Rolling Music Writers' Thread

thanks y'all <3

THAT SAID if you were to start some kind of monthly emo newsletter or something just to have a project, I'd throw a couple $$ at that

Brad, I won't ask for details here, but I and quite a few of us would miss your precision, grace, and humor should you renounce criticism. Even pre-internet criticism was never a numbers game. Whether it's about Van Morrison or sundry remarks here, your POV means a great deal.

thanks alfred <3

my taste and my approach as a critic and my work aren’t “correct”

ironically, about this, you are

rong

writer as worst interpreter of his own work shockah

that's not how i feel about my own work but it is how music media makes me think i should feel about my own work, if that helps

Brad's taste and approach aren't the most appealing to editors, which doesn't make them wrong, just out of sync with the lame state of music writing rn

THAT SAID if you were to start some kind of monthly emo newsletter or something just to have a project, I'd throw a couple $$ at that

― wayne trotsky (Simon H.)

same.

it’s a terrible time and brad deserves better. and so do brad’s potential readers

but there are horrible young men getting covered by tmz who happen to release music in between photo ops and court dates, and they appeal to “millennial males” so...

Brad if you hide your light under a bushel I will drive to where you are and shake you so hard

Your writing brings me great joy & your interests & passions & life experience make yours a unique voice. I hate that the industry is bringing you low <3

Brad, I get where you are coming from. You do indeed have idiosyncratic tastes, which I sometimes don't relate to, and I can imagine how that plays out at a professional level, where it's always about hyping the next big thing, or jumping on one bandwagon or another. But even when I don't get a particular band that you are championing, I always admire your passion and eloquence, and I believe the world needs more space for talented writers with unique perspectives.

that's a real shame to hear, I've always enjoyed your writing and taste Brad, so best of luck with whatever you do next

Brad i literally did a dramatic reading of some parts of your Love Deluxe review to my friend and they were like "holy shit"

but yeah, i totally get it if the way things are in the industry have beaten you down, and i hope you find a bit more peace in what you end up deciding to do. i just wanted to chime in and say your writing voice (and your taste profile) is probably one of the biggest inspirations for me both as a listener and a writer, and i know a few other young writers who'd say the same. thanks for being a great critic.

I can’t say I don’t completely relate. Idiosyncratic taste is the only thing worth anything, taste forward writing is the only honest kind

Brad, let's start an email newsletter or something about awesome rock bands. fill an unfilled niche, enjoy writing again. maybe someone who has had some success with the newsletter format (which seems to be a thing?) can provide some guidance?

Bandcamp is looking for a writer/editor to take the spot of Marcus Moore who is leaving to finish a book on Kendrick Lamar. Bandcamp wants someone who knows hiphop and jazz and more.

LA Times is hiring a music editor

https://www.journalismjobs.com/1649049-music-editor-los-angeles-times

thanks y'all, it is especially heartening to read these things from some of my favorite posters here <3

i tried doing a newsletter a few years ago but couldn't really keep up with it, but that was more a vehicle for mixes and maybe if i took that side work out of the equation i could just focus on the writing. it def wouldn't be about new emo or rock music bc... idk, it gets harder and harder for me to write anything substantial about music i haven't lived with for a while. thinking about it still

very sad to hear this brad :( :(

"Quitting pursuits that are decreasing in personal enjoyment levels and/or compensation/sustainability is a super underrated move even if it feels shitty at the time so I can't help but support this decision."

Having sacked music journalism for similar reasons, I'd say this is wise. Good luck with whatever you do next.

Only just saw this, sorry for that (full week last week). Wish I had more concrete advice to offer but ultimately I'd say you'd want to find your best balance in what is ever more increasingly a shifting-sands landscape. And I've long since concluded that there is absolutely no one sure way to do that.

Brad, nooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I know, man. I KNOW. I have had very real frustrations in the last 2-3 years and felt myself close to walking away, too. But you're too smart and knowledgeable and insightful to leave this profession. So stay.

(Your review of the last Green Day album was deeply on point. Did I mention that?)

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8530075/spin-stereogum-vibe-layoffs

Lay-offs at Spin, Stereogum, and Vibe. Includes an ilxor or maybe several.

Several friends posted updates on social media yesterday. Ugh.

Bezos shut down on 1 day notice the Express, a free Washington Post published paper that employed some arts writers

https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/09/13/the-washington-post-killed-express-in-such-a-shabby-way/

Owner of the OC Weekly suddenly shut down that Orange County , California publication

Jeff Weiss tweet excerpt: LA Weekly, OC Weekly, East Bay Express, and San Diego City Beat destroyed by greedy mayonnaise brained ghouls in the last 2 years alone. That’s basically four of the five biggest markets in California. Can’t stress how deep the impact is.

