Professional Music Writers?

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Call me slow, but it only just sunk into me, reading this thread that many contributers here are professional music writers.

So, what I'm wondering is what online resources like ILM mean to you? Obviously you can write what you want without being stiffled by editorial control. On the other hand, I guess you don't get paid for your contributions here. (Although a smart magazine might pay a good music writer a retainer to post here, with a standard .sig linking to the magazine. I'd be more likely to buy a magazine which featured essays by someone I knew and respected on ILM.)

In the tech. field, many people have started writing books, posting their drafts online, getting early reader feedback, and refining it. (For example Dave Weinberger's Small Pieces, which I bought, despite reading it's online genesis.) So are any of you pro-music writers trying the same with your music books?

Another thing I believe, is that there really could be a market for selling edited exrtacts from ILM. (I also think this is quite legit.) Are any of you thinking of trying to make a book out of ILM highlights?

In general, what's the value of ILM to you as a professional writer?

― phil, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Reasuring. Makes clear that wherever there's a wheel, somebody will try to reinvent it

― dave q, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

huh?

― phil, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

what i get from ilm is a dynamic mixture of ppl liking my stuff (validation: totally not to be sniffed at) and ppl hating it, or anyway aggressively and unapologetically not getting it (responding to smart yet antagonistic readers = you find better ways to say it) (or else quietly kill it when you realise you are just WRONG, heh)

MASSIVELY PRETENTIOUS CLAIM ALERT: posting on ilm is the closest writing ever came to live free improv!! (haha like when lester b. was invited to type his review on-stage during the set by [oh i forgot])

― mark s, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I meant a lot of posts seem to come around again and again, worded slightly differently each time, and all can be detected as paraphrases from CritGuide 2002 Ed. This is a good thing, means there's still lots of ground to be dug up and fertilised or burnt or radioactivated or have vast useless edifices built on it

― dave q, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Although a smart magazine might pay a good music writer a retainer to post here, with a standard .sig linking to the magazine.

Not on dis planet.

― sv, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

like when lester b. was invited to type his review on-stage during the set by

J. Geils Band

― sv, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't really write about music anymore, but I did when I started posting here. I guess it's just an opportunity to blow off steam in an informal environment--sort of the virtual equivalent of talking about records over a few beers or something, an activity my weekly schedule doesn't really allow for anymore. In past I have gotten the occasional useful nugget of info here as well.

― Lee G, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Well if was asked before, where's the link?

More importantly, I bet there are lots of subtle facets to my question that you just didn't get :-) and that make it quite different from the previous, superficially similar questions. (That's a challenge to prove me wrong btw. ;-)

― phil, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Uh-oh, big misunderstanding here - I wasn't commenting on Phil's excellent question, but on themes expressed in most of the RESPONSES to threads in general

― dave q, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Oh .... you mean ILM is "reassuring"? Sorry, shouldn't be so quick to take offence :-)

― phil, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I am, for lack of a better term, a professional music writer, and although I post infrequently, I find the access to various writerly types on ILM nothing short of invaluable. In fact, I've recently come to the somewhat worrisome realization that I'm much more entertained when I'm reading criticism ABOUT other music criticism than I am when I'm skimming standard po-faced, dime-a-dozen, crit-cliched 'music journalism'.

As a result of being here, I've realized that the real problem with music writing (ie. what's so mindbogglingly tedious about 95% of it) is that print (almost by definition) is not conducive to facilitating the exploration of any given thread. That means that even the best writers out there (and they are few) are only ever capable of *posing* questions. ILM, by its very nature, has the ability to at least (attempt to) answer them.

I think the fluid process of arriving at that answer (ie. solidifying, contextualising, defending) is really the essence of what critical writing has always aspired to be - ILM reminds me of that. For those reasons, it's completely indispensable.

(Except when it's totally and utterly dispensable, natch...)

― Mark, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm only an amateur music writer (I'm still a student, y'see), but I was thinking: is the reason that ILM is so much better for music criticism than 99.5% standard music-crit outlets because it's organic? If something's wrong, we don't have to wait a week/fortnight/month for the next issue for someone to say so.

Indeed, do you think you could publish these threads as they are and call them full blown criticism?

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Da Capo Publishing is attempting to do that w/ a thread discussing the Strokes' popularity. However, in doing so, they've taken out all the idiosynchratic bits (the in-jokes, the tangents and diversions), and made the "thread" into a sub-academic discussion on the topic. A bit dry, and more than a bit dull.

The strength of this forum (right now, in my head) is the relaxed, casual atmosphere - trying to present the ideas offered here in a more professional, rigid manner misses the point, I'm afraid. The in- jokes and silliness are just as important as the critical thinking and the philosophical banter.

― Daver, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

(stronger: in-jokes and silliness NOT DISTINCT from critical thinking or philosophy)

― mark s, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Thus, to carry over a thought from another thread, Socrates joshing with Alciabides (do I have that spelled right?) and his catamite of choice.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

alcibiades

haha "joshing"

― mark s, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

hey now!

I like mark not-s's answer

― Josh, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Joshing as opposed to marking!

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

( in-jokes and silliness NOT DISTINCT from critical thinking or philosophy
all philosophy? always thought it was more recent thing ((i don't want to use the ole PM again))... hence my dislike as i am paranoid. hah! ANYWAY i am off to munch on attali's noise... )

― nathalie, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Why not munch on his nose?

