Rolling Music Writers' Thread

oh there are some hilarious writers out there but the ratio of genuinely funny writers to writers who think they're funny but don't really progress beyond snide and sarcastic = roughly 1 : 10000. it's pretty telling that the closest i get to funny is when writing about something i hate or don't care about - there's no way i can be be funny about something i love, none at all.

lex, two questions before you send that email:

1) Are you getting paid for this review?
2) Does this mag/site specialize in light-hearted, witty commentary (ie, like a Blender or Complex or Vice) or is it something that can usually be a little dry?

1) yes
2) hmm it might like to think it does but i don't think i've ever laughed at it. and it's not like my copy is totally dry and humourless, it's quite casual, just without any snide, obvious, mocking jokes.

what pisses me off most is that they acknowledged that it's smart and well-written but they'd rather have lame, stupid humour.

I avoid puns & laboured witticisms as well but there's nothing wrong w/a little light irony or sarcasm imo. just something like an off-the-wall simile helps the reader get an idea of where you're at with the review.

Well if you're getting paid, I say suck it up and write the way your editor and his or her audience wants.

In this case I don't think it means putting in a bunch of bad puns, maybe just making it read a little more breezy and casual and conversational

Well if you're getting paid, I say suck it up and write the way your editor and his or her audience wants.

no offense man but fuck this. stick to yr guns, lex.

Yeah, editor sounds like a dipshit. I've edited the hell out of people, but I don't think "add more jokes" was ever what I asked for. And I'm somebody who's probably used irony, sarcasm, and bad puns a lot in my writing over the decades (sure they work, sometimes), but I'm kind of with Lex here anyway -- have always hated when I was told to be funny. Sorry, moron, but that's now how humor works, unless you want it to come out sounding really, really forced and stupid. (Which isn't to say that I wouldn't give in and give it a shot, sometimes, because I need a paycheck. Just wouldn't respect myself in the morning, if I did.)

solution: i am adding one sentence, to make a really lame joke about an artist's twitter account. that's all i got for them in terms of humour.

re: "conversational", my writing pretty much IS how i converse, minus the ums and ers and swearing. i could put the swearing back in if they want.

that would help i'm guessing

nah it wouldn't fly, i've had swears taken out before, even mild ones like "bullshit", also that time i tried to call la roux a cunt in print ;_;

are you sure you're not a laff riot?

xp meant "that's not how humor works...." etc.

Fwiw, I probably suggested specific jokes or puns or sarcastic lines for certain writers I was editing, but only if I thought it would fit into their personal voice. Why you'd want to add them to a writer who clearly didn't have a use for them is beyond me. ("Hey Gary Giddins -- you could really liven up this week's column on Roy Haynes and Max Roach with a couple poop jokes, don't you think?")

weirdly i'm pretty confident about my ability to make people laugh IRL, but just have no clue about how on earth to translate that to writing.

"Hey Gary Giddins -- you could really liven up this week's column on Roy Haynes and Max Roach with a couple poop jokes, don't you think?"

actual LOLs

dear any young cats who get all up-in-arms when you're asked to rewrite: the sooner you learn not to take it personally, the happier you're be and the better you'll write

when I think about the ok-at-best shit I used to go to bat for, I cringe

oh i am absolutely not one of those people who's precious about my writing, am happy to take on board actual worthwhile and specific suggestions, and 90% of the time don't care about subbing changes (which can backfire when i get so blasé that i don't check, and it turns out they've totally changed the meaning of something). being asked to be funny or light or humorous is just the one thing that raises my hackles. partly cuz i see so much LAZY "light" writing and it's infuriating to see editors still wanting to focus on that style.

in general getting up-in-arms over being asked to rewrite IS precious - nothing worse from an editor's (or reader's) POV than some greil marcus jr writing a record review that reads like finnegan's wake, hell it's bad enough when the real greil marcus does it. the point I want to make here is that some music writing in the wake of rob sheffield and blender has a "humorous" tone that sounds forced and phony IMHO - like an editor instructed the writer in the way the lex experienced. feel free to consider me humorless old geezer.

as sympathetic as i am to general hatred of forced breeziness i dont really see why my feelings should enter into what is essentially a business transaction

i mean i "see" why but i dont really "see"

max, this is art of pretend disingenuousness here

yeah yeah yeah

this is something i think about a lot, obviously. my feelings about my own 'integrity' w/r/t the things i write on a regular basis. so i am trying to see it all in a very businesslike way. so i can sleep at night.

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what on earth is "the art of pretend disingenuousness"

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what on earth is "the art of pretend disingenuousness"

anyone have any thoughts on yesterday's Awl piece on freelancing? are things usually really that bad?

http://www.theawl.com/2010/08/seven-years-as-a-freelance-writer-or-how-to-make-vitamin-soup

yes.

worse, in fact.

