Critics who review the same CD in two different magazines: Good or bad?

wait, you mean tracks actually has an audience? when did that happen?

I've had publicists suggest to me, after I've done a review or story, that I should submit the exact same review or story to a different publication, which leaves me shaking my head, dumbfounded. That's just ridiculous.

So would I -- unless 'Mikael Wood' is some highly efficient new kind of reviewer robot...or just refused to sign any contracts.

Usually, I reserve the more ambitious ideas for the Voice and the monthlies, because the others grenerally stick to 200-word write-ups on one album these days. That makes things a little easier ...

plus, writing under a fake name chases the prs away, as i only work with two prs there is no point in getting more on my arse. plus the two pr companies i do majority if not all of my work with do press for what is like my exact musical tastes. its like having a friend with really good musical taste hipping you to new stuff and being paid for it!

would they? I was doing it in the '90s and I didn't get drummed out of anywhere. I was hardly the only one, either.

Not questioning anyone's inexhaustible brilliance here, but is there really an infinite amount to say about any CD?

"The initial miniature tone you hear on the eighth second of "Sometimes" is cause for grave reflection..."

Isn't pitching reviews kind of a perfunctory exercise? I think the editors of most national magazines have a pretty good idea of what they want to cover. Sure, I can pitch Cathedral and Enslaved to Spin, but the piece is likely to be the first one cut, and I'll end up being talked into reviewing Puddle of Mudd or Fear Factory.

Not entirely out of laziness, I appreciate the few editors who offer up laundry lists, then let the writers pitch a couple sentences on why they should get a particular assignment. I know it's different for weeklies, where the reviews are much longer.

Excellent point.

It brings up another issue which has to do with the narrowing of numbers of unique reviews. Despite their being more channels for individual CDs to be reviewed, primarily in mainstream sources, general multiplication of functionally similar reviews by functionally similar people who seem like one person writing about the same artist, has exploded.

For example, vis a vis newspapers (and daily newspaper-like pubs) and their entertainment sections, practically speaking, you could replace most all reviews of Conners Oberst or Trail of Dead with one central review, republished by all. Pick someone to be the central scrutinizer. The the sham of variation in "criticism" would be done away with, freeing up people to write about the single CDs they like but which everyone else is likely to hate or be uninterested in because it's not on TV or raising a lot of money.

You know I'm right. It's the model people want and have worked imperfectly to achieve. It's what Americans like even if they don't know how to precisely articulate it.

I’d agree that doing this sorta deprives other folks of work (when your review gets re-published as part of New Times or some other such chain it’s outta yr hands, of course).

so yeah, i think that it is possible for people to give different angles on a band. i mean, if that wasn't the case, wouldn't there only be one uniformed review for each band?

me, too. Though it doesn't annoy me nearly as much as those four or five guys who get bylines in EVERY single magazine and online outlet you can think of ... I'll take the quality hacks over the quantity hacks any day ...

Then by this definition, you're a publicist masquerading as a journalist. Since you're in a conflict of interest, legitimate editors attempting to cling to respectability in journalism, as opposed to fanboy pressmen, would shitcan you if they knew of it.

Of course, functionally, it doesn't matter for a lot of fringe and genre music publications. For some, it's probably a practical asset, saving the trouble of having to massage copy that isn't strict hagiography.

Hence my robot suspicion above -- if Spin and Tracks are using the same generative review software, then no prob.

oh feck off. i hate ilxor.com ... its so not 'me'...

i guess i was. for interacting on this thread. so otm, etc etc.

ha ha

so i can't type.

oh no!

Doesn't matter where the press releases went since you were still in a business relationship with the band.

Here's the Hollywood version, from retiring NYTimes reporter Bernard Weinraub -- also not for the squeamish:

"...did I come face to face with some of the more startling, and not always pleasant, truths about human behavior, my own included."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/movies/30wein.html

As quaint as it may sound, it certainly is when you're reviewing or writing about the same bands. But there's treason and there's TREASON. Since music writers are about at the bottom of the journalistic pecking order, little is expected of them as a group.
It's like the stink a few years back over the "movie reviewers" Hollywood excerpted for their ads, the reviewers apparently receiving junket in exchange for writing blurby stuff that never really saw print. There's a noise and then everyone goes back to the same old routine. Occasionally, someone is given the boot ... but very quietly. It happened at a place I worked for.

But you've identified the nut of this which is that it's gone on for decades.

Now why would they do that? Well, only because a lot of their scientists were collecting huge sums as consultants to the companies they oversaw, wrote health policy as it pertained to drug products produced by said products, or published papers claiming efficacy or good results of products made by same companies.

And the consulting fees are large -- hundreds of thousands of dollars per person. And they were encouraged to do so for some time before outcry finally just now put a stop to it.

I also know an editor who writes multiple reviews at his home publication and will frequently use a pseudonym for certain styles. Anyone else do that or know someone who does that?

The bottom line is that smart freelance writers repurpose their stuff whenever possible. But I can't say I'd be impressed with an editor who a) knowingly would run a similar reviews by the same writer in a competing publication or b) would ever use that writer again.

