Is music journalism really a career for an adult?

I think lgs and ogmors good thoughts on things above are separate to the real issue

Music writing is or may be ok but music writers are bad and should not exist

I was pondering this last night, while drunk.

Or, rather, I was pondering someone's response to it (before I'd read the actual piece).

I find Mr Agreeable style "bootings" a bit boring. I think the struggle is to say something is *okay* (and to engage with it in an interesting way) rather than declare it as great. I do wonder if there's been a slight shift towards positive reviews (that I get to read) because people are quite attached to the idea of free music (from PRs).

I was also reminded how irritating I find it when people tweet their positive reviews to the artist (which I think leaves you in a position of having to write a positive review because you want to tweet the artist).

I've lost count of how many vitriolic Charlie Brooker style "this made me want to rip off my own testicles and eat them" rants I've read in my life. They're always the same and they're always so boring and they always end up telling you more about the writer's own biases and viewpoints than anything insightful about the work.

I've never heard negative reviews referred to as "bootings" before, but this article is completely OTM. When was the last real "booting"? The Jet review of the gorilla pissing into its own mouth?

modern life is snrubbish

this is "i don't like pop" volume 2,000,000 and that obvious vibe undermines anything thoughtful that could be said

nonsense. Most of the music luke takes down is boring indie approved shit.

it's all pop

nonsense. Most of the music luke takes down is boring indie approved shit.

most of the music anyone "takes down" is "boring something approved shit"

it's not about liking or disliking things, it's about the level of engagement

ime it is hard to really hate something and describe it honestly

I don't really need anyone to "take down" anything tbh. But the last 2 bits of music writing I really enjoyed(Adam Shatz on Mal Waldron + Craig Taborn) were in the realm of boring old music for boring old tossers. And both were longform pieces of gushing praise for two extraordinary artiste types I really dig, written by a writer I usually thought was a bit of an arse, tbh. But there is an almost infinite space for whatever people want to write about music, and it doesn't really matter what approach they take. I wouldn't go as far as Dmac, but I would say what music writers do is of very little importance (which Luke doesn't seem to grasp going by the piece linked upthread) and lots of successful ones are very bad! Mind you, maybe a moratorium on all these shit Blair apologist music hacks from the 90's wouldn't go amiss.

Is this the same Luke Turner yhat used yo write for PlayLouder.com back in the fay? Now that was a site that knew how write a goddamn "booting" review. They were funny as hell.

Jesus I can't type today.

où sont les bootings d'antan?

it's not about liking or disliking things, it's about the level of engagement

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Saturday, July 29, 2017 3:54 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ime it is hard to really hate something and describe it honestly

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Saturday, July 29, 2017 4:04 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think the main issue I have with negative take music writing is just this. A lot of it comes off as very dishonest, disengaged, and hyperbolic. Most vv negative reviews I read are extremely terrible, they make me want to refer the writer to a psychiatrist.

i agree with that, a lot of negative takes are crucial misunderstandings of what's actually there, or wilful/accidental inability to see what the defining characteristics or purpose of the music is, ie "why does this not have the properties of another entirely different thing that i like..."

i don't need anybody to tell me what to hate. negative criticism: "this record is bad! you shouldn't listen to it!" ok, then, well, i won't? for the same reason i don't often write negative criticism. if i think an album sucks i don't see the point of drawing attention to it unless somebody is paying me to (nobody is paying me to.) if i'm going to be cruel and vicious, i can think of better things to be cruel and vicious about than some stupid record.

I've never written a record review, but the only sort of negative review I can imagine wanting to write would be one of an artist whose work I've previously liked. I'd need to have that much investment in the material.

also like it's fine to say you'd like to read more negative reviews of stuff that's so obscure it only gets written about by people praising it, but how is a publication supposed to organically find this sort of review? sounds like a recipe for infuriating hot-takes. what if there aren't people out there who actively hate a given thing? it's prob pretty likely for obscure stuff. i think if the original piece had called for better quality of negative reviews as some itt have, that'd be interesting, but as it stands now things most likely to get slated are the things which have been hyped. these "bootings" are just the other side of the same coin.

xpost

i also think the original piece carries an implication, all too common, that somehow other people's positive opinions are deceitful, fraudulent, or not to be trusted.

That opinion is like the version of the Yelp reviewer who rails against a new restaurant and suggests all the positive takes come from friends of the owner or are bought and paid for.

when i hate music, it's generally because somebody is making me listen to it when i don't want to. i mean i could write a review about how gary wilson is a total creeper, but when i go on the train nobody is blasting "6.4 = makeout" at me.

I want a good writer to explain why h/she finds an album, film, or book terrible. That's what I want from criticism.

to add to that - it can be a lot of fun to pan a record, more than it can be to praise a record you like, and when i was younger, before i got burned out on the genre, i enjoyed a good critical lashing as much as anyone. these days i find it more interesting to write mixed reviews of albums that acknowledge both their flaws and successes. such reviews are harder to write, less fun to read, and often lack a "hook", though.

it's way more fun cos it's so much easier

a thoughtful negative review may be even harder than an interesting positive one though, granted, at least it'd appear that way given rarity.

