Is music journalism really a career for an adult?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (203 of them)

If you're a journalist, you're a journalist. It doesn't matter what you're covering, so don't feel bad you're writing about music versus, I dunno, the murder beat. If you're a critic, then as long as you direct people to albums and acts they may have missed, or good records they may enjoy, then it sounds sound to me. Plus, if you feel unqualified, consider it a challenge and opportunity to expand your horizons even as you attempt to expand those of others. But if all you do is serve as a buying guide, focusing on albums everyone has heard of or will hear about from everyone else, then yes, the job will eventually weigh on you as unsubstantial. In other words, like many things in life, it is what you make of it.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Friday, 25 November 2005 19:58 (eighteen years ago) link

I'd point in Huk's direction. Writing solely about music strikes me as a risky long-term career path -- but if you can make music just the first thing you write about, and push as much as possible into other areas, you stand a much better chance of having a proper career. Part of what this means might involve being willing to do a little bit of rote, unstylish journalism along the way. I think part of the attraction to music criticism, for a lot of people, is that you can slang and be abstract and all that, pretty much right from the start, without having to do the journalistic grunt-work that other topics might require to get a foot in the door; even within music writing, you'd be doing yourself a huge favor by getting used to concrete newspaper style, getting really good at constructing features, etc., and using all those concrete non-musical journalism kills to leverage yourself in other directions.

― nabiscothingy, Friday, 25 November 2005 20:02 (eighteen years ago) link

rote, unstylish journalism can be really sexy!

― the jews (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 25 November 2005 20:08 (eighteen years ago) link

rote, unstylish journalism generally pays a lot better, too!

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 25 November 2005 20:34 (eighteen years ago) link

That's my whole point! And I get the feeling that some (aspiring?) music writers get focused on what they can do within whatever music circles they came up through, and wind up either neglecting that journalistic stuff or actually writing it off as staid and boring. (This is a limited group I'm talking about here; I'm sure most people who actually depend on the writing for rent-paying are more than happy to shoot for newspaper pieces and journalism as proper work/career.)

― nabiscothingy, Friday, 25 November 2005 20:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Appreciate the thoughts - except Dom's of course which is a somewhat prickish comment to make. Regardless of the (in)accuracy of the comment, that's not really the point is it?

― uptoeleven (uptoeleven), Friday, 25 November 2005 21:55 (eighteen years ago) link

Anyway, I'm trying to work out if this is a course worth pursuing before I commit myself one way or the other (although I recognize that these days there's really no such thing a commitment to a particular career). Writing and music are my passions so i've naturally lead myself in the direction of combining the two. Maybe I just haven't really thought about the options I have.

― uptoeleven (uptoeleven), Friday, 25 November 2005 22:01 (eighteen years ago) link

It's not a career for an adult if you sit on your ass complaining about how shit it is and doing nothing, no matter how true that is, and I don't mean that in a superior way either, talking from experience.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 25 November 2005 22:03 (eighteen years ago) link

JtN to thread!

― the bellefox, Friday, 25 November 2005 22:09 (eighteen years ago) link

If you're really looking for "what is this career like" advice: I don't think music writing is a very good gig. You're up against hundreds of people who all want to write about the same record as you, there are fewer markets and most of them are dumbing down, and it doesn't pay well, even if you're an editor. I've worked for music editors in their mid-twenties who handle the music section for an entire weekly newspaper, but still pull in dishwasher money. And if you ever landed a steady gig it would be hard to walk away from it, even if you were sick of covering eight skater-rock bands and a Kenny Loggins concert every week for the Daily Yawn or wherever you lucked into a salaried job.

So if writing, and not specifically music writing, is your passion, you'll want to start thinking about other things you could cover to supplement or replace your music work.

But you know, you're not exactly "committing" to it - you could try it and just see where it leads. You might end up writing steadily for one of the three or four music publications that are worth reading, and really enjoy it. You might do it for a few years and decide to get into the industry. You might have a lot of fun and see a ton of free concerts and then go to law school.

― save the robot (save the robot), Friday, 25 November 2005 22:11 (eighteen years ago) link

I thought the whole point of Dom's comment was to goad the Spinal Tap loving aspiring journo into naming names. Daerest faliure.

I'm not entirely sure I want it to become my life
If you already have doubts I'm afraid they will only get bigger...

― blunt (blunt), Friday, 25 November 2005 22:18 (eighteen years ago) link

Getting paid to think about music is a fucking privilege. The important thing is to actually think about it - what it means, why we should care, where does the music fit into the wider scheme of things - all that malarkey. If you're just going to write the same old, irrelevant shit as Mojo, Q, NME, Observer Music Monthly (ugh) and whatever their equivalents are outside the UK - then go find something else to do. The world doesn't need more muso journos. Good luck.