No, there's nothing wrong with it. One must eat, pay rent, clothe the young'uns, things like that.

It's not like anybody's getting rich doing this... 'cept for Sasha Frere-Jones.

What's rich? $50K a year and the envy of peers? I think "getting functionally poor enough to survive day-to-day and not get thrown in debtor's prison" is a reasonable standard, and it's astonishing how few music writers even reach that level solely by writing about music, and when you do, then you're surviving for a living more than working for one.

But, I still love writing about music ... go figure ...

well, if he's good, and he worked hard enough to pitch all those ideas, more power to him. If he sucked, then I wouldn't say that. Mikael's a star.

I'm sure he's not getting rich. You should read Ian's link to the New York Times piece upstream for some upper crust realism. People take their movie reviewers and Hollywood beat-types seriously, man.

Really, the multiple publication of reviews of the same subject is a trivial concern, at best. That anyone has a negative opinion on it, specifically as it may pertain to the state of music journalism, merely reveals how niggardly attitudes are.

What, you're going to begrudge someone a big $100-$200 for a couple extra paragraphs of relative piffle here and there? Wow, what a collegial group music journalists are.

Anyway, even if you want to syndicate small reviews, it's not particularly productive. Usually the terms of a contract would render most reviews utterly stale by the time you can file them free and clear with a syndicate. So any return on even an attempt at fair multiple publication will net zero to almost zero for the majority submissions.

He has a regular gig with the New Yorker, and contributes to NY Times, Slate, Village Voice, and maybe Spin? Dunno, it's been like 3 years since I've read that mag. Dude's gotta be raking in some major coin.

Major coin as opposed to what? Learn what journalism salaries are as well as free-lance rates vs. cost of living in various shires of the U.S. You're just telling us you don't know much about the nuts and bolts of the job or parsimony.

As opposed to the great majority of music freelancers working for a pittance, mayhap?

"Learn what journalism salaries are as well as free-lance rates vs. cost of living in various shires of the U.S. You're just telling us you don't know much about the nuts and bolts of the job or parsimony."

I probably don't know as much about the nuts and bolts of the job as you, Prof. Smith, but I am intimately acquainted with parsimony. And with that, I bid you all good night.

And the consulting fees are large -- hundreds of thousands of dollars per person. And they were encouraged to do so for some time before outcry finally just now put a stop to it.

OK ENOUGH. THIS THREAD SHOULD BE PUT ON LOCK-DOWN. YOU CAN'T MAKE COMPARISONS BETWEEN SCIENTISTS AND MUSIC JOURNALISM. YOU PRETENTIOUS SCHMUCK! I'VE READ YOUR STUFF GEORGE. IT IS NOT EXACTLY KAFKA. IF WHAT IS BELOW AN EXAMPLE OF HARD-HITTING JOURNALISM ... THAT DESERVES ANY COMPARISONS TO SCIENTISTS THEN CALL ME MABEL!

New Fake Facts You Must Know About Anton Newcombe and His Band!
The Brian Jonestown Massacre's Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective

by George Smith
December 6th, 2004 5:50 PM alert me by e-mail
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The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective
Tee Pee

A cult movie called That Chick—She Digged It, starring Anton Newcombe, has transformed Brian Jonestown Massacre into a media juggernaut. The Chicago Daily Crapper has declared Newcombe "a tortured soul." The BJM song "Fistfight in the Viper Room" is not on their new retrospective, Tepid Peppermint Wonderland, nor is it on any out-of-print CDs. The Minnesota Star & Funk has certified Anton Newcombe as a "mad genius" with "the personality of a tsunami." The BJM have received more ink in the U.S.A. than David Gross, H. David Politzer, Frank Wilczek, Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, and Irwin Rose—this year's Nobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry—combined. According to the 'zine Whadda You Call Your Haircut, the BJM's last bass player quit after a Hoboken gig when Newcombe threw a beaker of gin in his face and yelled, "I saw a flea stick upon your nose and it was a black soul burning in hell." Newcombe has said he considers the movie about him to be an unjustified calumny. Many songs on Tepid Peppermint Wonderland are slow and droning fogs that Newcombe sings over with little apparent zest. All BJM music has been put on the Internet, where it has been downloaded by millions and millions of people, probably.

More by George Smith

Ok, if not Mabel, how about Edna? I've never sold a record review as hard-hitting journalism unless others imagined it to be so. You think I should try?

"Saw it. Argh.

Someone here spoke to him about it the other day. It's obviously this
big unspoken rule of arts and music criticism that you never review the
same work in more than one publication, so I was really surprised that
Mikael apparently had no idea that what he did was frowned upon. So in
the future we need to make it clear to new, very young writers that
they can't "double-dip."

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I had paged through that
issue of Tracks but I hadn't done a big reviews read. Sia"

Hmmmmm....

SW

Jeebus, have you no idea what the New Yorker pays per word!?!?!

And STILL a bargain.

actually, if you're a staff writer at the NY'er (which SFJ is) you're not allowed to write for outside publications. so it's just NY'er and the blog for him these days.