Music Journalism R.I.P? - An Introduction

Is that true or did I hallucinate?

we do write about an awful lot of music but this is a topic a lot of people are debating but also not one which has any medium in which to be debated. we just wanted to focus the debate alongside our usual content (which admittedly is thinner on the ground due to a low volume of great releases at this time of year, combined with most of our contributors being lost in and shattered by from festival coverage)

hopefully you'll read some of the pieces and realise why we've decided to do this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/27/music-writing-bangs-marcus

an interesting read.

think it will probably act as a pretty good intro for the stuff you want to look at.

i think, the thing is....good writing needs to be recognised and spoken about more. like, specific pieces. when was the last time someone posted a link for a review just because it was an example of great music journalism or whatever...i mean, it happens...but not as much as someone will post a link because something has been given too high/low a score....is full of praise/hate...tries to be really funny/stylistic.....my point is, it's only the extremes of music journalism that seem to raise eyebrows and no one seems to talk about just great writing, perhaps regardless of the point being made.

i think this week it would be really good for people like you and your guest contributors just to give specific examples of music writing that they have loved in the last few years and made them think...'yeah...this is what it's all about'....because if that doesn't get seen or talked about...you can do the state of the nation stuff but then you're still missing the most obvious bit.

and if no one can think of a piece in the last year or two that shows them the point/beauty/value...blah blah...of music journalism...well, then maybe that's the issue.

length is the thing for me (ooh-er) i'd much rather music publications/outlets etc just looked at three albums in depth rather than try and have a little bit on everything. it doesn't seem to be the general consensus, but i'd rather read 1000 words than 100.....especially the way things are today when you will end up reading twenty small-ish pieces on the same album, most saying the same thing.

My two penneth worth is not actually based on journalism; I have never purported to be a journalist, I value the skills of journalists and defer to them to a larger extent. It is a misnomer to believe that out of the ashes of the traditional media will rise a band of noble bloggers in their place. Perhaps this is not as true in music journalism though, perhaps, in a time where the written word on the web is juxtaposed next to the music itself, the skill of writing means less.

I say not to cheapen the excellent work of music journalists, I always have and still buy music magazines. The bands I do press for still rightly see a review in a magazine as gold dust, however much I try to not over egg expectations, they still feel a great/bad review in a magazine is the be all and end all. There is no doubt I support and want magazines to stay around – but I think the biggest factor missing in this debate is a rather simple economic idea – information asymmetry.

Eh? Well, prior to the internet, there wasn’t a glut of information at my fingertips. I would buy NME, Select, Melody Maker etc…primarily as this along with peer recommendations was a filter in what to listen to. My relative youth would mean I was more willing to be spoon fed by people who I saw as knowing more than me. Knowledge, based on information asymmetry, was the key factor. The journalist would know more, but also have access to that music – the option for me was to either buy it off the back of the words, or hopefully hear the music via a video etc. The information premium was very much in the journalists hands.

Now of course we are dealing with a wholly different beast – there is no asymmetry in the information we possess. Why will people take your word for it when I can listen and review myself? Of course, even to this day I regularly get turned onto stuff via magazines, but that barrier is well and truly shattered. Everett True is a name I always saw as legendary, the guy who broke Grunge in the UK – but we will never ever see such an honour bestowed today – how likely is a music journalist to do that in today’s climate? The information asymmetry is shattered, I can check out American bands the same as the next person.

That is unfortunate, I very much see myself against the ‘freetards’ culture Web 2.0 has brought. Journalism carried out skilled people is necessity, but in music the information barrier has been broken.

Really interesting to see a series like this on a music website, I guess well done? Or not, I'm not sure.

There's a lot of value to be taken out of writing not as a means to an end, but a means in itself. That said, more opinion gives more variety and a greater audience en masse - this shouldn't mean that you feel you're speaking to no-one.

I look at the great Gonzo journalists and sometimes wonder whether anything I write has any value (non-instrumentally) but that's more a temporal/contextual observation than one related to the fact that we're living in 2009.

This isn't music journalist specific either - it's the same everywhere, isn't it? Is this to say "music R.I.P"? Or "job x, R.I.P."? No, it's just that there's more to prove. Which'll make for more passion, desire and opportunity - just in a realigned pool.

