Rolling Music Writers' Thread

Anyway, they want to talk to me about the record, what might have set me off, etc.

I'm puzzled as to what they think they might learn that isn't already in the review.

xpost I don't want to doxx the person, but more or less how I put it. A nice note saying they're working on a memoir or some project about their time in this band, and that they've always wondered what the person that wrote this negative review many years ago was thinking at the time. Basically, "what was it about our music that rubbed you the wrong way?" They stress they are not picking a fight or anything, they just think it would lead to an interesting conversation.

So yeah, I'm a little puzzled, too. I have a draft response that says/asks as much, like, what do you expect to learn from me? Even if whatever was driving the review is not in the review, it's not like I remember anything about it (album or writing the review) at all.

Huh. Working on a book seems like a feasible reason for reaching out that I hadn't considered.

Still ... not your problem. And if that's the case, they should say so and what they're hoping to do / get out of it.

xpost that's the thing ... if i were in the same situation and some band wrote me about a review i wrote 10 years ago and wanted to know what i was thinking and all that, i'd have to be like "i was thinking 'goddammit it's 11:30 pm and i haven't started the review i have to write about music i don't care about by a band i know nothing about that was due earlier today and i really want to have it in the editor's inbox when they open their email in the morning so i guess i'm cranking out another one of these from midnight to 3 a.m. in return for a $25 check. at least i have established a little formula i can use to make it easier/quicker, get this done and get 4 hours of sleep before my kid wakes up.'"

obviously not all are that way, but a lot are.

Reading my old review, clearly I put some thought into it, at least a little. But then after that, no thought. Into the ether it went. I don't feel particularly good about playing a part, any part, in someone else's story, and I feel particularly weird that this thing I did then promptly moved on from has stuck with someone else for so long. But I also feel bad leaving this person hanging. Like I said, they seem nice enough.

Chasing someone up about a bad review they gave your band years ago is ludicrous behaviour and should not be dignified with a response, imo. You make a record, chuck it out into the world and some people like it, some don't. Best to accept the opinions, whatever they are!

I think it's nice to have a convo about something like this if theres like 15 years of experience behind it

For them there clearly has been, but for me there's been nothing but the passage of time.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that about you because I definitely think about things very differently than I did 15 years ago!

No, I mean, sure, I get that. I just meant that clearly me writing this review has followed this person for 15 years. But my review and this band specifically had no bearing on my subsequent 15 years.

like, I've had plenty of experiences in the last 15 years, but they have nothing to do with this person. This person has had plenty of experiences in 15 years, but the fact that they reached out to me shows that what I wrote apparently played at least some minimal part of those 15 years.

Yeah, I think it could actually be interesting to go back and look at a review I wrote 15 years ago. It would be extremely likely that I hadn't had a single thought about the record since filing copy, but if it was a for-real review, not just like a 150-word blurb for Alternative Press or something, it might be interesting to look at it with the artist, listen to the record in question again, and maybe find myself thinking "OK, I hear stuff now that I didn't hear then" and get the chance to ask the artist what they were actually thinking at the time they made the record, and how it sounds to them now. If all they want to do is bitch that you used an adjective they disliked back then, fuck 'em, but a conversation about how your opinion of their art all these years later compares to their opinion of it now could be interesting. Hell, that's the kind of thing I could get a whole newsletter out of. Assuming, of course, that the record was in some way interesting and wasn't just by-the-numbers alt-rock dross.

it sounds like he just wants to lecture you or something… delete

I don't know, I've definitely had conversations with people about old opinions. All you're really doing in these situations is giving that person some clarity about the headspace of where it came from.

Honestly pulling a Don Draper and being like "I don't think about you at all" about some '00s struggle band is a lot weirder to me than just answering a few DMs about what your mindset was at the time and what you would or wouldn't have done differently

Would you be reacting differently if an apparently neutral party, like a journalist, wanted to contact you about this same review for something they were writing?

Also like the "why? why do they care now?" is like ... a lot of musicians pour all of themselves into their art at the moment in life where they can afford to do that! There was a time where this person had all of his or her hopes and dreams on this CD. I imagine they've moved on from the dream but still could wonder why you did or didn't hear what they were hearing... Seems valid!

Yeah i suppose i was thinking from a fan’s perspective there

but I legit don't know! it's been 15 years. maybe I had a bad morning. maybe there was something in the news. maybe I just didn't like the record. (I did listen to it this morning, and my reaction was generally the same.) I really don't know.

if it was a journalist, I'm not sure what I would think. regardless, the guy is writing a book, so it is tantamount to journalism. someone I know suggested I request it be off the record, at least at first, until I get a better feel for what's up.

I don't think this person's inquiry is at all not valid. I totally get it. I'm just weighing whether or not I want to participate. the legitimacy of the request is why I'm considering it at all.