― 11V (11V), Friday, 25 November 2005 23:21 (eighteen years ago) link

If by "adult" you mean "someone who has listened for years with an open ear and been interested," then yeah. Sometimes it comes down to whether reading a review where a high school kid is talking about pop rock is better than a 40 year old reviewer talking about it from the perspective of a teen, though. But the more "objective" reviews usually work a little better when they're by someone who's been around a while.

― mike h. (mike h.), Friday, 25 November 2005 23:36 (eighteen years ago) link

As someone who cruises these pages as a non-writer I always appreciate reading someone who has something to say and who obviously enjoys saying it. I will always read someone who obviously has a passion for music and surely that's what brings us all here. Lifetime career? Fuck, what's that! I've been struggling as an artist for years and often ask myself if I'm fooling meself, but whatever else I do to pay the bills the bug still gets to me which has me walking out on well paid jobs to pursue what I regard as my 'true' career. You'll never lose that but it doesn't mean you can't go looking for other avenues to express yourself. You don't stop being an artist in whatever area you've chosen. Sometimes you wish you could and live a 'normal' life of just living without the questions, but look at those lives closer and you soon realise you wouldn't want to go there.

As Kafka had it "I live for the struggle for it is all I know." Sure his novels aren't exactly a laugh a minute but it's what drove him beyond the paperwork at an insurance company for chirstsake!

― tolstoy (tolstoy), Saturday, 26 November 2005 00:24 (eighteen years ago) link

in russia-land - no
no matter how sure i am that this is what i want to do
sadly

that's why i'm currently switching to be an interfax news agency correspondent/translator, ha ha

― nique (nique), Saturday, 26 November 2005 00:25 (eighteen years ago) link

Nice thread by the way. Good to hear the doubts expressed.

― tolstoy (tolstoy), Saturday, 26 November 2005 00:26 (eighteen years ago) link

You could start a blog, post your thoughts, a listener's diary, see how it goes. See if you bore yourself shitless, that's a bad sign. Ask your friends to read and post comments, ask us too. See how your opinions of your opinions (and your opinions of music) compare with those of your readers. You may not get any intelligent response; you may not get any. That happens sometimes. Writing is creepy that way. See how you feel, if that's the way it goes (or doesn't go, in effect). You may not mind so much after all. But if you find you do mind so much, better do something else. (PS: writing features has only taught me how to write features, not to be a better reviewer, mush less critic.)

― don, Saturday, 26 November 2005 00:30 (eighteen years ago) link

no one who isn't working toward the overthrow of bourgeois hegemony, and the advent of marxian 20 hour work weeks, is an "adult" in our "culture"

― louie shelton, Saturday, 26 November 2005 00:54 (eighteen years ago) link

If it paid more it'd probably be considered more "adult."

― Abbadabba Berman (Hurting), Saturday, 26 November 2005 02:14 (eighteen years ago) link

oh so true abbadabba

― nique (nique), Saturday, 26 November 2005 02:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Hey, congratulations, you snort cocaine, run around in a big room screaming numbers, and use your earnings to buy prostitutes. You're a fucking adult!

― Abbadabba Berman (Hurting), Saturday, 26 November 2005 02:38 (eighteen years ago) link

all "adult" means in our "culture" is how much you get laid and how hot the layers are. if you're good looking, be a rock critic, fuck it. if you're not, go to law school! and vive la revolution!

― louie shelton, Saturday, 26 November 2005 02:39 (eighteen years ago) link

layers? good looking? what?

― athol fugard (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 26 November 2005 02:53 (eighteen years ago) link

ha ha, now go turn this "culture" into Culture if you're forced to work with morons, who don't know a shit, don't do a shit and don't give a shit.....

:::(((

― nique (nique), Saturday, 26 November 2005 03:45 (eighteen years ago) link

No disrespect meant to the many talented writers plying their trade in this field, but I could never do it. The rewards (fiscal, artistic) are too small for me.

Instead of hunting and scraping for work that I'm not always thrilled with, I work in administration for an art school. I receive a solid salary with benefits, and I never have to worry about hunting for work.

There are certain people who thrive off of this particular hustle, but I'd just like to point out that there are plenty of fulfilling writing jobs out there that don't involve journalism and allow for some artistic license.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Saturday, 26 November 2005 04:12 (eighteen years ago) link

It seems you're too ambivalent to make a go of it, really. Too many basic doubts that would get in the way of "just writing," and that could undermine you. There's a self-consciousness about whether you "should" do this...framing up the question in terms of what grown-ups do.

Society at large and most grown-ups will tell you not to be a music journalist. And, no, being a music journalist isn't Something Grown-Ups Do. If you're looking for any kind of acceptance from grown-ups (even if you do become "successful" many grown-ups will not acknowledge it as true success, but success as graspable and relevant to them as building a really intricate sand castle or something) from current or future grown-ups, you are not likely to get it. If that kind of acceptance is important to you--if you do not want to be considered eccentric or an outsider by respectable normal grown-ups--do something else.

To be successul as a music journalist (and many other vocations) you pretty much have to be obsessed with it--and in that case you pretty much don't have a choice but to become a music journalist.

