Rolling Music Writers' Thread

thread fubar

"Chups" will always be better than "kissing my teeth".

KMT isn't really a thing in the UK though is it?

https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/kmt

proves nothing

it proves that a lot of people in the UK are right now using the commonly understood abbreviation kmt

btw lex I noticed your new name and love it

apparently there were protesters in france recently wearing that slogan on their T-shirts. i want one

Used to think I wrote best at night, with a bottle of wine, when I was young and stupid and angry. Then I thought I wrote best early on weekend mornings, when it was quiet. Now I'd rather go for a bike ride on early weekend mornings. I write, in one form or another, all day at work. if I'm blogging or reviewing for someone, which is very rare these days, I do it in the evening, after tea, generally, and try and do it quickly. Revisions? Unlikely.

I dream of writing quickly. On ILX I'm extremely slapdash, and basically type faster than I speak, but outside of that I can spend quarter-hours deliberating over the placement of a comma or agonising over a sentence structure. It's shit because once I've re-read and re-structured a paragraph for the umpteenth time it stops making sense to me, and later when it's published it just sounds wooden.

From this thread: Writing Reviews: How do YOU do it?

Writing Reviews: How do YOU do it?

Disclaimer: I've been writing reviews for a few years now and have got some cool work from it as a result, but I don't think I'm very good at it and I certainly don't think I've improved hugely since I began, so this thread is kinda selfish on my part. Sorry.

― Blue Collar Retail Assistant (Dwight Yorke), Friday, 27 April 2012 09:27 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Where do you write?

What do you about tight turn-arounds?

Do you try and listen to only the album under review as much as possible or do you let your listening habits remain relatively unchanged?

How many drafts should you do?

How much biographical information is necessary?

Basically just tell us your methods and practices, there's so many great writers on here and it'd be awesome to get a peek into the creative process.

So, basically I find the easiest way to go about writing a review is to imagine you're describing the album to a mate. Often if I'm working on something and a friend asks me about what I'm reviewing, I find I can summarise my feelings fairly well to them. That's your opening paragraph, and then it's on from there. I'm not a big fan of going through the whole album track by track, listing highlights and lowlights, I'd rather write about as though I were writing about a person - so rather than talking about the shape of that person's right hand, I'd describe their personality, the way they comport themselves etc...

"imagine you're describing the album to a mate."

That's the best advice about most forms of journalism. I always say that to young writers when discussing use of language: you're telling the reader what is happening. Works well for news. You wouldn't say: "The rain came down in black sheets as the maroon Volvo slid across the greasy surface to a cataclysmic halt in the front door of 67 Office Street." You'd say: "A car crashed into the front door of our office. It skidded on the road because of heavy rain."

Yes, but a record isn't a news item (well it might be sometimes but generally it isn't) and I've never much liked the restaurant waiter approach to record reviewing ("I'm afraid the new Jack White is slightly off, sir, but the new Rufus Wainwright is a dish to savour").*

*Note: I have not yet sat down and listened properly to Blunderbuss which for all I know may well be a visionary work of genius, but you get the idea.

I'd want a second source on the heavy rain explanation

You might be able to claim on insurance so it's well worth verifying.

"Black sheets of rain" are a specific exclusion.

"imagine you're describing the album to a mate."

That's the best advice about most forms of journalism.

i repeat this to my students so damned much. more than any other type of journalism, music journalism seems to be about nailing that tone.

i don't really have "rules" as such cuz it's dependent on the album, the artist, my word count etc, but i was talking to another ilxor writer y'day about how writing generally feels a bit like stitching to me (not that i've ever stitched anything but yeah). jotting down phrases or words i want to use, or ideas i want to cover, either on my phone or in a document, then kind of knitting them together when i come to actually write it.

i can't stand writers who have contempt for their readers. i think that was one of the greatest sins committed by NME during my era there. xp

You wouldn't say: "The rain came down in black sheets as the maroon Volvo slid across the greasy surface to a cataclysmic halt in the front door of 67 Office Street."

why wouldn't you?

("cataclysmic halt" is awful and nonsensical, agreed)

or are you saying "Don't write as if you're Writing Prose"?

for me the ideal is somewhere between bald delivery of facts, and using prose to effectively heighten reality for narrative purposes. it's all a question of balance.

It's like pentin' you have to know the rules before you're allowed to ignore them.

"Black sheets of rain" - wasn't that a dodgy Bob Mould solo album?

No, it was a fucking awesome Bob Mould album.

I think it is a little too ready to laden on Heavy Metal guitar thunder to obscure the absence of melodics interests that so distinguished Workbook and Blue Coppers.

whereas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr0JY00597U

would be an awesome single, if only "Pictures of Matchstick Men" didn't exist.

I dream of writing quickly. On ILX I'm extremely slapdash, and basically type faster than I speak, but outside of that I can spend quarter-hours deliberating over the placement of a comma or agonising over a sentence structure. It's shit because once I've re-read and re-structured a paragraph for the umpteenth time it stops making sense to me, and later when it's published it just sounds wooden.

