#068: A Fierce, Fiery, Uncontrollable Passion
I’m Todd L. Burns, and welcome to Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. I highlight some of the best stuff I hear, read, and watch every week; publish news about the industry; and interview writers, scholars, and editors about their work. My goal is to share knowledge, celebrate great work, and expand the idea of what music journalism is—and where it happens. Questions, comments, concerns? You can reach me anytime at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com.
Today in the newsletter: I’ve got a new edition of the Notes On Process column with Pitchfork contributing editor Jayson Greene. Plus! Interviews with Billboard senior editor Lyndsey Havens; Brazilian freelance journalist Beatriz Miranda; the author of Selling Out: Culture, Commerce and Popular Music, Bethany Klein; and freelance journalist Kimberley Scribe. But first…
Support Good Things
Notes On Process: Jayson Greene
The latest edition of Notes On Process is here! In case you’ve missed out so far, the idea is simple: I invite a writer to a Google Doc where I’ve pasted the text of one of their pieces and added a bunch of comments with flattery, jokes, and questions. They reply to my queries, and then we provide you with a link to the doc where all of our marginalia is visible. I’m hoping to provide a window into the writing and editing process, so that folks can see how great writers think about their work. Today, I’ve got Pitchfork contributing editor Jayson Greene talking about his 2018 piece “Are We Having Fun Yet? On Pop’s Morose New Normal.”
Check out the Google Doc
You can see the full archive of Notes On Process here. What do you make of the column? Is there another format you’d prefer? Is there a writer whose work you're eager to see dissected? Let me know by replying to this email.
Reading List
Michael Waters on how one company controls 97% of the ice cream truck music market, why the ice cream truck business is booming during the pandemic, and why RZA is writing a new ice cream jingle
Sasha Geffen reviews the new Wendy Carlos biography
Jason Tate remembers the most important moments in AbsolutePunk’s history
Tony Rettman opens up about living with MS
Jesse Bernard guest-edited M Magazine last week
Nnehkai Agbor has a nice overview of the complicated history of K-pop fandom and activism
Eric Ducker put together an oral history of A.J. Soprano’s Slipknot windbreaker
Aniefiok Ekpoudom speaks to Skepta, JME, Julie, and the rest of the exceptional Adenuga family
Taylor Crumpton chats with Tim Herrera about her freelance writing career
Dazed interviewed the person behind the UK Rave Comments Twitter account; Rolling Stone interviewed the guy behind the Good Steely Dan Takes Twitter account
Robert Ham celebrates Portland punk rock magazine Puncture
Q&A: Lyndsey Havens
Lyndsey Havens is a senior editor at Billboard. Lyndsey credits early work experience and internships as a major catalyst in her career. In high school, she spent time working with Val Heller of Valslist; in college, she had an internship with Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot; and right after college, she did an internship at Billboard. That final role led to a full-time job and “thanks to the help and patience of [her] colleagues who trusted [her] to edit stories as [she] learned in real-time,” she’s now a senior editor. In this excerpt from our interview, Lyndsey describes what she’d like to see more of in music journalism right now.
With the pandemic, I’ve found myself really missing scene-setting from profiles. One of my favorite parts of a cover story or feature has always been the fly-on-the-wall reporting that makes up small but telling moments. I find myself worrying that, now that we all know that it’s possible to produce a compelling profile over the phone, Zoom or FaceTime, those methods will stick around as the go-to long after the pandemic. Even before March, I was already unsettled at the rise of the celebrity-as-interviewer style of journalism that has emerged over the past couple years, and so I hope to see journalists having the opportunity to pull back the curtain again soon. And, to that end, I hope to see a more diverse pool of journalists and voices having that opportunity.
Read the full interview with Lyndsey.
