Is music journalism really a career for an adult?

Making a living as a sports writer is the zenith of juvenile. But there's tons of adults doing it.

As for the semantics debate of my use of the word "adult", maybe that wasn't really what I meant.

I suspect yez understand me anyway.

So if writing, and not specifically music writing, is your passion, you'll want to start thinking about other things you could cover to supplement or replace your music work.

But you know, you're not exactly "committing" to it - you could try it and just see where it leads. You might end up writing steadily for one of the three or four music publications that are worth reading, and really enjoy it. You might do it for a few years and decide to get into the industry. You might have a lot of fun and see a ton of free concerts and then go to law school.

I'm not entirely sure I want it to become my life
If you already have doubts I'm afraid they will only get bigger...

As Kafka had it "I live for the struggle for it is all I know." Sure his novels aren't exactly a laugh a minute but it's what drove him beyond the paperwork at an insurance company for chirstsake!

that's why i'm currently switching to be an interfax news agency correspondent/translator, ha ha

:::(((

Instead of hunting and scraping for work that I'm not always thrilled with, I work in administration for an art school. I receive a solid salary with benefits, and I never have to worry about hunting for work.

There are certain people who thrive off of this particular hustle, but I'd just like to point out that there are plenty of fulfilling writing jobs out there that don't involve journalism and allow for some artistic license.

Society at large and most grown-ups will tell you not to be a music journalist. And, no, being a music journalist isn't Something Grown-Ups Do. If you're looking for any kind of acceptance from grown-ups (even if you do become "successful" many grown-ups will not acknowledge it as true success, but success as graspable and relevant to them as building a really intricate sand castle or something) from current or future grown-ups, you are not likely to get it. If that kind of acceptance is important to you--if you do not want to be considered eccentric or an outsider by respectable normal grown-ups--do something else.

To be successul as a music journalist (and many other vocations) you pretty much have to be obsessed with it--and in that case you pretty much don't have a choice but to become a music journalist.

I guess I heard more about why you wouldn't choose to be a music journalist than why you would...

especially with organizations that publish research reports -- it's a great way to get that urge out of your system without any of the pressure that comes from being "a writer."

I'm not entirely sure that's true. I think my peers and social superiors would probably have more respect for me for doing this than say, pursuing a more typical "grown-up" path. It's more about whether I would find it rewarding enough to do it long term, or would simply get tired of churning out the same mind-numbing bullshit about records I couldn't give two fucks about.

I suspect I may have just answered my own question right there.

Again, what's the "long-term" anymore? Do it for a couple years and see where it takes you. You'll probably get more real world experience having to interview bands and write under deadlines than at most of the office jobs out there.

and, like, only other oldsters listened to john peel, didn't they? daddio.

this is very true. most people don't follow one career path anymore; that's a holdover from the days when there was such a thing as job security.

OTM

Not adults who pose as Adults in the sense of inveighing on the pop of the day in a condescending bourgeoise tasteful sense but like as an example, a Brad Nelson review I will probably read and enjoy. I mean unless ur the next Carson McCullers your opinions are great but I probably won't glean insight from your efforts to articulate them

This is probably not a v popular opinion but I'm ok w it as polemical ilx posts go lol

*your efforts to articulate them *at age 22*

Obv I encourage young ppl to work at it, I'm just saying I think this thread has the dynamic of criticism upside down

Agree with the above 100%. When I read a headline like "We Need To Talk About (Album)" my immediate response is, "I had that conversation 20 years ago, thanks but no thanks."

you guys hate millennials, it's ok you can say it.

i'm cool w/honest well thought out responses from "millennials" but hot takes without actual intelligence behind them are basically "we showed these four year olds modern art and this is what they had to say"

I am a millennial

When I think about the best critics I've read in any field, their best/most interesting/well developed stuff was largely produced in their 30s +

I mean idk what say Richard Brody's movie reviews were like in his 20s but I love them now & I don't see age being a barrier for me to keep reading him as he gets older

i'm cool w/honest well thought out responses from "millennials" but hot takes without actual intelligence behind them are basically "we showed these four year olds modern art and this is what they had to say"

― nomar, Saturday, July 29, 2017 4:22 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I too am cool w those well thought out responses *in theory* altho I think they're a lot less common than ppl would like to believe. Also, tbf, the editorial hand is very weak right now and a great editor would probably be key in younger writers developing their critical voices early

