A Day In The Life Of A Music Critic

Correct. The rest of this column is superfluous to this information. In fact, rest of column undermines this claims as it goes on to suggest there's no edge to wank off.

Or did I just have a massive sense of humour failure? >>> Vegan soul power mthrfckr!!!

7am: get up, shower, breakfast, feed cats, wake girlfriend.

8.30am: drive to the dayjob that has nothing to do with music journalism and that pays my mortgage.

9am to 5pm: do my job, listen to some music on headphones at my desk, occasionalyl browse the internet, DESPAIR at what passes as music journalism from the vast majority of stupid idiots who think of themselves as music journalists.

5pm: drive home, cook dinner, watch Hollyoaks, stroke cats, listen to Gilberto Gil. Maybe watch a film, or read, or watch CSI: New York, or something. Don't write about music anymore because a; it pays fuck-all, b; everyone hates you, c; the people you see writing most music journalism have no talent, morals, scruples, or taste, d; DESPAIR, e; DESPAIR, f; DESPAIR. Think about writing a novel.

11pm: go to bed. Sleep, repeat.

Famously wanked himself silly a few times a day in a darkened room while recording What's Going On in order to rid himself of distracting thoughts while he was actually making music. Maybe if John Robb tried the same approach he'd not be such a godawful writer.

What a load of self-regarding turgid twaddle.

I don't know if this series is saying anything about the current state of music journalism, but it's certainly proving that Mr True and Mr Robb are not what they once were. "Old music journalists R.I.P.", perhaps?

Famously hilarious little boys who read DIS don't seem to understand the context of an article written by one of the best music writers in the UK. As everyone always says DIS is a great website read by posh idiots.

but you're welcome to give us some contextual light in which we can recast things.

So it's a parody, right? Oh, the jokes on us!

And there was me just thinking that Sean referring to John as an "average journalist" was the funny part.

Oh yeah, re-reading it while knowing that the "context" is a parody; it's just funny now, instead of when it was previously TOTALLY RIDICULOUS.

...but I don't think anyone who goes into that much depth about sound is fighting a struggle for attempted hipness.

oh no! here come the posh boys! help!
if DIS is an example of the best young writers in the UK then we really are in trouble!
Mike Diver is another example of the average, anodyne indie snob who will spend his whole life sniffing around the lower rungs of rock writing and whining about it on message boards and barely visited blogs. It's a tragic life writing about music and makes me glad that as a girl I can never be invited into its closeted male world.

While I am 30, and I do love my mother, I'm not sure I've ever been called posh before. Unless "posh" means "first member of working class Yorkshire family to go to an ex-polytechnic and get a degree". I guess I do own TWO different types of champagne glass, though.

John Robb's never been anything but a low-rent Steven Wells in terms of his writing (and I don't rate Swells, either), and his TV persona is execrable. I'm reliably informed that in person he's a lovely guy, however.

Oh, to call upon well-to-do parents: it'd certainly help the month-to-month struggle to pay the bills, cover the rent, and eat anything that isn't a value range-sourced pasta-based meal.

That said, I do have a career in this industry; I am employed full time, and listening to music is, really, what I do for a living. And I do, just about, get by. "Lower rungs of rock writing" - no, I'm not a particularly memorable writer, but I've worked really hard to get somewhere at an editorial level so I'll happily take that over loads of passionately penned but ultimately unpaid work, cheers.

(Wow, you've really provoked a serious response! Congratulations, you.)

Why are you so bothered by it?

and why are you so bovvered old man?

This article reads as if Steve Coogan had based Alan Partridge on Tim Westwood instead of Wogan. So at least it has character.

Kells: Mr Diver is a truly fine and passionate writer. You on the other hand, you're not even a very good troll. As you said, "Quite sad really".

wrong board lol

Sounds a bit far-fetched to me...

Just been referred here from somewhere else on T'Net. Never heard of this site before and have just spent a good few minutes going round it. But baffled by the big picture of Swells on the main page- he would have loathed and detested the scum writing on the site and the sad little pricks on the messageboards. Never have I seen such a gutless collection of whining milksops. Writers desperate for a byeline trying to make a name for themsleves and failing dismally. there is not one writer on this site with the personality of Swells, Everett True, or Robb himself. In ten years time none of the Drowned In Sound writers will be anywhere.
This is a site full of writing that no-one gives a toss about read by weird indie twats who treat music as some sort of testing ground for their second hand opinions and somewhere to moanto replace their post student nothing lives. The writers on this site have no passion, no guts, no inteligence. Nothing. It just reaks of lower middle class desperation. 'It's not writing its typing' as someone one said. i can't belive the fool above who claims he got paid for writing on this site! and the sycophantic Southall prick who tries to back him up. What a couple of fuckwits. And the 3 other people who back them up on the messageboard.

no you failed!!!!!

LOL

I'm a fan of fan John Robb's writing so there Gee.

Don't remove the comments! they make this site hilarious and cement its reputation as being the site for the tragic bedwetter

I agree raz. I read a lot of music writing and I'd never heard of any of the writers on here..spent the last half hour reading the site and its a really strange place. Very male. very cliched. It's a like a closeted world of average writing and 20 lost people who can't get out. at first i thought it was funny. Now i think it is sad.

Welcome to our world, make yourself at home. You'll learn to love it.

who create accounts solely to attack the site and those work hard to make it happen.
Congratulations kells and Marvin1, you've joined a not-so-exclusive club.

People discussing music on the internet.
Bastards discussing being bastard racists on the internet.
I'm not sure there's any parallel to be made here.

