Is There Anyone Left Here Who ISNT A 'Rock Critic'???

i say "never again!" every time, and then i see some way in which i can help out a band i really truly love and want to grab exposure for... and back i go.

What? A planner? ;)

Since so many music writers are hobbyist/dallyers, does that help or hinder the gung ho pro's? Does that h or h music writing en masse? I mean, what if (and this hyperbolic to say the least) commercial pilots operated like this?
Oh, today your flight is brought to you Sam, an aging boomer accountant, who lately has been spending more time at the local blues bar than with his menopausal wife. Your return flight will be done by Jimmy, a college junior who's just read Marx and now "finally gets what Tupac's talking about."

I don't think there are many music writers that can afford to be full time, to be honest. To compare it to a pilot is unhelpful, because they usually have a job with an annual wage and benefits whereas it seems most music writing is freelance.

Geez... it's called natural order!!

Although that could be a new insult... "What??? Are you on the Coldplay again??"

This is similar to a bumper sticker on the car of an art prof. I had in college:

Those who can do, do
Those who can't, Duchamp

And that's so completely and utterly wrong, I don't even know where to begin.

(On the other hand, I do have one token article, under another name, in an online music magazine, because I saw a genuine need that no one else was addressing. I am not entirely satisfied with the way I handled it, however. I was not paid for it.)

Yup. J. D. Considine said as much to me many moons ago and that's one reason why I'll stick with freelancing on the side.

chancing upon ILM a mere week ago, or so,
i'd been a quite happy un-published ex-crit (by my own choice) for nearly a year;
prior to which i'd written for ten years more or less regularly, if not always too productively, for a couple of different titles; had a weekly record reviews column for two and a half years on a daily paper as well, etc -- no, not in the English language ("but 'fcourse"), just wagging my mother tongue

i've done music shows on the radio, also on a regular basis, for approximately as long, but unlike writing for a mag or a daily, at this point i find the air-borne experience rather more satisfying (nope, never've had to pay any attention to any "regular playlist"; mayhaps i should count (some of) my blessings, dunno)

oh yeah, the day job's been "ALWAYS there to remind me"...

I wish more "critics" would do this

to this Id add "just because you've listened to an entire Bowie album, doesnt make you a rock critic" :)

Writing reviews/articles is the perfect medium for someone who wants a one-sided conversation.

I'm a fan. ¥

i think BLOGs fall into the same boat.

i'm a rock poet or a perhaps an arranger of rocks and noodles.

but definitely not a rock critic.
m.

Ha!

I'm a rock lobster sandwich.

ahoy matey!

eee! eee!
m.

"ship ahoy! Pirate cowboy!"

(understandably.)

It's true though, if you're trying to make it I can imagine how it could be such a frustrating life. You're hardly making anything at all, you have to do at least one day or night job just to pay the rent, and even if you start getting stuff you might frequently have to listen to stuff you hate - and pretend to be objective about it. I guess the people who make it, aside from the destiny thing, they must really love all the small benefits very much, and not mind the large hardships. And I dunno if anyone has mentioned this already, but isn't it some semi-cliche that rock writers are just frustrated musicians/rock star-wannabes (vicarious living) anyway - or is that more often to be seen in the film world? Just think then, if you can't even get to be writing about something you'd secretly want to be doing - you're doubly frustrated.

I myself haven't really written anything seriously outside of message places like this on the web, I don't have a "blog" or anything, so I am kind of neutral to the idea of ever getting published (I first have to write something!) - I think I'm probably most dispassionate about this desire than most others here. I have no desire to be a musician, either, so I think I can stay indifferent.

But I kinda want to write about things that aren't written about often, or aren't even taken seriously as a whole, like - like - MUSIC VIDEOS!! Or something (does that desire make me sound too filmmajorish, oh no!?). I know they analyze them with a modicum of non-ironic seriousness at places like popmatters.com, but I doubt you'd ever see a place like the V V doing a "music video column," ...but hey, they have started reviewing gay porn vids now, but only 'coz they know their demographic well.

Monica Kendrick's okay, if you can get pass her sex-obsessiveness.

Ooh, but come on now, he likes :Macy Gray: and thinks she's "sexy" ! Proof! He likes black people music! He even had, uh, Morcheeba on his P&J ballot a few years back, or something

His foil, Greg Kot of the Tribune, is hardly any better.

More like his doppleganger? I dunno. Thery're like two halves of the same entity; the DeRogatis hhalf just needs the Kot half to exist, to prove to people that he can indeed think rationally. Any credit Kot gets for his own work, and I do think he can be a good writer at times, it's just kind of weirdly been overshadowed in my mind of how closely he's associated himself with Jimbo in the past few years. They both listed Machina: The Machines of God as one of the best albums of 2000; they both choose the same token hip-hop/soul artists to bestow "legitimacy" onto. Kot also wrote some line recently about, I think it was that Tool album in RS, where he was referencing Led Zep IV and he said something like "but dude! it doesn't have a title! that's why it was so cool." It just sounded so out of character and hell, collegiate, that it sticks out in my mind like a warning sign whenever I see his name now.

