Scraping the barrel: reviewing bog roll, hamsters, etc.

Dave's dooyoo stats

Reviews: 1,750 (Frankingsteins) + 136 (Brains)

Timeline: 27 June 2000 – 5 January 2011

Word count: ~1,035,000 archived (+ 275,000 lost or I didn't bother to save, so imagine how bad those must have been)

Earnings for all that: Maybe £1,300–£1,500, most of that in the year after graduation when I cranked out a £50–£150/month production line before getting steady employment. It helped.


Dave's dooyoo archive

Music reviews (Ab-Am | An-Az | Ba-Bi | Bl-Bu | C | D | E-H | I-J | K-M | N-Y | Offspring | Korn)
TV reviews (Sci-fi | Comedy | Kids)
Film reviews (Juvenile)
Book reviews
Game reviews
Internet/shopping reviews (Top 10 websites 2003 | 2004)
Edinburgh Fringe reviews
Misc. reviews (that's this page you're on now, idiot) [Classic Dave c.2004]

Bringing an end to my obsessive-compulsive filing of my old consumer reviews from a dead website that should have been allowed to rest in peace, here's what I thought about groceries, theme parks and other miscellany on the rare occasions I ventured outside my comfort zone or house.

Written for dooyoo.co.uk aged 15–24.

Old school music reviews: N-Y

It turns out my alphabetical archive is a bit top-heavy. Here are the rest of the album reviews I wrote at school and university, without a slightly older me to fill in the gaps any more. If only I'd delayed getting a real job for another year, I might have made it to Z. Or possibly starved to death.

Reviews of albums from bands in the second half of the alphabet written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2001–2007. Offspring reviews sold separately.

Old school music reviews: K-M

I wrote my last 50p album review at the start of 2009 (I got as far as 'Ma-'), tailing off due to a combination of reliable employment meeting my needs and unreliable to non-existent home internet. I always thought I might carry on and complete the alphabet one day, but then I started my copywriting career where I basically do the same thing, only writing repetitive descriptions about blockout blinds rather than Blind Guardian. And for slightly better pay. Not quite as enjoyable though. But now it's too late.

Reviews of albums from bands beginning with K, L and M written for dooyoo.co.uk (RIP) from 2001–2009. My angsty teenage Korn reviews were too toxic and have been quarantined in their own post.

Old school music reviews: I-J

A teenager's enthusiastic, inconsistent, interminable track-by-track odyssey through Iron Maiden, many of those tracks covered multiple times on various compilations, live albums and DVDs of those same live albums. Plus a handful of other bands.

Reviews of albums from bands beginning with I & J written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2003–2008.

Old school music reviews: E-H

The bloated and enthusiastic teenage reviews are intruding ever more on the concise adult summaries. Good. Fifteen-year-old Dave may be a bit of an idiot, but he generally has better taste. Stop listening to single-one-hour-long-song albums and stick some Green Day on.

Reviews of albums from bands beginning with E, F, G and H, written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2001–2008.

Old school music reviews: D

I had a job by this point in '08, which meant there wasn't as much free time to explore strange curios from the past and it was easier to earn my bus fare churning formulaically about the CD-Rs in my big box. The alphabetical adventure is picking up pace.

Reviews of albums from bands beginning with D, written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2001–2008.

Old school music reviews: C

Ten-years-ago Dave stubbornly persists with the entire Cannibal Corpse discography, assuming it must get better or at least have a different song at some point. I was getting lazier now, not bothering with the pun titles any more, barely exceeding the minimum word count and sticking to the repetitive metal I was bored with because I knew the context and the terminology, so didn't have to learn and experience interesting new things.

Meanwhile, teenage Dave underrates the Cure's masterpiece, preferring his goths to squawk unintelligible vampire poetry, and student Dave enters a crazy world. Reviews of albums from bands beginning with C, written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2004–2008.

Old school music reviews: Bl-Bu

The more enthusiastic side of 'B.'

Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2001–2008. Spot the teeny bobber section, if it can even be distinguished amid the general immaturity. Sabbath still rules though \m/ \m/

Old school music reviews: Ba-Bi

Writing "consumer" reviews was my full-time job in early 2008 while I half-heartedly looked for a proper job, working through alphabetical band lists and committing blindly to discographies for better or (usually) worse. I can't say I've spared a thought for many of these artists in the decade since, apart from the ones I liked already.

Reviews of albums from some bands beginning with B, written for dooyoo.co.uk in 2007–2008.

Old school music reviews: An-Az

Today's letter is still somehow 'A.' This was my poorly-paying day job while I was otherwise unemployed and chasing ghosties at night, and I was committed for the long haul.

Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2004–2008. Includes a literally old school review towards the end.

Old school music reviews: Ab-Am

I wanted to put all 750,000-ish words of my teenage and YA music reviews into one absurdly massive blog post where they could quietly gather dust and cause occasional mischief to anyone who accidentally opened it. Sadly, Blogger started crashing even before I'd got past 'A,' so I had to break it down.

Here are my reviews of albums from some bands beginning with A, written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2007–2008.

My long-term plan when freshly graduated and unemployed was to review one album per artist every few days, mixed between the TV, film, book and retro game reviews, but then the site changed its payment model to favour churning over community feedback and I adapted by spamming a discography a day to get my fiver for as long as it would take to get a proper job.

Old school TV reviews: kids' TV

"Not aimed specifically at the adult generation" – Me, 2004

21,000 words waxing nostalgic in far too much detail about a random assortment of children's programmes from the 1960s–90s, irrespective of quality or memorability.

Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2003–2007 (aged 18–22. An adult, then).

Old school TV reviews: comedy

"Not only inexperienced, but also massively inept" – Me, 2004

60,000 words on sitcoms, sketch shows and stand-up DVDs, mostly written when I was still at school, if you somehow require this information.

Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2000–2010 (aged 14–24).