On Music Writing

For example, what's the point of your piece? You mention only two actual music-writers, and no actual writing in specific. You aren't examining music-writing, you're examing the idea of writing about music. And you don't detail the ways in which writing about music is different from writing about cooking, or any other sensual activity, so the whole thing reads, to me, like a stilted recap of Aristotle or Wittgenstein.

Plus, I have the unpleasant sensation that you've read your own sentence about making room for your own brilliance, and are trying to occupy it yourself, not noticing that you yourself are the thing you most have to push out of the way...

The kind of music writing which is addressed here is novel, it speaks to a strange lineage that didn't exist before we (ilm, included) built it. I don't know that said writing requires revolutionary philosophical thought, but there are traps, limitations, and possibilities that perhaps communities of writers could consider, thus improving their own work. That's all.

But even if I take your stated intent at its face value, wouldn't your essay have been better if it had had examples? It's hard to do much with such an abstract, reference-less piece.

Perhaps there comes a point when you have to accept whatever limitations writing carries if you want to free yourself of them (at least internally). Furthermore, you're suggesting that writing will carry the same limitations for everyone - seems like it would depend on the writer more than the words. 'Meaning' is the key, in music or writing, and there is no accounting for taste or interpretation. (IMO, music can suggest; words can both suggest and define - but the power of any suggestion will vary from person to person, moment to moment.)

First, you're writing about writing, and therefore have a stronger than usual duty to make your writing stylistically good. I don't think it is. I presume you're apeing the literary or film theory you may have been subjected to at school: "The act of writing about music is a proposition to articulate a conduit between people and the musical events that they have not experienced firsthand, or of which they have an incomplete cognizance." That sentence typifies your style and is just verbose, obfuscatory, overly complex and in general not at all user-friendly. I would have put something like this "Music writing is an attempt to connect people with music they have either not heard, or about which they know little."

Second, your point that music writing cannot replace the experience of music listening is something of a truism. You go on to add that it is only worthwhile when it is brilliant. Again, either a truism or not properly explained, and no real demonstration of what brilliant writing is. Finally, you say music writing should be to music as poetry is to life/death/nature. But you're incredibly vague about that relationship. Poetry is "an exercise in language which succeeds when its brilliance transcends innate limitations" - that seems contradictory to me for a start. And does good poetry always "stand in eternal reverence to a fixed subject"? What about the poetry of nihilism and despair? Is "The Wasteland" standing in eternal reverence to a fixed subject? I think you just thought that line sounded good.

I'm really, really sorry to be so damned negative because I know how difficult it is to write, and I've probably hurt your feelings writing all this, but I hope my criticism is constructive at least and gives you something to chew on as a writer.

ben

great piece in the WSJ today about the lack of negative album reviews in recent years: https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-happened-to-the-negative-music-review-1502535600

(voiceover) it was not great

paywall shit.
however, luke turner from the quietus wrote a similar rant a few weeks ago.
interesting times.

i'm not a subscriber and i usually get blocked by the paywall, dunno how i got thru this time. i thought it was interesting, and i like how they singled out that Everything Now review. that review was really a breath of fresh air

I can't read the article, but album reviews skewing positive seems like a trend that's getting more pronounced. One of the sites I used to frequent often, Allmusic, is kind of the worst offender nowadays. I still use the site for older reviews, but I don't know what it takes to get a sub-four star review. Now maybe John Mayer's newest album is a near-masterpiece. Someone want to listen to it and let me know?

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-search-for-everything-mw0003025097

according to the people sending me hate mail from now until the day I die it is

8 out of 10 Rolling Stone reviews published since 2015 have been 3 1/2 stars

few simple reasons: music is so good these days it's truly the golden age of music, also music writers are happier than ever before