Rolling Music Writers' Thread

I don't drink, so I get a few editors assigning me for festival coverage because they like how I have the energy to stay on my feet and watch bands for 10 hrs at a time

is this something you've been told or something you're guessing?

or maybe a little of each (probably the correct answer)

i wanted to revive this, but perhaps kind of ironically, i don't know what to write...

well i guess that's a fair enough question - when you're deciding to pitch an idea, how do you decide what to cover? if it's reviews etc, do you just have a look at what you've been sent that month from the flacks and pitch those, or do something else?

That's usually how it goes, or I call an editor and threaten to kidnap his cocker spaniel if he won't publish me.

music writers (especially for free weeklies), what is the worst pun-based headline you/your colleagues/your editors have committed to print?

another question please: how many listens to an album in average before writing a review?

oh god i've cranked out so many weak headlines -- don't know if any were particularly outrageous puns but i've had some dogs to be sure

another question please: how many listens to an album in average before writing a review?

Ha -- I just wrote a single review after listening to 1:30 of the song.

it's probably pretty shitty ?!

Zeno - for me it really depends on how much I like the album to be honest. If I've got, say 5 albums to review and 2 of them are awesome, one is just fine and 2 of them are shit then it's only normal that I listen to them as I'd listen to CDs normally. Biased? Maybe so. But I always always try to give even the most awful stuff at least two full listens. That said, if the PR company can't be arsed to send me the CD until a day before deadline then that's just tough.

but there are lots of albums where it takes a number of listenning to figure out if you like them or not.
it's probably very hard on a deadline (and with a potential of regreting what you wrote later on)

I'm not a big 'repeat listener' as a music fan in general -- putting something on more than once in a week is considered heavy duty listening by my standards. With a tight deadline I might listen to it a couple times in the space of a day, if I have a week or more it'll be at least 3.

it's probably pretty shitty ?!

lol weezer

related to puns, but how about using lyrics from other bands (or even other genres) to headline a feature story -- like say "the kids are alright" for Kriss Kross or Smoosh? any confessions?

if i was writing reviews i would probably regret at least a little of them because of those traps:
Holy Crap, this is amazing! Actually, no hold on.. it's shite!
vs. the opposite

i have used lyric-based puns more often than i care to admit

haha since so many of them post here i almost feel like asking my former stable of writers to chime in on the worst punning headline i ever inflicted upon them.

lol i'll have a look and let you know if i find anything

i wrote one a bit back that is so stupid: Poker Flat Lets the Chips Fall .

god. headsmack.

Pun-wise, probably my review of A Grand Don't Come for Free: "Whither Thou?"

another question please: how many listens to an album in average before writing a review?

yeah, this tends to follow how often I'd listen to the album anyway. You can recognise a really terrible record in a few songs, so I once reviewed an album based on two half-listens (because I couldn't bear to get through the whole thing / the second half-listen was for specifics while I wrote). I'll want to keep listening to a good record anyway, and the time it takes me to get bored of it is relevant to "how good" it is. Usually 4-6 times for a decent record, 8+ times for a really good one.

I've got a techy question... I'm going to be conducting a phone interview soon. What are the ideal ways to go about recording the intervew? I've heard some people use Skype, others use adapters to hook up a recorder to a phone (I only have a cell phone... is there such an adapter?).

I do it real low tech holding the tape recorder up to my cell on speaker -- not the best way to do it (and you get that weird clicky noise that happens anytime a cell phone's near a recording device), but in a pinch it works.

i have a device which is similar to this - does the job perfectly

another question please: how many listens to an album in average before writing a review?

depends on the album, on the deadline, on when the PR deigns to send it to me. ideally, until i feel i have a handle on it.

Lex, thanks for the suggestion.

Does that Voice Memos thing on the latest iPhone software allow for this to be done easily? (This = recording phone interviews)

there's some conference call services that let you call in and they save the conversation to an mp3 or wav -- i'll bet one of them must be free somehow. (if you're technically nerdy and got a lot of free time, you can jerry-rig one up on your own computer for free.)

Do any of you who are paid for your music writing have any general writing advice for people who want to get better at the craft? How did you go from sucking to excellence? I'm not a music writer, but I do write and am looking to improve. Thanks everybody!

And by "the craft" I mean writing as such, not writing about music necessarily.

Writing often and having people call your shit awful.

^^this

or, write often and re-read the writing two months later and make sure that you think it's shit

Don't get too wrapped up in reading crit, but read enough to work out your likes and dislikes about other writers and what you want or don't want to read, put yourself in the shoes of your own reader.

I would go farther and say you need to take a look at the crit that you like and really try to figure out what makes it tick...try to analyze and isolate those elements which really make your motor churn. then try and figure out how to incorporate it into your own writing without being called a biter.

Write when very drunk, very late at night. Then, after a few years, write when very sober, very early in the morning.

wrote a really shitty review of some crumby 8-bit ironic post-IDM game music thing, along with a bunch of others. they got published, the bad one didn't - are people finding that mags less likely to publish bad (as in low-marks) reviews these days? i noticed the album had been given impartial column space in the news section of said mag, so maybe this had something to do with it?

I had an editor specifically request a positive review of something last week. Fortunately, I was able to deliver one honestly.

dog latin, i've noticed a sort of imperative to play nice w/r/t reviews and live previews over the last little while.

not EVERYWHERE, per se. but in some places it's like "let's just review stuff that's good"

"if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all"

I once had a review changed from ultra-negative upon submission to oddly positive in print. I complained, but it was allegedly a genuine subbing error... still felt queasy about the whole thing though.

ads be hard to come by these days

Pubs are so desperate for readers these days that I can imagine a desire to cut down on the negativity and snark. After all, no one likes to be told their favorite band sucks.

I can actually understand a publication's wish to only run positive (or at least thoughtfully negative) reviews. But that's harder on the editor, who must do a much more meticulous job of pairing writer and subject. If you're willing to run raves and teardowns more or less in equal measure, you can almost assign anything to anyone.

Too bad pubs (and blogs, too) fail to understand that it's the negative reviews (or the balance of positive/negative, more accurately) that build their reputations as trustworthy sources.

xpost

Yeah, but the only way to stay alive now is to be a niche publication, and niche publications' readers want their tastes validated, not challenged.

otm

Which I don't have the slightest problem with, btw; I've always been a big believer in critics being experts on one or two things rather than trying to be generalists who know a little bit about "everything" ("everything" being its own kind of parochialism anyfuckinway; it always boils down to liking mainstream pop, hip-hop/R&B and half-assedly nodding in the direction of country, metal, etc.).

I think there are a few different scenarios being swept together as one here: a publication pushing for positive reviews of particular albums (maybe because they're high profile or advertisers or just a favorite of the editor/publication) vs. a publication wanting to keep it positive as much as possible and have a more "up" tone vs. a publication dealing with limited review space and preferring to use it to recommend good stuff instead of trashing bad stuff