Is music journalism really a career for an adult?

is it too obvious to point out that assigning value on a scale is among the least interesting or even helpful things a critic can do? (worth remembering anyway, maybe). i can't get enough of reviews that help me hear what fans of a musician hear, even - especially? - when i'm not a fan myself

Having to assign values (stars, numbers, whatever)...just horrid. Have always hated it, and am glad I barely have to do it anymore.

I've only ever had to do it at two places - Alternative Press and AMG - and in both cases, I can't remember a single numerical rating I assigned anything.

Part of me kinda wishes The Wire would assign numerical scores to albums, just because it would be hilarious.

"284.15, as scored in the hexadecimal system on the planet Tharg."

It's even worse for writers, since hardcore fans latch on only to scores and have their angry tweets at the ready if they feel their fave has been slighted.

(I got slammed for being a "longtime Lana hater" because 3.5 stars appeared above my LUST FOR LIFE review in RS.)

You're not? (Seriously; I feel like everything I've read about her with your byline has been "meh"-to-"ugh.")

Ha, Maura's story reminds me of something I was thinking about last night at OMD -- when I reviewed this album for Pitchfork:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17843-orchestral-manoeuvres-in-the-dark-english-electric/

I spent nearly all of it pointing out how it was simultaneously a really lovely album and ultimately one that didn't develop their now considerable legacy, merely providing refinements. It came out and a slew of OMD fanatics only noticed the score and had a meltdown. Still irritated about that.

It's even worse for movies.

Imagine explaining how some terrible movies should be seen and argued about.

i actually gave HONEYMOON a good review when it came out.

also this should go without saying but being a "hater" and being "meh to ugh" are not the same thing.

Well, I can't stand the term "hater" anyway; anyone who uses it falls into the same bucket of slime where I leave people who refer to women as "females." But (and I haven't read your Honeymoon review but would love a link) what I have read of yours re LDR has always given me the impression that you strongly dislike her work and creative persona but are occasionally able to muster grudging respect for an individual track or something, here and there. In fact, I admit to having wondered why you keep engaging with her work. If I felt about an artist the way your writing makes me think you feel about LDR, I would simply stop listening, and certainly stop writing about them.

Ha, Maura's story reminds me of something I was thinking about last night at OMD -- when I reviewed this album for Pitchfork:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17843-orchestral-manoeuvres-in-the-dark-english-electric/

I spent nearly all of it pointing out how it was simultaneously a really lovely album and ultimately one that didn't develop their now considerable legacy, merely providing refinements. It came out and a slew of OMD fanatics only noticed the score and had a meltdown. Still irritated about that.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, July 29, 2017 8:08 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You shoulda seen how the OMD hardcore reacted when John Doran didn't like the album before... he was essentually accused of having an agenda, despite writing about the band positively elsewhere as you have done...

xp

My opinion on her has changed since the early days of Interscope trying to play pretindie with their "secret shows" at Glasslands and Insta-filtered live shots. I thought people were being too harsh on her SNL performance, although I also loathed how laconic her vocal approach was on BORN TO DIE.

Probably notable: When I was more alienated from her work I had a staff job and a place where I could contour out my opinions more freely. As this exchange indicates, it's much more difficult to build a body of work and a critical profile when one's pieces are scattered all over the place.

*essentially

(xp)

(And why do I write about her? Because that's what editors want.)

lol "pretindie"

i didn't even mean star ratings or scores as such, just the whole concept of "good" vs "bad" consumer reports style is so weird to me. i guess it made sense when people had to buy music unheard. but the idea of proclaiming a "verdict" on like, the new rae sremmurd or LDR album is so ridiculous to me

I really like in depth music criticism and history and over time have come to value the opinions of young people as expressed though professional writing less and less. I know we're not talking about it now but the original thread topic had me thinking: I almost only want to read music writing from adults

Not adults who pose as Adults in the sense of inveighing on the pop of the day in a condescending bourgeoise tasteful sense but like as an example, a Brad Nelson review I will probably read and enjoy. I mean unless ur the next Carson McCullers your opinions are great but I probably won't glean insight from your efforts to articulate them

This is probably not a v popular opinion but I'm ok w it as polemical ilx posts go lol

