I know alot of music writers post here...

You'll becomed seasoned and savvy the faster and more often someone rips your nuts off and stuffs them in your mouth. Don't worry, they grow back.

Be prepared to get paid nothing or next to nothing for a long time

This is the contribution of a serious know-nothing. Be prepared to always be paid next to nothing, no matter your experience, if you're a free-lancer in any flavor of journalism.

The best advice you'll get is this: Become a well-rounded hard-nosed journalist. Don't restrict yourself to pop music. Do hard news, do local news, do it all.

If you can't muster up the inspiration to do it simply for the sake of it, quit.

That would seem to be the case, more often than not.

Possibly moderators need to do a little more of this.

that's terrible advice! how many pop writers would make hard-nosed newsmen? and vice versa? financially it's sound, but it's also pie-in-the-sky.

seriously I'd get a blog and post like crazy as well as pursuing every freelance possibility that pops up, despite the low pay.

also take advice from bitter, twisted x-critix w/a grain o'salt.

hahaha.

seriously I'd get a blog and post like crazy as well as pursuing every freelance possibility that pops up, despite the low pay.

tried that, didn't work.

also take advice from bitter, twisted x-critix w/a grain o'salt.

he's right there you know.

email me and maybe we'll swap mixtapes

I could do that. Be a sight better read than bloody Crampton riding his motorbike ineptly around the Lea Valley.

As far as knowing hard news and other trad. journalism, it is definitely a skill that I think is worth acquiring though certainly not necessary. Being able to pay the rent by writing for a newspaper as a staff newswriter can be good while freelancing music stuff.

Also, something that I did that worked well was, I would contact a well known music journalist and ask him if he had time to look at my clips and give me suggestions on how to improve my reviews. even the higher profile critics are more available and open than you would think.

good luck and feel free to email me if you have any more questions.

This is the most important thing. A RELIABLE WRITER IS A PAYING EDITOR'S BEST FRIEND.

Yeah, you know any?

I don't particularly know why you asked that though, Ned.

FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF.

And seriously, good luck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Raggett

He's a punk. Ignore him.

quit now and try something actually lucrative.

Most wise.

Well, yes and no. Depends what you're writing, and for whom. Two biggest ways to improve as a writer:

1) Write for conscientious editors, and ask them why they make the changes they do

2) Read good writers. Of all kinds. Definitely NOT just music critics, and not just journalism either. I know this sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how inbred the reading habits of many writers can be.

Also, you're young. Be poor, have fun, see what you can get away with. Editors are more desperate than you think, and the competition is lamer than you can imagine. If it doesn't work out, you can always get a real job when you grow up.

I don't see any dance coverage!

(Haven't I?)

Anyway, just wondering if it's any different in the UK. Will I have to go around being seen at Maximo Park concerts and write nice things about Antony And The Johnsons? Will I have to burn all my Mansun and Yes albums? Will I have to use the phrase 'saviours of pop' in two-thirds of my articles?

Because if so, I'm off to be a sportswriter, sorry, 'correspondent'. :D

wow, what utter bullshit

Ew

quite a few colleagues. you can probably guess at least two of the places where i used to work.

An Albatross: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/an-albatross-blessphemy/

The rest of em:
http://www.google.com/custom?domains=popmatters.com&sitesearch=popmatters.com&q=ryan+mcdermott&x=0&y=0&client=pub-9081090544391084&forid=1&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&cof=GALT%3A%23FFCC33%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23666666%3BVLC%3AFFCC33%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3A666666%3BLBGC%3A663399%3BALC%3AFFCC33%3BLC%3AFFCC33%3BT%3AFFFFFF%3BGFNT%3ACCFF99%3BGIMP%3ACCFF99%3BLH%3A50%3BLW%3A206%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fpopmatters.com%2Fimages%2Flogo-popmatters-search.gif%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fpopmatters.com%3BFORID%3A1%3B&hl=en

Death Cab For Cutie I have heard OF. Apparently they say that the only reason they make music is Talk Talk's Laughing Stock, which is a good reason and a good start. The opening simile is tasteful and certainly not overwrought, unlike, say, most Pitchfork opening similes. (Brent's 'wizard's cap' moment takes some beating to be fair...) Brian Wilson is hallowed and we all bow our heads in brief reverence at this moment. Ben Gibbard was in Postal Service who have aroused a mixed reception. I thought they sounded kinda cool but didn't actively seek them out. Death Cab For Cutie - they sound pretty indie, they sound pretty. May give 'em a go.