^^ same here

How do you plan your reviews and articles? Do you write out a structure? use a mindmap? Take notes? Or just start writing and see what comes out?

Live reviews: start writing and see what comes out (more or less). When writing for my city newspaper, the first 120-odd characters get auto-tweeted by them with a link and without a headline, so the first sentence has to be a pretty straightforward "please click me" lead-in, containing the name of the act. That gets me over the initial hump.

Features: Once my thoughts come to boiling point, I scribble down a detailed long-hand plan, extremely quickly, trying not to pause if I can possibly help it. That usually gives me around 3 pages of A4. Some bits won't make it into the first draft, other bits might get chopped out later, but the overall structure rarely changes much - as by scribbling at high-speed, I find I can retain the overall shape and flow of the argument. No idea whether this is common practice - it's a self-invented method, but it works for me.

I'm trying out different methods. Started writing disparate notes into my phone while listening to the album and doing housework. Then started on a more detailed mindmap with doodles and stuff to get my thoughts in a better order. Now I'm gonna turn that into a structured list and then refer to my original notes to create the finished piece. Probably way more complicated a process than is necessary but it could help in getting the thing to flow together better. Next one I do I'm going to try a stream of conscious "just write as fast as you can without stopping thing and see what happens.

Obviously I don't review much anymore, but when I do, generally I'll make short notes about a record (ideally whilst listening to it [in whatever context] but not always), and I'll email these to myself. These might be notes about specific tracks, sounds, references, or wider thoughts about context or whatever.

When I'm ready to write, I'll sit down with the laptop or at the desktop, and gather these into a single Word document. Always put the artist and title at the top first, like putting a harness on a guide dog so it knows it's about to start work. Then I'll flesh out all the individual notes into full sentences, and shift them around the document until they find a sensible order. It's a bit like building a dry stone wall - once you've picked up a stone (or sentence, or thought, or paragraph), you're not a,llowed to put it down until it fits into a space that makes the wall (review) take shape.

definitely take notes. and a structure can help, but if i write one, i generally junk it along the way. but the initial sketch is enough to get me started and on to the structure it ultimately takes (especially for features/longer pieces)

Scik's methods and mine are rather similar.

So long as I can get some words out, which I can then trash as needed.

Live reviews I write as they come. Album reviews need more thought, but I usually only do capsule ones, so it's not trying.

For features, I generally have a fairly clear idea what I'm going to say before I start writing. I don't plan them out, per se, but I'll have been thinking about the points I want to make between doing the interviews and starting to write. The intro's always the hardest part - the wrong intro might steer you away from the narrative you want - or it might be too similar to other recent intros I've done. Earlier this year, I scrapped a piece 2,300 words in because I realised the intro had taken me in the wrong direction. Once the intro's done, it usually flows easily. You can't start writing a long piece and just see what comes out, though. As an editor – I now do much more writing – I realised that one of the commonest problems for writers is trying to put in too much: they had seven things they were desperate to say, but really there was only room for five, so they'd try to cut all seven down to a form skimpy enough to include them all. Doesn't work. You have to be ruthless in leaving things out if they clutter up the cleanliness of your narrative (I don't mean if they disprove your narrative; if that happens you're telling the wrong story. I mean if it's fascinating but peripheral). And the more work you've put in, the more you'll have to leave out.

I'm lucky, in that I write quickly and cleanly. But I realise not everyone suffers as few agonies over writing as I do. That's not a boast by the way - a decent writer labouring over a piece is more likely to produce sparkling prose than a decent writer whose first draft is fine for publication. But there are advantages to being able to churn out 4,000 words in an afternoon, and have all of them make sense.

The number of times I've had my reviews sent back with the intro chopped off I couldn't tell you. And almost always it reads better for it. I find my OG intro works more as a springboard for further ideas but ends up being superfluous to the finished piece.

Reviews: I listen once, then listen again while typing. Then a third listen while moving sentences around, making adjectives more insulting, adding profanity and ethnic slurs, etc.

Features: I listen to the latest album while thinking about questions I'd like to ask whichever bandmember I'm going to be granted 20 minutes on the phone with. I look the band up on Wikipedia, Allmusic, and maybe metal-archives.com. Then I spend a couple of hours looking up previous interviews online, and thinking of additional questions I haven't seen them asked in those articles. Half the time, the thing I think is most interesting about the band is something no one has ever thought to ask (presumably because the subject wasn't raised in the press release). I email back and forth with my editor, usually trying to argue him out of some gossipy approach that focuses more on the artist's personal life than the music. If I have time, and/or if it's going to be a long feature, I get hold of their previous albums and listen to those. Generally speaking, by the time I actually get on the phone with the person, I have a pretty good idea of the story I'm going to be writing, and can in fact probably write the first 1000 words or so without even speaking to anyone. Then we do the interview, and if I've radically misinterpreted something about their music, or the reason the bassist quit, or whatever, then I transcribe, punch in quotes, and revise my narrative accordingly. Then I let the story sit until the next morning, re-read it, and move stuff around, insert ethnic slurs and profanity, etc., and ship it to the editor. A day or so later, the editor sends it back asking for more gossip about the artist's personal life, or asking me to do a quick phoner with the guy who recently quit the band, so I do that, and send it back. Then I wait for my copy of the issue, and the subsequent check, to hit the mailbox.

