OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

FUCK BEES

Simon CowOwl more like

Why are you even reading a college paper in the hopes of finding good music writing?

surely a lot of good writers come up thru student press

I'm not reading it in the hope of finding good music writing! I read it while I eat my sandwich, to see what's going on amongst the literate student body, and stumble upon the music pages by accident.

x-post - Hmmm. Well.

Was it a good sandwich at least?

OK, is this the worst piece of wafer thin ham ever?

Granted it came from one of the top 30 supermarkets in the country but it said 'quality' on the label.

You can use that rather reductive approach to stop anyone criticising anythign ever, SteveM.

surely a lot of good writers come up thru student press

This might be more of a 'despite' than 'because of' situation in a lot of cases

(I speak as someone who put, really, a stupid amount of time into the student paper while I was there, and mainly enjoyed it and learned stuff, but I'd question how much it made me a better writer)

babies - fucking idiots or what? they can hardly walk, look at their stupid faces!!!!!

ha.

this guy, though - as nick said, he's 20-21, he's obviously got some semblance of a brain in his head if he's a. at exeter uni and b. music ed of the college paper (obvious snarks aside). more important, i suspect, is *why he thinks like this* not "why is his writing style a bit naff?", surely?

xpost i spent years at my college paper (inc a year as music editor) but i doubt it made me a better writer. a better editor, yes, and (in the long run) a better sub, but a better writer? doubtful.

Anyone want to make fun of bad high school writing?!?!?!? I have a number of shitty articles sitting in my car!

"H1nder lead vocalist Austin Winker's unique v0ice makes 'Lips of an Angel' completely captivating. The d3pth and emotion of the vocals dr4w you into the lyr1cs of the song. The lyrics and 1nstrumentation make this s0ng a great standout track."

HAHAHAHAAHA SHE CAN'T WRITE AND SHE HAS A BAD OPINION HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA AND SHE'S 17, FER CHRISTSAKES HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SHOULDN'T SHE BE VERSED IN KRAUTROCK AND SHIT? HAHAHAHAHAA

i once made the mistake of reading my own (v poor) college dissertation. SO AWFUL. i wanted to punch the author so hard. i'm pretty sure there are no copies remaining outside of the one copy left with the faculty, who SHOULD have burned it just out of courtesy.

But anyway, this guy isn't some kind of remedial five-year-old; this isn't a GCSE-essay; he doesn't need enormous slack-cutting here. He is music editor at a student paper for one of the country's top 30 (possibly) universities, and as as such probably has three A Levels at grades AAB or very close to. He is a smart, educated, priviliged music fan who will possibly one day be a captain of industry, or Chris Martin, or something. He's not a cow or an owl.

He's a decently smart kid with a passing interest in music who likes to write music articles for the school paper; it's not his career, it's not his thesis, it's just Something He Wrote.

like I said he's not looking to win awards with his writings, student music reviews are generally just sort of rambles anyway, even ones by Exeter students, as much as we at ILM want our Smart Kids to write Smart Music Reviews.

and you know, what the guy is saying is not all that objectionable. there's stuff in there if you pick it out of the noise. "the hardest music to write is commercial music".

is age really an excuse here? Have we all forgotten that university age isn't really especially young? I'm sure that most people here weren't a lot different then from how they are now, no? Is being just some random student really an excuse? Surely being music editor at a 15,000 student university should mean something more than being able to express opinions that the average 15-year-old who has MTV2 would be able to express. Although my wild optimism with regards to student publications is notorious. Poor Louis is presumably around the same age as this guy, yet he gets consistently lambasted for having much more sophisticated (if more uniquely nuts) opinions.

Kinda off-topic question, because I don't want to start picking at every questionable comment in the article: is Domino entirely independent?

the 'excuse' is that everyone here probably wrote stuff as bad as that at his age.

this guy wot wrote this rag rant retty much speaks for at least 2/3 of the record buying public in the UK right now (Rihanna at #1 not withstanding) so you can be aghast all you like but don't be surprised at all. it just seems ridiculous to single one person out in this way - if you are to do this pick a paid pro who has more cause to know better...perhaps in a situation where they can defend their position or learn from what you say (so not on ILM then i guess).

we could make a lot of the same points if the thread wasn't focussed on one person's deluded rant but the nature/future of student press generally and that might be better (but probably useless without actual input from student writers).

Have we all forgotten that university age isn't really especially young?

yes clearly I have forgotten this

but seriously his age isn't the point here.

stevem basically otm

re: Domino indie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_Records

Pretty much, I guess. (Depends on what definition of independent you use. They might still have distribution deals with non-independent labels, for instance.)

