Rolling Music Writers' Thread

Since there's no longer (and hardly ever was) an I Love Writing board, and since there are a quite a few pro and amateur hacks here, I thought it might be worth starting a general purpose thread for the dark art.

I don't really consider myself a journo, having only had a couple of things published here and there (mostly for free might I add), but it would be good to get more stuff in print I admit. It would be interesting to hear more from people who've been doing it for longer than I have.

To get things rolling, I thought I'd ask a staple question that I think may have been toiled over before on ILX, regarding use of the first person in gig and LP reviews. Is this generally considered unacceptable in anything less than the most stylistic circumstances? Or does it really not matter too much? What about the use of "this writer" (don't really like this myself, I'd rather use "I/me" than "this writer", but that's just a personal thing).

Anyway, feel free to discuss whatever you like about music writing and journalism here.

I've said before about how I always hated that "The NME was told by Morrissey'" which is fine on the news page, but when it's "Morrissey bought the NME a drink and began .." on an interview, it's dumb.

Wrt first person: depends on who you're writing for and what kind of piece it is. Personally speaking, I've often had issues with the idea of "objective" criticism, so pretty much everything I've written, music-wise, has used the "I." But I've also avoided writing album reviews for publication, preferring to keep to autobiographical essays, short takes on singles, and blog posts, and in those contexts, no one's had an issue with it.

I often use first person, though rarely in a particularly deliberate way. It doesn't seem like that big a deal to me.

Something I've noticed that crops up in features like that, something that isn't necessarily wrong per se, but I feel is one helluva boring way to start one of these goes along the lines of: "It is 3:17pm on a rainy Monday afternoon. The NME sits in a Harringey spit'n'sawdust boozer sipping a pint of Timothy Landlord..." etc. What I mean here is that the intro seems to tell you more about the time and weather and location of the actual interview than about who is being interviewed. Whenever I read features like this I tend to stop reading much past the first paragraph.

3:17pm on a rainy Monday afternoon. The NME sits in a Harringey spit'n'sawdust boozer sipping a pint of Timothy Landlord

^ very accurate summary of state of british indie rock in the 09, though

"It is 3:17pm on a rainy Monday afternoon. The NME sits in a Harringey spit'n'sawdust boozer sipping a pint of Timothy Landlord..."

if you're gonna "set the scene" like this the best way to do it is to say "[the artist] sits by the swimming pool sipping a mojito" - the i/v is about them after all

i mean all obv dependent on what kind of feature, which publication &c &c &c

"[the artist] sits by the swimming pool sipping a mojito"

The Lex interviews Raygun.

I tend to use first person if my experience is an important part of the total picture. If I'm writing a piece that's based on a phone interview and three listens to the album, I don't do it; but if the publicist has flown me to Ireland to spend three or four days with the band, fuck yes I'm gonna inject myself into the story because I am then part of the story. I never use first person in CD reviews.

there's no i love writing board per se but consider this thread. a not-just-music writers' discussion might be fun.

New: "I Love Writing"

the first person thing is tricky. back when I wrote for the village voice many many years ago it was practically required in music reviews. as time went on many publications took the opposite tack, pretty much banning the "I" these days in the NY Times reporters are required to don this pseudo anonymity which I think reads terribly. instead of "so and so told me that..." it's "so and so told a reporter" waht? was it YOU or just some other random journalist who happened to be in the room?

ha, you *are* the room!

Maybe 5% of music writing in the first person isn't hacky. I see it as a huge red flag. Unless it's absolutely necessary to the story, don't do it, imo.

How is it "hacky"?

Maybe 5% of music writing in the first person isn't hacky.

On second thought:

Maybe 5% of music writing in the first person isn't hacky.

o here we are slagging off writers again, that didn't take long at all

there are different kinds of first-person usage. the kind i can't stand is the showy first-person narrative, where the writer becomes some kind of presence. but there's also just the casual "i" where it can be sensible and unobstrusive. "i love the first two tracks" doesn't seem more objectionable to me than "the first two tracks are great" -- they're both obviously subjective statements of personal preference. but i know some editors who will reflexively remove every "I" from copy, so it's good to know the standards you're writing to.

