Punknews.org FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

You sure can! While we accept review submissions from the readers we've built up our own staff of trusted volunteer writers. Our reviews editor should be your first point of contact for review material, he'll be able to get the records shipped out to the appropriate writers.

REVIEWS EDITOR:
Brian Shultz
39 Greenhaven Drive
Port Jefferson Station, NY 11776

Of course the members of the editorial staff would love to hear your record, but due to time constrictions they can't offer any guarantees that they'll end up penning your review. Of course it can't hurt to keep the people writing the news aware of what music you have coming out. The staff, and their mailing preferences, follow:

Aubin Paul: Please email Aubin for his shipping info.

Adam White: Please email Adam for his shipping info.

Justin August: Important: Justin has recently moved. Please email him for his shipping info.

Chris Moran : Please email Chris for his shipping info.

Meg Reinecker: Please email Meg for her shipping info.

A FEW POINTS ABOUT REVIEWS

• We currently only review CDs, vinyl, and related books/DVDs. If you intend on sending vinyl for review please check ahead with the reviewer to make sure they're properly equipped. In most circumstances we don't review audio cassettes, VHS or online / downloadable recordings.
• A good review is not guaranteed to anyone, no matter how much stuff you may send us or how many ads you take out on our site. We try to stay fair and unbiased, and if you think you can sway us, well, to quote Judas Priest - "You've got another thing coming." If you can't handle criticism, get out of the business.
• We can not guarantee you a review is material is sent. We do our best to get music off to staff reviewers when the editors are overloaded, but due to the number of volunteers involved and time limitations it is currently impractical for us to track and guarantee follow up on each recording that arrives.
• Punknews is community driven, and if a suitable review of an album arrives from a community member, it may be posted in lieu of a review written by the editorial or writing staff. We consider these reviews no more or less valid than those from the site editors.
• Sending multiple copies of music makes it easier to get your music reviewed faster and helps spread the name of your band amongst the editorial staff. We do not however base news coverage on the presence (or lack thereof) of promotional material.
• Please do not email us every day asking when the review will go up. Keep an eye on the site and stay aware of the update schedule. We'd like to notify you when a review is posted but follow ups are not guaranteed.
• Racist, homophobic, or other derogatory/inflammatory music will not be covered by this site. We will use our discretion.
• Anything mailed to us will not be returned [no matter how bad we might think it is].
• If shipping over a border, please take a second to fill out the customs sticker with a value of "1$ Promotional Items" (or something similar). Nothing sours a reviewer quite like an unexpected duty charge on unsolicited mail.
• Lastly, feel free to send us cool promotional items [stickers, t-shirts, gym shorts, etc.] - we don't take bribes, but it's nice having stockpiles of junk to show off to friends!

10 new reviews are posted every Tuesday and Friday.

Not to stir up this argument again but we don't care how much time you spent on some file sharing network downloading the songs. If the album has not been released than we won't post a review of it. This keeps our posting in synch, as we try to have a review of a band's album out the day it is released if possible. Your review will be kept in the queue until it is released. This allows a person who likes what the review says to go out and support the band by getting their record.

This was NOT requested by record labels nor was it a decision on our part to “make them happy.” It simply makes sense to us to run it this way. Oftentimes the version of the album online is from earlier demos and with sound quality that does not reflect the final product. When we do a review we consider the artwork & packaging, the effectiveness of the track order and the quality of the production & engineering. None of this is fully conveyed by leaked songs.

We're not currently looking for any new staff reviewers, but thanks for asking.

However, all of the staff reviewers are people who wrote reviews that we enjoyed (not necessarily ones we agreed with) So if you want to get more involved in the site, the easiest thing to do is get writing.

Probably one of three reasons

1) We already have two reviews of it. For releases like the new AFI album we got tons of reviews sent in. We'll usually post only two of them, the second one designated by a [2]. Please feel free to post your opinions in the comment section, but we can't have 15 reviews of a single album taking up all the space.

2) Your review doesn’t say anything new. If we have one uber-positive review, having another that says the exact same thing doesn’t really offer the reader anything new.

3) It's poorly written. We DO edit the reviews, usually just for spelling and punctuation. However if you send us something that fails to meet even the low-quality control standards we have, we won't post it.

Bold was meant to indicate staff reviews. Any review by Aubin, Scott, Adam or any of the staff reviewers was in bold. Unfortunately a small number of people made a big stink about it somehow being "exclusive" and "elitist." We removed it for the time being until we find a better way do designate staff reviews.

It should also be known that a lot of people were unhappy that we removed the bolding. They liked being able to know which reviews were the views of the staff and which were user submitted. In fact, the traffic numbers on the bold reviews were in no way higher or lower than the regular ones.

We’re working on another solution to make as many of you happy as we can, but we DO want to recognise the work of our staff. Suggestions are welcome.

The "Best New Music" section is new to Punknews.org. What it does is take recent reviews that were highly rated and spotlights them along with excerpts and other details to give you an easy way to find new music that is worth your time and hard-earned money.

As time goes on, we plan to incorporate more albums that were rated highly by visitors to the site in the hopes of make it even more useful.