Phil: I sent you an email entitled: "How do you feel about the new Metallica album?" setting out why - on first instincts - I totally thought it should get a negative review, in what I felt was a jokily OTT manner - hoping to have some sort of discussion with you about it but definitely expecting you to respect a writer/editor relationship and for it to go no further. I was genuinely up for having you change my mind on this matter though - I'm not saying it happens on a weekly basis but it does happen, say, once a month. I had every right to be nervous about you as a potential first time writer for us given that I know you don't really like or respect tQ or me (as a writer or editor) and have been vocal about this in the past. And there it was literally the same day - your issue not taken up with me in the first place but taken straight to a thread for Metallica fans on a message board. I like you as a reviewer, I totally get that you're committed to what you do and I'd still like you to write for us in an ideal world but you insisting on treating this incident like it's Watergate is weak sauce imo. Regular and trusted writers for us get total free reign. Loads of them post here. Go ahead and ask them if you want - there are probably in the region of 15 people. (Any kind of interference is extremely rare. I'm still trying to live down the shame I feel that we ran an absolute drubbing of a really good documentary THAT MY FRIENDS MADE simply because I didn't want to stick my oar in.) None of us interfere with any of the columns at any level - and next to none of the reviews (but there are obvious cases where it would be mad for us not to know in advance what the reviewer thinks of an album, if Luke and I think Monoliths + Dimensions is a clear shoe in for album of the year, we'd be idiots to give the review to someone who hates it). I absolutely have to tread gingerly round new writers for obvious reasons and make no apology for sounding them out thoroughly in the first, second and third etc instances. We've done everything on a position of trust at tQ - I already work an 80 hour week, paying myself less than minimum wage to do the tQ portion of that [world's smallest violin etc.] and yet, even though we're closer to a fanzine than we are to P4k or Uncut, I still found myself having to learn about adding legal disclaimers to emails after this incident. You know - clearly, in retrospect I overstepped the mark and disrespected you as a professional which I'm deeply regretful about - but you not coming to me in the first place and twisting this to make me look like some dead-eyed moral bankrupt is bang out of order, not to mention extremely hurtful.

To the poster above: those negative reviews are the hardest to write. I had to do a Q and A onstage with Andy McCluskey after the OMD drubbing. It was one of the most difficult hours of my professional life. And then there was the Simple Minds review... Jesus. Apparently some Australian radio DJ read it out to Jim Kerr and they had an actual fight on air. And the worst thing about all of this stuff is these people are my childhood heroes. I take absolutely no pleasure in it whatsoever. In fact I find it quite distressing.

Ok what

I think millennials are fine. I'm more wary of people in my generational cohort and older treating them as if they're The Blob.

Do you know what? I'm actually really struggling at the moment due to a recent diagnosis of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, which I only received on Friday after a road accident last November, which has put my ability to keep on doing tQ or carry on writing full stop into question, hence me getting upset in public about something I should be ignoring. I'd really appreciate it if someone could delete this post and the post above. I'm genuinely not in my right state of mind at the moment. Thanks.

Hey, I'm sorry. I was just being an Internet Dickhead because I don't know enough of the context to connect your last post to what others were talking about. I don't know you from Adam or Eve, but I do hope your days get better from here and I didn't really mean anything by that post. Should have put it on the "second thought about" thread. Or nowhere at all.

No foul. I shouldn't be on the internet at the moment. It's my own lookout. And thanks.

I'll just say I really love the Quietus and appreciate what you do

<3 JD

Heavy third to that.

Though it's written by a movie critic, I thought this article provided some interesting insight into the reviewing/rating process. He talks about exactly what the difference is between a two-star and a three-star movie, etc.

Speaking as an "artist" in another medium, I love good journalism and criticism. It has regularly opened my eyes to seeing things differently and informed my creativity. Carry on, jurnos.

how much of "music journalism" is album reviews at this point, anyway? It seems like what people pay attention to (or at least what I see people post about on fb) are interviews or concert or festival reviews. The only album reviews I see getting shared are by obscure acts mostly in the vein of, "Hey someone actually published something about us!"

But I'm not a music journalist, so *shruggy emoticon*

... okay, also obituaries and "scene reports" -- but seriously, I don't really think very many people I know read reviews of widely available popular music, because they can just listen to it themselves for free with nominal effort. Who cares what some writer thinks.

^ yeah. Only time I read a review of something is if it's a new record by an artist I'm psyched about and cannot help but want to know what it sounds like ahead of time.

