Music journalism
Encyclopedia
Music journalism is criticism and reportage about music
. It began in the eighteenth century as comment on what is now thought of as 'classical music
'. This aspect of music journalism, today often referred to as music criticism (although that risks confusion with the academic discipline), comprises the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of music and its performance. Modern art music journalism is often informed by music theory
consideration of the many diverse elements of a musical piece or performance, including (as regards a musical composition
) its form and style, and as regards performance, standards of technique and expression. It was expressed, for example, in journals such as Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
founded by Robert Schumann
, and is continued today in the columns of serious newspapers and journals such as The Musical Times
.
Today a major branch of music journalism is an aspect of entertainment journalism
— covering popular music
and including profiles of singers and band
s and album
reviews. In the 2000s, online music bloggers are to some degree displacing newspaper and magazine-based pop music critic
s.
or the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
(founded by Robert Schumann
), and in London such journals as The Musical Times
(founded in 1844 as The Musical Times and Singing-class Circular); or else by reporters at general newspapers where music did not form part of the central objectives of the publication. An influential English 19th-century music critic, for example, was John Davison of The Times
. The composer Hector Berlioz
also wrote reviews and criticisms for the Paris press of the 1830s and 1840s.
Several factors — including growth of education, the influence of the Romantic
movement generally and in music, popularization (including the 'star-status' of many performers such as Liszt
and Paganini), among others — led to an increasing interest in music among non-specialist journals, and an increase in the number of critics by profession, of varying degrees of competence and integrity. The situation here was distinguished from that before the 1840s, in that the critics now — on the whole — were not also practising musicians; this could be considered a turning‐point.
Amongst modern practitioners of the classical music tradition who also write (or wrote) on music may be included Alfred Brendel
, Charles Rosen
, Paul Hindemith
and Ernst Krenek
.
In 2007, The New York Times
stated that "Classical music criticism, a high-minded endeavor that has been around at least as long as newspapers...has taken a series of hits in recent months", because "[c]ritics’ jobs have been eliminated, downgraded or redefined at newspapers in Atlanta, Minneapolis and elsewhere around the country and at New York magazine, where Peter G. Davis, one of the most respected voices of the craft, said he had been forced out after 26 years". The Classical music scene views "...robust analysis, commentary and reportage as vital to the health of the art form". In the late 2000s, Classical music criticism is increasingly available on blogs. Nevertheless, a "number of major newspapers still have full-time classical music critics, including The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post
, The Baltimore Sun
, The Philadelphia Inquirer
[,] The Boston Globe
" and "The New York Times [,which] maintains a staff of three full-time classical music critics and three freelancers".
, complained in 1967 about how "newspapers and magazines are continually hammering [i.e., attacking] pop music
". Melody Maker magazine advocated the new forms of pop music of the late 1960s. "By 1999, the 'quality' press was regularly carrying reviews of popular music gigs and albums", which had a "key role in keeping pop" in the public eye. As more pop music critics began writing, this had the effect of "legitimating pop as an art form"; as a result, "newspaper coverage shifted towards pop as music rather than pop as social phenomenon".
Steve Jones claims that both popular music articles and academic articles about pop music are usually written from "masculine subject positions". As more pop music critics began writing, this had the effect of "legitimating pop as an art form"; as a result, "newspaper coverage shifted towards pop as music rather than pop as social phenomenon"; as well, in the way that critics differentiate between pop music and rock, using terms like "trivial", "fluffy", or "formulaic" for pop (versus "serious", "raw", and "sincere" for rock), there is an implicit or even explicitly gendered dichotomy. Simon Frith
notes that pop and rock music are closely associated with gender; that is, with conventions of male and female behaviour.
In the world of pop music criticism, there tends to be a quick turnover. The "pop music industry expects that any particular [music critic] star can disappear within five years; in contrast, the "stars" of rock criticism are more likely to have long careers with "book contracts, featured columns, and editorial and staff positions at magazines and newspapers. Critic Robert Christgau
was the "originator of the 'consumer guide' approach to pop music reviews", an approach to writing pop recording reviews that was designed to help consumers to decide whether to buy a new album.
In the realm of rock music
(as indeed in that of classical music), critics have not always been respected by their subjects. Frank Zappa
declared that, "Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read." In the Guns N' Roses
song "Get in the Ring
", Axl Rose
verbally attacked critics who gave the band negative reviews because of their actions on stage; such critics as Andy Secher
, Mick Wall and Bob Guccione, Jr.
were mentioned by name.
Carl Wilson describes "an upsurge in pro-pop sentiment among critics" during the early 2000s, a "new generation [of music critics] moved into positions of critical influence" and then "mounted a wholesale critique against the syndrome of measuring all popular music by the norms of rock culture." In 2008, Ann Powers of the LA Times argued that "[p]op music critics have always been contrarians", because "pop music [criticism] rose up as a challenge to taste hierarchies, and has remained a pugilistic, exhibitionist business throughout pop's own evolution."