How do you record it? I still use tapes x speakerphone. Haven't messed me up yet (but I usually do email exchanges). Transcription helps me to focus, pre-edit, kinda fun usually.

How do I record interviews? I use a digital recorder - an Olympus DM-20, to be exact (which they don't make anymore - mine has served me well for several years). I have a cord so I can patch it directly into the phone line for most phoners; otherwise, I call the person on my cell phone, put them on speaker, and put the recorder down on the table next to the cell phone. This gives me excellent recording quality, believe it or not - it's a pretty sensitive device, but is also very good at cutting out extraneous background noise and preserving voices.

I use an inear mic, plugged into my digital recorder. It works fine, though you have to check you've plugged into the mic jack instead of the headphone jack.

In terms of prep for features interviews: I read every interview I can get my hands on, and reputable past reviews. It's not just about seeing what questions have already been asked, but seeing if themes emerged from those pieces that were never properly developed. It's undoubtedly true that the best answers are given to questions that have not previously been asked. I also listen to as much music - not just the latest album - as I can. If you only listen to the latest album, you can't know how things have changed. These days, I often ask on Twitter if anyone has something they want asked - I often get one question I'd never have thought of on my own, and always mention where it came from when I do the interview.

When writing reviews, are you ever tempted to read other people's reviews first?

Yes. But I try not to. Don't want to be part of a critical hive mind, and don't want to lift their thoughts.

what really bums me out is when i'm reviewing something and, having written it, i check out someone else's review and find that they've happened upon a similar/identical angle and phrase. it feels like i've been cheating, even though i haven't.

yeah i like to either write a review more or less in a vacuum, without having anyone else's opinion effect mine too much, or if i've been surrounded by the discourse around a record then i try to write something that takes all that into account without directly respond to or regurgitating what other people have already said. but if i go out of my way to read reviews while i'm writing one, i feel like i'm just opening myself up to be influenced (either in opinion or how to write about it) so i try to avoid it.

yeah i never ever read reviews first - partly this is something i've always done, i prefer to consume something myself and THEN gorge on other people's opinions (i do this for films too), and partly to avoid my own writing being overly affected (worst case scenario is subconsciously nicking a turn of phrase aargh).

don't really have a set "plan" for writing - what do you think i am, an organised and professional person? the states in which i have written some stuff that came out well* is LOL - but for reviews, i'll take notes as i listen - words i want to use, any ~insights~ i have, lyrics to note down, basic "this sound is in this song" stuff. for features, i'll work with the transcript below. writing often feels like stitching these disparate phrases/arguments/quotes together.

*my odd future/homophobia piece: written in a north london hospital waiting room, where i had to spend six hungover hours being passed around between doctors the day after fucking up my ankle to the point where i literally couldn't walk at a birthday picnic, which was also the day i'd discovered i had no money left in my bank account (always the large payments that are the most delayed, bah), and i'd spent what i thought was my last tenner on a cab to the hospital. also my amy winehouse obit was written when i had a massive fever and could barely focus on the laptop screen. also at least one piece i've done was written at a house party.

i loved your bit on Dylan btw lex - really well handled considering all things and a lot of fun to read too

without wishing to pry too much into people's financial personal lives, but how much do you make from reviews/features as an average? I've been writing for magazines for the last few years but it's all been free work, much to my mum's annoyance. How high up the ladder do you have to go to start getting paid?

having been paid for exactly one article in my time, i wouldn't know. but my guess is it's all about working one's way up and contributing for bigger publications and sites as you go. this is where being prolific is obviously a boon (i find i can only really spare the time out of my other commitments for one piece per month on average). i know people who started in roughly the same circumstances as me who somehow were able to pump out about 2-3 reviews a week for various publications and are now working full time on it as their work is now well-recognised.

there's nothing wrong with asking for a fee or at least some form of contribution (don't ask, don't get) but as with all things you have to be able to prove your writing is worth the cash and often this helps if you have a strong and varied portfolio.

Not much money in this, honestly, and the places I've written for the longest have cut their rates over time.

That said, what I make from freelance has supplemented my primary income over the last decade or so to the point that I depend on it, for better or worse. I write for fewer outlets than I did 5 or 6 years ago, whIch is fine because my spare time is increasingly diminished. I'm not really in the hunt for new outlets though if something intriguing (and dare I say better paying) opened up I'd be interested.

(Especally for book reviewing.)