What Makes For Good Music Writing?

Haircut gags.

examples pls

Oingo Boingo references

The ability to NOT purposely use long unfamiliar words unknown to 98% of the general populace, just to convince people you are literate.

The ability to NOT purposely use long unfamiliar words unknown to 98% of the general populace, just to convince people you are literate.

Eschew obfuscation, yo.

To answer the question, it helps to be able to offer fresh insights about music in language that flexes unprecedented yet meaningful metaphors and similes and gets people excited about or at least interested in what you're writing. Master those, and you're golden.

T/S: "Convincing People You're Literate" vs. Using Terminology & Being Concise

for starters, read william zinsser's "on writing well."

1. Don't write about music.

Well obviously at the sentence-by-sentence level the same principles apply to music writing as to any other writing. But beyond that, I think music writing should illuminate the music for the reader, either by providing context (historical or otherwise), delving deeper into the person/people behind the music, or providing some kind of insight. I like a good story, and I also even sometimes like nerdy formalist analysis.

What I don't like is the impressionistic, abstracted sort of writingthat flails around trying to get at what the music "sounds like". This is a waste of the reader's time, imho.

I love the way the Wire reviews are - you can have a review that tells you all you need to know in 300 words, and you'll know whether you may like it or not, without them telling you that it's the best or worst thing ever.

Speaking of which - I also like it when a writer shows a bit of restraint - both negative and positive hyperbole are irritating.

Know your audience. Put yourself in the reader's shoes. Focus on how readers will benefit from your information or from complying with your request. Use words familiar to your readers and avoid unnecessary or potentially confusing jargon. Many terms used by SDSU faculty and staff such as "graduation rate," "retention," and "preparation for the major" may not be familiar to students and the outside community.

Be clear and to the point. Say what you mean as clearly as you can. Your goal is to write messages that are understandable and precise. Accuracy and completeness add to your credibility. Include all important details——no more and no less. Don't repeat ideas.
Adopt an appropriate tone. Writing in a conversational style using simple words is usually the most effective way to communicate your message, although a document such as an annual report will require a more formal tone than a flyer promoting a student event. Your tone conveys your attitude toward both the reader and the subject, which can affect how your audience responds to your communication.

11 RULES OF WRITING

1. To join two independent clauses, use a comma followed by a conjunction, a semicolon alone, or a semicolon followed by a sentence modifier.

2. Use commas to bracket nonrestrictive phrases, which are not essential to the sentence's meaning.

3. Do not use commas to bracket phrases that are essential to a sentence's meaning.

4. When beginning a sentence with an introductory phrase or an introductory (dependent) clause, include a comma.

5. To indicate possession, end a singular noun with an apostrophe followed by an "s". Otherwise, the noun's form seems plural.

6. Use proper punctuation to integrate a quotation into a sentence. If the introductory material is an independent clause, add the quotation after a colon. If the introductory material ends in "thinks," "saying," or some other verb indicating expression, use a comma.

7. Make the subject and verb agree with each other, not with a word that comes between them.

8. Be sure that a pronoun, a participial phrase, or an appositive refers clearly to the proper subject.

9. Use parallel construction to make a strong point and create a smooth flow.

10. Use the active voice unless you specifically need to use the passive.

11. Omit unnecessary words.

1. Subject and verbs has always to agree
2. Make each pronoun agree with their antecedent.
3. Being bad grammar, the writer should not use dangling participles.
4. Don't write run-on sentences, they are hard to read and punctuate them properly.
5. Don't use no double negatives, not never.
6. Don't use mixed metaphors because they are a pain in the neck and should be thrown out the window.
7. Make sure to understand that a writer when he is writing something should not get accustomed to the habit of making use of too may redundant words that he does not actually really need in order to put his message across to the reader of what he has written.
8. About sentence fragments. Not good to use.
9. Try not to ever split infinitives.
10. Don't use a foreign word when there is an adequate English quid pro quo.
11. If you do use a foreign word phrase, it is de rigor to use it correctly.
12. It behooves the writer in his epistles to avoid archaic expressions.
13. Don't use hyperbole unless you're the one writer in a million who can use it effectively.
14. Avoid cliches like the plague.
15. But, don't use commas, ever, when they are not necessary, or important.
16. Don't abbrev. unless nec.
17. Proofread carelessly to avoid mistrakes.

