So what, you may be inclined to ask, is the difference?
Well, let's start by talking about a Review, which isn't something you'll find in these parts (see the appropriate section of the side bar for those). You (or at least I, your actual mileage may vary) write a Review of something that's new to you, don't you?
You may, on the other hand, want to look back on an old favourite, something that's been part of your listening enjoyment for years, which means you're either looking at a single album or a string of them by the same artist or falling into the same genre (or possibly something else entirely).
If you're looking at an artist or band with an extensive back catalogue you're talking, in Hughesy's parlance, a Retrospective. The observant reader will note these are few and far between in the sidebar, because undertaking a detailed look at an artist's back catalogue is going to be a lengthy affair.
Up to this point I've only managed an introductory look at Richard Thompson and what would have been a Rear View of Dr Strangely Strange if I'd come up with that idea back when the piece was written.
Future Retrospectives, most of which will be multipart affairs, will be looking at the likes of Elvis Costello, The Band, Little Feat, Warren Zevon, Neil Young and the rest of the names over there on the Hughesy's Favourites page.
Rear Views, on the other hand, while they will invariably contain a degree of Retrospectivity, will mostly be a discussion of a particular album or perhaps a sequence of three or four, as is the case with the Rear View that involves the good bits of the Steve Miller Band.
Almost invariably that Rear View is going to go into who these people were, and what they did along the way as well as talking about the album itself, probably on a track by track basis. Rear Views are, consequently, snapshots of things I've planned to look at once rather than pieces that are going to provide the basis for a lengthy and ongoing deliberation concerning the artist and the back catalogue.