Why would anyone want to be a music journalist RATHER than a musician?

(well mainly for ilm these days but you know what i mean)

(that is v.vague but i am right now off out for a meal with two other professional writers neither of whom wanted for a SECOND to be musicians)

But I feel a drive to think/talk about *why* and *how* ppl. relate to what's already out there.

i.e. even if I were more talented musically my music would be uninteresting except as criticism in which case I'd be better off writing it instead of playing it anyway.

(And on what planet do musicians not judge, for that matter??)

Anyway, here's my initial post from the thread Mr. Diamond linked to:

--Not gonna read this whole thread; don't have time. Just want to add (inasmuch as I remember them) the immortal words of Dave Marsh (I think it was, correct me if I'm wrong -- might even be in one of those rockcritics.com interviews), when asked whether being a musician is necessary when writing rock criticism: "Since when do you have to be a musician to use a RECORD PLAYER?" (Which COULD suggest that people who write about music are just frustrated DISC JOCKEYS, which is much closer to the actual truth -- in my own experience anyway, since I've never had any desire to learn an instrument, and when somebody DID give me a guitar, I never found time to practice.)
-- chuck (cedd...), February 20th, 2003.

-----

Frank Kogan, though, says playing a record player is NO DIFFERENT from playing a guitar. Which is right in its own way, obviously.

Which means rock critics ARE musicians. There's NO DIFFERENCE.

1) Define musician please. Is it someone who gets paid, or makes a career, out of playing music? If so, then I think you've just answered your own question. What a fucking dull-ass way to make a living.

2) The tone of the initial query makes it clear Horace thinks musicans are somehow inherently "superior" to other "lesser" mortals. Why, because they've learnt the truly astonishing feat of remembering how to switch an amplifier on and plug it into a socket. (Remember, kids: that socket needs to be switched to "on" before you can get a noise out of your guitar...)

Whooooooooo!!!!!!

Man, I wish I was a musician (strictly I am: but there again i don't get paid for it - so does that mean I'm not?) (But hold on, I'm confused: I'm a music critic as well, but I don't get paid for that either. Does that mean I'm not?)

So, does that make musicians, like, double musicians? They listen to record players too.

OK, I have the opportunites and talent to do both. I choose journalism. Why? Because it's more creative, it pays better (when it does) and because I can reach more people.

Well, Frank Kogan and Lester Bangs had talents to do both, right? And they made a different decision than Neil Tennant, Chrissie Hynde, and Patti Smith, who also had talents to do both. (Falling James Moreland decided to DO both, at the same time, I think.) You say "I think it's obvious, given the choice, why someone would rather be a musician than a music journalist", but sorry, it's NOT obvious to me, at all. Why is making that decision any more obvious than the reverse, Mei??

- (Small) possibility of huge wealth
- (Perceived) greater availability of sex
- Large number of very 'cool' people as role models
- Greater respect and admiration from your peers
- They hear great music, so they want to make it.

Mars. The Valles Marineris Voice has the emptiest letters section I've ever seen.

musician: that sounds great! can i do that?
critic: that sounds great! can attach my name to it?

okay okay now I'm being unnecessarily cynical.

?!?!
How does this explain Kid Rock?

Why would anyone want to be a racing driver RATHER than a motorsport journalist?

Why would anyone want to be a movie director RATHER than a film critic?

If you're having orgasms playing music, I'd say stick with that.

The overlap between the two vocations is that both musicians and critics put forth a value judgment about music. By playing the music that they play in a certain way, the musician makes a statement about what makes music worthwhile and valuable. In a more direct way, the critic makes these statements through their criticism. In this arena, the arena of value judgments, the critic and the musician clash as equal combatants. However, there is something inherently sterile about the critic - because they can only describe how music should be - they can never create it.

pod people vs ipod people. fite!