1. Write only what is true, without exaggeration.
2. Write only what is true in plain and honest language.
3. Don't use words when you write that you wouldn't use when you speak.
4. Remember you're not just passing on information, you're telling a story: Use drama.
5. The story is everything. Nothing should go in that will take away from the story.
6. All the stuff that you use should enhance your story.
7. Read good writers to see how they do it. That's how you learn to use language: Cormac McCarthy, Knut Hamsun, Gunter Grasse, Kafka, Hermann Hesse, Sartre, Camus, Dostroyevsky and Halldor Laxness, author of "Independent People."
8. Don't be afraid to fail. Try to use descriptions and if they don't work, it doesn't matter.

A LAPTOP AND A DREAM

1. Cut a hole in the box
2. Put your junk in that box
3. Make them publish your box

and that's the way you do it!

7. Read good writers to see how they do it. That's how you learn to use language: Cormac McCarthy, Knut Hamsun, Gunter Grasse, Kafka, Hermann Hesse, Sartre, Camus, Dostroyevsky and Halldor Laxness, author of "Independent People."

I'm not sure I buy into the read-a-bunch-of-proto-and-actual-existentialists-and-some-guy-you-don't-know-so-I-have-to-cite-a-book-reference method of larnin' writin'.

That's a handy list, noting that most of them didn't write in English.

HALLDOR LAXNESS DIED FOR YOUR SINS

HALLDOR LAXNESS DIED FOR YOUR SINS

-- scott seward, Monday, 7 May 2007 05:38

So he's an ex-laxness now?

Halldór Kiljan Laxness (1902-1998) - originally Halldór Guðjónsson - pseudonym Halldór frá Laxnesi



Icelandic writer, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955. Laxness published his first book at the age of 17. He is best-known for his fiction depicting the hardships of the working fishermen and farmers, and historical novels combining the tradition of sagas and mythology with national and social issues. With Gunnar Gunnarsson (1889-1975) and Kristman Guðmundsson (1902-1983) Laxness was among the first internationally known Icelandic authors.

"I spent my entire childhood in an environment in which the mighty of the earth had no place outside story books and dreams. Love of, and respect for, the humble routine of everyday life and its creatures was the only moral commandment which carried conviction when I was a child." (from Laxness's Nobel acceptance speech)

Halldór Kiljan Laxness was born Halldór Gudjónsson in Reykjavík. When he was three, his parents moved to Laxnes, a farm in nearby Mosfellssveit parish, where Laxness spent his boyhood. His pen name Laxness took from the farm. Besides taking care of the farm, Laxness's father worked as a road construction foreman. He was an amateur violinist and also taught his son to play the violin. Before he turned to writing, Laxness planned a career as musician. BARN NÁTTÚRUNNAR (1919), the author's first book, appeared when he was 17. Laxness was educated at the Icelandic Latin School and he attended the gymnasium in Reykjavík briefly, without graduating. His family had enough money to allow him to travel freely. After World War I Laxness spent much time in Europe and the United States, where he tried to find place in Hollywood film industry.

In 1923 Laxness turned to Catholicism and got the name Kiljan after Irish St Kilian. He spent some time at Saint-Maurice de Clervaux, a monastery in Luxemburg, studied in London at a Jesuit-run school, and continued his spiritual search at Lourdes and Rome. Laxness wrote several books with Catholic themes before arriving at a state of disillusionment. His controversial first major novel, VEFARINN MIKLI FRÁ KASMÍR (1927), was partly written under the influence of St Thomas à Kempis and the surrealist poet André Breton. Laxness also read Proust while writing the book. A number of publishers rejected the work before it appeared. Laxness's veiled autobiography broke with the epic realism traditional in Icelandic fiction. In the end of the novel, the young protagonist turns to God, but in his own life Laxness become less and less interested in metaphysical questions, and finally he abandoned the Catholic faith.