*your efforts to articulate them *at age 22*

Obv I encourage young ppl to work at it, I'm just saying I think this thread has the dynamic of criticism upside down

Agree with the above 100%. When I read a headline like "We Need To Talk About (Album)" my immediate response is, "I had that conversation 20 years ago, thanks but no thanks."

you guys hate millennials, it's ok you can say it.

i'm cool w/honest well thought out responses from "millennials" but hot takes without actual intelligence behind them are basically "we showed these four year olds modern art and this is what they had to say"

I am a millennial

When I think about the best critics I've read in any field, their best/most interesting/well developed stuff was largely produced in their 30s +

I mean idk what say Richard Brody's movie reviews were like in his 20s but I love them now & I don't see age being a barrier for me to keep reading him as he gets older

i'm cool w/honest well thought out responses from "millennials" but hot takes without actual intelligence behind them are basically "we showed these four year olds modern art and this is what they had to say"

― nomar, Saturday, July 29, 2017 4:22 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I too am cool w those well thought out responses *in theory* altho I think they're a lot less common than ppl would like to believe. Also, tbf, the editorial hand is very weak right now and a great editor would probably be key in younger writers developing their critical voices early

Phil: I sent you an email entitled: "How do you feel about the new Metallica album?" setting out why - on first instincts - I totally thought it should get a negative review, in what I felt was a jokily OTT manner - hoping to have some sort of discussion with you about it but definitely expecting you to respect a writer/editor relationship and for it to go no further. I was genuinely up for having you change my mind on this matter though - I'm not saying it happens on a weekly basis but it does happen, say, once a month. I had every right to be nervous about you as a potential first time writer for us given that I know you don't really like or respect tQ or me (as a writer or editor) and have been vocal about this in the past. And there it was literally the same day - your issue not taken up with me in the first place but taken straight to a thread for Metallica fans on a message board. I like you as a reviewer, I totally get that you're committed to what you do and I'd still like you to write for us in an ideal world but you insisting on treating this incident like it's Watergate is weak sauce imo. Regular and trusted writers for us get total free reign. Loads of them post here. Go ahead and ask them if you want - there are probably in the region of 15 people. (Any kind of interference is extremely rare. I'm still trying to live down the shame I feel that we ran an absolute drubbing of a really good documentary THAT MY FRIENDS MADE simply because I didn't want to stick my oar in.) None of us interfere with any of the columns at any level - and next to none of the reviews (but there are obvious cases where it would be mad for us not to know in advance what the reviewer thinks of an album, if Luke and I think Monoliths + Dimensions is a clear shoe in for album of the year, we'd be idiots to give the review to someone who hates it). I absolutely have to tread gingerly round new writers for obvious reasons and make no apology for sounding them out thoroughly in the first, second and third etc instances. We've done everything on a position of trust at tQ - I already work an 80 hour week, paying myself less than minimum wage to do the tQ portion of that [world's smallest violin etc.] and yet, even though we're closer to a fanzine than we are to P4k or Uncut, I still found myself having to learn about adding legal disclaimers to emails after this incident. You know - clearly, in retrospect I overstepped the mark and disrespected you as a professional which I'm deeply regretful about - but you not coming to me in the first place and twisting this to make me look like some dead-eyed moral bankrupt is bang out of order, not to mention extremely hurtful.

To the poster above: those negative reviews are the hardest to write. I had to do a Q and A onstage with Andy McCluskey after the OMD drubbing. It was one of the most difficult hours of my professional life. And then there was the Simple Minds review... Jesus. Apparently some Australian radio DJ read it out to Jim Kerr and they had an actual fight on air. And the worst thing about all of this stuff is these people are my childhood heroes. I take absolutely no pleasure in it whatsoever. In fact I find it quite distressing.

Ok what

I think millennials are fine. I'm more wary of people in my generational cohort and older treating them as if they're The Blob.

Do you know what? I'm actually really struggling at the moment due to a recent diagnosis of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, which I only received on Friday after a road accident last November, which has put my ability to keep on doing tQ or carry on writing full stop into question, hence me getting upset in public about something I should be ignoring. I'd really appreciate it if someone could delete this post and the post above. I'm genuinely not in my right state of mind at the moment. Thanks.

