Aesthetics, Criticism and Popular Music Journalism

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Aesthetics, Criticism and Popular Music JournalismJohn Williamson29 October 2012

+OUTLINE

o Definitions and Problems

o Pre-history: Musical criticism before rock

o Context : history and recurring themes

o Case Study 1: the UK Music Press

o Case Study 2: Pitchfork

o Conclusions

+“DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE” o “Strictly considered, writing about music is as illogical as

singing about economics. All the other arts can be talked about in the terms of ordinary life and experience. A poem, a statue, a painting or a play is a representation of somebody or something, and can be measurably described (the purely aesthetic values aside) by describing what it represents.” (New Republic, 1918)

o “talking about music is like singing about economics” (Parkhurst, 1921/ 1930)

o All quick, very natural, and captured on vinyl. It’s so hard to explain on paper, you’ll just have to find the records and listen for yourself (because I truly believe — honest — that writing about music is, as Martin Mull put it, like dancing about architecture) (Sperrazza, 1979/ 1980)

+“DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE” o John Lennon (1980): “Listen, writing about music is like talking

about fucking. Who wants to talk about it? But you know, maybe some people do want to talk about it.”

o Mike Oldfield (1982): “It soon transpires that Oldfield doesn’t generally do interviews in his native England. Not from any persecution complex or feelings of superiority, mind you, but simply because he feels that “talking about music is like singing about football.”

o Elvis Costello (1983) “Framing all the great music out there only drags down its immediacy. The songs are lyrics, not speeches, and they’re tunes, not paintings. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture—it’s a really stupid thing to want to do.”

o Jackson Browne: “As they say in the studios of L.A., talking about music is like singing about football.”

+DEFINITIONS

o So – writing about music is inherently problematic. How do we attempt to define the role of a critic – historically and presently?

o OED: Critic: “A person who judges the merits of literary, artistic or musical works, esp. one who does so professionally.”

o Aesthetics: “a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art.”

o Moral dimension of aesthetics – what deserves/ does not deserve to be called art?

+DEFINITIONS: Lindberg et al

o Criticism: “a professional, mass-mediated discourse that passes judgment on art works or events.” (Lindberg et al, 2005: 11) – i.e. it is paid work and has a wide audience.

o “still a decisive divide between ‘academic’ and ‘journalistic’ critical discourse.” (ibid: 13)

o “because (s)he takes part in a public discussion, the critic, in contradistinction to the to the layman, is obliged to express his/ her subjective experience in words, address an absent audience and observe the rules of the genre chosen.” (ibid)

+MORE DEFINITIONS. . . CRITICS (ARTS)o Becker: “Critics apply aesthetic systems to

specific art works and arrive at their judgments of their worth and explications of what gives them their worth. Those judgments produce reputations for works and artists. Distributors and audience members take reputations into account when they decide what to support emotionally and financially, and that affects the resources available to artists to continue their work.” (1982: 131)

+MORE DEFINITIONS. . . CRITICS (MUSIC)o Music criticism pre-dates popular music and is a

constantly shifting field.

o Grant (1998) tracks this to the early C.19th, New York and the New York Albion – “a British Colonial, and Foreign weekly gazette” concerned with “the News, Politics and Literature of Europe, more particularly of Great Britain. Poetry, History, music and drama receiving distinct and proper attention” (1998: 10)

o “music reviews in the Albion were little more than uneducated news accounts of performers who appeared on stage, rather than critical reviews of the music or composer.” (ibid)

+MORE DEFINITIONS. . . CRITICS (MUSIC)o Frith: “when at the beginning of the C.19th, good music

became autonomous, something conceived for its own sake, irrespective of audience response, then the critic became necessary as an expert, as someone who could explain music to the public; teach it how to listen.” (1996: 64)

o Marcus: “when I started writing about music, I did it because I was so in love with music that was being made around 1965-66, and I wanted to find some way to express that delight. The idea that I had then was that music was a gift from one person to another, and writing about music could be a way of making people feel that sense of a gift, but also discovering the secret.” (in Lindberg et al, 2005: 51)

+POPULAR MUSIC JOURNALISM - CONTEXT

o Popular music criticism/ journalism has to be seen against a background of debates about:

o high and low culture / legitimation / post modernism

o Commercialisation / industrialisation of culture and media industries – especially in jazz through 1930s and 1940s

o Authenticity: Frith argues that the importance of music journalism is “not commercial, but ideological” (1981: 27)


o Jones and Featherley: “popular music criticism can therefore be understood as meaning making; a way of continuing the discourse of popular music on a non-musical plane.” (2002: 32)

o Haskell (1996) writes of “three centuries of music criticism” – notes the crossover of pop music criticism into the mainstream press – Robert Shelton, William Mann etc.