That some people just want to flex their arch-cynic persona, rather than honestly engage with Shed 7 - The B-sides, is quite understandable. But Luke seems to be asking for f/t "whistle-blowers" on everything that he thinks is shite in that piece.

Are record reviews qualitatively different than film reviews? The most famous movie critics from the '60s and '70s, I could cite any number of negative reviews that are among their most passionate and well written.

(To answer my own question, there might be. Music is more abstract, more subjective I'd say, and harder to pin down with explanations.)

i think actually a lot of negative film writing is garbage, for example there was this recent shitty Dave Holmes piece about Valerian kind of epitomizing a lot of what i dislike about that kind of take on movies, and a lot of film writers are just wholly trash (Armond White a prime example), but i think really nasty film reviews can be better are their targets have it coming more often, since there are fewer movies, they're usually representative of something beyond themselves, and especially when the work is a cautiously released and corporate-tested entity i don't have the same level of sympathy or empathy and don't feel the need to meet halfway, say, Michael Bay's racist characterizations in a movie about giant robots.

This piece was whatever, and Brad's point about true engagement almost automatically torpedoing the binnings of yore is a salient one. (I often dive into archives for my teaching gig, and trust me: Music writing is so much better than it was even 15 years ago, even if it still has a lot of problems.)

As far as "where did all the negative reviews go" musings, there are a couple of factors at work here.

• The way not just music, but all journalism has developed since the rise of real-time analytics—and, more crucially, the altering of browsing habits so that most peoples' "homepage" is a platform (usually Facebook, sometimes Twitter, maybe even Instagram?) that they lazily scroll down looking for bits of news on their friends and the world outside their friend group—means that promotion is just as important as actually filing a piece, maybe even more since going "viral" can potentially increase per-piece ROI. The best ways to promote are then:
a) position it with a headline that prompts the sort of sharing that will double as a badge of identity ("we need to talk about," etc - this is where most of the truly bad thinkpieces have their origins)
b) overblow the opinion in one direction so that it gets a clickable headline, since 'this record is fine, whatever" isn't exactly an enticing stance. inchoate anger is great, and so is fawning praise, because the third option is...
c) get the subject(s) to retweet the piece, since people following them presumably *want* to read the results of successive 15-minute phoners / praise and justification for their fandom.

• The collective effect of neutral-to-sorta-positive reviews being collected (on aggregate sites like Metacritic and in the minds of people reading a lot about one album at a time), where a lot of "this is ok-to-good" reactions can feel like an overbearing "LISTEN TO THIS NOW." This has only gotten more cacophonnic with album release day being a worldwide thing.

• The absurd workloads of editors, who need the copy they work with to be clean, concise, and not bogged down by argument-related shittiness (unless it can be parlayed into stoking the fires of anger, in which case bring it on)

• The "pivot to video" resulting in outlets needing to play even nicer, since it's not like you'll get a lot of ad revenue from having writers on camera, so you need to play nice with "talent" (the MTV News anecdotes are a harbinger of "cultivated relationships" to come)

• Money and the ever-increasing reliance on freelancers. Why would publications, all of which are having their editorial budgets crushed in some way or another, want to shell out cash for something that—and this is a mercenary way of looking at writing, I know, but you have to be when your bosses are giving you barely enough cash to publish four pieces a week, let alone 15 or more—would either amount to the shruggie emoji or trash something that few people don't *want* to see ripped to shreds? And see the aforementioned tweet, and think about how freelancers are more disposable and if they fuck something up big (either on a factual level or a "we'll never work with you again" level) they can have bait cut on them way more easily.

It all sucks, I know. (Sorry for chiming in, I know I shouldn't exist. But there are a lot of market forces at work here that go way beyond "wow sellouts.")

https://twitter.com/search?q=arcade%20fire%20sucks

so ded

The collective effect of neutral-to-sorta-positive reviews being collected (on aggregate sites like Metacritic and in the minds of people reading a lot about one album at a time), where a lot of "this is ok-to-good" reactions can feel like an overbearing "LISTEN TO THIS NOW." This has only gotten more cacophonnic with album release day being a worldwide thing.

^ this

what examples of honest/thoughtful negative reviews would ppl suggest? ppl seemed to like that Laura Snapes review of the Ed Sheeran album in Pitchfork, imo that didn't come off as dishonest, disengaged or hyperbolic (but I guess an Ed Sheeran fan may feel differently?) (that review is all about Sheeran's alleged dishonesty and disingenuous) (I think that, in that case, after reading dozens of ppl saying that Ed Sheeran was awful, it was nice to read someone put into words exactly how and why he is awful?)

Jeremy Larson's dismissal of Arcade Fire yesterday.

yes

He presented himself as a betrayed lover, but he likes them more than I ever did.