Sheesh...

teh internetz is serious business these days. see you at Tramlines!

I guess a troll is someone who is not in your snooty little white boy club and this is a white boys club isn't it? reading though this site and especially the comments you get a really good idea of the way the white elite think and the way that the condescending tone of the white middle class snob is still with us in the 21st century as a black man I feel very out of place on here, it's like wandering around a Tory party convention with a very white soundtrack.

The salt mine called, they're ready with your order for that chip on your shoulder. Pish and chips laddy, you're talking pish and chips.

I've got to congratulate you though, I'd thought that Robb's words would be the biggest pile of bilge on this page, seems you really showed us.

I thought you were trolling, now it appears that you're grooming. Shucks *blushface*

Take those shoulder chips and dip them in the egg on your face.

Peace out girl scout.

...

unfortunately her posts give no clue beyond that, so one can only guess, it would be more informative if she explained why she hates them so much, perhaps she feels that she has been denied an opportunity at some point by some clique?

Please don't insult our intelligence whoever you are. It's pretty obvious that Kells, Marvin1 and BenMyers are all the same person. I wouldn't be surprised if that person also had some links to the author.
The article was self indulgent enough. What relevance was it for the guy to link his own band at the end? This is just farce and whoever is BenMyers et al are they are not doing Mr Robb any favours at all by association.

I believe you. It must just be a co-incidence that three new poster have aired the same views on the same thread defending the author of an artically which pretty objectively awful. Is 'Antic Monkeys' a deliberate mistake? Am I missing something?

which one of you is this Kells character? The attack on Mike Diver was very childish and completely uncalled for. He's doing something he loves for a living and managing to get by, a very admirable career choice, something which a lot of would aspire to. I'd like to add that he also happens to be very good at what he does, his reviews/articles have entertained and informed on many occasions.

For the record this certainly isn't the best piece of music writing I've ever seen but why does it have to be? The purpose of this article was to show us a day in the life of a music critic and unless I'm mistaken this guy is indeed a music critic. You could make an argument against the value of the piece, but not the quality of writing contained within... maybe it should've been sub edited which isn't the fault of John Robb himself.

Well, look at a publication like the Stool Pigeon and tell me that there aren't writers there - wide-eared and ambitious, with an insatiable appetite for the new, the progressive - who will, before long, be just as celebrated. And you find these writers at (almost) every publication - not as a flood, but certainly in drops.

Nostalgia in music criticism puzzles the hell out of me - it's great to look back and appreciate the work of a writer, but to essentially stand firm and declare that none of the new breed - with their high-speed internet connections, easy-access blogs and instant-fix downloads - are of a comparable quality is madness. Does music not grow each day? Does it not shift, mutate, evolve? It does, and accompanying critique must, too.

Nobody is a legend 'til they've outlived their audience.

I realise that elementary nepotism plays its part in the appreciation of what is and what isn't a good piece of writing - just as subjectivity plays its part, so too does one's relationship with the individual in question. So, I'm bound to represent on behalf of my circle of esteemed colleagues, those writers I believe to be at the top of their game; and elders in my position are going to counter with their own choices, inevitably critics of their age and social standing, who they've been friends with - or at least a professional associate of - for some years.

So, to summarise: music writing is good and it's not dying anytime soon, and we all have our favourites and enjoy debating on the subject. Yay, us!

MDx

Because there's an answer for everything, because someone thinks they're cleverer than everyone, because because because. It's not cos you 'care', it's cos you've got a forum to wank in. Can't a piece just be written without being torn apart by idiots? FOR ONCE?

is someone who pretends to be people on internet message boards in order to stir stuff up. in yr case, you pretend to be an offended black man and a class obsessed girl. i don't pretend to understand you but its kinda fascinating. (and completely obvious to anyone who uses this board a lot)

anyway, yr insults dont really ring true, at least not with me. ive met just as many girls IRL from here as i have boys, and, like it or not, indie rock has always been dominated by middleclass white boys, and this is an indie rock website. yr confused as to whether yr complaining about the state of music or essentially critising people who write on these boards for not being black.

either way it's completely futile, yr like a drunk old man on a beach screaming at passing ships.

I write for (and read) DiS, remember. there's no chance. x

Reeds School - early/mid 90s - Mega City Four hoody?

Just wondering!

Holy shit! SO I AM!

I thought Ben Myers was a music journalist and a very good one, surprised you 'experts' on here don't know him. But then you don't seem to know very much. Are any of you (both of you by my reckoning) into music??? or just being a bit silly on here.

BUT YOU ARE THE OLD GUARD DEAR!
We need new young writers to replace people like you, people with a passion for music.

that is simply not true, kells. I just went over to Red Tube and they're all pretty supportive of the whole thing, especially the guys in hentai.

I shouldn't really add to this but I wanted to say I've just been compeled to read the entirety of a very muddy argument. It's gone from some opinions on the Robb piece, which really does exactly what the brief said it would be. Some people like him some people don't. Then Kells and Marvin pop along to just personally insult anyone with an opinion different to theirs and eventually physically threaten someone...on the internet! :D Then everything becomes a blur of virtual blows like a cartoon fight in a cloud of dust. All this because someone wrote on a music website about what he likes for breakfast and whether he chooses to have a wank in the morning or not. Yes this site is full of a lot of smart Alec witisism and sarcasm but so what? We all like music and feel passionate enough to broadcast our opinions and entertain other peoples arguments. What we don't expect is personal abuse and ridiculous generalisations on what class of people actually visit the site. Go and listen to your favourite record and calm down. Does music journalism really mean as much as the music itself? Not for me by a long shot.