Explain yourself, Sterling. You speak in paradox.

what's funny about this statement is that it's unproveable by definition

haha maybe fishbone could verify?

if it were possible to absolutely freeze the circulation of cultural information globally, i doubt the music that would result from would be anything worth listening to. this is the question, right: what would happen if we all stopped reading and participating and just ignored everything but what was right in front of us, what records were already in our collections. actually records wouldn't even exist, or they'd be extremely limited-run pressings, because no press = no advertising = no sales = no investment in music / no radio play. you'd have a music-listening public constituted heirarchically, much like the world was for thousands of years before the democratization of letters and media: two main groups: elite interlocking circles of music-heds with access to the limited-run stuff and money to seek it out, and then everybody else who essentially has to live on a diet of this guy:

http://ws64.com/cabin/2002/Street%20Music.jpg

although i bet even this guy has a couple of contacts at listings pages and summer festivals

Music crit can make do with the body of already produced music (and largely does -- Uncut could survive for years on the product of the 70s alone)

Furthermore, you guys are really stretching the definition of music criticism in order to include any social discourse about music. Music criticism is more specific than that.

tho with my track record i might be cannon fodder soon!!

and what's worse is that people tell him that his awful reed-whine sounds "just lovely", as they cringe and go back to their wattle lean-tos

without music criticism we'd be playing Mozart's Requiem on those fucking sticks

you act as if music were a lock and music criticism is its key: destroy the lock and the key is useless

i have a difft analogy in mind, following on, but i'm genuinely appalled by its lewdness

Well, in a sense, I think that's true. But it's a very abstract point, because of course both are always going to be around. The truth is that I think it would be a blast to be able to make a living as either a musician or a music critic.

This thread has too many bizarre dichotomies to go into (my writing is no more "reactive" or less "proactive", and no more "attaching my name to something" or less "doing something" than most music is, believe me), but this line above bothers me the most. Look -- I do the same thing with music I've heard that musicians do with music that they've heard. I USE IT IN MY WORK. If that makes me parasitic of music I listen to, then MUSICIANS ARE PARASITIC OF MUSIC THEY LISTEN TO, TOO. And we're both parasitic of all the other stuff in life that we use in our work, too. (I mean, songs are often *about* something right? So how are songwriters not parasitic of THAT??)

Everything is essentially a "parasitic" activity, since it could not exist without everything else. Writing, art, music... everything. If this bothers you, you may have to kill yourself.

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From :
"Chris"

To :


Subject :
The Money Machine

Date :
Mon, 9 Jun 2003 02:26:43 -0500

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Dear Friend,

This is the most amazing program I have seen yet on the net. I understand the Big Dogs are all joining this one--so I did too!
There is no sponsoring needed. All the advertising is done FOR YOU. EZ money--deposited directly into your PayPal account! This program was just launched. The company will blast your ad until you have 25 people under you. The site is full of useful tools and lists to make your personal promotions a success if you CHOOSE to do so--it is not necessary. You WILL earn $4500 with this program. The only requirement is you must be motivated to earn money. For goodness sake, check it out. Get your paypal account overflowing!

I just got the same email! Yay Money Machine!

Anyway, you're cheating: you define us in ways that make us parasitic, and then when we tell you that in fact we're doing something different from how you define us, you tell us that it's not criticism.

"Indigenous music" is pretty much any music that isn't played in a classical concert hall. In many circumstances (e.g., discos, African celebrations of an infant's first tooth, etc.) music is part of a social ritual that includes everyone who's there. In some languages there is no word for music, since it is not seen as an activity separate from its circumstances. If you ask which came first, the music or the ritual, you're asking a nonsense question. That a song now exists on the wide-world stage rather than in just a village doesn't change the interdependence of all the characters.

Here's a thought experiment: Ask yourself why you come to ILx. Is it to contemplate some third thing, external to us - music! - or is it to converse with your fellows? If your answer in any way takes on the latter role ("conversing with your fellows"), then you are not merely "commenting" on music, you are using music, just as dancers use music, village chiefs use music, preachers use music, congregations use music.

My Meltzer review.

Speak for your own fucking self, loser.

Dumb people = musicians (and racing car drivers)

But not as much as all those fucking mediocre retards copying other fucking mediocre retards playing it.

why would anyone want to be a psychiatrist rather than a loony?

There's a level of, I don't know, powerlessness involved in making music - not so much a matter of talent, this, but almost as if the style of music you write is pre-ordained and nigh-on impossible to change (in my experience, at least). It's much the same with writing style, of course, but when it's a question of what music you're currently interested in and want to reflect, what you write about is the issue, not the way you write (beyond that it be clear and evocative. But I'm imagining myself with writing talent here, so). I've always found it slightly easier to train myself to different styles of writing than to new instruments or styles of music.

