Rolling Music Writers' Thread

yeah, but i had to turn them down b/c i have a three-thousand word, animated gif-laced piece on The National i'm trying to finish up so i can offer it up to My Old Gorilla Vegan O_O

Klosterman's ten points is one of the best parts of this feature so far

Klosterman's #1 took the words right out of my mouth as I went through this. The most common thing I disagree with among these is the idea that you need to be obsessed with something to be good at it. What nonsense!

you need to be obsessed with something to be good at it

I actually wanted to ask everyone here what they thought about the idea of "obsession" that kept creeping up in a lot of people's comments in the first two parts of this series. I think it's a given that you should be pretty obsessed w/ music if you're going to be a music writer, but what is it that turns a music obsessive into a music critic?

You start writing sentences in your head and you can't wait to share your thoughts with people.

Or, in a more personal register, what made any of you who are music critics want to channel your obsession w/ music into criticism?

xpost

I've mostly skimmed this but I'm not reading "you have to be obsessed with music to write about it well" in it so much as "you have to be obsessive in order to try to make a living at it, especially now."

Okay, I'll ask the question (for Pete and others): Can you name some examples of people who are not obsessed with music, yet write well about it? (I might have a couple in mind -- people who, say, know how to work writing about music into the course of writing about other stuff -- though I'm not sure they're music critics, per se'. And of course, being obsessed with music doesn't preclude obsession with other things as well.) In general, though, I'd say being obsessed helps a lot; it's hard to write with a strong voice about something you don't care about. Curious why Pete would think that's such a crazy idea.

And maybe that goes along with what Matos just wrote: I can name individual, isolated pieces about music that I love, written by people who only have a casual relationship to music. But it's hard to think of people who have made a career out of it, and who consistently made me care about their writing, who didn't seem like they had to be writing about music, and would be doing it even if nobody paid them.

Some of my favorite music writers are friends who, while they don't see themselves self-consciously *as* music writers, nevertheless write very well and perceptively -- they turn their own appreciation of music and its impact into something that is meant for private communication and discussion rather than the public sphere (none of them are employed as writers in any capacity). This said, I'd guess this doesn't reflect a difference in music obsession so much as it does a difference in how to channel it.

"but what is it that turns a music obsessive into a music critic?"

chuck made me do it.

re :interviews...surely in the blogging age, the hard and fast rules don't apply anymore ?

I like the idea of a conversation between equals rather than a third person distancing of the writer and the pedestaling of the subject ?

or is that part of maintaining the mystique, the symbiotic relationship between music makers and music press, the smoke and mirrors of trad writing/hype ?

chuck made me do it.

Too true.

re :interviews...surely in the blogging age, the hard and fast rules don't apply anymore ?

I like the idea of a conversation between equals rather than a third person distancing of the writer and the pedestaling of the subject ?

or is that part of maintaining the mystique, the symbiotic relationship between music makers and music press, the smoke and mirrors of trad writing/hype ?

Fuck the "mystique" of an artist... they're just a person who makes music, good or bad. I never try to put the artists I interview on a pedestal. I will admit some don't like that — some want to be thought of as cooler, more interesting, more mysterious than you — but I don't care.

xpost: I meant you don't have to be obsessed with writing, or writing about music, to be good at it or enjoy it. I interviewed Christopher Hitchens 18-odd years ago, and he said something to the effect that you should write because you have to, not because you want to. I never felt that way.

Or maybe I just write enough that I never go through withdrawal.

Guess I'm not really grasping Hitchins's point there; seems ambiguous to me -- by "because you have to" does he mean "to pay the bills" or "because you're compulsive about getting your thoughts out there"?

he means that you were BORN TO WRITE. that you would die if you couldn't write.

Well, it's very possible I didn't skim them closely enough, but weren't most of those critics in that piece more recommending being obsessed with music (and your thoughts about it) than being obsessed with writing per se'?

kinda like when people say: if i weren't doing x y or z for a living i don't know what i would have done. become a serial killer or something. (don't know who was the first person to say if they couldn't write/paint/be in a band/whatever that they would have become a serial killer. but it got a lot of mileage)

I think it was bix beiderbecke who said it first.

probably.

Pete, did your father write the song "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love"?

probably an unrelated Peter Scholtes...

Well, it's very possible I didn't skim them closely enough, but weren't most of those critics in that piece more recommending being obsessed with music (and your thoughts about it) than being obsessed with writing per se'?