Just slagging off the hacks. If you'd like to defend bad writing, have at it.

My favourite one, (iirc)

"Kirk Brandon formed Theatre of Hate around the same time as I joined the NME. At the time, we were both unknown..."

(Can't remember the writer)

(many xposts)

I mean, I get into this argument all the time. Generally, I don't CARE about the writer. If the writer was an interesting person, I'd be reading an article on THEM, not the artist I care about. Like wow, the Jesus And Mary Chain helped you get through high school. You and America, buddy.

Generally if a piece of music writing has the word "I" in the first sentence, I usually stop reading, real talk. Save it for your dream journal.

The sad shit is now most mag writing is indistinguishable from internet writing because rates are so low.

Not that there isn't exceptions blah blah blah strawman lol flame etc

What about "I don't know about you but I'm fucking sick of this indie-lite electrodribble that permeates every airwave within earshot"?

Whiney, you do realize you just used the first person yourself five times in two sentences yourself, right?

I'm posting on a message board, not writing for a paycheck!

the mark richardson thing about lovely music in stylus is pretty much verbatim all the first person objections ur spoutin btw but imo its top5 great but I suppose its kinda like how it used to be pretty awesome when Buffy had to make some inspirational speech but in the last series she did it every episode and it was really tiresome?

xp (And I just used "yourself" twice in one sentence, duh.)

Anyway, first person is a tool, like any other tool. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. (As an editor at the Voice, I was frequently known to edit sentences from pitch emails back into submitted reviews in part because the emails did use the first person, and sounded less stiff and stilted and more conversational in the process. I.e., sometimes it helps make for better writing just because that's how people talk. So I've never bought the idea that "writing for a paycheck" required "detaching yourself from the subject.")

Again, i'm not saying that it's always bad, but there's not a lot of writers who can pull it off without sounding like My First Fanzine

"The first time I saw Spoon..."

So why would print them (unless it was a really good fanzine?)

Still, especially when space on the page is at a premium -- which it was even when wordcounts could get away with being ten times higher than they are now -- wasted words are wasted words, "I" included. (Though at least "I" is a fairly short word.)

the mark richardson thing about lovely music in stylus

Think you mean Mike Powell, but Mark Richardson is a good example of someone who uses the first person to excellent effect in his Resonant Frequency column.

oops yeah

If you can write entertainingly, I forgive your first person narrative.

xhuxk on point

xp "So why would print them?", I meant.

Anyway, bottom line is, no fucking way does the the detached pseudo-objective tone used in most glossies and daily newspapers make for better music writing than what I was printing week in and week out in the Voice for ten years (though sure, a few pieces I published may have sounded "Internetty" or whatever. Point was to have lots of different voices, so it'd be a miracle if anybody approved of all of them. I didn't want to ban Internetty writing -- which can be good too, sometimes -- either.)

On the other hand, I like the creativity with which guys like Sanneh at the Times have managed to get around the limitations against first person and swear words. A smart writer can work within those perimeters, too, and make it entertaining anyway.

its funny you mention sanneh--his profile of michael savage in the nyer from a couple weeks ago was very careful about not using "i" (which i think is generally a no-go in the nyer, except in the personal essays they publish every once in a while) but still managed to tell a set of interesting stories about sanneh's own encounters w/ savage that sort of hinged on sannehs own specific experiences trying to set up an interview... in the end, though, i thought it would have been a better piece if they had let him use an authorial I

wow that got convoluted

I thought about that, too.

Over the years, Savage has noticed that his disdain for the mainstream media is widely reciprocated ... So when he received an e-mail from a journalist asking for an interview, he was deeply suspicious. He read the e-mail on the air — he kept the writer anonymous, and didn’t mention that the request came from The New Yorker — and then asked his listeners, “Should I do the interview or not?”…

About a week later, Savage revisited the topic — “my continuing correspondence with a big-shot magazine writer.” He quoted the latest exchanges, along with his tart response, in which he asked, “Why must all of you in the extreme media paint everyone you disagree with as demonic? Why is the homosexual agenda so important to the midstream media?”