I like the potential impact of music criticism, too. If you can write lucidly, explain what you like in something and what you consider shite, you can affect people subtly. It's not the overt 'oh, [musician] likes [other band] so maybe I should check it out', or '[musician] apparently sounds like [other band], why don't I see if I like them too?', which depends on having a fanbase avid enough to care. People who don't bother to read the name on a review can still act on its recommendations - a journalist has much more of an apportunity to turn people on to the stuff they like, seems to me.

Also, writing's fun. When it happens. And you'd get to go to more gigs!

The only thing that would really turn me off the idea of being a music journalist would be having to interview bands comprised of coy brats who have nothing to say, and having to pad it out to make them seem like they've some kind of substance. The fact is, most of the time I'm not that interested in the people in bands, only the music. A lot of musicians don't want to make their opinions known, for whatever reason, and it can lead to sheer dullness. (and the ones who do say what they think about other bands often come across as complete tossers. sword, double-edged.)

Yes. No.

Frank Kogan, though, says playing a record player is NO DIFFERENT from playing a guitar. Which is right in its own way, obviously.

You have to stretch pretty far and have a narrow focus to get to that conclusion. If you write and record a beautiful piece of music, and I go to someone's house and press play, I should then get as much credit as you? Denying the difference between listening and creating is just being dishonest.

This conversation, this criticism, is trivial – but without it there is no music. All music starts in acts of criticism, of selection: one Liverpool boy playing another the latest R&B hits; a musicians wanted sign – “influences Husker Du and Peter, Paul and Mary”; a spike-haired kid wondering which showtune will swing the judges.

which i guess means that its been going on since the cavemen, but obviously - like everything else in our keerazy pomo world - its been sped up 1000x & mutated/perverted in the last 50-60 years.

to clarify: music says because society is THAT WAY then music should be THIS WAY (the way it is). some criticism says the same thing, but I think that criticism is k-lame. i.e. if you wanna say what the artist SHOULDA done then go and yeah pick up a guitar. but if you wanna say what the artist DID do and why that matters, then yr. engaged in something fundamentally different.

good music makes a k-lame critical framework (of music at least) and good musiccrit makes a k-lame framework for production of music coz it accepts as fixed precisely what music seeks to mold (the musical landscape) and regards as fluid precisely what music holds fixed (the landscape of social discourse).

Ug: play it loik this.
Stig: oi wass playin' it loik that!
Ug: no, play it loik you did the first toim...

but, yeah, i take the point

(subthread: what's the difference between writing and just putting words on a page?)

-- Frank Kogan (xxxxxxxx@earthlink.net), June 9th, 2003.

I don't know why you're grouping me with oops and o. nate.
I haven't tried to define you and I haven't said music writers are parasitic, partly because I consider myself to be one, eg

Well I'd Fuck Her

which I think has some of the properties others have been attributing to criticism here, in that it contains an idea that is somehow independent of the music and which someone else writing about the same CD would not have come up with. Also it includes social context which you talk up greatly in your piece about Meltzer.

personally , almost every journalist i've met was ugly.
every musician (gets paid variety) ive met had an ugly personality.
i know which one i'd rather be....

"Don't you know how much power you music journalists have?" he shouts at me. I laugh in his face. Power? We aren't even gatekeepers. We're scum, we're the enemy. We're caught in tug-o-wars between editors and PR's and even if we do succeed in writing something beautiful, it doesn't reflect on us, it glorifies inarticulate puppet-actors. Giving good interview, talking about music in a critical and cultural sense is a very different skill from being able to create it.

What if music is your first love, but writing in your second love, and you waste all your greatest moments in lyrics that are mumbled and misheard anyway...

in a fantasy world maybe i'd rather be kali than a rock musician anyway.

However, in moments of great annoyance with her, I would shout at her, "You know, if I work really hard and I practice and I gig constantly, there is a TINY but still quite good chance that I will eventually become a rock star. YOU will NEVER become AN ELF!!!"