Obituaries, definitely. Number-one growth industry after wind power.

the original piece sort of tiptoed around this, but there's something very demoralizing about how how this whole discussion cycle started with Kings of Leon and Chance waging proxy-wars-via-employers on twentysomething writers over some "offensive" mildly critical reviews of their work, yet music writers receive far worse pretty much every time they publish anything that isn't glowing (or if it's glowing about the "wrong" artist) and they're told to just get a thicker skin

Whoa man

Brutal words from new MTV president Chris McCarthy re: MTV News, whose staff he fired. It's from this NYT profile: https://t.co/u7aottjQmX pic.twitter.com/9IGAJIviCs

— Andy Dehnart (@realityblurred) July 30, 2017

Though it's written by a movie critic, I thought this article provided some interesting insight into the reviewing/rating process. He talks about exactly what the difference is between a two-star and a three-star movie, etc.

― grawlix (unperson), 30. juli 2017 16:02 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wow, I hated hated hated that article. Zero stars. So wrongheaded about criticism. Though I guess I'm lucky that I pick and choose my reviews as well, so I don't have to think about how Kevin Smith would fit into my rating system. But this description of a four-star film is horrible and convinces me I never need to read that critic:

Every so often, though, I don't have anything to complain about. (It's rare, I know.) The movie starts clearly, and with a strong point of view. The actors disappear into their characters, and the characters have their own emotional logic. The plot is intriguing as it unfolds -- and yet afterwards, often seems inevitable, because it springs directly from the way these people would act. The cinematography and editing and music are both artistic and modest - serving the story stylishly while never only calling attention to themselves.

i bet that guy's a blast on tindr

... okay, also obituaries and "scene reports" -- but seriously, I don't really think very many people I know read reviews of widely available popular music, because they can just listen to it themselves for free with nominal effort. Who cares what some writer thinks.

― sarahell, Sunday, July 30, 2017 9:20 PM (six days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Reviews, historically, were probably only useful within the narrow purview of music nerds - and most people aren't hardcore music nerds - but I still utilize them to figure out who to check out among the vast array of new-to-me artists. I kind of agree with you about artists you already have affection for; no matter what the reviews are for the new War on Drugs record, for example, I'm going to check it out.

welp looks like MTV.com laying off good writers and pivoting to video is really paying off!!

https://s7.postimg.org/oio71kbuz/mtv-stats.jpg

Cool, cool

https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/23/rolling-stone-magazine-culture-council-publication?fbclid=IwAR130Avc5Rgsem1uKWf6l3HLnB70iSzBvzVaqI9Nx0n6WFoNEA1aTz1OSTo

Ugh

At least they've been marking them off separately.

Rolling Stone seeks wallet council to submit for inspection

Every thought leader needs their thought sheeple tbf - just boycott this shitrag and encourage everyone else to do so imo

wow going the Forbes route

One of the best writers I know is an editor at Rolling Stone right now. I honestly feel bad for him, going down with the ship like this.

I dealt with a couple of RS contributing editors recently and they seemed liked pretty good guys as some others that knew them confirmed. Hint: the two of them are best friends since college.

i think im gonna do it

idk just for a year or two, see if it gets my followers up

O_O

https://amp.?fbclid=IwAR130Avc5Rgsem1uKWf6l3HLnB70iSzBvzVaqI9Nx0n6WFoNEA1aTz1OSTo


man I hate it when journalistic outlets run into financial straits in the current publishing environment

lol

The answer for this thread title is “no but it should be”

Otm.

Looked up the lyrics for "Cover of the Rolling Stone" and made an attempt at a Rob Sheffield-style rewrite. ("Thoreau is like Ralph Emerson/Ralph Emerson is what I read!") Quickly gave up--virtually impossible to work in "Just to be clear, you'll be paying them."

Rolling Stone rescinded my job offer after I attempted to negotiate the salary. https://t.co/FVRCQRKaaN

— kate lindsay (@kathrynfiona) January 22, 2021

I don't know if anyone gets Todd Burns' Substack newsletter, but this was pretty funny in this morning's:

Corrections Department

Last week, I wrote that Rolling Stone is paying thought leaders to write for them. It is, in fact, the opposite. Rolling Stone is asking thought leaders to pay Rolling Stone to write for the magazine. Which is, uh, quite a difference.

OnThisDay 1978: The Clash’s Joe Strummer and Rick Wakeman from Yes discussed the press with music journalists Nick Kent and Ray Coleman. pic.twitter.com/dGfF2SbX4e

— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) May 20, 2021