...

When he invited the journalist into one of his undisclosed locations, he proved to be a first-rate host, chatty and solicitous. A steady supply of beer refills lubricated the conversation (one of his earliest books was “The Taster’s Guide to Beer,” which was published in 1977), and as the temperature dropped and the sky above Berkeley started to turn orange, he seemed to be working hard to stay suspicious, despite himself. On his next show the next day, a caller asked how the interview had gone, and Savage described his interlocutor: "If I told you he looked like Obama, I wouldn't be far from the truth." Coming from him, this sounded like a deeply twisted compliment.

Sanneh has to resort to speaking of himself in the third person ("the journalist," "his interlocutor") but otherwise does a decent job with passive-ish phrases like "a steady supply of beer refills lubricated the conversation."

no i think you're OTM, that NYer piece was convoluted. it read to me like sanneh had a personal 1 on 1 reaction to savage that was quite different than what he expected and the resulting article would have been more effective and immediate using the "I" but the NYer has always employed a certain lofty distance from its subjects, even in the 70s it wasn't really into the personal/new journalism thing. well apart from pauline kael I guess.

but journalists do have to meet readers half-way. my problem with a lot of the vintage village voice stuff is that it's so personal to the point of being impenetrable or off-putting.

the best first person stuff illustrates how the subject of an interview interacts with other people, rather than "setting the scene"

i'm guessing whiney's not big on fiction as a rule.

I'm not big on fiction as a rule either, and one of the principles that was drilled into me when I started writing was that first-person is something you have to earn--expecting the reader who's never heard of you before to go along with I-I-I-me-me-me instead of saying "So what?" and moving to the next item is not generally a good idea--but I love first person writing even if (despite whatever reputation I may have for it due to the 33 1/3 book) I don't use it all that often professionally.

matos if you don't mind me asking: you're not big on fiction as a journalistic device or (gasp) you don't like reading novels?

I don't write fiction or about music, but first-person is the default in my area of writing (analytic philosophy). Sometimes we resort to the royal "we" if we're feeling nervous about first-person. But it was made clear to me that third-person is to be avoided, as is passive voice.

hang on, you're not big on reading fiction...at all?!

xp!

xp I don't buy the "have to earn" thing. I'm not even sure what it means. If I listen to a song sung in the first person, I might be able to relate to, and be moved by, the song even if I'm unaware of the singer's specific biography. Not sure why reviews are necessarily different. You don't have to be a famous writer to have a life that creates a context.

i thought he meant less that you have to earn it in the sense of being already famous or noteworthy, but in the sense that you have to earn it through your writing--i.e. you have to justify use of the first person in the piece itself, not necc explicitly, but at least in making your "I" of interest to the reader

When it's well done - and it does have to be superbly well done, and yes, generally (but not always) "earnt" - first-person music writing is my favourite of all music writing. (And when it's pointlessly done, the reverse holds true.)

For my own part, I avoid it at least 95% of the time - but then I come from a personal-blogging background, and taking "myself" out of the equation was a deliberate, sought objective.

My first piece at the Voice (when no reader could've had any idea who I was) and a couple soon after were in the first person, fwiw. I seriously doubt they would have improved if the "I"'s had been edited out. (Whether they stunk regardless is another question, but they wouldn't have stunk less.)

Editorial "we" -- first person plural -- bugs the hell out of me no matter what, though. I never buy it, and I've fought editors to keep it out of my own writing (which usually they've been open to).

And btw, I've also edited at Billboard, where first person is almost never allowed. So it's not like I don't know that drill. I just don't like it much.

Of course, at Billboard, the writing tended to be more news and less review-oriented. (So first person would have probably have made no sense anyway.)

I've definitely noticed it working in health insurance. I'll have two, three days to compose a three-paragraph email.

Meanwhile, journalism training — combined with seven years of ghostwriting/editing work — has definitely affected my approach to writing fiction (a thing I am doing now). I don't write a word until I have a completed chapter outline, and then I treat each chapter like a freelance assignment and just start blasting, like, OK, in this "piece" the following three events must occur, and the whole thing has to come in at 1500 words — go!

