Why would anyone want to be a music journalist RATHER than a musician?

"Don't you know how much power you music journalists have?" he shouts at me. I laugh in his face. Power? We aren't even gatekeepers. We're scum, we're the enemy. We're caught in tug-o-wars between editors and PR's and even if we do succeed in writing something beautiful, it doesn't reflect on us, it glorifies inarticulate puppet-actors. Giving good interview, talking about music in a critical and cultural sense is a very different skill from being able to create it.

What if music is your first love, but writing in your second love, and you waste all your greatest moments in lyrics that are mumbled and misheard anyway...

in a fantasy world maybe i'd rather be kali than a rock musician anyway.

However, in moments of great annoyance with her, I would shout at her, "You know, if I work really hard and I practice and I gig constantly, there is a TINY but still quite good chance that I will eventually become a rock star. YOU will NEVER become AN ELF!!!"

Yes, well, opportunity is everything... The average person wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting in a movie, regardless of whether they were rubbish or not.

I actually can think of dozens more examples of musicians who "expanded" into acting rather than going into writing.

That's what they said to Elija and look what happened.

My new favourite insult.

(Can you tell how long I lived with gamer geek?)

Oh yeah? So why are there so many bloody songs like "God Save The UK Indie Scene" and that bit of freaking rubbish by Valerie that everyone loves cause it namechecks music journalists?

(And why is journalistic musicianship invariably really rubbish?)

The namechecking gives it a bit of a hook but it's the first thing likely to become annoying.

not really what i'm talking about...

Quite Frankly I Think I Could Do A Better Job Of Being Famous
Liggers With Attitude
Flavah of the Week

That sort of thing gets you precisely nowhere. It's too "clever" for your average music punter, and it wins you the distrust of the music press who don't like the idea either that the musician is criticising the critic, or the idea of you encroaching on their territory in talking about music in a critical sense. It DOES get done and it does exist but it's basically career suicide.

e.g. Valerie. Yes, they have a person's name, therefore they are shite.

Plus... Valerie vs. TaTu - FITE!!!

Quite Frankly I Think I Could Do A Better Job Of Being Famous

I never knew why the other kids meant
To be a doctor or a lawyer or the president
All my life I aspired to be
In colour on the cover of the NME
I wanna pose pretty for the glossy mags
The weekly journals and the cheesy rags
Use my fame to blag tons of free stuff
Then whinge about how life is so tough

Chorus:
Quite frankly, I think I could do a better job of being famous
See my face in the News of the World
You can say what you like, you know I'll be shameless

Don't care I ever make millions
I just want a gossip column link to Robbie Williams
I'll have chart feuds on the six o'clock news
And spout my scandal causing political views
Even my substandard Christmas songs
Will be money churning massive chart hits
Written on the back of a Groucho Club napkin
With my mate the Turner Prize-winning artist

Chorus

I won't burn out, I won't fade away
I'll keep my drug habits on constant display
When things get harsh and they start looking grim
I'll call Betty Ford and check myself in
Buy a mansion with a thousand rooms
Join a freaky cult that preaches doom
Lecture people on the plight of the poor
Then use my wealth to generate more

Chorus

Or try this one:

Flavah of the Week

Fell into the Gap with a great big splash
As I said "Yo, bitch" to a wad of cash
You can do what you want with me
Treat me like a commodity
My indie cred is a bit abused
Now I'm modelling for Dazed and Confused
But it's part of our master plan
To sip champagne on a yacht like Duran Duran

We're just the flavour of the week
I hate to tell you but we're
52 varieties in line ahead of you
We're just the flavour of the week
Now take a number, take your seat
We're just the flavour of the week

We're all fakirs we're all poseurs
Don't make art, we make hamburgers
You can rent me by the hour
If you've got money what I want is power
We've done Poptones, we've done Peel
Got personal stylists to keep it real
Trustafarian Sex Bomb, daddy buy me NME.com

Fuck the charts, we'll make millions
Selling mobile phones to the new Bohemians
Indie cred? Hah, I'm just ho
Sell my wedding photos to Hello!

So there. This is how you combine the two the other way around.

(I wish I could find the lyrics to the other song online, but I forgot to post them to our website...)

words + music = songs
words written in journalistic context = journalism

i'm not being annoying for that sake of it, of course it's possible to include criticism in songs - but I don't want to write songs i want to be a journalist and they're two different things!!!!!

Eg those songs of Kates, that Valerie song "Popstar", all those songs about the history of blues and can I be the first one to mention Guns and Roses "Get in the Ring" which is classic on the grounds of it's petty bitchiness.

No it can't and yes it can

1) music
2) writing (words)

are we only talking about examples where the writing is about other music, or about music writing or what?

Fair point that Valerie and Helen Love are possibly the worst arguments that I could come up with, but they were the first that sprang to mind. Were Billy Joel and Guns N Roses better examples?

Can I or anyone else (Momus?) come up with better examples?