Anyway, this is interesting, I think I'll start a new thread on DeRot - I have to stay awake!

That would put me to sleep.

Unless it was a thread about his eating habits.

Nothing about Monica Kendrick's writing stands out as bad. But I don't see much value in those little bitesized bits of criticism. And (to her credit I suppose) she always sounds so ambivalent that I can't tell whether she's recommending a show or not.

I guess because I'm personally no more interested in rock music than I am in any other kind of music, the rock-centric discourse of all of these critics alienates me almost entirely. To some extent making distinctions among these folks is like splitting hairs. I have no particular love for Lester Bangs or any of the other "classic" critics any more than for Mr. DeRogatis or Alan Thicke or David Fricke or whomever.

I suppose I should be posting to another board then?

This is I Love Music, doesn't necessarily have to be rock. You should stick around.

I still love that quote.

Seriously, I don't recall any mention of hot tubs or sexual acts in her columns. I do recall the Monica Kendrick-esque gal critic in "High Fidelity" who turned out to be incredibly good-looking. Was this based in fact or pure Hollywood fantasy?

The pleasures here are loose and ephemeral.

uuuuuhh, mmmmmmm.

Garage purists weren't thrilled when sex-on-a-stick locals the Nerves released their third album, 2001's World of Gold (Thrill Jockey).

yeah, baby.

Those who like their blitzkrieg bop straight up and skanky should enjoy locals the White Outs, whose irresistible eight-song demo splatters more mud than a monster truck rally.

tell me how much you like it baby.

At a trance-inducing yet vigorous Hideout show last month, they turned in over an hour of psychedelic, erotic neofunk.

OH YES! YES! YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

{/sex}

But apparently Tillman's shameless live act, which ends with him stripped to his underwear, makes some guys squirm--while opening for Incubus in the south, he was pelted with shoes and bottles by hecklers, and in Oklahoma City he was issued a citation for lewd behavior. Maybe what really bugs those boys is how much some women enjoy the show--the ladies like a guy who's playful, uninhibited, and fearless, no matter how pale and pudgy he looks in his skivvies.

I actually used to really dislike her writing, but I've *ahem* come around to it. I like that she's probably the most RAWK of all of the Reader writers AND she's a woman. Even if I don't like every thing she covers, that's fucking cool.

How come more publications don't cover classical music?

What bothers me is the narrow range of discourse in rock/music criticism not the minute differences (perceived as lapses) in taste, sensibility and so on. I can't see *anyone* (male or female) writing about indie rock as being particularly provocative or original. Tired genre, tired subject. Good to have some knowledge of indie rock for chatting up people in bars, I suppose. Maybe that's what rock critics are good for.

Huh?

How come more publications don't cover classical music?

Plenty do, they're just not discussed here.

Alex, did you write up VHS or Beta? this week?

I don't often write about music these days but up until about 1997, I wrote tons of stuff about every possible music movement and person in it. I stopped because it felt too much like being a cog in someone's marketing strategy - someone, unlike the artistes you were covering, who hadn't known the artistes as long as you, didn't know as much as you, and was all about the control and reflected glory. And it is really boring for the reader to read that rant from me, best have new things to write about, like ARTISTS.

!!!

!!!

My god. My world has just exploded.

I have nothing against it; however I can't really think of any time I ever read rock criticism because I don't trust anyone except my own ears to tell me whether I should like something or not. I realize that isn't what many rock critics set out to do; it's just the reason I stopped reading.

If this were a live chatline, you could plausibly duck the tag.

(not criticising or anything, merely postponing doing my sun-day job! :)

(English music press is widely available here in the Netherlands but at twice the price, the Dutch press is lamentable.)

Obviously I can't speak for them, but I find that good writing only comes after struggle and frustration anyway... just because you can't immediately live up to whatever standard you set for yourself doesn't mean you're not a good music writer. Like... I wouldn't expect to be able to rattle off Rachmaninov concertos even after a few years of piano lessons. I struggle and get frustrated with my writing most of the time, and the end result is rarely as good as I want it to be (let alone as good as other people's writing)... yet.

There isn't a single thing I've written that I don't wince at later. I've always written stuff about music, before there was an interweb, so I don't really regret even the most embarrassing stuff -- although making it public has upped the internal pressure for me.

Thing is, I don't believe in reincarnation, so this life is all I have and it's worth looking like a dick, ultimately, in order to thrust some of these bizarro thoughts and feelings I have about music out there into a harsh, indifferent world, to either plummet or float (sink or swim).

ILM itself (and some of the better music sites/blogs) is invaluable in that it can help shape some of those amorphous thoughts which would otherwise remain pretty much unformed.

Weird thing about music-crit is, no matter how good some of the feedback may be, you always remember the slagging you got for missing some obvious point, or for a clumsy expression, or for your occasional example of sheer unblinking stupidity, whatever.

side question - how often are the music writers on this list actually happy with the work they submit?