I can very much vouch for Scott’s excellence in person as a speaker as much as he is a writer. A very fine thing! And I’ve seen him three times that way!

I don’t entirely know if I was already a fast writer (I was definitely a fast typist after taking a great high school class in it) or if doing music writing of some sort or another since late 1992 just brought it out further. But it helps either way.

Did you all know I was once a music writer? I gave up around 2002 bc I couldn’t handle the competitive environment but I could’ve probably pursued it further if I had enjoyed sharing my opinion more. Have absolutely used these writing skills in my day job work as…a writing teacher. 😀

I have decided to stop writing for one of my freelance outlets. Here is the review I submitted:

Forest
Marilyn Crispell & Harvey Sorgen (Fundacja Słuchaj)
by Phil Freeman

Cecil Taylor was a major early influence on Marilyn Crispell, and it’s still possible to hear his
unique blend of thunder, precision, and romanticism in her playing, though she’s very much her
own person. Forest is her third collaboration with Hudson Valley drummer Harvey Sorgen,
following two trio albums, 2018’s Dreamstruck and 2021’s With Grace In Mind, that also
included bassist Joe Fonda.

There are some passages of extraordinary physical power here. The opening title piece feels almost like a tribute to Taylor, with Crispell pounding at the keyboard’s low end, but few of his drummers would ever have been permitted to unleash as much whomp as Sorgen (who also plays with blues-rockers Hot Tuna) does. It’s a sustained attack that rolls over the listener like a tank. The next track, “Overtones”, is almost its polar opposite, a sparse and lovely
interlude full of delicate single notes wrapped in subtle reverb, and drums used as gentle accents. Throughout the album, there are just as many moments of contemplative quiet, drawing the listener in close as though watching a sleeping bird in its nest, as there are rampages. The nearly nine-minute “Woolf Moon” ends with a drum solo that could bring an arena full of metal fans to their feet, but “Sandscape” centers hand percussion and takes the listener into a sacred or at least spiritual space, focusing the mind and soothing the heart.

Ultimately, the similarities between Crispell and Taylor have mostly to do with the force she brings to bear on the keyboard; her heaviest playing here could just as easily be interpreted as a tribute to the Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya, whose jackhammering music was inspired by deep religious beliefs which she never shared with interviewers or the public. But the countervailing passages of quietude and sparse beauty, like when she plucks the piano’s
strings and creates drones like an underwater earthquake as Sorgen rattles across his kit (“Air Dissolves”) represent something no other performer offers — they are uniquely Crispell, and bring this beautifully recorded studio album into the realm of things which simply must be heard to be truly understood.

Here is the review they ran:

Forest
Marilyn Crispell & Harvey Sorgen
(Fundacja Słuchaj)
by Phil Freeman

Cecil Taylor was a major early influence on pianist Marilyn Crispell, and it’s still possible to hear his unique blend of thunder, precision and romanticism in her playing. But she’s very much her own person with a sound distinctly hers as most recently proven with her 2025 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Master Fellow designation.

Forest follows two Crispell piano trio albums — Dreamstruck (2018) and With Grace In Mind (2021) — each recorded with Hudson Valley drummer Harvey Sorgen (and bassist Joe Fonda.) There are some passages of extraordinary physical power here in duo with Sorgen. The opening title track feels almost like a tribute to Cecil, with Crispell pounding at the keyboard’s low end, but few of his drummers would ever have been permitted to unleash as much whomp as Sorgen does. His is a sustained attack that rolls over the listener like a tank. The following track, “Overtones”, is almost polar opposite, a sparse and lovely interlude full of delicate single notes wrapped in subtle reverb, with drums used as gentle accents. Throughout the album, there are similarly many moments of contemplative quiet (as there are rampages), drawing the listener in close as though watching a sleeping bird in its nest. The nearly nine-minute “Woolf Moon” ends with a drum solo that could bring an arena full of metal fans to their feet, but “Sandscape” centers in on hand percussion and takes the listener into a sacred, spiritual space, focusing the mind and soothing the heart.