Hey, I'm sorry. I was just being an Internet Dickhead because I don't know enough of the context to connect your last post to what others were talking about. I don't know you from Adam or Eve, but I do hope your days get better from here and I didn't really mean anything by that post. Should have put it on the "second thought about" thread. Or nowhere at all.

No foul. I shouldn't be on the internet at the moment. It's my own lookout. And thanks.

I'll just say I really love the Quietus and appreciate what you do

<3 JD

Heavy third to that.

Though it's written by a movie critic, I thought this article provided some interesting insight into the reviewing/rating process. He talks about exactly what the difference is between a two-star and a three-star movie, etc.

Speaking as an "artist" in another medium, I love good journalism and criticism. It has regularly opened my eyes to seeing things differently and informed my creativity. Carry on, jurnos.

how much of "music journalism" is album reviews at this point, anyway? It seems like what people pay attention to (or at least what I see people post about on fb) are interviews or concert or festival reviews. The only album reviews I see getting shared are by obscure acts mostly in the vein of, "Hey someone actually published something about us!"

But I'm not a music journalist, so *shruggy emoticon*

... okay, also obituaries and "scene reports" -- but seriously, I don't really think very many people I know read reviews of widely available popular music, because they can just listen to it themselves for free with nominal effort. Who cares what some writer thinks.

^ yeah. Only time I read a review of something is if it's a new record by an artist I'm psyched about and cannot help but want to know what it sounds like ahead of time.

Obituaries, definitely. Number-one growth industry after wind power.

the original piece sort of tiptoed around this, but there's something very demoralizing about how how this whole discussion cycle started with Kings of Leon and Chance waging proxy-wars-via-employers on twentysomething writers over some "offensive" mildly critical reviews of their work, yet music writers receive far worse pretty much every time they publish anything that isn't glowing (or if it's glowing about the "wrong" artist) and they're told to just get a thicker skin

Whoa man

Brutal words from new MTV president Chris McCarthy re: MTV News, whose staff he fired. It's from this NYT profile: https://t.co/u7aottjQmX pic.twitter.com/9IGAJIviCs

— Andy Dehnart (@realityblurred) July 30, 2017

Though it's written by a movie critic, I thought this article provided some interesting insight into the reviewing/rating process. He talks about exactly what the difference is between a two-star and a three-star movie, etc.

― grawlix (unperson), 30. juli 2017 16:02 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wow, I hated hated hated that article. Zero stars. So wrongheaded about criticism. Though I guess I'm lucky that I pick and choose my reviews as well, so I don't have to think about how Kevin Smith would fit into my rating system. But this description of a four-star film is horrible and convinces me I never need to read that critic:

Every so often, though, I don't have anything to complain about. (It's rare, I know.) The movie starts clearly, and with a strong point of view. The actors disappear into their characters, and the characters have their own emotional logic. The plot is intriguing as it unfolds -- and yet afterwards, often seems inevitable, because it springs directly from the way these people would act. The cinematography and editing and music are both artistic and modest - serving the story stylishly while never only calling attention to themselves.

i bet that guy's a blast on tindr

... okay, also obituaries and "scene reports" -- but seriously, I don't really think very many people I know read reviews of widely available popular music, because they can just listen to it themselves for free with nominal effort. Who cares what some writer thinks.

― sarahell, Sunday, July 30, 2017 9:20 PM (six days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Reviews, historically, were probably only useful within the narrow purview of music nerds - and most people aren't hardcore music nerds - but I still utilize them to figure out who to check out among the vast array of new-to-me artists. I kind of agree with you about artists you already have affection for; no matter what the reviews are for the new War on Drugs record, for example, I'm going to check it out.

welp looks like MTV.com laying off good writers and pivoting to video is really paying off!!

https://s7.postimg.org/oio71kbuz/mtv-stats.jpg

Cool, cool

https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/23/rolling-stone-magazine-culture-council-publication?fbclid=IwAR130Avc5Rgsem1uKWf6l3HLnB70iSzBvzVaqI9Nx0n6WFoNEA1aTz1OSTo