Greg Kot took a buyout at the Chicago Tribune, which is currently capitulating to new corporate overlord Alden Global Capital. He was always great to me, and a boon to the beleaguered major city paper beat.

https://www.robertfeder.com/2020/02/05/music-critic-greg-kot-leaving-chicago-tribune/

Kot taking a buyout and retiring as Chicago Tribume music critic at age 62.

Still gonna do radio show

I liked his book Ripped.

I wonder if Chicago Tribune will hire a replacement

My guess is they will appoint a nominal replacement, but everything I hear I hear out of there is dire. DeRogatis's wife worked in the arts section, and she just took a buyout, too. Budgets (and assignments) have been decimated.

Chicago Tribune has done itself no favors. Just running itself into the ground for the last decade plus. Endorsed Gary Johnson ffs. Best wishes to Kot who is by all accounts an incredibly good human.

A friend tweeted "I honestly don't remember a time when Kot wasn't the pop music critic of the Trib," which is the same for me. He'd been in that role since 1990. I haven't read his Trib reviews in a while, but I'm a longtime Sound Opinions listener, and I've always been super-impressed with his thoughtfulness and the range of music he's open to (including jazz and international stuff).

In other news , the Ringer that has some music coverage, has unionized, but it also got bought by Spotify.

This applies to any kind of online writing.

I'm sure most do already, but if you have any kind of writing on a blog or a web page, I'd start backing it up on a flash drive or something. I was thinking that some of these platforms just aren't going to survive this. You would hope they'd give notice, but you never know. I've had a homepage on Tripod (true!) for 20+ years, so--always figuring they'd disappear overnight one day--I've already done this, and also with a couple of WordPress-related things.

I should do that Clemenza. A few publications I have written for , changed how the archived material, so the articles are now gone , although the publications are holding on.

The Austin-American Statesman has eliminated the music/arts writer position of Joe Gross who had been there full time for 18 plus years, and writing for them for nearly 20. Joe also wrote a 33 & 1/3 on Fugazi ‘s In on the Killtaker

I haven't had contact with Joe for 25 years, but he contributed to a couple of issues of a fanzine I put out in the '90s--hasn't he been with Rolling Stone, too?

yes.

have been more or less continuously burnt out since 2013 but lately it seems particularly bad (not helping: all the opportunities I've squandered that might have improved outcomes for me)

Sorry about that. It's rough out there

there just seems to be no winning. either you write a lukewarm-to-negative review and are yelled at for years (I'm still hearing from j*hn m*yer fans) from stans, or you write a positive review and are yelled at because you couldn't force yourself to dislike an album by an artist the internet has deemed a "plant" (a label that seems to be applied incredibly selectively, out of the pool of people it could be applied to). and that too has no statute of limitations

(or you don't write a review and then are yelled at because you aren't approaching it the right way and aren't "grounded in music," as we have seen)

The internet is full of idiots who will yell at you regardless. The only person you need to please as a critic is yourself (and obviously your commissioning editor).

A shitty Britpop band started a hate thread about me on their official Twitter page last week in response to an NME review I wrote 21 years ago. The thread was full of people saying horrible, shitty things about me that bore no relationship to reality, and a few of these numbnuts started posting messages on my personal website. It was annoying, but it died out a couple of days later, and it doesn't matter. Don't let these assholes get you down, Katherine - you can't win with them, and they don't deserve your concern or attention. Just write the review that aligns closest with how you feel in that moment. That's all you can do. If they don't like it they can choke on it.

that's awful, I'm really sorry

(that said, in the latter case, it isn't coming from "idiots" but colleagues I respect. and yet I cannot force myself to dislike the artists in question or think their music is bad. shaming has not accomplished it.)

You shouldn't! And if those colleagues aren't idiots then they'll respect that you won't dislike those artists just because they won't. I know this sort of thing can be rough, especially as a freelancer. But in the end, the only thing you can do is be true to yourself and let the chips fall when they may. You have to believe other people will respect your fidelity to your own beliefs, and if they don't, well, you could never have won them over anyway.

The Shed Seven thing was more bizarrely amusing and a depressing index on how thick huge swathes of people can be, really. The thing that bummed me out was this insinuation that, even 21 years ago, I was some kind of cynical hack out to take bands down and be cruel, when actually I've spent most of my career championing lost causes and leftfield artists. (Also, the review they were pilloring me for was legit awful, so I didn't even want to defend myself). But at the end of the week I had a conversation with one of my favourite artists who told me that a question I'd asked him and his bandmate in an interview a year before had helped them confront issues in their relationship, and led to them making music together again. It's that sort of thing that really matters, not the yelling from people who don't like what you like.