Same
Q&A: Beatriz Miranda
Beatriz Miranda is a freelance writer based in Brazil. Beatriz started out covering social issues, but music was always a passion. She’s written for The Rio Times, Afropunk, Vinyl Me Please, The New York Times, and more. “I guess writing about Brazilian music is so meaningful to me because this is intrinsic to who I am, to my identity as a Rio native, born-and-raised, who has always read, played, and danced to Brazilian music cultures,” she says. In this excerpt from our interview, Beatriz talks about where music journalism is headed.
I have the impression music journalism will be more interdisciplinary. We no longer talk about/write about music alone. It's increasingly how a music scene, or an artist, is shedding light on something important for society—a trend, a cause, an issue...
What would you like to see more of in music journalism right now?
When I see flat, little-researched, simplistic, reductionist music stories, I feel that, somehow, it helps reinforce the idea that "music journalism is second-class journalism." I'd love to see more stories that are very seriously reported, very well-researched, and very responsible when they cover artists and music scenes.
Read the full interview with Beatriz.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Beatriz Miranda:
The great news platform Rio On Watch has put together a resource page for all campaigns aimed at raising funds to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 in their communities. (Some of them accept donations via PayPal and other digital money transfer websites.)
Check out all of the causes highlighted by the folks I’ve interviewed.
Five Things: Great Soviet Band Names
The Optimists
The Avanguard
Rock Hotel
Polite Refusal
The Object of Mockery
This list would not have been possible without the excellent Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia.
New Podcasts!
Rob Harvilla is dissecting 60 songs that explain the ‘90s for The Ringer
The LAnd has launched a podcast with a David Roth interview
Exit the 36 Chambers will spotlight rising / underappreciated hip-hop
Sing for Science pairs “prominent musicians and scientists to discuss some of the most influential songs of their careers”
Stuff You Gotta Watch
Stuff You Gotta Watch celebrates music journalism in video form. This week’s column is by freelance writer Jesse Locke.
Bass Worship begins with a Wikipedia definition of “bass” that feels like a parody of a first-year university student essay. The 30-minute short by Australian YouTuber Turismo4k can only be described as a 101 course in dub and sound system culture. Yet for anyone seeking a surface-level intro to the Jamaican music genre before digging deeper, it’s an informative watch that has clearly been made from a place of appreciation.
True to his name, Turismo brings viewers on a tour through the studios of King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry. The latter becomes a special focus with stories of his psychedelic recording techniques: burying mics under palm trees, spraying bodily fluids onto tapes, and infamously burning down the Black Ark. The film is most effective when specific songs are highlighted, such as the Procol Harum-inspired riddim from Jackie Mitoo’s “Darker Shade of Black” evolving into Augustus Pablo’s “Harder Shade of Black” and eventually Scientist’s “Blacka Shade of Dub.”
Turismo’s basic thesis is that dub can be credited with laying the foundations for remixing, sampling, and any other musical practices that use the studio as instrument. He traces its influence on the usual subjects of these discussions such as late ’70s post-punk and early ’90s dub techno, but also makes arguments for its influence on musique concrète, DJ Screw, and Hype Williams. Listen back to Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland’s bleary-eyed riddims and you’d be hard pressed to disagree.
Q&A: Bethany Klein
Bethany Klein is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. She’s also the author of the new book Selling Out: Culture, Commerce and Popular Music. “Selling out” has always been a hot topic, but I was intrigued to see Bethany grappling with where we seem to be right now in the discussion, looking at “what might be lost when the boundary between culture and commerce is dismissed as a relic.” In this excerpt from our interview, Bethany talks about how she wrote the book.
I used to take for granted that everybody manages the writing process in a similar way until I started talking to colleagues about their processes and was surprised to discover that one person’s intuitive or obvious approach is another person’s nightmare. I seem to be in the minority as somebody who works through every section and paragraph of a chapter by detailed outline before writing. I call these monster outlines and, as well as the shape of the argument, they include all the examples and quotes I intend to use. By the time I start turning an outline into prose, my thinking is mostly done and I just concentrate on composition. Academic writing is often fixated on argument over style: I try to give them equal footing. It’s no coincidence that a lot of my favourite academic writers have music journalism experience (e.g. Devon Powers, Jack Hamilton). I don’t know how they approach writing, but I admire writers who are able to convey complicated ideas in a clear and engaging style.