Maybe this is a good hypothetical. if any of you wrote a review that caused a band to break up 15 years ago - not saying that is the case, but let's pretend it is - would you want to talk to someone from that band who asked you, however politely, 15 later, to explain yourself?

I mean, for me, absolutely, if only to let them know it wasn't meant in maliciousness and to give a person some clarity about why I felt a certain way.

Like it's only going to be a GOOD and POSITIVE conversation for this person, and I generally would not want to deprive someone politely asking me for 5 minutes of my time to provide something good and positive for them

I've definitely had people step to me about my opinions about their work before, and more often then not, we become friendly just because we're both passionate about this stuff!

"not just like a 150-word blurb for Alternative Press or something".

Hey! I put a lot of thought into those!

Josh - if you genuinely don't remember writing the piece or have anything meaningful to say, maybe just send a brief, nice note saying that? Then they get the satisfaction of a response, and you're being truthful (and avoiding being drawn into something larger).

(I find the inquiry strange, but if they contacted you through a mutual friend, then this may be the way to go)

I would personally lean toward no. What could talking to you really give them at this point? You don't really remember them or the review you wrote, so you can't really give them any more insight into what you thought than the review itself provides. And even if you relistened to the album now and changed your mind about it - so what? That doesn't change what you thought about it when you wrote the review, or invalidate the judgment you made then. It sounds like they're looking for something from you that they won't get and shouldn't expect to get, and I wouldn't feel at all bad about saying, "Sorry, it was a long time ago and I can't tell you anything useful."

someone emailed me once and wanted to know if i would participate in a documentary film they wanted to make about finding all the records on a list i had done for a magazine. i told them i would be busy that day and wished them luck. i like to be done with things.

there are definitely people i would apologize to if i ever saw them. about reviews i had written. because i could be mean.

Was it the Decibel Top 30 noise records list?

People wrote negative things about records I made 15 yrs ago and though I def remember the reviews and who wrote them I have absolutely zero interest in engaging with them or asking them to clarify their positions. That feels...deranged, frankly.

"Hey remember when you said we weren't very interesting and that the band would be better off specifically without me? Hey could you expand on that? Thanks!"

no it was a stoner rock/proto-metal thing. 70s stuff.

thats funny that you mention the noise list though cuz noise nomads came in the other day and i said we should go take a trip up to Lowell to RRRecords on his day off from work. both NN and RRRon were on that list.

chr1sb3singer otm

i mean it doesn't sound like this person is truly deranged, but ... even if you're writing a memoir, man, don't do this. imo.

They'll just copy this thread as a chapter in their band biography to show how music writers really think.

I wrote an absolutely damning review of a collab track between Tiesto and Diplo, and Diplo mentioned the review in a SPIN article nearly two years later— I remember thinking at the time, “really? yr still butthurt over little old me calling your track “aural Santorum”?

recently, a review came out of my writing— it was clear that the writer didn’t really get what i am doing. you thanks the writer for their consideration , don’t promote it, and move on.

I would much prefer a mixed review than the brutally tossed-off one word 'reviews' and ratings on RYM, lol

Someone from a nineties indie band now working in another profession once stopped me in our shared office kitchen and said "Are you djh from [a music magazine]?" and I have to confess I thought "Oh dear fucking God. What did I write about you? Have you made it your life's mission to track me down and assassinate me?" but he just wanted someone to chat about music to. Nice bloke, actually. It probably helped that I'd never actually written about his band.

*If* you respond at all, this would be good:

but I legit don't know! it's been 15 years. maybe I had a bad morning. maybe there was something in the news. maybe I just didn't like the record. (I did listen to it this morning, and my reaction was generally the same.) I really don't know.

if it was a journalist, I'm not sure what I would think. regardless, the guy is writing a book, so it is tantamount to journalism. someone I know suggested I request it be off the record, at least at first, until I get a better feel for what's up.

it would be a courtesy, not an obligation, for JiC to respond to the guy and then accede to how the guy asked nicely for JiC to participate… as Whiney said, the guy and his bandmates most likely put a lot of themselves, if not everything they had, into this project, whereas based on many of the accounts provided above, music writers in the 90s through to the time when the field imploded very often didn't put very much thought or grant much import into the resulting assessments of also ran alt rock bands, or were influenced by shit that happened that day that had nothing to do with what's on the goddamned watermarked promo.

