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.