Powers claims that "[i]nsults, rejections of others' authority, bratty assertions of superior knowledge and even threats of physical violence are the stuff of which pop criticism is made"; at the same time, the "best [pop criticism] also offers loving appreciation and profound insights about how music creates and collides with our everyday realities." She states that pop criticism developed as a "slap at the establishment, at publications such as the hippie homestead Rolling Stone
and the rawker outpost Creem
." She notes that the "1980s generation" of post-punk indie rockers "has lately [i.e., in the 2000s] been taken down by younger "poptimists," who argue that lovers of underground rock are elitists for not embracing the more multicultural mainstream". Powers claims that with the 2000s-era "poptimism" critical approach, debates about bands and styles are "like the scrum in rugby", because "[e]verybody pushes against everybody else, and we move forward in a huge blob of vehement opinion and mutual judgment".
Slate
magazine writer Jody Rosen discussed the 2000s-era trends in pop music criticism in the article "The Perils of Poptimism". Rosen notes that much of the debate is centred over the perception that that rock critics "...regard rock as "normative … the standard state of popular music … to which everything else is compared." At a 2006 pop critic conference, attendees discussed their "...guilty pop pleasures, reconsidering musicians (Tiny Tim
, Dan Fogelberg
, Phil Collins
) and genres (blue-eyed soul
, Muzak
)" which rock critics have long dismissed as lightweight, commercial music. Rosen states that "this new critical paradigm" is called "popism"—or, more evocatively (and goofily), "poptimism". The "poptimism" approach states that "Pop (and, especially, hip-hop) producers are as important as rock auteurs, Beyoncé is as worthy of serious consideration as Bruce Springsteen, and ascribing shame to pop pleasure is itself a shameful act". In 2006, Martin Edlund from the New York Sun argued that music bloggers are to some degree displacing newspaper and magazine-based pop music critics. Edlund notes that while the "Internet has democratized music criticism, it seems it's also spread its penchant for uncritical hype".
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
. It began in the eighteenth century as comment on what is now thought of as 'classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
'. This aspect of music journalism, today often referred to as music criticism (although that risks confusion with the academic discipline), comprises the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of music and its performance. Modern art music journalism is often informed by music theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
consideration of the many diverse elements of a musical piece or performance, including (as regards a musical composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
) its form and style, and as regards performance, standards of technique and expression. It was expressed, for example, in journals such as Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik was a music magazine published in Leipzig, co-founded by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke...
founded by Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, and is continued today in the columns of serious newspapers and journals such as The Musical Times
The Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
.
Today a major branch of music journalism is an aspect of entertainment journalism
Entertainment journalism
Entertainment journalism is an umbrella term used to describe all forms of journalism that focus on the entertainment business and its products. Like fashion journalism, entertainment journalism covers industry-specific news while targeting general audiences beyond those working in the industry...
— covering popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
and including profiles of singers and band
Band (music)
In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...
s and album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
reviews. In the 2000s, online music bloggers are to some degree displacing newspaper and magazine-based pop music critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
s.
Origins
Before about the 1840s, reporting on music was either done by musical journals, such as Allgemeine musikalische ZeitungAllgemeine musikalische Zeitung
The Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung was a German-language periodical published in the 19th century. Comini has called it "the foremost German-language musical periodical of its time"...
or the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik was a music magazine published in Leipzig, co-founded by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke...
(founded by Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
), and in London such journals as The Musical Times
The Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
(founded in 1844 as The Musical Times and Singing-class Circular); or else by reporters at general newspapers where music did not form part of the central objectives of the publication. An influential English 19th-century music critic, for example, was John Davison of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
. The composer Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
also wrote reviews and criticisms for the Paris press of the 1830s and 1840s.
Several factors — including growth of education, the influence of the Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
movement generally and in music, popularization (including the 'star-status' of many performers such as Liszt
Liszt
Liszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz Liszt...
and Paganini), among others — led to an increasing interest in music among non-specialist journals, and an increase in the number of critics by profession, of varying degrees of competence and integrity. The situation here was distinguished from that before the 1840s, in that the critics now — on the whole — were not also practising musicians; this could be considered a turning‐point.
Amongst modern practitioners of the classical music tradition who also write (or wrote) on music may be included Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel KBE is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.-Biography:...
, Charles Rosen
Charles Rosen
Charles Rosen is an American pianist and author on music.-Life and career:In his youth he studied piano with Moriz Rosenthal. Rosenthal, born in 1862, had been a student of Franz Liszt...
, Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
and Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...
.