Returning to Iceland, Laxness spent several years traveling through the country. During a stay in the United States, he lectured among others about fishing at a IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) club, but was not enthusiastic by their anarchist activities and believed that they opposed as much Marx and Lenin as Rockefeller and Morgan. In San Francisco he read James Joyce's Ulysses - later he wondered why Joyce is not counted among the most important surrealist writers. German authors, such as Thomas Mann, did not inspire him - according to Laxness, Mann was too professor-like and Goethe overrated. Perhaps the most important novelist for him was Upton Sinclair, whom he considered primus inter pares and who influenced his novel SALKA VALKA (1931-32). Sinclair did not mention Laxness in his book of memoir, but Laxness's letters are included in My Lifetime in Letters, Upton Sinclair (1960).

In June 1929 the Los Angeles Record published news about an "Icelandic author who faces possible deportation" - immigration officers taken away Laxness's passport. After the intervention of Sinclair and Helen Crane, the niece of Stephen Crane, it was given back. In 1930 Laxness married Ingibjørg Einarsdóttir and settled in Reykjavík. His financial situation became stable when he started to receive the state writer's grant. Permanent residence Laxness found from the parish of his youth. Salka Valka was Laxness's breakthrough novel and reflected his Socialistic views which marked his novels in the 1930s and 1940s. The story depicted a young woman, Salka, and a small fishing community. Evil enters into the community in the form of merchants and fishing entrepreneurs and is pitted against labor movement. The book gained a huge success in England. The Evening Standard wrote that Greta Garbo would be the perfect Salka in its film adaptation. Other early works include World Light (1937-40), about a sympathetic folk poet Ólafur Kárason. The book was based on the life of the minor poet Magnús Hjaltason and showed the influence of Knut Hamsun. The trilogy Iceland's Bell, published when the author was in his 40s, made him famous and a prominent spokesman for the Icelandic nation.

"... Bjartur had been brought up on the old measures of the eighteenth-century ballads and had always despised the writing of hymns and new-fangled lyrics as much as he despised any other form of empty-headed fantasy. "My father," said he, "was a great man for poetry and was gifted with the tongue; and I owe it to him that I learned the rules of metre when I was still a youngster and have kept them since in spite of all the newfangled theories of the great poets..." (from Independent People, 1934-35)

In 1945 Laxness married Auður Sveinsdóttir, the daughter of Svenn Guðmunddson, a blacksmith, and Halldóra Kristín Jónsdóttir. She was 21 and 16 years younger than Laxness. They had first met in 1936 and three years later they started to go together. At that time Laxness was writing World Light and divorcing his first wife. Before deciding to marry Laxness Auður and planned to immigrate to the U.S. They moved to a new house in Mosfellssveit, the house was called Gljúfrastein. The marriage did not break up, altrhough there was other women in Laxness's life. Auður worked as Laxness's secretary, but she also wrote articles to magazines, and took care of their household and raised their children.

Before and after World War II Laxness devoted himself to political and economic issues, and wrote about everyday life of Icelanders. Laxness's popular work, SJÁLFSTÆTT FÓLK (1934-35, Independent People), drew a vivid portrait of a Icelandic small farmer. The story is set in the early 20th century in a remote valley, cursed by an Irish sorcerer Kolumkilli and his later partner, the witch Gunnvor. The protagonist, a stubborn sheep-farmer, Bjartur of Summerhouses, loses two wives in his life-long struggle for financial independence. Bjartur's a son leaves him, and his dearest child Asta is disowned. Like Job in the Bible, he is plagued by superior forces - now exemplified by prosperous farmers and their commercial interest - and finds what he truly values after losing all of his wealth. Independent People was first praised by Icelandic Communists. This did not stop German publishers from translating it into Germany in 1937. Eventually the book was forbidden.

Laxness's later works were more lyrical and introspective. He had travelled first time in the Soviet Union in 1932, and already then noted the poverty and failures of the economic system. Laxness missed such everyday items as razor blades, good soap, and scissors, but he was impressed by the high level of cultural amusements. In 1938 he followed in Moscow the Stalinist show trial, in which the Marxist political theorist Nikolai Bukharin was charged with treason and then shot. Laxness gradually abandoned socialism. When he met Bertolt Brecht in East Berlin in 1955, they both condemned in their discussion Stalinism and rigid Marxist cultural policy. In the pacifist The Happy Warriors, published three years after Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Laxness warned of the worship of totalitarian ideologies.

