...

NEXT I DID CLEARLY COMPARE WHY THEY SUCKED...

THEN I AM REVIEWING GUYS IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY.. I GUESS EBERT SHOULD ONLY REVIEW GOOD MOVIES.... LOL, WHAT JOKES

[ryan2772]

I think this is getting a little out of hand.

[Guest web_norah]

this keeps getting uglier....and repetitive...

[Guest bcnjunkie]

saleen:

I didn't say only do good reviews but be fair, bash nasty but back it up. You unjustifiably bash other dj's and clubs and everything about Miami. Automatically you discard european dj's what you write is damaging to our scene. I've seen the scene in Miami come a long way., from the days of Fire and Ice in dowtown way before Space.

I see what you write and for the most part it's not true and very negative.

[LESjunkie]

This is an extraordinarily good point. One of my favorite hobby publications had a policy of only running "official" reviews of products that it could review in a favorable light. So, if a product wasn't reviewed, you could either take it to mean that they didn't have time to review it or that they didn't think it was good. That was always left purposefully ambiguous. Of course, they'd run most anything in their letters column, positive or negative.

I think that is a very good policy for a publication (web or hardcopy) that is in existence mainly for the purpose of suppporting a particular hobby or activity. If you want to help expand a business, negativity, in any form, does not help. By producing only positive reviews of good events, you help guide people away from the bad stuff without sound negative and making the scene look worse. By producing only positive reviews, you get people excited about going out because they don't want to miss anything fun. You put a brighter spin on things. There is plenty of good stuff as well as bad, why focus on the negative?

I know I said I was done but I must interject and say that this post truly is a bit ridiculous...im sorry Coach, but in no way should a publication only post good things...criticism and being honest when an event or elements of it sucked is essential to keep things FAIR AND BALANCED.  I dont think CJ readers come here because the writers are mere ambasaddors of fun.  

Now, the problem with saleen clearly is that he does some great criticism, and backs it up, yet he makes it all null and void when he gets over the top and goes too far with things.....

and Pod, i must address your Howard Stern analogy too.  Howard Stern is funny.  Saleen is rarely clever or witty enough to be considered even comparable to Stern.  Stern's political satire and such is hilarious, but how do you think NYer's reactions would be if he, in his studio here in ny, said "all new yorkers know nothing about music...all new yorkers suck!."...please he'd be driven out of his office....instead he tailors his arguments and insults intelligently,(and mainly sexually) and this appeals to his audience....

MY BOTTOM LINE:  Any intelligent worldly person with half a brain would dismiss saleen's reviews as unintelligent, brash, uninformed, negative without reason, unecessarily rude, and downright stupid at times...the weakest link.  This person would identify the potential of his writing, but in the end would dismiss it as the rants of a meatball; a turkey meatball at that.