Yes, well, opportunity is everything... The average person wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting in a movie, regardless of whether they were rubbish or not.

I actually can think of dozens more examples of musicians who "expanded" into acting rather than going into writing.

That's what they said to Elija and look what happened.

My new favourite insult.

(Can you tell how long I lived with gamer geek?)

Oh yeah? So why are there so many bloody songs like "God Save The UK Indie Scene" and that bit of freaking rubbish by Valerie that everyone loves cause it namechecks music journalists?

(And why is journalistic musicianship invariably really rubbish?)

The namechecking gives it a bit of a hook but it's the first thing likely to become annoying.

not really what i'm talking about...

Quite Frankly I Think I Could Do A Better Job Of Being Famous
Liggers With Attitude
Flavah of the Week

That sort of thing gets you precisely nowhere. It's too "clever" for your average music punter, and it wins you the distrust of the music press who don't like the idea either that the musician is criticising the critic, or the idea of you encroaching on their territory in talking about music in a critical sense. It DOES get done and it does exist but it's basically career suicide.

e.g. Valerie. Yes, they have a person's name, therefore they are shite.

Plus... Valerie vs. TaTu - FITE!!!

Quite Frankly I Think I Could Do A Better Job Of Being Famous

I never knew why the other kids meant
To be a doctor or a lawyer or the president
All my life I aspired to be
In colour on the cover of the NME
I wanna pose pretty for the glossy mags
The weekly journals and the cheesy rags
Use my fame to blag tons of free stuff
Then whinge about how life is so tough

Chorus:
Quite frankly, I think I could do a better job of being famous
See my face in the News of the World
You can say what you like, you know I'll be shameless

Don't care I ever make millions
I just want a gossip column link to Robbie Williams
I'll have chart feuds on the six o'clock news
And spout my scandal causing political views
Even my substandard Christmas songs
Will be money churning massive chart hits
Written on the back of a Groucho Club napkin
With my mate the Turner Prize-winning artist

Chorus

I won't burn out, I won't fade away
I'll keep my drug habits on constant display
When things get harsh and they start looking grim
I'll call Betty Ford and check myself in
Buy a mansion with a thousand rooms
Join a freaky cult that preaches doom
Lecture people on the plight of the poor
Then use my wealth to generate more

Chorus

Or try this one:

Flavah of the Week

Fell into the Gap with a great big splash
As I said "Yo, bitch" to a wad of cash
You can do what you want with me
Treat me like a commodity
My indie cred is a bit abused
Now I'm modelling for Dazed and Confused
But it's part of our master plan
To sip champagne on a yacht like Duran Duran

We're just the flavour of the week
I hate to tell you but we're
52 varieties in line ahead of you
We're just the flavour of the week
Now take a number, take your seat
We're just the flavour of the week

We're all fakirs we're all poseurs
Don't make art, we make hamburgers
You can rent me by the hour
If you've got money what I want is power
We've done Poptones, we've done Peel
Got personal stylists to keep it real
Trustafarian Sex Bomb, daddy buy me NME.com

Fuck the charts, we'll make millions
Selling mobile phones to the new Bohemians
Indie cred? Hah, I'm just ho
Sell my wedding photos to Hello!

So there. This is how you combine the two the other way around.

(I wish I could find the lyrics to the other song online, but I forgot to post them to our website...)

words + music = songs
words written in journalistic context = journalism

i'm not being annoying for that sake of it, of course it's possible to include criticism in songs - but I don't want to write songs i want to be a journalist and they're two different things!!!!!

Eg those songs of Kates, that Valerie song "Popstar", all those songs about the history of blues and can I be the first one to mention Guns and Roses "Get in the Ring" which is classic on the grounds of it's petty bitchiness.

No it can't and yes it can

1) music
2) writing (words)

are we only talking about examples where the writing is about other music, or about music writing or what?

Fair point that Valerie and Helen Love are possibly the worst arguments that I could come up with, but they were the first that sprang to mind. Were Billy Joel and Guns N Roses better examples?

Can I or anyone else (Momus?) come up with better examples?

I make music - or at least, I used to - because I loved it so much I wanted to make it myself. Are you saying my love of music is less than - or different to - a music critic's love of music?

I think you're making artificial boundaries and judgements, Dave.