Prefab Sprout's 1985 hit "When Love Breaks Down" is a tearstained, synth-scored paean to that handiest of rock tropes, the break-up. It mourns and it reasons, but ultimately it packs no lasting emotional punch, no soul-searching confessional, no difficult questions. The reason for this is that it attempts to see the break-up from the point of view of the couple, the single, united entity that hitherto lived so peacefully with itself: as the first line of the song says, "My love and I, we work well together". This near-communist approach to romance is all well and good in a wuvvy-duvvy wuv song, but when that song has to deal with the ructions, the points of stress that brought about the relationship's structural failure, it again regards them as mutually equalitative actions; "When love breaks down/The lies we tell/They only serve to fool ourselves". We, ourselves: this is not the language of someone who truly understands the gut-wrenching implications and self-doubting regrets of ending a personal commitment. Only in the second part of the verse does Paddy McAloon offer any personal reflection, and it is entirely his own. Moreover, it is cliched, meaningless, keening tripe: "When love breaks down/The things you do/To stop the truth from hurting you". What about those things you do, eh? You've only given me half a sentence to work with. I feel profoundly unmoved.

The second track of Secret Machines' sophomore album Ten Silver Drops is called "All At Once (It's Not Important)". Already, the title implies something untraceable by the language of a simple song-title; even with a phrase in brackets it leaves much to be said. The verse lyrics are oblique and pained, hinting at a great loss which the vocalist can just about reconcile himself to, but it is the chorus which is the mindblower. The first one has lyricist Brandon Curtis presenting that incomplete sentence of McAloon's in its full self-pitying glory:

Remember back when we first met
It don't mean much
All those things you said, you never meant
It don't mean much
How could I forgive and just forget?
It don't mean much
And all that time we spent I swear we wasted
It don't mean much

OK, so there we have the bile and the bewilderment so lacking in Prefab Sprout's effort. But what happens next raises the song and indeed the album (which has already gotten off to an exemplary start) to a higher emotional plane altogether. An at first low-key, but then soaring, buzzing, swooping majestic bridge starts to pull at the old lachrymose ducts without Curtis uttering a word (his brother being the dude doing the business with that most deliberate of axes), and then WHAM-

'Cause then it's like when we first met
It don't mean much
All those things I said, I never meant
It don't mean much
But how could you forgive and just forget?
It don't mean much
And all that time we spent we said we wasted
It don't mean much

-the tables have been turned and now Curtis is looking at the relationship from the partner's side, admitting his own devious contributions to the affair and wondering how on earth his ex could possibly forgive him. The difference is subtle but remarkably emphatic even on first listen, constituting what I can only describe as a moment of perfect realignment. It is a truly selfless climax to an already arresting song, embodying the whole multi-layered levels of guilt and recrimination in a single two-part package. No 'couple' or 'unity' here, but two individuals who happened to be in the right place at the right time and are now off down their own paths. Moreover, as Secret Machines have already taught us, that path leads exactly where it is led.

*cue rest of review*

Eat that, Pop R...

As for freelancing? Yes, it's rough out there. Lots of very talented people scratching and clawing for limited work. I freelance CD reviews once or twice a month for The Washington Post ... and have a blast doing it. But to attempt to make a living that way, I'd have to develop a serious taste for Ramen. Most of us fortunate enough to have decent-paying music journalist jobs have driven the stakes down deep. Why? Because we feel lucky as hell every day on the job. I paid my dues as a reporter at newspapers for several years before I finally got the gig I wanted. On the other hand, there are many possible paths to be taken. Be patient, work hard and stay focused on the prize. Good luck.

Yup. I'm promoting my own band pretty heavily right now, and it feels weird to be reviewing artists while sucking up to their labels. I'd rather come back when the self-pimping cycle is over.

I had a great gig for awhile, a fat weekly column in a knight-ridder publication --and I had damn near full editorial control.

But even that barely covered rent and after a year - Knight ridder pulled the plug on the mag - leaving me jobless just in time to jump in the van for a year.

That mistake is inexcusable if you've graduated from fifth grade, and is especially inexcusable coming from a music critic.

It is inexcusable that even one music critic gave Creed a favorable review.

(Michael Jordan makes me into a grammar policeman)

1) Get a full-time gig and keep it until it's clear that you can support yourself freelancing. A full-time gig that involves editing and writing is particularly useful.

2) In order to make it in this (or pretty much any) business, you need at least two of the following three things: to be the nicest person in the world, to be totally brilliant, and/or to be always always ALWAYS on time.