As a professional freelancer myself, I have no idea how some dude who clearly takes lots of high-paying, high-profile gigs is so perpetually close to financial ruin. I don't have a single outlet nearly as well paying as that guy; AND I pay a higher rent. And still have enough money to go on vacation and buy records and eat at nice restaurants.

No idea where all his money is going.

yeah i was wondering that too! he seemed to kind of elide the chronology of a lot of stuff--like, was he dirt poor the first couple years? or was he dirt poor last year while he was a contributing writer to the nyt magazine and stuff?

haha actually yeah having read it now, i've got some decent/well-known publication names in the old clips file, but anyone with names like playboy on his resume needs to stfu.

I once got paid $100 a word.

Pls give details.

I once got paid $100 a word

that's where his "freinds w/benefits" metaphor kicks in

freelancing means..writing shamelessly sycophantic letters to editors and not being embarrassed

Once, when I was 5, I met Big Bird. He wasn't so big in real life. But I was still glad to meet him. Grown-up to grown-up, I think I’d fare far better with you.

yeah, he made it seem like you're pretty much gonna be poor if you decide to go the freelancing route

Even before I attended the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, I was writing features for Details that were being debated on “The O’Reilly Factor.” I wrote one of the rare freelanced cover stories for the New York Daily News —a school scandal I had pitched to the New York Times only to be told never ever to use the word “scandal” in my pitch (they ended up chasing the story the next day; it took two reporters to re-report my story). I went to the Turkish countryside to write about a 600-year-old Turkish olive-oil wrestling tournament for ESPN. I lived at a research station in the Alaskan Arctic for the Times. I went to Peru for National Geographic. I went to keggers at New York magazine and went to parties with Sigur Rós and the cast of “Saturday Night Live.”

if he parties with the current cast of SNL and Sigur Ros no wonder no one returns his calls.

"You won't believe where I'm calling you from!"

http://www.dankatie.com/pi2002/manila/mla_chilis1.jpg

"Waddup, guys. Here we are coolin it at Chili's with Sigur Ros. The tortilla chip dip is teh awesomez!"

Conceptual reviews - C/D?

Do you like it when people subvert the music review, playing around with its form or trying to entertain the reader with more than the old "sounds like Joy Division/angular guitars" dreck, or is this all a load of meandering Pitchfork-circa-2001 bollocks?

Also - how do you keep your writing fresh and interesting to read? Especially if you're reviewing a lot of releases at a time?

On the latter front -- try and (if possible) limit your formal reviews to one a day. Reduces stress and allows you to concentrate on just that one thing. (Obviously if you have a larger workload than I allow myself then...)

Conceptual reviews - C/D?

just don't

just don't even try

1% of conceptual reviews may work but THAT MEANS 99% DON'T AND ARE THOROUGHLY WORTHLESS.

so don't.

but sometimes its the only way for me to write about a viking metal album. and have fun.

Do you like it when people subvert the music review, playing around with its form or trying to entertain the reader

If the "people" is Scott Seward (or a few other people), then yes, almost all the time. (But if it's other other people, not so much.)

I hate conceptual reviews. Wouldn't run 'em as an editor, and will never write one.

Actually, I don't even really know what "conceptual" means, in this context. You can do all sorts of things, and write about all sorts of things, in the course of a music review. And if you're an interesting writer, you will. And you'll write about the music, too, and if the non-music stuff sticks out like a sore thumb, a good editor will let you know. (If you're not an interesting writer, your review will probably be boring, regardless.)

The trouble with a lot of "conceptual" reviews is that they can be an elaborate displacement activity for engaging with, and reporting back on, the actual music.

Sure. But that doesn't mean that writers with interesting things to say about the actual music should avoid them -- or rather, that the "conceptual" vs., uh, "regular" review battle isn't a false dichotomy in the first place. (Truth is, I almost never read Pitchfork back in the old days, and still don't now. I tend to gravitate toward critics I actually like, many of whom are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. So my stance on this issue might be shaded by that fact.)

xhuxk, I know I've mentioned this to you before, but your willingness, even eagerness (as I saw it) to publish format-busting reviews in the Voice actually kept me from pitching you for years, because I had the impression that it was "house style" and that anything I wrote would be re-edited until it was like that.

That, and the fact that I didn't see you publishing anyone interested in treating metal as anything but a punch line.

You obviously didn't look close enough (both for the non-funny metal writing -- Erik Davis comes to mind, right off the top of my head, but there was plenty, and being funny is hardly always the same as making fun of the music anyway -- and for writers who wrote more "straight" (including jazz guys, Gary Giddins for starters.) Actually, I got some complaints (from Sasha Frere-Jones, for one) that my section covered metal too much. And I sure as hell wasn't going to edit out all of, say, Scott's and George's jokes. But that doesn't mean they don't take loud rock seriously, either. (And so do I. But sorry, it's also funny, a lot of the time.)