Laxness became interested in Oriental religion, especially Taoism of Lao-tze which is seen in Paradise Reclaimed (1960), a story about spiritual search, and Christianity at Glacier (1968), which mixes folk mythology with pagan beliefs and Christian ideas. Noteworthy, the story has nothing to do with topical issues, such as the Vietnam war, which Laxness decried. "Remember, any lie you are told, even deliberately, is often a more significant fact than a truth told in all sincerity," says one of its characters."

Laxness skillfully changed his style from novel to novel but always maintained his ironic humor. His production consists over 60 works: novels, plays, essays, short stories, memoirs and travel books. Among Laxness's several awards were Stalin Peace Prize, the Danish Nexö Award, and Sonning Award. In 1995 Laxness moved to a nursing home outside Reykjavik; he had suffered from Alzheimer's disease for some years. Laxness died on February 1, 1998.

I wonder if Laxness's prose could be termed, "tight".

I think good music writing has much to do with an ability to perceive well the nuances and artistry of the subject as being able to write well. The two aren't entirely separate obviously but in the short-form article sense (rather than full length book sense) I think that perception is as key as the writing style.

entwined with the basic principles as set out by teh Seward, above, obvs.

i forgot most of what i learned in high school. i don't know ANYTHING about grammar. i sorta know what things should look like. i dunno, hopefully i learn a little along the way. i've only been writing for money/an audience for 8 years. that's not very long. i definitely feel like i'm better at it now. i don't know if what i do is good music writing. i'd like to think that what i do can be entertaining/enlightening . that's actually more important to me than being a good critic. for good current (rock) crit, i would suggest some of the usual suspects: douglas wolk, m.matos, tim finney, philip sherburne. and more abstract minds like frank kogan, mark sinker, and don allred. there are a ton more of course. keith harris, andy beta, dylan hicks. just google their names. (i'll stop there. but also check out francis davis for good jazz crit. sadly, i can't think of a classical critic that i love. i read the new york times. their stuff is fine...maybe someone else knows someone.)

What trips me up is actually describing the music. That's the foundation of 90% of Pitchfork's obnoxiousness/overwrought metaphors. To Scott Seward: I gave a list like that to my composition students. They didn't get it. Thanks for the suggestions, too.

practice

ha! yeah, those lists can be goofy. sorry for the repetitiveness.


i've read stuff by keith harris and thought to myself: THAT is how you do it. funny/topical/informative/smart/great ear. and he makes it look easy.

Any album review that doesn't mention the record is automatically an order of magnitude more interesting.

"More interesting" is not equal to "Good music writing"

That having been said, I don't care about "Good music writing" anymore, as should be evident in my actual music writing

"Good music writing" != "Interesting"

"I don't care about "Good music writing" anymore, as should be evident in my actual music writing"

oh stop. you care.

WE CARE A LOT


http://www.underweb.com.br/brsabor/images/capa_v01_preview.jpg

I don't write many of the longer form essays about music, but when I'm doing reviews of albums, there are a couple things I try to accomplish. I try to let the listener know what the music sounds like (either through comparisons to other bands and styles or, yes, similes and metaphors to describe the songs themselves). I try to place the album within the artist's discography, or the overall genres they work in (i.e., how does it compare to their other work and other works in that genre). I try to let the reader know if the record is good or not (seems like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised how many writers neglect to mention that). And above all, I try to be funny or entertaining or interesting in the writing itself, so that the reader feels like they didn't just waste their time reading another boring album review. But then, I come more from the "I like writing about stuff" school than the "I want to write serious criticism about music" school. So, take that as you will.

"Good music writing" != "Interesting"

-- libcrypt, Sunday, May 6, 2007 7:56 PM

I can't figure out what this means.

it's an attempt at humor

I once read a Mick Mercer review of "Standing up Straight" by Wolfgang Press and by the end of it, I was so baffled at what the hell he'd just talked about (it ended with the phrase "kick over the chessboards!" that I bought the album to find out what hell he was on.

So hey, that did its job,

Not humor so much as snarkiness.