Read the full interview with Bethany.
Academic Stuff
A new issue of Ethnomusicology has been published
The SEM 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting is starting this week
A new multimedia publication, the Norient Sound Series, has launched its first edition
The British Forum for Ethnomusicology One Day Conference, focused on music and music enterprise in times of crisis, will be held virtually on November 7
The Journal of Musicological Research has published a new issue
The Woody Guthrie Center is accepting applications for its BMI Fellowship and Phil Ochs Fellowship
Podcasts!
The Sum’n to Say crew celebrates Outkast’s Stankonia
Sound Expertise has wrapped up its excellent first season
Freelance writer and editor Matthew Schnipper recently guested on Blamo!
Moscow-based K-pop promoter Sophie Chivanova talked about the Russian concert business on How Music Charts
LMFAO
Q&A: Kimberley Scribe
Kimberley Scribe is a freelance journalist, with a specialty in K-pop. “I fell in love with *NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys & The Spice Girls when I was in kindergarten in ‘97 and ‘98 and I never looked back,” she says. The early years of her writing consisted of penning songs and poetry, but after a long break, she returned to it. “But this time instead of original creative works I decided to combine my two loves in a completely different way and started covering music instead.” In this excerpt from our interview, Kimberley describes what she’d like to see more of in music journalism.
Integrity. Passion. Knowledge. Empathy. Understanding and skill. That’s what’s most important above all else. We cannot make sense of the music that the artist is making if we do not first understand—or at the very least try to understand—the artist and perhaps why they choose to or chose to make this particular set of music to begin with. And in order to have the depth of understanding and empathy necessary to do this, you have to have the proper knowledge. The knowledge of your profession, your craft. The knowledge of journalism and its intended, historical purpose and in order to properly grasp that you have to have passion. A fierce, fiery, uncontrollable burning passion for what you do, your profession and your craft and ultimately in order to make the most of your time, you need to devote said time to developing a deep, unwavering mastery and skill. That’s it. That’s all I really want to see. That is it.
Read the full interview with Kimberley.
Bits, Bobs
Resident Advisor received a £750,000 grant from the UK government
Alfred Soto has a collection of the most common rockcrit clichés
Bob Biggs of Slash has passed away
Cherie Hu has some advice on how to stand out
New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet isn’t sure if arts reviewers should stay in their jobs indefinitely
Mick Rock will discuss some of his iconic photographs on October 22
Jen Matson has digitized two issues of her ‘90s zine Nonstop Diatribe
Hey, Thanks For This Newsletter! How Can I Support This Thing?
Here are three easy ways you can support the newsletter:
Forward it to a friend
Become an ongoing supporter of the newsletter (what Substack calls a “paid subscriber”)
What sort of perks are there for ongoing supporters?
Insider Extra - An additional e-mail from me each week, usually featuring job listings, freelance calls, and more
How To Pitch Database - Access to a database with contact information and pitching info for hundreds of publications
Reading Recommendations - Access to a resource page collecting great pieces of music journalism, sourced from great music journalists
Advice - Access to a resource page devoted to collecting advice from journalists and editors on how to excel at music journalism
Interviews - Access to the hundreds of interviews that have appeared in the newsletter, with writers and editors from Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and more
The Closing Credits
Thanks for reading! Full disclosure: My day job is at uDiscover Music, a branded content online magazine owned by Universal Music. This newsletter is not affiliated or sponsored in any way by Universal, and any links that relate to the work of my department will be clearly marked. Feel free to reach out to me via email at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com. On Twitter, it’s @JournalismMusic. Until next time…