Why I write

When I started this, all I could muster was a grocery style list of reasons of why I write, which made me realise that; a) I may actually not be a very good writer at all and b) I may be studying the entirely wrong thing. This was less than encouraging. Actually that is a bit of an understatement, it was soul destroying. I was struggling with writing this to the point where I expressed my doubts with a friend and he said "use your magic." He was right, I do use magic, everyday. Words are magical. Why should it matter if it doesn't make sense or if it's just line after line of sentences that have nothing to do with each other because each word in itself has the ability to create something through magic; light, darkness, pain, sorrow, love, happiness, laughter and tears. So here's my grocery style list of magic, that I hope evokes something, because that's why I write, to evoke the beautiful things in life.


I write for my dad because I'm not sure how but I know wherever he is, he can read it and he's proud.


I write for my mom because I hope to show her that I appreciate everything she does for me.


I write for my friends because I'm often unable to express how much they mean to me aloud.


I write because I'm anxious.


I write because I'm nostalgic.


I write because I'm insecure.


I write because I'm hopeful.


I write because I'm indecisive.


I write because I'm timid.


I write so that the pressure that is perpetually building up in my brain can be released.


I write because I'm happy and I don't want to forget the feeling or the person that made me feel that way.


I write because sometimes I feel inadequate but I manage to persuade myself otherwise with my writing.


I write because sometimes words are the only things worth believing in.


I write because I'm a doomed dreamer that wants to save everybody and show the world she was given, that they're wrong.


I write because the people in my head need a voice to.


I write because I can't sleep.


I write because it's like opening my window shade and I am letting some light in.


I write because it makes things seem conquerable.


I write because how else do you keep going when something horrible happens


I write because I'm scared to get close.


I write because I hate being alone.


I write because I long for the feeling to not feel at all.


I write because I'm living the dream , one mistake at a time.


I write because a page is the only place that I can be myself.


I write because every word is a tidbit of my soul splashed onto a page.


Some days are magic and I can do anything and that's why I write. The other days I just have to wait, and hope it comes back.

I'm scared.

I was sorely mistaken in thinking that the scariest thing about coming to university, was knowing no one and being thrown into an entirely unknown universe. No one has experienced fear until you’ve stepped foot in the Africa Media Matrix as a third year. You enter a room filled with twenty two other hopefuls. We're all here for the same reason, we all have the same dream - the only problem is: will all of us make it?  It's as if we were newly trained soldiers that have been called to duty, pushed into battle. Led by our general who comes with experience and weapons we haven't even thought of acquiring in our short life. It's overwhelming being on the front line. Will I make it back home with only a few cuts and scrapes or will I just be one of those bodies left on the battlefield - collateral damage? 

Even more overwhelming than being on the front line is the fear that there might not be relevance in what you want to do with your life. We are far removed from the heyday of music journalism. Back when the writers were as big as the rock stars they were writing about.

Is it the difference of times, the advancement of technology or has the culture of music journalism completely changed since the 70s? Sure there are prominent music journalists today like Chuck Klosterman and Andy Greenwald but they don't nearly reach the impacting status of Lester Bangs or Aronowitz (who was the man who introduced The Beatles to Bob Dylan, inspiring the psychedelic era of the Sgt. Pepper variety). 

It's not that the writers aren't as immersed in the music culture as they used to be but rather that the diversification of popular music has shifted the camaraderie that once existed between writers and musicians to more professional and less cordial. Journalists of the traditional kind might be expected to marvel the scenes of some elaborate art show before darting off to discuss why we should be preserving badger habitats with some elderly wild life fellow. The music journalist keeps strictly to their niche: the musician and their wild (or not so wild) endeavours. It has become a breeding ground for elitism. 

