Music writers: why do you bother?

Now fuck off.

This sounds like it could have been taken from a letter to the editor complaining that a critic gave a bad review of last night's Dave Matthews concert.

(It might be quite obvious here that I don't consider myself a particularly good reviewer in the critical sense, but I do seem to get decent quotes out of people. Plus under 40 percent of what I write about is music-based and I like it that way.)

We're all at it today.

Anyway, people DO want to read music criticism/reviews. I, for one, find that the folks who do it out of love for music, in the hopes of turning readers on to some great LPs they might not have heard about...they are both effective and valuable to me personally. I mean, it'sa proven thing: read review, buy record, like record. When that happens, it's pretty easy to see why they "bother". People who write reviews just to get off on themselves--"Look, I made a pun in the title! A pun!!"--are just bothersome...

While understanding exactly how pathetic this sounds, i've made more money as a freelance music writer than at any of my other forms of employment.

2. Popular music is probably the most subjective and unintellectual of all artforms, and is therefore immune to any kind of rigorous discourse. A song can be great/elegiac/sad/etc. purely on the basis that you heard it first when you were 15 years old. How do you argue with that?

I think your statement is facetious in the extreme, but the very subjectivity of pop allows for many different interpretations; which, for me, means it *demands* writing about. great writing about music has changed the way i've listened to music, and that's something I aspire to - similarly, the fact that i still devour writing about music with a rabid hunger means that there's a market out there for people to read what i might write. also, to promote the *right* music (equally subjective) is a keen part of the attraction - to be a booster, to be a critic.

i would argue against pop being the most non-intellectual of artforms.

4. Most of the music I love, I have no real desire to read about. I have a desire to read about the lives of the people who created it perhaps, or the circumstances in which it was made. But no desire to read musical criticism.

the problem with this statement is, you assume there to be a list of inarguable facts that make up any artiste's history. even writing a band's story, telling their life, engaging in an interview, is an act of musical criticism determined by the questions you ask, the way you tell their story, the facts you include or omit. there's certainly no piece about a band or a musician i've written that hasn't, at some part in the tale, included passages of musical criticism or theory, arguing for why the subject deserves the attention.

Er, no

And accusing me of racism on the basis of my initial post is a bit McCarthyite, isn't it?

To me interviews just feel like a part of the PR process, they do some quotes, I present them and if I don't like the band try and win some pathetic pyrrhic victory by isolating a quote and then using odd metaphors which match something the artist said. eg Some band said "we were easily the heaviest band on the bill" and so I used words like "weighty" and "magnitude" and "hefty" throughout the piece.

Most artists to be are fairly boring, I know that's an awful critic cliche but they are! Don't get me wrong I love the idea of artists with an image and a style, I'd enjoy interviewing say Felix Da Housecat or something but the vast majority of artists just spout the same old rubbish, there are as many dance cliches as rock ones and pop ones.

But I guess the point I'm making is that while I don't care about interviews I do really care about reviews. I always skip straight to reviews in magazines, I think there are a few reasons why I find them interesting. Firstly because I like seeing people put out an opinion, and seeing if I agree, or if not, why I don't. Secondly I think reviews are what gives a sense of politics to writing about music, whose side is someone on, how original are they, why might they think what they do?

I think in practice, reviews are in an awful shambles, in the sense that the space given to them seems to get smaller and smaller. Nonetheless I do think magazines have a certain influence, I mean if you're a good reviewer people respect what you say despite themselves. Look at the amount of "what is all the fuss about band x" that is out there, not just on ILM but in the real world, people being sort of subservient to hype, even through their hatred for it.

I enjoy writing about music also because I feel some things need to be praised and recorded and other things could do with being rubbished. I don't know if I intend to do it for very long, because the main problem is THE AWFUL AWFUL PAY, and I want to sustain the sort of lifestyle I've grown up with.

There's also another reason why people do it, because it's a job where you get to listen to records, discuss them, go to gigs for free, and have loads of freetime.

(surely it being the most subjective of artforms is a reason why people WOULD want to do it.)

i think you meant to post this on this thread, marcello.

i'd suggest that the fact these two genres are of black origin is becoming more and more irrelevant in today's society (not that it's unimportant in a historical context, just that it no longer really matters given that the audience and indeed performers are right across the board racially and have been for so long) - but maybe that should be on one of those Geir threads...

3. What useful things are there to say about music that can't be said in a few lines in a music forum?
Thanks for reading.
4. Most of the music I love, I have no real desire to read about. I have a desire to read about the lives of the people who created it perhaps, or the
circumstances in which it was made. But no desire to read musical criticism.
Again, thanks for reading.