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

nath there are jokes in the socratic dialogues! and on the level of 'haha your mom fucked a dog' (well kinda) only in the form of TWISTY ARGUMENT

― Josh, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

This has got me thinking.

As a corollary to the recent lament re: the ever-depressing lack of decent music mags, I wonder if there'd be a place for a publication whose stated mandate was to aim for the type of back and forths that have become so native to ILM. So, rather than, say, a straightforward Wilco piece (complete with the requisite fluffer PR bit about how they done stuck it to the man and YHF is a triumph and blah blah blah), you arrange for a simple back and forth between music critic #1 (wilco fan), music critic #2 (wilco skeptic - the recent village voice review comes to mind), perhaps a wholly disinterested but nonetheless insightful third party (mark s - you busy?) and, say, Jeff Tweedy.

Now, have a conversation. Level accusations. Discuss. Defend.

I don't know if it would work, but it certainly sounds like a more interesting read.

― Mark, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

And, moreover, certainly a format that's inherently more engaging and thought-provoking than 95% of the bog-standard, journo-by-numbers (guilty as charged!) 'stories' that we're choking on now.

― Mark, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

As long as you leave Bill Maher out of it, I'd read it.

Thing is, three critics vs one artist is likely to provoke a lot of deeply-rooted conflicts between the two types, and eventually will fizzle to the point no artist will agree to participate.

On the other hand, I'd be lying if I said I didn't look forward to the day critics and artists didn't have to own up to their opinions of each *to* each other.

― dleone, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

You could muck with the formula to an almost infinite degree, though. Three is a pretty arbitrary number; if circumstances dictate, there might only need be for one.

I think artists would only be deterred if they sensed a continual ambush, which really needn't be the case. It doesn't even have to be an us vs. them thing, really.

In a very utilitarian sense, one of music media's abiding allures comes down to simple matters of access. Imagine what access could yield if used properly...

― Mark, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah, I didn't really want to imply us vs them, other than to say 3>1. However, given the kind of responses I've read in threads about intent, influence and the like, it seems to me there are some contradictory attitudes about art/music that critics and artists have in general that would flare up in this kind of discussion. Again, I would love to see it play out -- though I have to admit, I have an instinctive urge to see artists somehow invalidate critic(ism)s, more than I do to see critics have their valid points make impressions on the artists. And I'm sure that is the topic for another thread, some other time.

― dleone, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

That sort of thing has been tried before, and not in some indie slum. For a while, VH-1 had a show called Four on the Floor in which four rock critics faced each other in four matching armchairs and talked over the latest big music news, trends, releases, etc., and at the end each one got to recommend/capsule review a record. I sorta dug it for the back-and-forth, despite they fact that they spent a lot more time talking about Mariah Carey than whatever I was listening to at the time--and they only had a half-hour to begin with, I recall. But obviously hardcore music nerds are not an especially large or valuable demographic for advertisers, so it didn't last long.

Also, don't Chicago-based crits Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot do a Siskel-and-Ebert-style rock-crit radio show? I read a transcript of one show once and it seemed like it'd be a bit of a jack-off party, but I've never heard it, so I really couldn't say.

― Lee G, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

― adam, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

The BBC's "Late Review" is a great "arguing critics" program. And it has Tom Paulin!

I think where ILM scores over this kind of thing, is in the sheer number of people available to comment. It isn't n reviewers forced to talk about whatever comes up. Here we have a pool of hundreds (maybe tens of thousands) each of whom pile-in and discuss *only* when they really care.

― phil, Saturday, 22 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

we have tompaulin!! (well, one of them) (on ile)

― mark s, Saturday, 22 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

eleven years pass...

http://www.altweeklies.com/aan/culture-editor-at-creative-loafing-atlanta/JobPosting?oid=7639873

Creative Loafing Atlanta, the 42-year-old award-winning alt-weekly that shares a home with OutKast and the world’s busiest airport, has an immediate opening for a Culture Editor.

Applicants must be accomplished writers/editors with at least three years of experience working in the journalism industry.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 24 April 2014 01:25 (ten years ago) link

"world's busiest airport" is an oddly sad phrase

― Doritos Loco Parentis (Hurting 2), Thursday, 24 April 2014 01:28 (ten years ago) link

How does this position compare with that of Dalkey Archive intern?

― Kilgore Haggard Replica (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 24 April 2014 01:31 (ten years ago) link

That ad specifically doesn't mention music as part of the job. CLATL has a separate position for music.

Or maybe I am missing the point here.

― alpine static, Thursday, 24 April 2014 07:37 (ten years ago) link

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 24 April 2014 11:58 (ten years ago) link

six months pass...

A meditation on the present state of things, with a lot of familiar names quoted:

http://ajr.org/2014/11/13/music-critics-role-changing/

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 13 November 2014 14:59 (nine years ago) link

http://www.quotecollection.com/author-images/dame-edna-everage-2.jpg
Cling on!

― Junior Dadaismus (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 15 November 2014 13:58 (nine years ago) link

Sorry

― Junior Dadaismus (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 15 November 2014 14:29 (nine years ago) link

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