I guess I heard more about why you wouldn't choose to be a music journalist than why you would...

― limeginger, Saturday, 26 November 2005 06:08 (eighteen years ago) link

I'd just like to point out that there are plenty of fulfilling writing jobs out there that don't involve journalism and allow for some artistic license.

especially with organizations that publish research reports -- it's a great way to get that urge out of your system without any of the pressure that comes from being "a writer."

― athol fugard (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 26 November 2005 06:19 (eighteen years ago) link

Fuck music journalism. Find yourself some rich parents. "Trust fund recipient" is the career you want. Put yourself up for adoption to test the market...

― Reggie, Saturday, 26 November 2005 06:35 (eighteen years ago) link

Music Journalism is an unworthy use of a human life. You will die having accomplished nothing and your soul will descend to the lower planes.

― Kapec, Saturday, 26 November 2005 10:21 (eighteen years ago) link

It really is a horrible way to make a living. You don't make much, and writing is pure agony all the time (writer's block, deadlines, dissatisfaction with everything you write if you're any kind of a perfectionist, subpar pay, etc.). It's not worth it.

― grant, Saturday, 26 November 2005 11:08 (eighteen years ago) link

There's a self-consciousness about whether you "should" do this...framing up the question in terms of what grown-ups do.

I'm not entirely sure that's true. I think my peers and social superiors would probably have more respect for me for doing this than say, pursuing a more typical "grown-up" path. It's more about whether I would find it rewarding enough to do it long term, or would simply get tired of churning out the same mind-numbing bullshit about records I couldn't give two fucks about.

I suspect I may have just answered my own question right there.

― uptoeleven (uptoeleven), Saturday, 26 November 2005 16:39 (eighteen years ago) link

It's more about whether I would find it rewarding enough to do it long term, or would simply get tired of churning out the same mind-numbing bullshit about records I couldn't give two fucks about.

Again, what's the "long-term" anymore? Do it for a couple years and see where it takes you. You'll probably get more real world experience having to interview bands and write under deadlines than at most of the office jobs out there.

― save the robot (save the robot), Saturday, 26 November 2005 16:59 (eighteen years ago) link

and also, don't forget about the free concerts and all the fun music's about

― nique (nique), Saturday, 26 November 2005 22:20 (eighteen years ago) link

Dom OTM

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Saturday, 26 November 2005 22:22 (eighteen years ago) link

Music journalists write about music. Not neccessarily young people's music, but music. A 50 year-old music journalist may well still write about music, if he writes about music that other 50 year-olds tend to like.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 26 November 2005 23:24 (eighteen years ago) link

yes, as a journalist i find it is vital that i only write about things in which people of my age will be interested.

and, like, only other oldsters listened to john peel, didn't they? daddio.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Sunday, 27 November 2005 00:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Again, what's the "long-term" anymore?

this is very true. most people don't follow one career path anymore; that's a holdover from the days when there was such a thing as job security.

― athol fugard (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 27 November 2005 00:21 (eighteen years ago) link

although when you're young there's that nagging feeling that if you even waste one year, your whole future is ruined.

― athol fugard (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 27 November 2005 00:24 (eighteen years ago) link

And if you ever landed a steady gig it would be hard to walk away from it, even if you were sick of covering eight skater-rock bands and a Kenny Loggins concert every week for the Daily Yawn or wherever you lucked into a salaried job.

OTM

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Sunday, 27 November 2005 02:42 (eighteen years ago) link

although when you're young there's that nagging feeling that if you even waste one year, your whole future is ruined.

I wish I had had that feeling!

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Sunday, 27 November 2005 02:46 (eighteen years ago) link

four years pass...

I got forwarded a posting about a music blogging job opportunity and one of the stipulations was that you had to read 200 blogs on google reader a day

sounds like some sort of personal hell, tbh

― Oh boy, ILX! That's where I'm a Whiney! (dyao), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 15:00 (thirteen years ago) link

how often are you allowed to pee?

― cool and remote like dancing girls (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 15:03 (thirteen years ago) link

What, exactly, were the other stipulations?

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 15:06 (thirteen years ago) link

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/2009/04/prison.jpg
read yr blogs

― tylerw, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 15:07 (thirteen years ago) link

You couldn't date, you need fresh sand in your litter box, and contact lenses are not included.

― cool and remote like dancing girls (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 15:07 (thirteen years ago) link

hmm you have to oversee a couple of interns, be able to write on a deadline (not too pitchfork-y or press release-y), work at an office in NY

― Oh boy, ILX! That's where I'm a Whiney! (dyao), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 15:10 (thirteen years ago) link

not too pitchfork-y or press release-y

Just kind of journalist...y?

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 15:10 (thirteen years ago) link

i'd be very interested to see a list of music journalists who aren't the editor of something, who currently, in 2010, live off of it.

― black sheep boys and chips ahoys (kiss out the jams), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 15:14 (thirteen years ago) link

you are in a field