No one... but if you happen to love journalism too the you probably want to be a sodding music journalist!!!! particularly if you find it a valid way of expressing yourself/being creative!!!

You need to add "listening to music" then you've got it.

And those three things are that's what you do Kate, right?

You will make music again, you know it!

and i don't play music - haven't in 12 years - but i listen every day and write pretty much every other... playing would get in the way of the others for me... thus i would rather be a music journalist as it's the best way to do the things i want, plus i'd feel i was missing out on something were i to be a musician... this is right for ME and will be different for other, plus I believe that musicians should NOT be music journalists in just the same as I believe people involved in the industry (PRs, A&Rs etc) should not be... an understanding of music is vital the act of being involved in a band throws uo far too many conflicts of interest...

and i don't play music - haven't in 12 years - but i listen every day and write pretty much every other... playing would get in the way of the others for me... thus i would rather be a music journalist as it's the best way to do the things i want, plus i'd feel i was missing out on something were i to be a musician... this is right for ME and will be different for other, plus I believe that musicians should NOT be music journalists in just the same as I believe people involved in the industry (PRs, A&Rs etc) should not be... an understanding of music is vital the act of being involved in a band throws up far too many conflicts of interest...

That last half of your second paragraph just made me so cross that I can't even SEE straight.

I'll quote my Whoreton article yet again:

It's wrong to write about a band you have a *financial* stake in, but if you don't have some kind of *emotional* connection with a band's music, you shouldn't bother writing.

Musicians have MORE of an emotional connection with music, therefore they make more empassioned writers.

WRONG WRONG WRONg and precisely what i mean!!!

Musicians have MORE of an emotional connection with music, therefore they make more empassioned writers

WRONG WRONG WRONG and precisely what i mean!!!

that may not be a good thing.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

di and kate- passion can be dull and not fun at all for this reader (and i love fun). it does get in the way of otherwise interesting args as to why x piece of music works. It can get into: 'hey listen to this its really good' type banalities!

so do i, but i'm not doing very well at it here

I want passion to be 'measured'. Writers that can do this are the best ones. I don't want cheerleaders!

Nope, he knows how things work as an artist, a producer, a writer and a business man.

He'd probably call himself an outsider though.

(That exploitation piece wasn't a one off but he has mostly stopped writing now I think, probably learned to control his tongue for the benefit of others and himself)

So there.

But because you have no interest in it, the subject would be dull anyway, even if the writer wasn't writing passionately.

yup. and he dulls me.

''"Passion can be dull" = quote of the century. Why do I just picture Julio reclining on a purple velvet chaise lounge and smoking a cigarette in an elaborately carved holder as he says this?''

thanks for the quote of the century bit.

I still listen to music every day, go to gigs (as long as it finishes by 11pm, of course). Passionate writing is a con bcz you can't be passionate abt things every day of the week. Its a very blind thing.

I want objectivity. even if its 'faked'.

''But because you have no interest in it, the subject would be dull anyway, even if the writer wasn't writing passionately.''

if I haven't heard something and I read abt it and the writer is just excited by this i turn over the page.

that's stupid

Mostly I'm interested in the music, the musicians, reporting of the facts. Passion often manifests itself as the writers opinion on things, which isn't as interesting as the things themselves.

I'd much rather read an interview than a comment piece anout a band, for example.

If it's a band I've never heard of, I'd rather read commentary. I want someone to tell me *why* I should like them, rather than some dull accademic treatise of how they arrived at art I've never heard anyway.

But maybe that's just me...

I think he's great, even if he does say and do some very annoying things.

I think Kates got a point, in the beginning you need someone to tell you why you should like a particular band, to give you reason to hear them, then later on you want more facts/details about/from the band themselves.

Bur over the years there really are very, very few bands I've got into because of what someone's written about them.

It's much more often through friends, or links with other bands or cos I've just happened to hear them somewehere.

I;ve bought stuff before because someone wrote passionately about it and hated it. I've learned my lesson now.

he was passionate but he did give reasons (political ones).

damn it you all he's a good writer (at least when i read him).