This, to me, is basically the reason why there is so much bad music writing out there. You need to as obsessed with writing (and reading! and not just about music!) as you are with music. Otherwise you're just a superfan.

one thing that always perplexed me as an magazine editor was the relatively large number of music writers who weren't remotely interested in writing or reading as anything other than a means to an end.

Agreed; guess I'm just not clear on how being "obsessed" with writing is the same as being good at it, or developing a personal voice or whatever. I was an editor for years, obviously, and some people say a pretty good one, but writing isn't something I really spend time thinking about. At least not consciously.

ray romano TOTALLY never read a book on everyone loves raymond. he was like anti-books.

what about musicians who don't listen to a lot of music. i used to think that was strange, but i guess it makes sense. you make your own, what more do you need?

I'm sorry, to me it's weird that someone can say they like writing but doesn't read.

xhuxk you think about writing when you're doing it which is more than I can say for some people I worked with. being obsessed w/craft is how you develop a voice, IME anyway.

i guess it could be like, some writers don't like reading reviews or whatever of an album that they're gonna review before they write their own review -- maybe it's sort of the same thing for musicians, don't want their own ideas to get infected or w/e

so many of my favorite critics aren't even music writers. They're not even critics.

i remember reading that book (of columns) that whatshisface from the new york times wrote where he interviews jazz musicians about their favorite songs/albums (still my all-time fave nyt feature) and so many of them said that they didn't listen to much music at all. especially new music. but a lot of them had been making music tirelessly for decades, so, again, it seemed understandable. everyone except pat metheny. he listens to everything.

i almost always prefer reading a musician on music. rather than a critic.

critics on musicians > musicians on critics

truth bomb

I guess the thing I'm really interested in -- and I was struggling to formulate this clearly upthread -- is finding out exactly what it is that drives critics to want to be critics. Because, at least it seems to me, that both critics and huge fans of music share the appetite for consuming a lot of music, but there's something about the first group of people that makes them want to try to grapple with the music in words, whereas the second group is content to listen without engaging with what they're listening to in that way.

A lot of us post here and like to talk at least somewhat critically about music, but aren't necessarily critics. So there's also some in between space between someone who just listens to music and someone who produces professional reviews, interviews, features, etc.

Well, in my case, I was a writer and journalist first (or on my way to being one anyway), writing about all sorts of other stuff, before I was a music fan, much less a critic. So when I started being obsessed about music, writing about it was inevitable.

And somehow, music criticism is where I really found my voice. If I'd found a distinctive voice writing about, say, sports or local zoning commissions or whatever, my career path might have changed drastically.

Like most things, passion separates the dabblers from the pros. I've freelanced for more than ten years and served as an editor for an online zine yet have published less in the last eighteen months as magazines shut down and weeklies change standards; but I recognize that had I wanted to make a serious go of it -- devoting myself entirely to publishing -- in 1998 I could have done it. I'm too attracted to material comforts to want to live in honorable poverty though. Now I pay a mortgage.

Material comfort is a sinecure too.

xpost

interesting. the music obsession and vague urge to write came to me at exactly the same time, right around age 12. I was obsessed w/books as soon as I could read.

Also: like a lot of people music and film writing were always sidelines for me. I write fiction yet the stuff I wrote, so to speak, with my left hand got published first.

I was obsessed w/books as soon as I could read.

Yeah, except I was also obsessed with writing as soon as I could read.

That makes total sense, xhuxk.

Like most things, passion separates the dabblers from the pros.

Could you expand on that a bit, Alfred? It seems like some pros, at least, don't really have a passion for the writing, whereas some amateurs do. Not that that's true in most cases, obviously, but.

"Determination," "stubbornness," or "not minding a certain constriction of your standard" of living" are more accurate.

Makes total sense. Thanks.

i was always kind of obsessed with art AND artists. even as a little kid. i loved reading about painters and writers and musicians, etc. how people created things was as fascinating to me as what they created. seemed like magic to me. and i always wanted to know more about it.

I was a writer and journalist first (or on my way to being one anyway)

It was easier for me to be a general interest newspaper journalist because it was easier cultivating professional relationships with local newspaper editors than it was trying to pitch to music editors when I started. The work allowed for a lot more production and development just through getting things done on a daily basis. Plus, the newspaper people I worked for largely thought very poorly of rock critics. Deserved or not.

However, a lot of that experience was a complete waste, or completely wasted, with regards to free-lance music journalism. And as far as I can tell, in anyone it would be totally wasted now.