Rolling Music Writers' Thread

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

If you wanna see the utter valuelessness of the "generalist" approach, check out Slate's music writers' roundtable that's happening this week and count all the different types of music that are being totally ignored.

I'm having a hard time seeing the utter value in keeping a bingo card w/ genre names on it at hand every time I read anything about music.

the older i get, the less i feel the desire to generalize. doing so feels so insincere, you know? because unless one is omnicient it's impossible to know EVERYTHING about stuff happening in EVERY genre.

at this point i write about noise, experimental, indie, some rap, and some pop. and i don't even feel like i've giot a handle on all of that a lot of the time.

Please don't use Jonah Weiner as an example of what it means to be a generalist.

generalist/specialist isn't an either/or, most writers are situated somewhere on that spectrum and can play generalist or specialist as appropriate

totally

and notwithstanding the (very few) critics who can pull these extremes off, i don't think there's anything particularly appealing about either a) pretending to be "above" genre and refusing to acknowledge different cultures' values and traditions, or b) immersing yourself so far in a scene that you stop being able to see the wood for the trees

The problem with genre experts is that they often focus on things that aren't necessarily of concern to me as a "casual" listener.

or alternatively, genre experts sometimes point out things that i wouldn't have noticed as someone not attuned to that particular style, which i find tremendously valuable in finding my way into enjoying it

Oh, to be sure. I guess it only becomes a problem for me when they get hung up on a set of internal rules for what makes their genre work.

I couldn't even skim that Slate thing, btw. My brain just glazed over.

Please don't use Jonah Weiner as an example of what it means to be a generalist.

Why not? (Genuine curiosity.)

I just hate his writing, that's all.

Ah, OK; I was thinking the exact opposite, that you thought he was somehow better than a mere "pop critic" or something like that.

No, if anyone is a mere pop critic, it's him!

In generalist publications, the problem with specialist writers is that they can start to cheerlead for their genres, sometimes regardless of the quality of the record they are reviewing. And one reason why you tend to read more good reviews than negative ones is that there is so much released that any title reviewing fewer than 150 titles a month will see its editor think: "I have 25 slots this month. There are 10 albums that have to be reviewed. There are 10 that my writers are desperate to write about. So the other five ... shall I just select some crap to take down, or maybe try and steer readers to something I rate?" Doesn't seem an unreasonable impulse. Better to review, I dunno, Cold Cave than just rip on a Def Leppard album for the sake of it. Your review will not change anyone's opinion about Def Leppard, but it might make someone check out Cold Cave.

I used to notice a pattern with 'in-house' mags such as Tower Pulse! where each issue they'd do a harsh takedown of a hot new release that was destined to sell bazillions anyway; it almost seemed like a deliberate 'see? This mag is an organ of a retailer but we're impartial!' kind of thing.

I wonder if that's still a thing, aiming all a mag's darts at things that can't be hurt anyway while keeping it positive re: vulnerable 'sprout' artists?

(Sorry if I'm not supposed to post here-- I'm not a music writer but I am a writer. Just found the subject rather interesting).