''I can't imagine anything I'd like to read *less* in music criticism than researched facts''

it can be (and most of the time it is) but it can lead to some of the best music writing i evah read. research is not just a fact (which is dull), but could be a history too. again, this should be included among opinion, of course.

''if I haven't heard something and I read abt it and the writer is just excited by this i turn over the page.
that's stupid''

Passion does a good job in covering up for a lack of imagination. When i turn over the page, I forget abt it but usually i will get to hear it (not buy it) and i find that music written abt passionately is usually thrash. so it maybe 'stupid' to you but it works for me.

And completely unrelated to that...

One thing I've noticed in my VERY limited experience is a more common appreciation of spiritual/mystical things (aka "bullshit") in musos than in journos, who seem WAY more rooted in truth/fact than the majority of musicians. Maybe the decision of journalism over music made by those who have the choice either way might be rooted in their lacking the naivete found in many musicians. Maybe it's this same naivete/blind optimism that leads those who choose music into believing they will be able to make a career from it.

Or maybe those who choose music journalism just don't have a death wish, I dunno.

Hm...

This post thoroughly proves the Dave Stelfox's point above about how musicians make shit writers. :D

half-arsed ones

I can see what you're getting act, but if you prefer the written word over sound then it seems to me the natural choice would be novelist, or poet, or short story writer. I think they're the literary equivalents of musician.

Why would anyone want to be a writer rather than a musician?
Why would anyone want to be a visual artist rather than a musician?
Why would anyone want to be chef rather than a ballerina?

Whenever I complain about my life, HSA always tells me that you don't neccessarily get to do the things that you want, but you get to do the things that you are GOOD at. HSA says that he wanted to make pop, but he wasn't any good at it, so he made experimental music. But experimental music didn't make any money, so he ended up an artist. I'd *love* to be able to make experimental music or dronerock or something challenging and interesting, but everything that I make comes out pop. People respond to my writing more than my music, so I'm being pushed towards writing rather than pop.

You end up doing what other people think you're good at, rather than what you think you're good at.

Or, erm, something, I think I'm derailing myself right now.

Description from some random website:

During the tour 1987-88 he started writing on a utterly obscene book that finally got its name "The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace"

The book's main character, the fake Scottish count Lord Iffy, is going to, during a weekend, try and trick money of some rich friends. This attempt fails when Lord Iffy’s butler's home-made pelvotron - a automatic fucking machine - goes wild.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0330314440/qid=1055255078/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_0_2/202-7647631-0259845

£15 quid is the cheapest which means Maiden fans are buying it to collect. My friend paid £2.99 as a remainder in Smiths and that was too much.

See! yr still in a band and yr still a musician. I knew it!

still better than the most of the garbage churned out week in, week out by the music press.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Back to what I said... i f you love music and JOURNALISM repeat JOURNALISM, be a bleeding MUSIC JOURNALIST

runs off tearing out hair....

Aw man.

no, steven wells is a schtick.

maybe some people have writing as their first love? If music is your second greatest passion it makes sense to combine the two, no? -- Anna

[I've been creating my own music since I was 16, but I've been writing since I was barely out of the womb. I love doing both, but I can't imagine not writing.]

you don't necessarily get to do the things that you want, but you get to do the things that you are GOOD at -- Kate

[Throughout my life, I've been praised for my writing. I've only really been praised for my music recently, since my band has started playing out -- but I also don't take that praise personally, since we're a fully collaborative six-piece band. For the last few years, I've been hanging my musical aspirations on a genius solo album that I will someday record. But it's entirely conceivable that I'll try that and it will turn out terrible. And so back to writing, because I know I'm good at it. And specifically nonfiction/criticism, because I know I'm better at that than fiction/poetry.]

Other reasons why I might prefer to be a journalist than a musician: 1. I feel like my ideas for things to write are frequently more original than my ideas for music to make. 2. I'm clueless about technology (which doesn't stop me from plunking around on my keyboard, but could stop me from making that killer solo record.)

i.e. music criticism has an explicit referent, a competitive element - R Kelly releases a new single, 100 people write about it - they might be trying to capture its essence, make it mean more (or less) to people, 'conquer' it for themselves or for others - when you do that well it's a thrill, it doesn't feel 'parasitic' or anything.