o Laing (2006) highlights four main locations for music journalism:

o General Presso Trade Publicationso Fanzines and Blogso Specialist Music Press

o Using Bourdieu, a case can be made for music journalism as a semi-autonomous field, with its own rules. Autonomous and commercial poles (Lindberg et al, 2005: 41)

o Within these, two main types of writing: interviews and reviews.


o Music journalists have often been studied as cultural intermediaries or gatekeepers – between the musicians / music industries and the audience/ consumers.

o BUT some music journalism was / is antagonistic to commercial concerns:o “We despised the record industry, gave not

even two hoots for the sensitivity of our publishers or the profits of their shareholders.” (Shaar Murray, in Gorman, 2001: 183)

+POPULAR MUSIC JOURNALISM: A SUCCINCT HISTORY

o Lindberg et al break their history of music journalism into 6 eras:

o The Formative Period (1964-67)o Founding Fathers in the Promised Land (1967-75)o British Brats (1972-78)o Criticism and New Pop (1978-85)o Academic Leanings and Consumer Guides (1986-2004)

o What happened after that? What are the problems with such a breakdown?

+POPULAR MUSIC JOURNALISM: A SUCCINCT HISTORY

o Some key publications / starting points /dates:

o In the UK, Melody Maker was launched in 1926 for dance band / jazz musicians. New Musical Express, 1952.

o In the USA, Downbeat (1934), Crawdaddy (1966), Rolling Stone (1967).

+POPULAR MUSIC CRITICISM – RECURRING THEMES

o Studies of music criticism / journalism often centre around issues of:

o Economics of the Publishing industrieso Gender – male domination of criticismo Race – domination of ‘white’ criticso Rockism – domination of ‘rock’ ideologies rooted in the

1960so Celebrity – portrayal of musicians as ‘stars’ / not about

the ‘music’ as in jazz, blues narratives.o Style – “disinterested judgment” vs. “value for money

guide.”

+CASE STUDY – THE BRITISH MUSIC PRESS

• Huge historical influence on musicians, audiences and the music industries.

• BUT – huge changes in both music and journalism industries have resulted in huge decline of the specialist music press in recent years.

• 2012 circulation figures – NME: 23 924; Q: 64 596; Mojo: 85 149; Uncut: 63 003; Kerrang! 40 203 – all showing drops on previous year and a fraction of sales at their peak.


• Melody Maker was initially a combination of trade magazine and for musicians (classified ads etc.)-primarily about live music performance.

• New Musical Express + Record Mirror (1953) and Disc (1958) all reflected growing consumer interest / growth of the recorded music industry.

• Melody Maker initially resistant to rock – likewise Downbeat and many jazz writers.


• “For sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience.” (Melody Maker)

• Rock’n’roll – “the antithesis of all that jazz has been striving for over the years.” (Steve Race, Melody Maker, 5 May 1956)

• IPC buys Melody Maker (1961) and NME (1964) – the latter reaches sales of 294 000 in 1964.

+CASE STUDY – THE BRITISH MUSIC PRESS• Only with The Beatles did the Melody Maker begin

to treat pop music in the same way as jazz.

• The press was closely linked through the 1960s with the music business – especially managers.

• Emergence of “serious” rock writing. Gudmundson et al. talk of combination of popular culture + jazz criticism + UK youth subcultures to create “rock journalism.”

• By 1970s – 4 weekly music papers (Sounds) with huge reach >500 000 readers. Spencer: “punk and the press were made for each other.”

+CASE STUDY – THE BRITISH MUSIC PRESS• New writers came with punk + emergence of new

aesthetic / “new pop” / post-punk. New publishers (EMAP) and “post-modernist” style of writing.

• Launch of Smash Hits (1978) and The Face (1980) – fortnightly and monthly respectively; also genre specific magazine – Kerrang (1981) and Mixmag (1986). These contribute to (initially slow) decline of the weekly music press.

• Launch of Q magazine in 1986 – start of consumer guide music monthlies. Co-incides with CDs.


• Decline of weeklies also partly caused by increased interest in popular music by newspapers, MTV, etc

• Sounds and Record Mirror close in 1991.

• Emergence of (short-lived) monthlies Select and Vox; followed by Mojo (1993) and Uncut (1997). IPC and EMAP dominate the market.

• Melody Maker and Select close in 2000. NME moves to magazine format & is overtaken by Kerrang.

+CASE STUDY – THE BRITISH MUSIC PRESS• Monthlies – Mojo and Uncut (aimed at an

audience that were brought up on the weekly music press) have survived. (though Word lasted only from 2004-2012)

• Some specialist magazines have continued to find niche market (e.g. The Wire)

• All magazines have stuggled with both brand extension and the impact of the internet.