When I worked on staff for TimeoutNY, I could write about what I wanted to, and I very quickly figured out that I would only do negative reviews of acts that were established or incontrovertibly huge (Pearl Jam, Rancid, Grateful Dead) and in my view needed to be taken down a peg. If I didn't like a small fry band's record, I saw no reason why I should heap negativity onto a thing that was likely going to sink into obscurity. I also very often did not say "this record is good/ bad," but tried to say something about the band or act or scene or genre that was novel (I was often rebuked by readers, publicists, musicians, friends, acquaintances, saying 'b-b-b-but you're not telling us whether the Verve Pipe's 2nd record is good or not!")

at TONY, the front of the music section was devoted to live previews, in which you were free from assessing a recording, and could talk about what a band is like, what they mean, and what they are like live. Much Much preferred doing previews to album reviews,

But when I started to review for Rolling Stone, I was most often assigned nu metal or also ran alt-rock acts that big shot reviewers wouldn't bother with, and so I struggled with how to be generous or fair to musicians making a record I don't think much of but whom I have no animus towards…the RS reviews editor had to play nice with major labels, big shot indie publicists and big shot indie labels and didn't like unadulterated pans… I was never asked to change my assessment of any record for RS (I didn't write for Spin during the 90s, but for sure it was well known that the record reviews editors would fuck around with reviews that didn't suit their needs at the time).

I like that policy

I only know one musician who “quit” because of a review. The review was pretty messed up in its cruelty, especially considering the artist’s no-profile. It was really weird, in retrospect

I got a phone call yesterday from a publicist with whom I have a good relationship — I hired him to promote my last book, and will hire him again to promote my new one next year — who was concerned that none of the albums he worked had showed up on my year-end list. I reassured him that while I did like some of the records he sent me this year, and had covered them, when I made the final cull from 65-70 titles down to 50 for the year-end list, some things had to go. Then we had a longer conversation about the kinds of jazz I hate, made fun of a few artists in ways I would never do in print, and we were friends again.

That seems so weird to me. Both the publicist making that call, and the implication that year-end lists might be determined by insider back-scratching rather than critical assessment/brand curation or whatever

Thom always makes a year end list and I always listen to everything on it. I think he has a “no collabs, no friends” policy

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0mrCgHS6wa/?igsh=Z3ZkYjEwa2NhNzdz

Ah I guess this is the “music writers” thread and not the “year end list” thread, my apologies

Both the publicist making that call, and the implication that year-end lists might be determined by insider back-scratching rather than critical assessment/brand curation or whatever

Well, I have joked for years that every major publication's year-end list should go Artist > Title > Label > PR Firm. The simple, ugly fact is that an album that arrives with, say, Nasty Little Man's imprimatur is gonna get more attention from editors than one that's sent in by the artist themselves. It's ludicrous to assert otherwise. Do individual works of great distinction occasionally break through? Yeah, but they're so exceptional in that regard that it's almost a miracle when it happens.

^^^^

The idea that Nasty Little Man has “imprimatur” because guy has a roster of already-wretchedly-famous legacy acts is funny to me but point taken

I only know one musician who “quit” because of a review. The review was pretty messed up in its cruelty, especially considering the artist’s no-profile. It was really weird, in retrospect

― i don’t want this, you don’t want this (flamboyant goon tie included)

Wonder if the review I'm thinking of that fits the profile is the one you're referring to (pitchfork review, female solo artist)

NLM may not be the best example of unperson's point in 2023, but they are 100% correct.

Never mind the power of a well-established PR firm with a "big-but-credible" roster - which at least comes with some history of accomplishment, I guess? - but in the past couple of years I've noticed a seemingly frictionless pipeline between "guy in a cool band doing freelance PR for tiny independent acts" to "coveted spot on prominent website (w/ real revenue potential for the act no less) where guy in cool band doing freelance PR's close friend is an editor" ... guy in cool band's hit rate is insanely high. (To their credit, they are repping really good bands.)

It's not new, certainly. But it helps to know people, as ever.

Also since I very clearly admitted to not putting maximum though into every album review I've written, I just want to say that I spent 15 years following this exact model at a small regional publication ... except I would say that instead of trying to find something novel to say about the small fries, I usually just tried to focus on a strength or two - a moving lyric, a sticky vocal melody, guitar tone, whatever - and be fairly neutral about the rest of the music:

When I worked on staff for TimeoutNY, I could write about what I wanted to, and I very quickly figured out that I would only do negative reviews of acts that were established or incontrovertibly huge (Pearl Jam, Rancid, Grateful Dead) and in my view needed to be taken down a peg. If I didn't like a small fry band's record, I saw no reason why I should heap negativity onto a thing that was likely going to sink into obscurity. I also very often did not say "this record is good/ bad," but tried to say something about the band or act or scene or genre that was novel (I was often rebuked by readers, publicists, musicians, friends, acquaintances, saying 'b-b-b-but you're not telling us whether the Verve Pipe's 2nd record is good or not!")

at TONY, the front of the music section was devoted to live previews, in which you were free from assessing a recording, and could talk about what a band is like, what they mean, and what they are like live. Much Much preferred doing previews to album reviews,

The entire universe of high-stakes reviews, career-making-or-breaking PR campaigns, pressure from publicists, angry calls from artists, etc., etc. that I read about from critics at big pubs in big cities is largely foreign to me.