Making fun of Westlife is more cliche than "sounds like (insert band name) on acid". If you're going to provide an example, at least have an ounce of originality and pick a band where a comparison to Green Day or Nirvana is in the general vicinity of apt.

why even mention any of those 90S BANDS with so much other stuff going on?

"look at the rubbish typography on this PIZZA FLYER!!!!!!11 rofllz"

http://www.inkycircus.com/jargon/images/lightbulb.jpg

the 'excuse' is that everyone here probably wrote stuff as bad as that at his age

actually as bad? Besides, I'm much more interested in looking at student press in general than pillorying this one poor sap too; I would have no interest in picking apart the blog of a 20-year-old who wrote like a 15-year-old, but I'm just kinda bewildered that this kind of thing could under any circumstance be good enough to be from someone in the role of music editor.

although as PIZZA FLYER has reminded me, I recently saw a poster for a student newspaper which had about ten spelling mistakes on it, so yes, I should stop expecting any kind of standards from them.

Person who has role as student music editor = someone who wanted to write about music, who might not necessarily have tastes outside the mainstream, who might not even be that well-educated about music. Just someone who has a passion for the music they listen to. It would be one thing if music editor were a highly competitive position in the student paper but most likely the kids who are really "into" music are off doing other more specifically music-related things with their spare time.

like joining a radio station and doing actual, meaningful reviews for distribution companies :-D

curtis, stop calling him kid. if he was 8 when cobain offed himself, that means he's older than you.

I know that John, I wasn't calling him "kid" as a term of derision, I call myself "kid" :/

maybe Britishers do things differently

I mean I'm not trying to patronize/insult the guy's intelligence here and say "oh he's just too young!" That's not the point. This thread is set up to pit his article against the broader tradition of "music writing" which I don't think is appropriate for an article someone wrote for a student paper. Though I may be biased in my perceptions because I go to an engineering school where the student paper isn't a reflection of the skills and career goals of the students.

yeah sorry curtis, i'm just seeing the usual uber-geek shit-slinging on display here and getting all defensive. it is an awful fucking article, though.

xpost noodle, aren't you a swans fan?

doing actual, meaningful reviews for distribution companies :-D

Congratulations! (NOW I understand why there's a "sounds like Mansun: 3.5/5" score next to every album)

I'm going to start scanning album spiels at our radio station for Jaggerisms

i don't think the point is how old the dude is - as a student, if i'd read something of that standard/expressing those opinions, i'd have gathered everyone i knew to point and laugh. i like to think i wouldn't have allowed it in the mag when i was editor, but i probably let worse through - so few good writers in uni also willing to hand copy in on time. at his age i was better than this, but not especially good.

the point is that it's really weird and mean-spirited and not a little pathetic for 20-something professionals southall/passantino/scott to spend their days ripping an article in a STUDENT RAG (and a REALLY MINOR ONE at that) to shreds - i mean, what will it be next, a-level essays? i'm especially disappointed in nick, who i'd thought was above this sort of pointlessness.

also, i think writing for the student paper DID actually make me a better writer.

i'm curious how seriously the students themselves take this sort of writing in these papers. surely it can't be seen as that representative, even if they are official papers.

Lex, we must have a good point in ripping the article though, or else you wouldn't have made so many posts to this thread.

about 4? you don't have any point beyond LOL STUDENTZ, though.

Eight.

Wikipedia says...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d0/OpenDaySpecial.jpg

Another lovely looking campus (an especially nice line in daffodils in the spring), with the occasional dreadful looking building thrown in to stop you getting too cocky - one of them looks like it could be used to breed giraffes in.

In 1997, a new Exeposé logo was designed based on the Carlsberg logo (as shown in the gallery below) and from 1997-2000 the paper proclaimed itself to be 'Probably the Best Student Newspaper in the World'.

Quality of school in not equal to quality of individual shocker!

Most of the best music writers I know went to shitty state schools. Many of them didn't even go to college. When I was in college, I remember reading music articles on UWire that destroyed the community-college-level music writing that I saw coming out of the Ivy Leagues.

lex i have made like 5 posts on this thread and they were on the whole vaguely whimsical points about student papers in general and a couple of crap injokes. i agreed with you that the "attack and dismiss" approach is stupid. i'm not sure why you are attacking me.

This is the BEST piece of music writing ever. Every word is sooooo correct and soooo spot-on.