• NME.com – 7 million monthly visits, but print edition still generates more revenue (Hann, 2012)

+CASE STUDY – THE BRITISH MUSIC PRESS / JOURNALISTS

• Role of journalists on these publications has changed substantially.

• Far fewer full-time staff – freelance working is now the norm. Have always been poorly paid but now lack security too.

• Limited autonomy – style and editorial content much more carefully managed.

• Far more music writing available – and for free – written by unpaid “journalists.”

+CASE STUDY – PITCHFORK

• Launched by Ryan Schreiber in 1995, Minneapolis.

• Name meant to suggest “an angry mob mentality” towards the music industry. (quoted in Beck, 2012)

• “I loved reading print fanzines, but at the time, their distribution was limited and there was lot of overheads to cover.” (Schreiber)

• Initially, written mainly by Schreiber – focus on his own favourite type of music.

• Mid-2000, Schrieber expanded Pitchfork – moving to office in Chicago. By then, “130 000 visits per month, more than any of our print competitors.”


• Writers were unpaid; $300 per month for banner ad.

• Four reviews a day, five days a week.

• Advent of Napster made music available more widely and Pitchfork benefited from this culture of ‘sharing’ and the five year archive of reviews it had accumulated.

• “Rhetorical extravagance” (Beck) and the hyperbolic review of “Kid A” vs. Travis Morrison’s “Travistan” –evidence of power / impact within indie rock field.

• Beck talks of shift (2003) from “angry mob” to “king maker”- leading to closer ties with record industry.

• 2007 – Schreiber moves to Brooklyn; buy pitchfork.com domain name


• By 2010, Pitchfork = “a tremendous success” (Beck) – more content, writers, advertising, columns, Pitchfork TV and extension into Pitchfork Festival etc.

• Advertising is sole source of revenue – but increasingly large ads by big companies keen to reach their demographic – which is the same, male 16-24 group that the UK music press used to attract.

• “Behaving more like a magazine than the magazines have” – but placed reviews at centre rather than features.


• Archive of reviews means that “Pitchfork has become the only music publication to attempt an account of what it felt like to be a music fan in the last fifteen years.” (Beck)

• “You cannot write the history of contemporary rock without acknowledging Pitchfork’s contribution.”

• BUT – Pitchfork has strict style guidelines and Beck notes “hasn’t produced a single significant critic in fifteen years.” (Brent DiCrescenzo left in 2004)“Fully developed critics have a tendency to surprise themselves, and to argue with one another. . This would have undermined Pitchfork’s project.”


Pitchfork “People’s List” of 2012:


Albums chosen reflected Pitchfork’s own favourites (Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, etc.) – predominantly male, “indie” and white. (http://pitchfork.com/peopleslist/)

Beck argues that Pitchfork has become more professional and successful but is “an ever evolving, uncontroversial portrait of contemporary music.” Importance of “best ofs,” lists and numeric evaluation of music. (but this in itself is not new)

Cultural Capital + increasingly middle class nature of the “indie” demographic has been basis of its success (Beck) as has its rejection of traditional music journalism

http://pitchfork.com/peopleslist/

http://pitchfork.com/peopleslist/


Pitchfork “may ignore history, aesthetics, or the basic technical components of tonal music, but it will almost never fail to include a detailed taxonomy of the current hype cycle and media environment.”

Beck’s argument: “we need musicians that can take inspiration not only from other forms of music but the whole experience of life. . .Pitchfork and indie rock are currently run by people who behave as though the endless effort to perfect the habits of cultural consumption is the whole experience of life.”


In 2012, Pitchfork is now recruiting journalists that previously worked for print media and trying to look increasingly like a traditional print magazine, especially on phones, tablets etc. (http://pitchfork.com/features/cover-story/8970-bat-for-lashes/)

http://pitchfork.com/features/cover-story/8970-bat-for-lashes/



+CONCLUSIONS

Music criticism is a difficult to pin down field – questionable whether it exists as an autonomous cultural field

The nature of music criticism has changed substantially since first ‘reviews’ in nineteenth century.

Many factors have impacted on the changing nature of music criticism – not least stylistic changes (new forms of popular music) and technological changes (the recording industry, the internet) and wider social change.

+CONCLUSIONS

Music journalism has changed substantially in the post-1955 period – largely a consequence of the changing nature of the outlets and the loose/ tight control over content by editors and management. It remains ideological – but the ideology has changed.

Music press is important historically in piecing together the narrative of popular music history –Pitchfork may provide a similar function in the future.

Print media is of declining importance for musicians, audiences and the music industries. Impact on sales is considerably less than in the past.

+DISCUSSION

Where do you hear / hear about new music?

To what extent (if any) does writing about music influence what you hear or what you like?

What should the function of a pop music critic be?

Is music journalism still worth discussing on a Popular Music Studies course?

Aesthetics, Criticism and Popular Music Journalism

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