I haven't read a bit of worthwhile music criticism in decades, while I've encountered a tremendous amount of crap. Hell, it seems nobody is willing to write an honestly negative review, much less take a chance that they won't be able to claim credit for discovering the next big lump of musical manure.

Really? What the heck do you read? Entertainment Weekly? I could link you to a whole bunch of scathing reviews that I've written myself.

maybe you don't read enough.

snarky libcrypt x=post

My biggest problem is lack of time; second-biggest problem is lack of musical knowledge; third-biggest problem is liking too much music / respecting musicians too much? / to really slam more than just a few records a year. I just don't apply to write about shit I hate, as life is too short.

And no, I don't really care anymore, Scott. I've stopped writing for money altogether anymore; I just write stuff, people publish it or change it or not or whatever. A whole lot of other things are a lot more interesting to me right now.

I just don't apply to write about shit I hate, as life is too short.

cosign x100000000000000000

haha that's why you ain't get no emails from me jess

I get sent blind packages from some places, which is cool because sometimes I find bands that I really like that I wouldn't have otherwise, but not cool because sometimes I have to review Scars of Tomorrow.

Scott's a good example of what I look for in rockcrit (and what I am for in mine): say what you mean and have a backbeat.

Scott's a good example of what I look for in rockcrit: irreverent comments and funny pictures.

word up

Any album review that doesn't mention the record is automatically an order of magnitude more interesting.

Um, no it isn't. Please refrain from this. We don't care what you had for breakfast that morning, etc.

if it's interesting i do.

Unless you're Lester bangs, what you had for breakfast probably isn't going to be that interesting. Unless it's lots and lots of acid.

And even then, it should probably be relevant to the review in question.

LESTER BANGS, EH? I HEAR HE WAS PERHAPS THE ONLY ROCK CRITIC TO INTEGRATE HIS OWN PERSONAL LIFE INTO HIS REVIEWS WITH ANY SUCCESS IN THE HISTORY OF THE MEDIUM! IN FACT, BECAUSE OF HIS "GONZO" NATURE, YOU MIGHT SAY IT WAS LIKE ROCK CRITICISM...ON ACID!

What I don't like is the impressionistic, abstracted sort of writingthat flails around trying to get at what the music "sounds like". This is a waste of the reader's time, imho.

Strongly disagree. Follow your way and you remove 90% of what's "fun" about music writing. Also, this sort of approach can be done w/o flailing around. It ain't easy, but it can be done.

I just don't apply to write about shit I hate, as life is too short.

Negative reviews -- and I don't mean kneejerk predictable tripe -- are one of the few means to establish credibility with yr readers. Nobody trusts a yes-man, even if every "yes" is heartfelt. If you can't prove to me that you draw the line somewhere between "great" and "crap", then I have absolutely no reason to follow up on the positive stuff.

I'll look up music referenced on ILM 1000000x more often than I will from Pitchfork or Skyscraper or 5 million other eat-ass pubs 'cause the folks who comment here aren't so intereted in blowing smoke up my ass. Sure, there's a ton of snark and gotchas and whatever here, but the level of musical honesty far exceeds that of any publication I've stumbled upon.

So, then, if album reviews aren't useful as a consumer guide, what's left? Entertainment, I guess. Which is why there's no reason to bring up "music" in a review.

Eh, who cares about establishing credibility with readers? Well, I used to, when I first started; "NOW THEY WILL KNOW I AM 4REAL." Then I realized that no one gives a rat's ass WHO writes a review. Now I answer to myself and my own conscience, and that's it.

I'll look up music referenced on ILM 1000000x more often than

On point, although of course I've had to learn the tastes of people around here just as much as I have with any publication. I'm more inclined to follow up on a recommendation from Scott re: metal than, say, Phil, to whom I'll gladly turn for free jazz recomendations. It's just as much a learning process here as it is with learning the tastes of mag writers, I think, if not more so! There are certainly a lot more well-spoken advocates of music here than there are contributors to Pitchfork.

Scott re: metal than, say, Phil

Meaning, of course, that Scott's tastes in metal align with my own more often than Phil's; not suggesting one is more right than the other, etc.

x post to libcrypt

That's... possibly the most bizarre thing I've heard since Geir's explanation of why anything heavier than Genesis is bad. So, yeah. I'm doing the same thing I did there and folding.