Ultimately, the similarities between Crispell and Cecil have mostly to do with the force she brings to bear on the keyboard; her heaviest playing could just as easily be interpreted as a tribute to the Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya, whose jack-hammering music was inspired by deep religious beliefs, which she never shared with interviewers or the public. But the countervailing passages of quietude and sparse beauty, as when Crispell plucks the piano’s strings in “Air Dissolves”, creates drones like an underwater earthquake, as Sorgen rattles across his kit. The sounds here represent something no other performer offers — they are uniquely Crispell, and they bring this beautifully recorded studio album into the realm of things which simply must be heard to be truly understood and appreciated.

I mean, isn't "please don't insert grammatical errors into my copy" the bare minimum one might ask of an editor?

Pitchfork had glitches of a time. Alternately, edits without checking back.

The rewrite isn't great, but I might gently suggest that the original doesn't read like you subjected it to ruthless self-scrutiny, either. All but two sentences have needlessly awkward clause-structures, and the last sentence is definitely missing a comma. I'm not shocked they tried to edit it.

oh SNAP burned by the GLENNmeister! #epicburn #glennmeister #howsthatforalineedit

Needlessly awkward clause-structures: not a thing to which my relationship would, by impartial observers, be described as estrangement.

The only thing that seems unforgivable to me is the period inside the parens.

I wouldn't put commas outside quotation marks (after song titles), but it seems like you do it, too, so that can't be the issue.

And if it's the comma after "deep religious beliefs," and you actually intended "which she never shared..." to be a restrictive clause (implying that there were other deep religious beliefs that she *did* share with the public), you could've made that more clear by writing "that" instead of "which."

Ok, never mind, the edit to the sentence about "Air Dissolves" is pretty bad.

saw Ann Powers post this on Bluesky

paste is looking for a new associate music editor. it’s a contracted part-time position, 20-30 hours a week. email me your resume and a cover letter to mattmitchell at pastemagazine dot com

Of course it's part-time

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/new-york-times-culture-desk-critics-margaret-lyons-jon-pareles-jesse-green-zach-woolfe-reassigned-1236461249/

Reassigning Jon Pareles who covers a wider range of music than anyone else at The NY Times does not seem good. While Pareles is not himself busy on social media marketing his own writing, one would hope The NY Times could find someone to do that

Gross.

He's been there more than 40 years, and I can't think of a single interesting opinion or critical insight he's had in that time. He's a very nice guy, I've met him at shows, but what are his actual contributions to musical scholarship or discourse? He's never even written a book.

The music critic writing there is just shared and plugged via a NY Times subscriber email and a twitter x NY Times music account; and Popcast on YouTube but no separate NY Times music Instagram or Facebook or Bluesky

“Our readers are hungry for trusted guides to help them make sense of this complicated landscape, not only through traditional reviews but also with essays, new story forms, videos and experimentation with other platforms,” she wrote in the memo. “Our mission is to be those guides,” she continued. “As we do so, I am making some changes in assignments in the department.”

Not giving Pareles a chance to do videos

X-post—Unperson, Pareles has written about African and Latin music in ways that I have found of interest, as well as rap and jazz.

Caramanica and Zoladz are not writing about some of the stuff that Pareles is.

I think his work has had value in a narrow "he was there, so we have a record that this event occurred" sense. But was he a critic, or just a reporter, is my fundamental question about him. I've probably read hundreds of his articles over the years and have no impression of him as a thinker-about-music: what he likes, what he hates, and why.

i am with unperson here

"I've probably read hundreds of his articles over the years and have no impression of him as a thinker-about-music"

The American Mark Beaumont?

I am fine with him having been more a reporter as he was covering a wide range of music in The NY Times that most others aren’t covering. No he isn’t the late NY Times journalist Robert Palmer who could both report and voice his opinion in a clever way, but there’s no one else left at the Times with an in interest in African, and Latin music as well as pop, rap, and jazz. Zoladz is largely only in indie rock, Caramanica is busy with Popcast and sometimes covers country and rap , and there are a few part-timers like Gio Russonello covering Jazz on occasion but Gio is on leave writing a book on Gil Scott-Heron. This change is just a way to spend more money instead on making NY Times videos about the same ol pop top ten.