The same thing that gives you the right to accuse the thread starter of being a racist.

The thinking on this thread is so binary.

I'm tempted to hang around just because I don't like self-important bullies harrassing me into leaving. But actually I have some work to do. Have fun, don't throw your toys around and do try to treat the other boys nicely!

and blount i hope you get fucking cancer. people like you don't deserve to live.

yes, because its much better to threaten people with physical violence and wish them dead.

?

a) making fun of a person's dead wife is not cool;
b) using someone's tradgey to prove a point on an internet board is not cool.
c) in fact it's damn right despicable, bad taste and whilst you may think 'yay, i've gotten people on my side and i'm going to enforce this point so i'll be heard and be proven right - is so so so not cool'.

Being sarcastic about tradegy is not cool. At all.

i don't think people will, marcello. that's thing about discussion: everyone gets to air their views, no matter how retarded, and just because you don't agree doesn't mean you can flounce and berate and bully and emotionally blackmail people into shutting up.

are you really in your 40s? you behave like a spoilt child.

xpost

i've said it before; if anyone wants to know what the "terrible thing" is then email me and i'll tell you in confidence. i'm not prepared to discuss it on this board.

It's been a tense week, Jim.

Starting with someone sending me an email picture of a former class mate who killed himself and just with weird indecision as to what to do with the Libertines story. I.E. I want to have the copyright and that means I am not going to publish it in a magazine. And being very tired. But capitals are fun.

I've got this idea but its slowly coagulating into something into 'i don't know what but its going to big and fun'. i was nervous because i thought i would not be allowed to go onto the tour if i did not do it up for a magazine. and its always a bit nerve wrecking to say no when you are a fringe element on magazines. but i want to save it and use it for myself.

doomie, most magazines don't expect to own copywright of everything you write; this is one of the reasons i left NME - their freelance contracts were unfeasible, unworkable and unreasonable. you can publish in a magzine and retain copywright, just find someone other than NME to publish it (or browbeat Sutherland into working a different contract for you - Gullick never signed, and so retains copywright of everything he shot for them, giving his photos over on a one-use basis alone) (not that this is necessarily possible for a writer) (but you have rights that are denied to you as an NME writer, and not necessarily elsehwere)

Naw, I'm a fringer and thus my importance is low for magazines. Which is cool. I'm in it for the fun and games. And have become a better writer.

But for this I want to do it independantly and not associate it with any magazine.

trying to compress a weekend on the road with Primal Scream and Icarus Line into 1800 words right now, and it hurts...

And its difficult because I love writing for the NME and really like my two editors that I work with. So I don't want to piss them off. Or the NME. So I'm a bit nervous. And factor in that the Libertines have pissed off every big shot magazine guy in town makes it doubly hard. Whether you like them or not the Libertines play their own game.

I think I worked out a good compromise though. I'm going to give my one editor updates and news if things get weird on the road giving NME some nice stuff. And write up the stuff as it happens. I've got access into the Libertines world like no other journalist at the moment and with this tour and it could be something really big.

You made me laugh myself silly last night when I was shopping on Oxford Street!

Email me when you are back from America. And have a good time!! I want to get yer lazy arse rekkerd shopping with me.

You can tell me I've got downs or something if you are embarrassed!

anyway, there has been some bad news, but it's not as bad as it might have been, and there is also now some good news to counteract it. again it's the kind of thing i really only want to discuss on a one-to-one basis, rather than in a forum or message board.

so profound apologies to everyone who didn't deserve my tongue-lashings. anyway after today you'll have a long break from me!

If you take a break than I will have to take a break! Don't bother. Stick around if something is fun. And contribute. And don't worry about ILX. As you know I've had a pretty bad year 2003 - and I understand how crazy it can get. So stick around and don't feel guilt. NO REGRETS!

Ok. You hybrid bastard. You email me, yeah, when you get back from America? We can see what that lazy bastard Mark S has been up too and hit the shops.

I have no desire to resurrect this unpleasant thread but insofar as I got the facts wrong I owe you an apology, so here it is - sorry, I either misunderstood or misremembered something you said on an earlier thread. My astonishment that an educated man in his forties could have such a pompous sense of his own importance based on writing a few monthly reviews in a magazine like "Uncut" remains undiminished.

-- Jimmy the Saint (00...), February 6th, 2004.

That nails why I often think music journalists are just total fucking leeches.