Have I just been Geir'd?

Kinda like punk'd.

Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh. Still, it basically comes down to this: if you don't agree with Pitchfork/Skyscraper/whatever, don't read them. There are plenty of blogs and magazines out there that give bad reviews. It's sort of silly to say that nobody gives negative reviews in a room full of people who have given probably dozens, if not hundreds, of negative reviews -- and well reasoned ones, not just knee-jerk reactions. sure, there are places out there that don't like to alienate labels and such (I had one of my reviews in a print publication nixed for being too negative, despite being what I thought was fairly constructive), but with some very shallow digging you can probably find plenty of said negative reviews from people who post on ILM. I realize you're being hyperbolic, but you haven't taken a very defensible position.

i'm always kind of amazed when people say they trust ilm but not the dreaded "other publications" given how many critics post here.

I don't trust a percentage mark/whatever from anywhere.

I read the descriptive parts of a review and assess whether the record is worth investigating based on its similarity to what I already like.

Which is why I love the Wire's reviews so much.

This isn't a "publication", I dun think. Even ass-eating critics need a break from sucking goat-testes thru pipettes of steel.

you are alex in nyc and i claim my $5

No, but he likes some good bands. He's fixated on the wrong CSC period, I think.

(The classic period being that of Headkick Facsimile.)

Alright, so if you're freelancing, how do you go about picking which album to review or (I guess this is hypothetically someone who would just be starting out) which publication to go to? I apologize if these questions are dumb or naive or elementary, but in my defense, I'm young and a midwesterner (St. Louis, actually, whose rock scene has for ages been the musical equivalent of dark matter) and I'm in academia where my colleagues can't tell me shit about publishing rock crit. They can tell me a lot about mathematical analysis of Ulysses though. It's confusing.

. Write only what is true, without exaggeration.
2. Write only what is true in plain and honest language.
3. Don't use words when you write that you wouldn't use when you speak.
4. Remember you're not just passing on information, you're telling a story: Use drama.
5. The story is everything. Nothing should go in that will take away from the story.
6. All the stuff that you use should enhance your story.
7. Read good writers to see how they do it. That's how you learn to use language: Cormac McCarthy, Knut Hamsun, Gunter Grasse, Kafka, Hermann Hesse, Sartre, Camus, Dostroyevsky and Halldor Laxness, author of "Independent People."
8. Don't be afraid to fail. Try to use descriptions and if they don't work, it doesn't matter.

-- scott seward

I had to chuckle when I read this, scott, as I immediately recalled your celebrated review of Aborym's last CD. I think you only violated the first three rules however.

JACK KEROAUC'S BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE

List of Essentials

1. Scribbled secret notebooks & wild typewritten pages for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon the object before you
13. Remove literary grammatical & syntactical inhibitions
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yrself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear of shame in the dignity of yr experience language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words the visual Amercian form
27. In Praise of Character in the Bleak Inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild undisciplined pure coming in from under crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

What I like in music writing, in rough order of priority:

- brings me to (or back to) the music in question
- shows me something new or richer about that music
- tries to start conversations, not stop them
- makes me think, excites me with its insights and ideas
- a focus on the listener
- avoids recieved wisdoms
- elegant or lively sentences
- unforced humour

"I had to chuckle when I read this, scott, as I immediately recalled your celebrated review of Aborym's last CD."

i didn't write those lists! i just cut & paste them from the internet. they might be helpful to someone. i didn't really read them.

I think Tom nailed just about everything, there.

Possibly corny: I like it when the writer seems to be translating their emotions completely and effectively, and when it is clear that they are writing about something they care about. Don't like: assuming everyone else is right there with you when are actually completely up your own boring ass.

Alright, so if you're freelancing, how do you go about picking which album to review or (I guess this is hypothetically someone who would just be starting out) which publication to go to? I apologize if these questions are dumb or naive or elementary, but in my defense, I'm young

Lots of publications and sites time their reviews with cd release dates. Unless you get a leaked version or a press copy you may not be able to do that. But not every cd gets reviewed the day it is released (or before the release date, no matter what Amy at Pitchfork thinks). As for picking which album to review, you have to decide that based on your interests and what you think an editor might accept(unless you have a gig where you are just assigned stuff). You might want to try to start with a university newspaper or a smaller website.