My pal Mo on the whole thing:

Margaret Lyons is one of the best in the TV critic game & I'm v dismayed. Also these rash changes IMO will end in more NYT nonsense. Mgmt wants people with big/growing followings on social/platforms--but also they'll never want any controversy. Those conflicting goals = set people up for failure.

Not music writer specific, but def. highlights a certain paradox here. Pareles hasn't left much of an impact beyond being generally good and, well, general, which is to say, open-minded and knowledgeable about lots of music, but his relative low-profile in the social media age (afaict) is perhaps what cost him his position. No matter who follows or takes up his beat(s), they will likely be if not less knowledgeable then probably less far reaching in their subjects/reporting, more likely to lean into whatever gets clicks/hits/attention yet paradoxically maybe even less likely to say something of note or attention-getting. Just another generalist, but one with a more limited scope and one even less averse to rocking the boat, which risks leading to a critical dead-end. Even if the next step maintains broad coverage, forcing writing to play to social media mostly wastes their time and energy, imo. But hey, this pivot has been long in the making.

I have a good friend that works another (non) music beat at the Times, and they are bummed at this greater push toward social media presence. In their words, one of the reasons they wanted to be a print journalist is that they *didn't* want to be another on-screen talking head.

Yep they're not gonna replace Pareles w/ someone w/ a stronger voice who is also covering reissues, African, Latin, Jazz; they are just likely per the editor’s mention of videos and social media gonna spend $ on someone who will do videos re American pop top 10 & indie rock I think . Apparently they don’t think Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli and a guest talking about “Does Lorde Still Want to Be a Star?” On an episode is enough.

Here's the whole Mo thing, btw:

https://bsky.app/profile/moryan.bsky.social/post/3lu3sdouk6s2v

Pasted for convenience, though the formatting is ass (sorry) and you miss a few more cameos.

‪Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬

I'm all for experimenting w new forms! In my time I've filmed video, done podcasts, newsletter, blogging, print, social etc. BUT this "dump 4 respected critics out of the blue" move is gross. Plus? Jamelle Bouie does a lot of great stuff across platforms& they just made him take down *factual posts*

Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
To me this smacks of Big Media Mgmt (who usu know nothing abt working in culture trenches) want the Youngs to read NYT. "We want someone who can do TikTok! Make us seem relevant!" Been doing this forever & what's eternally relevant is good writing & knowing the history & context of what you cover 🤷

Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
Guess my thing now is making myself unemployable? But I gotta say, having lived through the destruction wrought by so many Pivot to Video/social smooth-brained media mgmt fads, I'm disheartened that one of the premiere critic employers is doing such a sweaty, desperate thing--to staff AND readers

‪Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
At Chicago Tribune, the Really Smart Guys who destroyed it sidelined me as a critic, decided that LAT coverage of TV was good for print & helped destroy my relationship with readers. It sucked so much. They refused to see that I had BUILT a RELATIONSHIP w readers (which in some cases continues now)

Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
Yeah, you want staff to be flexible & try new things & what you do in that case is SUPPORT their efforts to do their jobs well & give them resources to make those attempts. Just dump people from jobs they're good at? To hire Youngs who have other options for monetizing their work? ?? = profit???

Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
NYT appears to want the kind of pple who HAVE OTHER OPTIONS to make money & may find its norms/rules oppressive. Masthead folks want clicks/views but never anyone saying anything that makes mgmt nervous. Those two goals are wildly in conflict & will drive good people away (as it already has in past)

Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
You could built a high quality publication by staffing up w the people that the NYT WaPo have driven away in last 10-12 yrs. Esp NYT, given the management/ownership team in place now? Good luck getting someone who could just have their own newsletter/socials for $ & frankly does not need the hassle

‪Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
I want to add that anyone who HAS stuck with my work post-Chi Trib--you are the GOATs & I am sincerely grateful. I'd have stayed in that job for life, I think, had I even been moderately supported in my work, as opposed to nonsense top-down commands & no curiosity in how I actually BUILT AN AUDIENCE

Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
at 1 point we were taking orders from a fucking radio guy whose claim to fame was having made Bubba the Love Sponge famous & I remain surprised I have any sanity shreds left. Every pub has good people who ARE creative & WANT to evolve & they often answer to people who have no clue &/or don't listen.

