Every critic is tasked with the challenge of balancing critical analysis and personality in their review. A review might seem weak if the critic is overly analytical and boring or if they are overly charismatic but lack purpose. An example of the latter is Jon Caramanica’s review, Giving ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ a Polish Accent. The review is for the polka music troupe “Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra” and their performance at the Brooklyn Bowl. Caramanica spends more than half of the article giving an unnecessarily lengthy history of the lead singer, Jimmy Sturr. He talks about the awards he’s won, previous works that he’s done with other artists, and a heap of other details that say nothing about the performance. Thankfully, Caramanica finds his purpose towards the end of the article when he mentions the music that was played. He says that the polka was very nicely performed but the band shifts to polka versions of “Sweet Home Alabama” and “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” which turned out fine but was not received with as much appreciation as the other polka songs by the mainly Polish audience. The sad part of the review is that Caramancia makes an excellent point but only discusses it in one out of the ten paragraphs he writes. He then returns to analyzing Mr. Sturr whom he has visible admiration for but nothing more than noting the visible moments of exhaustion in his eyes. All in all, I can take away from this review that Caramanica enjoyed the performance but I am left completely in the dark regarding why. After reading this review I can only take away few general details such as: it was a polka performace, the audience was mainly Polish, the band performed unlikely renditions of Southern American classics. I would suggest that next time Caramanica spend much more time on reviewing the performance instead of giving fun facts and talking about insignificant musings.