Decline of art music journalism
A "decline in [quantity of] classical criticism" has been occurring since the early 1980s, "when classical-music criticism visibly started to disappear". In the early 1980s, "Time magazine had a full-time classical critic" and "Vanity Fair had a classical critic", but by the early 1990s, Classical critics were dropped in many magazines. In part this is because there "...been a decline of interest in classical music, especially among younger people".In 2007, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
stated that "Classical music criticism, a high-minded endeavor that has been around at least as long as newspapers...has taken a series of hits in recent months", because "[c]ritics’ jobs have been eliminated, downgraded or redefined at newspapers in Atlanta, Minneapolis and elsewhere around the country and at New York magazine, where Peter G. Davis, one of the most respected voices of the craft, said he had been forced out after 26 years". The Classical music scene views "...robust analysis, commentary and reportage as vital to the health of the art form". In the late 2000s, Classical music criticism is increasingly available on blogs. Nevertheless, a "number of major newspapers still have full-time classical music critics, including The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....
, The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
[,] The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
" and "The New York Times [,which] maintains a staff of three full-time classical music critics and three freelancers".
Popular music
Music writers only started "treating pop and rock music seriously" in 1964 "after the breakthrough of the Beatles...". One of the early music magazines in Britain, Melody MakerMelody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
, complained in 1967 about how "newspapers and magazines are continually hammering [i.e., attacking] pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
". Melody Maker magazine advocated the new forms of pop music of the late 1960s. "By 1999, the 'quality' press was regularly carrying reviews of popular music gigs and albums", which had a "key role in keeping pop" in the public eye. As more pop music critics began writing, this had the effect of "legitimating pop as an art form"; as a result, "newspaper coverage shifted towards pop as music rather than pop as social phenomenon".
Steve Jones claims that both popular music articles and academic articles about pop music are usually written from "masculine subject positions". As more pop music critics began writing, this had the effect of "legitimating pop as an art form"; as a result, "newspaper coverage shifted towards pop as music rather than pop as social phenomenon"; as well, in the way that critics differentiate between pop music and rock, using terms like "trivial", "fluffy", or "formulaic" for pop (versus "serious", "raw", and "sincere" for rock), there is an implicit or even explicitly gendered dichotomy. Simon Frith
Simon Frith
Simon Frith is a British sociologist, and former rock critic, who specializes in popular music culture. He is currently Tovey Chair of Music at University of Edinburgh.-Background:...
notes that pop and rock music are closely associated with gender; that is, with conventions of male and female behaviour.
In the world of pop music criticism, there tends to be a quick turnover. The "pop music industry expects that any particular [music critic] star can disappear within five years; in contrast, the "stars" of rock criticism are more likely to have long careers with "book contracts, featured columns, and editorial and staff positions at magazines and newspapers. Critic Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
was the "originator of the 'consumer guide' approach to pop music reviews", an approach to writing pop recording reviews that was designed to help consumers to decide whether to buy a new album.
In the realm of rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
(as indeed in that of classical music), critics have not always been respected by their subjects. Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
declared that, "Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read." In the Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
song "Get in the Ring
Get in the Ring
"Get in the Ring" is the fifth song on the Guns N' Roses album Use Your Illusion II. It was written by Axl Rose, Duff McKagan and Slash and is directed at music critics who gave the band negative reviews because of their actions on stage...
", Axl Rose
Axl Rose
W. Axl Rose is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is the lead vocalist and only remaining original member of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he enjoyed great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before disappearing from the public eye for several years...
verbally attacked critics who gave the band negative reviews because of their actions on stage; such critics as Andy Secher
Andy Secher
Andy Secher, based in New York City, is the long-time editor of Hit Parader, a magazine geared for the heavy metal rock and roll audience. Secher began writing about rock music in college. Soon after graduating, he started a syndicated column that ran in major newspapers, including the New York...
, Mick Wall and Bob Guccione, Jr.
Bob Guccione, Jr.
Robert Charles Guccione, Jr. is the eldest son of Penthouse founder Bob Guccione. He is best known for founding music magazine Spin.-Publishing career:...
were mentioned by name.
Powers claims that "[i]nsults, rejections of others' authority, bratty assertions of superior knowledge and even threats of physical violence are the stuff of which pop criticism is made"; at the same time, the "best [pop criticism] also offers loving appreciation and profound insights about how music creates and collides with our everyday realities." She states that pop criticism developed as a "slap at the establishment, at publications such as the hippie homestead Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
and the rawker outpost Creem
Creem
Creem , "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine," was a monthly rock 'n' roll publication first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid...
." She notes that the "1980s generation" of post-punk indie rockers "has lately [i.e., in the 2000s] been taken down by younger "poptimists," who argue that lovers of underground rock are elitists for not embracing the more multicultural mainstream". Powers claims that with the 2000s-era "poptimism" critical approach, debates about bands and styles are "like the scrum in rugby", because "[e]verybody pushes against everybody else, and we move forward in a huge blob of vehement opinion and mutual judgment".
Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
magazine writer Jody Rosen discussed the 2000s-era trends in pop music criticism in the article "The Perils of Poptimism". Rosen notes that much of the debate is centred over the perception that that rock critics "...regard rock as "normative … the standard state of popular music … to which everything else is compared." At a 2006 pop critic conference, attendees discussed their "...guilty pop pleasures, reconsidering musicians (Tiny Tim
Tiny Tim (musician)
Tiny Tim , , born in Manhattan, was an American singer and ukulele player. He was most famous for his rendition of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" sung in a distinctive high falsetto/vibrato voice.-Rise to fame:Born to Lebanese parents in 1932, Khaury displayed musical talent at a very young age...
, Dan Fogelberg
Dan Fogelberg
Daniel Grayling "Dan" Fogelberg was an American singer-songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, whose music was inspired by sources as diverse as folk, pop, rock, classical, jazz, and bluegrass music...
, Phil Collins
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....
) and genres (blue-eyed soul
Blue-eyed soul
Blue-eyed soul is a media term that was used to describe rhythm and blues and soul music performed by white artists, with a strong pop music influence. The term was first used in the mid-1960s to describe white artists who performed soul and R&B that was similar to the music of the Motown and...
, Muzak
Muzak
Muzak Holdings LLC is a company based in metro Fort Mill, South Carolina, United States, just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. Founded in 1934, Muzak Holdings is best known for distribution of background music to retail stores and other companies....
)" which rock critics have long dismissed as lightweight, commercial music. Rosen states that "this new critical paradigm" is called "popism"—or, more evocatively (and goofily), "poptimism". The "poptimism" approach states that "Pop (and, especially, hip-hop) producers are as important as rock auteurs, Beyoncé is as worthy of serious consideration as Bruce Springsteen, and ascribing shame to pop pleasure is itself a shameful act". In 2006, Martin Edlund from the New York Sun argued that music bloggers are to some degree displacing newspaper and magazine-based pop music critics. Edlund notes that while the "Internet has democratized music criticism, it seems it's also spread its penchant for uncritical hype".
See also
- List of writers on popular music
- Women in MusicWomen in MusicWomen in Music was an American newsletter founded in July 1935 by its publisher and editor, Frédérique Petrides, then the conductor of the Orchestrette Classique – an orchestra based in New York made-up of all women musicians. The publication ran until December 1940...
(1935-1940) Periodicals chronicling the activities of women classical musicians from ancient Egyptian times to the then present, published by conductor Frédérique PetridesFrédérique PetridesFrédérique Petrides , , was a Belgian-American conductor and violinist. In 1933, she founded and conducted the Orchestrette Classique in New York...
)
Sources
- Bojan Bujic, Criticism of Music in The Oxford Companion to Music, Oxford Music Online.
External links
- International Federation of Music Journalists - an international group of media professionals who treat any aspect of music on any media. Publishes the "Directory of Music Journalists" and confers "Music Journalist Award".
- Our critics' advice - In this article Alex Petridis gives advice to young, aspiring, would-be music journalists.
- Don't look back - The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, 27 June 2009. In this article John HarrisJohn Harris (critic)John Rhys Harris is a British journalist, writer, and critic.-Early life:Harris was raised in Wilmslow in north Cheshire by a university lecturer and a teacher, daughter of a nuclear research chemist...
writes about music journalism with reference to the well-known journalists Nick KentNick KentNick Kent is a British rock critic and musician.-Career:Along with writers including Paul Morley, Charles Shaar Murray and Danny Baker, Nick Kent is seen as one of the most important and influential UK music journalists of the 1970s. He wrote for the British music publication New Musical Express,...
and Lester BangsLester BangsLeslie Conway "Lester" Bangs was an American music journalist, author and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock 'n' roll criticism....
. - Is Music Journalism Dead? - Drowned in SoundDrowned in SoundDrownedinSound.com or DiS is a UK based music webzine financed by artist management company Silentway . The site is an editorially independent music website.-History:...
, 21 July 2009. Popular music website Drowned in Sound dedicated a week to the subject of the past, present and future of music journalism. Included are articles by Everett TrueEverett TrueFor the cartoon character, see The Outbursts of Everett True.Everett True is a British music journalist, who grew up in Chelmsford, Essex...
and Stuart BraithwaiteStuart BraithwaiteStuart Leslie Braithwaite is a Scottish guitarist, bassist, drummer, singer and songwriter. He is best known as the guitarist of post rock band Mogwai, with whom he has recorded seven studio albums.-Early life :...
. - Master in Music Journalism - an international professional distance course organized by the International Federation of Music Journalists.
- BA(Hons) Popular Music Journalism course - a three years BA(hons) degree course at Southampton Solent University, UK
- Who cares what critics say? - Jay Nordlinger