Another difference - a lot of people create for themselves, or for tiny private audiences. I'm happier having my referent-centred work (journalism) in the public domain, up for discussion, than I am having the creative stuff I do. The question seems a lot less loaded and more two-way when it's about what face you show the world, rather than what you 'are'.

I don't agree that expanding the idea of criticism makes it meaningless, btw.

also note, Lester Bangs was simply used as the most easily identifiable rock critic. He is meant to represent all of us (in this instance only). The other are specifics.

I don't give a shit about "credit"; I don't even know what that means. But not understanding why playing a whole bunch of records in a conscious order can be creative is just idiotic. And what if somebody writes a beautiful piece of music using record players as their instrument? And what if you go to somebody's house and pick up their guitar and start strumming? Who deserves more "credit" then? And is the former more like composing, or more like you going to somebody's house and putting on a record? And what about the latter??

Ah, but that is not what was said. It was 'playing a record player is NO DIFFERENT from playing a guitar.' No mention was made of DJing, nor did I say it wasn't creative. It's just...different.

Re: credit. Chuck, I think I've read about 50 of your posts where you try to give 'credit' to some forgotten 'originator.' This is what's intellectually dishonest: subscribing to certain notions only when they suit your needs.

don't agree that expanding the idea of criticism makes it meaningless, btw.

I think you're responding to something I said. To clarify, it doesn't make criticism meaningless, but focusing on certain similarities between writing about music and making music while ignoring the many differences makes the comparison between the two meaningless.

If you're suggesting that if you sent Frank Kogan to the store to buy a guitar he'd bring home a turntable instead, I seriously doubt you have anything to worry about, oops; I'm sure he *knows* guitars and record players are very different machines. But big deal. You still haven't explained why crediting creativity to one is any different than crediting creativity to the other. (And yes, of course I know what "credit" means in the WORLD; just not sure what it means in the context of your posts here. I'm waiting for you to tell me what it has to do with guitars vs. turntables, or why entertaining one's self or one's peers with one is more valid than doing so with the other.)

You'll be waiting a long, long, long time. I'm not making any value statements. It's the same difference between people who design clothes and stylists, between people who design furniture and interior decorators. One is not inherently more creative than the other. BUT, one is a necessary pre-condition for the other. You can't have stylists without clothes designers. You can't have DJ's without musicians. Someone has to provied the source material. This is what I meant by looking at things only from certain perspectives. On many levels, the two activities are alike. On other levels, they're not. Claiming the two are THE SAME FUCKING THING is dishonest. Two things need not be the same in order for their worth to be equal.

It is??? If you say so...

WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE AN ART??

I STARTED THIS THREAD and NO! That WAS NOT the point of it.

i think that was implied
-- jess (*************@hotmail.com), June 10th, 2003.

CERTAINLY NOT BY ME!!!

I was going to say something along the lines of "I read the music press. All the time. And I used to clip out articles and paste them in a scrapbook. That makes ME a music journalist! Woo!"

But then Dave Q beat me to it.

I'm thinking the yoghurt analogy is good. Take stuff that other people have produced (musicians::cows) and partially digest it, wait till it's past its sell-by date and turn it into "culture".

Har har, I'm punny.

You do the maths!

I mean, you can want to punch thousands of people, Dave, but you're still only one person! You can't punch them all at once!

If this wasn't ILM they'd be even further unbalanced.

Ask some random person in the street to name a music critic.

They're called zikzak birds, and I have no idea how their shit smells.

I liked Kate's yogurt culture post best, though. (How does that guy in De La Soul whose name is "yogurt" backwards fit into this, though?)
But sorry, the word "maths" as a plural will bug me til the day I die.

Ned Raggett! Tobi Vail! Steve Malkmus! Lou Barlow! All of Ladytron! Chris Charlesworth!

I could be here all day...

Wheee, this is fun....

Jerry, you are DOUBLY disqualified as being both an ILM poster AND a member of the music press, so stop it. I will get a broom now to sweep up all the names you've dropped on the floor!

He said Radiohead's new album was great on his show last week which, ooooh, millions of people watch.

Your word for mathematics is probably Llangffyrrddillgggbbbhhhhhttthhhdddddddddyyyyyyyyyyyllllddddd or something!