In my very humble opinion, and being mindful of my own hypocrisy, any critic of any human effort should probably keep the 10/80/10 curve in mind - most things are okay, some things are truly reprehensible, some things are stupendous. And secretly, when everything seems to be awful and uninteresting and rote, hold to the hope inside of Sturgeon's Law - 10% of everything is (probably) not crap.

A critic's careful judgement and adroit penmanship should be deployed when gross perspective is wrong about something - when a popular thing is actually in the bottom tenth of terrible, or when something goes ignored that deserves acclaim. Don't waste all that thought and energy on reminding people that the 80% that is middling is merely middling. We know.

what examples of honest/thoughtful negative reviews would ppl suggest?

I'll go back to old film reviews--sorry, just don't keep up with record reviewing any more.

Pauline Kael on A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Raging Bull, Roger & Me, Born on the Fourth July...there are so many. I don't agree with all of those, but I think they constitute great writing.

A bunch by Stanley Kauffmann, too, but I'd have to give that more thought.

Tom I think you're right to a point. And unfortunately the mechanics of publishing mean that space needs to be filled on a regular basis.

that's where i definitely don't know what i'm talking about. i should probably thank some animist deity on a periodic basis that i don't have to chase the clicks.

i should probably thank some animist deity on a periodic basis that i don't have to chase the clicks.

Yeah, I'm really glad I don't have to worry about that stuff. I mean, if enough people aren't reading my jazz column for Stereogum, they'll stop publishing it, and that's fine, but that's as close as I get to market-based writing at this point.

As far as that "write more negative reviews!" piece, it's a bunch of insecure posturing from a dude whose own site is full of shit more often than not. I've told the story here before of how they only wanted me to review the new Metallica album if I could guarantee that I'd put the boot in. (I didn't get the gig. Someone else did.)

As the arc of my career-as-such has gone, it went from college paper reviews and features to the AMG reviews and via that the various scattered reviews and features I've done as a result. The AMG work, in a way, illustrated the 10/80/10 split Tom noted -- difference being that the very nature of the AMG invited coverage of the 80 in detail as well, to have an accounting for, well, all music, or as much as could be found. Reviewed a LOT of middling indie rock of the 2000s, but I didn't rant about them, more like 'how many ways can I say "meh."'

Of course I did have my vivisections. My Stylus column was about looking at the leftovers, but if something provided an honest surprise I happily said so. But there was a lot of junk, and unlike the AMG approach, I could avoid an objective tone in favor of "ARRGH." I remember both Momus and Grady talking on here about not fully being on board with that but as Alfred said, there's a value in explaining why you hate something if you can do it well. (See also the Neil Tennant essay from 92 re the power of hate as a focus, artistically and elsewhere.)

As my post AMG writing career has settled into my groove of a few pieces here and there per month -- backed up, as I have always been, by the luxury of my full time job, utterly unrelated to music criticism or the for-profit world -- I can afford to pick and choose, quite literally, and these days I'm simply not interested in chasing everything down to opine on it all. Or more accurately there isn't time for it. (The fact that I can't easily listen to albums as much at my SF job as I used to in OC also is a big factor.) In ways I think I've explained my aesthetic enough on the one hand -- as much to myself as to any regular readers I have -- and on the other I'm much more content to read others' writing on music new and old (especially when talented younger writers take a look at older music and its accompanying cliches and assumptions around it to ask if it shouldn't be viewed differently instead -- an important part of sociopolitical evaluation and review well beyond music).

So sure I could write something about how, I don't know, I'd rather have my ears ripped off than have to entertain [insert EDM macho bro of choice here] any more than I have to, or how I wish Father John Misty did his trip to Big Sur, had a revelation that he was on the verge of being an obnoxious mediocrity, and chucked it all in to settle down and raise bees. For a start. But I don't feel like wasting more words than that on the matter and I'd rather do something like my NPR Algiers piece and try and unpack the context and creation of what I feel is a remarkable album in detail.

Negative criticism absolutely has a place. It simply can't and shouldn't just be schtick.

is it too obvious to point out that assigning value on a scale is among the least interesting or even helpful things a critic can do? (worth remembering anyway, maybe). i can't get enough of reviews that help me hear what fans of a musician hear, even - especially? - when i'm not a fan myself

Having to assign values (stars, numbers, whatever)...just horrid. Have always hated it, and am glad I barely have to do it anymore.

I've only ever had to do it at two places - Alternative Press and AMG - and in both cases, I can't remember a single numerical rating I assigned anything.

Part of me kinda wishes The Wire would assign numerical scores to albums, just because it would be hilarious.

"284.15, as scored in the hexadecimal system on the planet Tharg."

It's even worse for writers, since hardcore fans latch on only to scores and have their angry tweets at the ready if they feel their fave has been slighted.

(I got slammed for being a "longtime Lana hater" because 3.5 stars appeared above my LUST FOR LIFE review in RS.)

You're not? (Seriously; I feel like everything I've read about her with your byline has been "meh"-to-"ugh.")