I just type.

What makes for good writing is ideas. This goes for music writing too. You have to have interesting ideas, and not necessarily only about the record in question. The ideal review, which all should aspire to, even knowing they'll rarely get there, should be one packed with interesting thoughts and observations. Sometimes you don't have any good ideas, though, which is tough when you have an assignment. You obviously need to be able to express yourself clearly too.

My favorite music writing = Cook & Morton's Penguin Guide to Jazz. It has an amazingly high hit rate of all the things on Tom's list above, considering that it's like, 2000 pages long.

1)thanks scott, you're still on my good list too (Let's swap interns sometime;I've heard your hospital's got some of that island breeze).
2)jposnan,if you're looking for the right publication to approach, just pick one you like. Write some demo reviews, of recent albums, of the kind reviewed in the pub you like. Don't try to fit perfectly with what you've read, just say what you want to say. Then compare that--or don't, just send it; if you're really sympatico, you'll have absorbed enough already. You might do better to start with a place that doesn't pay, and build up a stash of clips to show a place that does pay.
3)Not mentioning the music supposedly being reviewed can work (R.Meltzer did it sometimes, Dave Q. too, maybe: sometimes it seems that a non-review is the best review, given the asubject). Has its own tradtion in book reviews, where the book is a pretext for the "reviewer" to demonstrate his own lofty view of the subject, and/or you can't tell how many of his pronouncements are actually lifted from the book. Speaking of bad reviews,
4)I rarely hear a bad album that's interesting enough to write about, but Bobby Conn sent me a rainbow (mostly of poo, but that's what I wanted)(although this is a Dadrock review:"I'm not so much angry, Son, as I am disappointed," which is true too):
http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item/id=388

i usually write about stuff that i dig. or at least kinda dig. i don't look for stuff to slam. there is too much good music to write about. this is the last thing i wrote about that i really didn't care for. every once in a while decibel throws me something questionable. most of the time i write about what i want to write about. anyway, even here i was kind!:


Thom Mathews – Mindcraft (Black Flame)


Um, ooooooookay...I’m not usually at a loss for words. Hmmm...How about that mess in Washington, huh? Sheesh, what a bunch of morons. We should really just throw all those people to the bottom of the ocean and start from scratch. Er, hypothetically that is. (I would never survive a Cuban summer.) Hey, whatever happened to the "Black Bloc" anyway? Chickenshits. Pretty badass when it came to egging a few Starbucks. 9/11 made those dudes pretty scarce. Along with drunk businessmen on planes who were filled with "air rage". Remember them? Yeah, they learned how to sit in their seat with their hands folded pretty damn quick. Alright, look, Thom Mathews is a shredder. A shredder, dammit, and he’s proud of it! He shreds to live and he lives to shred! His whole new solo debut is FILLED with the sounds of shredding. Is their sweep picking? Is their tapping? THERE IS TAPPING ALL UPSIDE MY SKULL. The whole album is one long shred guitar solo. If you have a tattoo of Uli Jon Roth on your ass you will die and go to heaven upon hearing this. As for me...hey, have I mentioned yet how totally cool Black Flame Records is? They just put out a truly incredible darkwave/electro album by Cybernetic Erosion. (R.I.P. Agathos. Thanks for the music. Anyone interested in icy synth stuff should immediately buy it.) And they are also releasing the awesome Japanese folk-metal of Magane. LOVE their stuff. So, okay, back to Thom. He really really...shreds. On this album – He used to be in Hallows Eve at some point and he recently left the band Quinta Essentia – he’s not really so interested in the whole "song" thing. Or even the "production" thing. He’s kinda got a one-track mind. It’s almost as if he thinks if he stops shredding – FOR EVEN A MINUTE – that he will die a gruesome death. And, really, I wouldn’t want that to happen. Plus, every generation needs a Paul Gilbert they can call their own. I think. I’m actually rooting for Thom. Long may he...you know...

okay, it's goofy and i wrote it in five minutes, but i tried to accentuate the positive in some way. you know?

That review is awesome. Nice way to fill the 250(?) words.