I write reviews for a website called , and when I review music, I always try to listen to the album multiple times -- not just three, but five, six, or seven times at least, and often times even more than that. I honestly don't feel that I can say anything useful about the music unless I've made the effort to live with it a bit, even if it really turns me off at first. (And one recent album I reviewed really grew on me from the first listen.)
However, when I review books or a film, I don't read the book multiple times or watch the film multiple times. I think music's a tougher nut to crack, for some reason.
I find the idea of writing a music review based on a single listen almost absurd (unless one is reviewing a live performance), and I'm always suspicious of people who claim to be able to hear all there is to hear in a musical work in a single listen. (Not that the point of a review is to elucidate everything there is to know about a work in a single bit of writing, but some reviewers seem to genuinely believe they are doing just that.)
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