...I reject the idea that people are listening to a smaller variety of music thanks to the internet. Frankly in the days of Melody Maker (good) NME et al, anyone narrow minded enough not to seek out new and different music probably wasn't even going to buy the magazine in the first place, because they weren't interested enough by it. Therefore the magazines weren't likely to convert many people from their one-genre ways by featuring this variety of acts. It's sort of preaching to the converted (which is not to say it's a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination).
The fact is that it's always been the case that the majority of people, whilst they might profess to being generally keen on music, aren't in love with it in the same way as that small minority of people who used to read Melody Maker and who now read sites such as DiS or or whatever their current favourite music blog is. For the majority, all the blog/twitter stuff has practically no impact on their listening habits - it only really has an impact for the technically savvy, forward thinking, die-hard music fan, and those guys by their nature are always going to be seeking out something new no matter what.
Meanwhile, I actually believe that because of the internet in general, people are listening to a relatively greater variety of music. It used to be that you were 'into punk' or 'into hip-hop' or 'into new wave' or whatever, and that informed not just your record collection but your fashion sense and choice of friends. But can you seriously think of a 'scene' so all-encompassing that has made it's way into the national consciousness since Brit-Pop? Grime came close I suppose but it was quickly appropriated by other genres and the mainstream, whilst New-Rave was a joke no-one even wanted to be associated with.
Since the real rise of the internet people have been able to share and experiment with so many genres, cross pollinating them along the way, that now you can't really look at a person and 'know' what they're into straight away - they could be into any number of things because the divides between all our little mini-cultures created by genres of music have been falling down.
The idea that the internet somehow stops your average music fan from listening to anything new or different is honestly quite baffling to me...

couldn't you have found a real picture of lester bangs?

With regards to the comment marcusian123 made, "The information asymmetry is shattered, I can check out American bands the same as the next person", I completely disagree. To be able to do so, you need to be informed, need awareness, have privileged information that "the next person" simply doesn't possess. Yes, everything (???) is available on the web. Hidden in plain sight.

And I fucking really hate that John Harris article. I posted something about it here. http://everetttrue.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/the-death-of-the-critic-pt-5317-stop-yawning-im-serious-this-time/

...I don't think they were talking about critical faculties, in short. Though if you start going down it's a bit slippery. Who is the next person? Who is the next person to the next person? ETC.

i had a couple of beers for dinner and i'm feeling a bit tired and kranky. the tone should be more intquisitive, less angry.

had i not spent the most part of this decade signing acts, managing acts, finding them prs and often doin some of the prs job.rather than post a twatty comment, why not tell us 10 albums we should be covering this week. anyone can be a negative ass.

Correct. The monopoly of information has been broken. It had always been broken, to a lesser or greater extent. What does that prove?

Three examples.

1) There are builders outside, replacing my roof right now. I have the same access as them to all the tools required to finish the job - the scaffolding, the tin, etc. Could I? What do you bloody think?

2) All a tightrope walker requires to complete their craft is a rope strung between two poles. That's all I need as well, in theory.

3) School textbooks. We all have equal access to those, correct? So why do some learn faster and some slower? The Internet hasn't levelled off hierarchies (of power, of information), not at all. It's simply destroyed some and created others. HOW DOES THE NEW JACK KID DISCOVER WHAT MUSIC SHE WANTS TO LISTEN TO? WHEN? WHERE? Oh, by trawling through thousands upon thousands of sites themselves...thereby becoming (to all intents and purposes) "an expert". DOES EVERYONE DO THIS? DOES EVERYONE DO THIS? Really?

Alternately, they turn to trusted platforms (P4k, DiS etc) who point them in appropriate directions.... which is what has always happened! There has always been hundreds of thousands of music fans, expert in their own fields. The Internet didn't suddenly change that fact: it just confused the field by flooding it with too much information.

With regard to this point (again), marcusian123, "The information asymmetry is shattered, I can check out American bands the same as the next person."

There's a reason for that. You're motivated. You have a vested interest in doing so. Most users surfing the Internet do not. (Goes back to the classroom: why do some learn fast, and some slow.) Sure, it means that folk like you no longer need to lean so heavily on folk like me. And that's fine. Doesn't mean the same applies everywhere.

I've loved the articles so far - they make me feel hopeless and reassured simultaneously. It's like walking on a cushioned tightrope.