Music journalists are notoriously candid about the inanity of our chosen career path, after all the field seems to aggrandise troubling personal characteristics such as bullish solipsism, inflated, bratty taste and unhealthy clinging to the youthful behaviours of all night shows, binge drinking and following around rock stars like hounds. Now, instead of being a part of the party, the music writer is just an observer. This isn't a science and it could be argued the opposite, maybe the writers of the 60s and the 70s were exceptions to the norm but that's what made rock journalism so unique. As music culture diversifies, music analysis diversifies. This isn't to say that one era is better than the other but instead simply that the realm of music journalism is constantly changing.

With this being said, the greatest challenge that faces music journalism yet is the internet and blogging. Music blogs are said to be ruining music journalism because music blogs serve as a content delivery system devoid of valuations and more concerned with posting information first instead of engaging it on any sort of critical level. This is a problem because it doesn't necessarily promote what's good but rather what is already popular, which is the opposite of what rock journalism is supposed to do. Which is true, blogs for the most part are echo chambers. They don't tell you anything, they just present you with videos of a band’s late night talk show appearance and hope that you'll click their link and get them some ad money. Why put in the effort to describe the sounds and essence of music when you can just toss in a hyperlink? - Of which I am guilty in my own writing. 

One of the most important elements of music journalism is the journalist as critic and taste maker.  If they say its good you buy it, if they slate the living hell out of it you stay well away. According to Johann Hari, a critic’s most basic task is to offer consumer advice. "There are more films, books, albums, and plays out this week than you can experience in a life time" Anyone with an internet connection has access to a menu of infinite cultural experiences. You need intelligent people to work through them and recommend the most interesting. In recent years an argument has appeared about the role of the critic, is it becoming redundant? And if so does that also mean the death of the music journalist?

According to Barney Hoskyns (The Sound and the Fury) "The sad truth is that rock journalism has become little more than a service industry, with scant autonomy and even less responsibilities to its readers" I agree with Hoskyns’ point as the media machine nowadays is controlling everything. PR's control what you write to make it favourable towards their artists. CEO'S at magazines control what content you write about to pull in advertising and make themselves look good. I sit here and wonder where the freedom of opinion has gone? This freedom of opinion is what made up a music critic. Drowned in Sound sum up the decline in dominance of the critic perfectly posing the question can being a critic ever be as important as it once was. whether Bangs, Cameron Crowe, Julie Burchill, Tony Parsons, Danny Kelly or Paul Morley to name but a few give ample evidence of the cultural impact of the music critic in past decades. It is sad to say that you would struggle to identify any current critics that are likely to reach such heights in coming years. 

As if I was not terrified enough, I came across a quote that did not make me feel any better at all. “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” – at first blush, the claim is a smugly dismissive one. Verbal descriptions are doomed to be pointless, perhaps even ridiculously, inferior to actual music. As a writer this assertion paralysed me. I didn't want to waste three or four years trying to produce something that could not be produced. I tried to put aside the line's foundational snobbery (my music is too ineffable for your inky art) and then reassuringly, it seemed like nothing more than truism: words are words and music is music and perfume is perfume; paintings are paintings, facial features are facial features. Yet writers are never counseled against attempting to evoke paintings, smells or faces, or feelings or buildings or the non-melodic sounds of jackhammers, thunder or snoring. What was so elusive about music that it couldn't be captured by words? Then I thought to myself, "but dancing is very much about architecture", it's all about movement, lines and flow, thankfully I was able to brush this one off - will I be as lucky next time I am discouraged? 

I'm overwhelmed. I breathe music, I throw myself into it and everything associated with it, just to be told by my head that I am wasting my life on music that I don't even create. The industry is dying and I'm scared that I might need a backup plan for everything I am. I am perpetually frozen by the fear of inadequacy, maybe I am not good enough for this dog eat dog world where someone will chew my writing up and spit it out but somehow I manage to persuade myself otherwise with my writing and it doesn't really matter if the industry is dying because it only takes a spark to ignite a fire. I have no doubt that I have the ability to be that spark. So I will stand on the front line and fight this war, with my fellow soldiers and the leadership of our general. I salute you.