Mo Ryan
The way to ensure your career in middle mgmt at a legacy media outlet is to convince the brass you understand the internet (because a lot of them sure don't get Online but they know they should because something something monetize clicks/views/social). "The Big Plan" changes every week. It's fun!!
July 16, 2025 at 11:09 AM

Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
Influencer culture is interesting! Tiktok & media & YT & publishing & storytelling in this era is interesting! But the way to cover anything in the culture trenches well is to hire good people & support them--not make them think you'll hem them in with conflicting directives & dump them any time.

‪Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
30+ years doing this & it's typically "here's this week's Big Pivot Idea," not "hey you seem to connect w people & built a following, how could we help w that?" The Watcher blog I started 20+ years ago? They did not want me to do it! It's always directives from the top, rarely "how can we help you?"

‪Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
There are exceptions! Subscribe to indie media--any media you like (please!) Also, I like the VF team, they're lovely to me.

But! I write books now.

If you see me Doing a Journalism or criticism, it's basically for kicks now. Thank you for coming to my Cranky Veteran Culture Writer Yells talk 🙏💚

‪Linda Holmes‬
✧@lindahol✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2h
I also think these plans rarely present the questions together:

(1) What kind of person do you want to hire? What kind of background do they have? What kind of work have they already done?

(2) Is such a person going to want to work for you? If so, why?

Mo Ryan‬
✧@mor✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 1h
If the default position of the NYT is, "ofc you want to work here bec we're the NYT," the people they'll be chasing -- again, if they already *have* an audience, have ideas on how to *grow* an audience & know how to monetize all that -- their response is v likely to be, "And? I care why, exactly??"

There's also this in that thread:

Matt Zoller Seitz

We live in paranoid times, so I'm just gonna say it: all four of the critics who were let go have fundamentally progressive world views, and that's always an undercurrent in their work.

there’s also the fact that young people break for Palestine and the Times is virtually a mouthpiece for hasbara, so good luck

According to Lachlan Cartwright, the new roles offered to the four were as follows: culture section correspondent roles for Pareles(Pop Music & other genres critic) and Green (theatre critic), an editing role for Lyons (tv critic, if she relocates from Chicago to New York, and an option to join the obituary desk for Woolfe (classical music critic).

Harsh on the classical music critic.

So the NY Times has video features like the Caramanica "Popcast" podcast and car-ride TikTok & IG Reels series Song of the Week, and freelancers like Marcus Moore and others doing the video feature "5 Minutes," which is "helping people discover jazz and classical music", they've determined they don't need the expenses of these fulltime writing critics, or they think shifting these folks around do other jobs makes more sense financially and editorially.

https://hellgatenyc.com/nyt-critics-reassigned-tiktok-culture-writers/

NY Times also uses freelancers too.

I wonder if they’ll be getting cuts in pay. I guess the editor was thinking classical music is old , obituaries for old people old!

Were NY Times execs even reading Pareles if this is what they thought they were doing in their writing--

Times leadership also said the paper wanted to move away from a “thumbs up, thumbs down” review style, and instead offer criticism that would provide more information and context for people who did not plan to see or hear the reviewed works themselves.

...the abruptness of the changes spooked longtime staff, who understandably recoiled at the implication that critics are the same as regular beat reporters. Kahn’s suggestion that they should be reshuffled in a similar manner seemed to overlook the specialization of those jobs. The paper’s critics hold those roles for years, deepening their authority in their zones of expertise.

https://www.semafor.com/article/08/03/2025/a-new-new-york-times-culture-section-edges-toward-video

He was doing in his writing (I originally was gonna mention the other transferred critics as well)

that "thumbs up, thumbs down" bit is baffling. does the NYT do any criticism that way? i don't see much if any of it in the music stuff.

unless I'm forgetting something, restaurant reviews are the only ones that have ratings (stars in their case)

Am I aloud to pitch an article topic on this thread?

