The lost art of music journalism

Do you need to read this? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Either way, this article is written in regards to music journalism in 2011, and whether it’s still valid. The argument runs that it very much expletively is.
The reason for writing this is because it is entirely plausible for you to argue that music journalism is due to die an almost certain death. This all starts, if we take this story back to the beginning, in the 1980s, when we see stomping, big-boned critics stalking the earth. What they said was the only opinion that mattered: they had a direct influence on sales and were wined, dined and taxied home by the record companies. These were the outright glory days of the critics. But along came the late ‘90s and you had the rise of the D.I.Y magazines like Pitchfork, who effectively acted as consumer guides for a public who did not want to spend their pretty polly on prohibitively expensive CDs.
Then, in 2004, everyone got a blog and so onset a famine for the well-paid critic. Everyone has an opinion now; opinions are cheap and anyone can blog about what’s happening in their hometown: little bands now explode. Arctic Monkeys become the most-hyped band of the 21st century. Couple this with lube-like easy access to high-speed internet and now you, the listener, can listen and form an opinion on pretty much ANY album. Type it in. Type the word ‘mediafire’ and download it, and seven seconds later you’re listening to it. You don’t need the consumer guides anymore.
Therefore, especially for a fortnightly student publication such as ourselves, it is impossible to try and keep up with the internet buzzosphere. Pointless to report on something that even NME have clocked on to. This represents the argument against the validity of music journalism in 2011 – essentially, the power base has been wrested from the pen and into the mosh-pit of the crowd.
Yet I argue here that this does not sound any knell for music criticism. There are several points that stand resolutely in front of the scythe for music journalists. In fact it can be persuasive to argue that there is a greater demand for analysis on music. It has infiltrated much more of our lives, thanks largely to the iPod (RIP Steve Jobs). Music can now reach a much wider audience as sites like Last.fm, Hypem.com, YouTube and Twitter let artists access areas that record label promotion can’t. The most obvious example of this in recent times are the Vaccines, who went from a YouTube demo in August 2010 to the BBC sound of 2011 five months later.

Right now, if anything, a sustained cohesive argument and discussion is even more important to music: we need to understand what is happening and why. But amongst the unyielding and desperate search for a new buzzband, there is a conspicuous lack of space pledged to longer analysis on what is currently being pro-duced by musicians active in 2011. We need to move away from opinion and into articulation. Vanguarding this is The Guardian’s New Band of the Day, a fantastically written, incredibly informative column which depicts well the necessity to produce highly evaluative, well-argued, enterprising and original pieces of reportage. With this in mind, a six-point plan is needed. This is the Boar calling out to all you who are interested. Here it is:

1. Listen to music explicitly. Bus journeys are non-negotiable, it is downtime for you and your iPod.

2. Harbour a love of language. And if not love, then she must be your top-favourite passionate mistress.

3. Do not describe. Justify. The why someone should listen to this music now and the how it makes you feel are religiously important.

4. Read the blogs all the time. This gives you a crucial tool to recognise and debunk useless hype or, in fact, spot something that is genuinely game-changing.

5. Learn from the best. Read non-fiction like Orwell and Klein. They are brutally concise writers, capable of imparting difficult points with razorblade clarity.

6. Hit hard and hit immediately. Hit low if you must. Readers have a million things they could possibly read, why bother reading what you’ve written?

Essentially the Boar needs to represent a forum for taste-making, to be taste-makers; if we can’t get to the story first, then we have to make sure we have the best angle on it. The website will become a much larger thing and reviews will be put up with more alarming regularity; straight-out skill and forthright aggression will be our most important weapons.
You’re here to set people’s heads on fire.

Email music@theboar.org if you want to be involved.