Sorry that’s vague. I’ve always wanted to read an article about Leonard Caston. He was a west coast Motown producer who worked on Eddie Kendrick’s’ first 4 or 5 solo albums. He also put out an album with his wife called Caston and Majors

xpost Allowed but not ALOUD.

gotta be quick, under deadline:

publication i've written for for 12 years, 6 editors, done dozens of album reviews which have always just been my thoughts on the album.

new editor is asking me to get in touch with the artist's close friend and biz associate to "get some insight" on the artist and, presumably, include quotes from them in the review.

i don't want to do that, for a variety of reasons that *aren't* just "but we've never done it that way before" ... i understand they can change up how the reviews are done if they'd like and it's the editor's assignment to do as they please, i just think it unnecessarily complicates the review.

am i wrong to be annoyed and/or push back on that part? is it a reasonable ask?

Yeah, push back. That's not even a feature pitch.

Just straight album review. That's the pitch/assignment.

Thanks Ned. Appreciate any/all thoughts.

oy. and yeah, push back hard and maybe suggest they assign a separate feature story on the artist/album/project in which another writer (or you, if you want!) can include that kind of interview.

Yeah, I wouldn't do that. I've included quotes from interviews in CD reviews a time or two in the past but I've pulled them from existing features; I've certainly never conducted an interview for a review, and never would.

I mean, I would see if they would offer you a feature rate for the review, but if not don't do it

xxpost they actually did a separate feature a month or two ago after the artist passed away! and they talked extensively to the person the editor wants me to talk to! this is another reason i have no idea why they're asking for it.

Well that is weird, or something. Even without such history, I wouldn't want to interview the artist's friend or whatever, but---for the Whiney G.-edited Paper Thin Walls (long gone, thanks to buyer Getty Images), I did, as directed, follow some reviews with brief interviews, usually four questions, though the ones w Mark Hosler and Curt Kirkwood got more involved.
It may have helped that we officially reviewed a feature track, posted! This was a big deal, we hoped, way back then. But I always put in the whole album---interview was still only about the feature track (well mostly).
Also mostly, or more and more, I think, I did reviews-only.
Here's Mark in my archive:
https://papercomet.blogspot.com/2020/01/negativland-reviewinterview_19.html
And here's Curt:
https://papercomet.blogspot.com/2017/03/meat-puppets.html
Here's Kath Bloom, with me actually mostly sticking to the posted track, also the four-question follow-up:
https://papercomet.blogspot.com/2017/03/maybe-not-earlies-but-might-as-well.html
Feedback is permitted.

I'm not a big fan of Ann Powers music writing, but her writing about music writing and its editors is pretty sharp here---the Semaphor coverage referenced in this excerpt is linked in her original:

A recent Semafor piece about an internal Times meeting concerning this move noted that Times executive editor Joe Kahn told attendees that one major reason for the reassignments was to make room for something besides “thumbs up, thumbs down” reviewing (an absurd statement, since the Times has never focused on that kind of criticism) and — here’s what I’m focusing on — to steer coverage toward readers who don’t plan to see the reviewed work themselves. In other words, Times criticism will now be untethered from specific places (like, say, Madison Square Garden for concerts) and periods (the current Broadway season). It will serve the experience of consuming culture on a personal screen.

I don't know where else to ask this.
I've got 4 people in my life (2 immediate fam, 2 friends) who want to go to a show tomorrow night. It's long sold out and resales are very expensive.
I have various connections to get tickets - venue, bands, etc - so of course I'm trying to see if I can get them in.
Venue is trying, but no luck so far.
Headliner came through with 2.
Is it bad form to request 2 through the publicist for the opener, too?
It's fine, right? Anywhere I can scrounge 'em up is OK?
Or am I wrong about that?
Ideally, the venue would come through with 2, but ... here we are.

It's worth a shot, esp. if you explain it like you succinctly did here (that you are *not* just lazily going straight to the publicist, taking advantage of his professional good will).