#072: Insect Antenna & Cheese Graters
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: Interviews! This time I’ve talked to Lucy O'Brien, the author of She Bop: The Definitive History of Women in Popular Music; Fullamusu Bangura, the writer of a new piece on Lil Kim’s Hard Core album; writer Sam Stephenson; founding Mojo editor Paul Du Noyer; and surf music expert Anne Barjolin-Smith. Plus! Lots of recommendations (reading, podcasts, YouTube). And much more! But first…
Still Waiting On My Gift Certificate, Substack!
Reading List
Nate Rogers looks into why an obscure Pavement b-side is the band’s most streamed track on Spotify
Pamela Chelin profiles one of the survivors of the terrorist attack on the Bataclan, five years later
Bonnie J. Morris explains why the women’s music movement needs to be preserved
Nicholas Vila Byers on why drill and trap are the soundtrack of protest
Ben Hunter explores the ubiquity of the foghorn sound in drum & bass
Amanda Petrusich celebrates the vest that Jimi Hendrix wore at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival
Elijah C. Watson wonders whether slowed & reverb will become the internet’s next big genre
Jonathan Pfeffer details the history of the cranked snare drum
Anthony Tommasini attempts to answer the question, “Why do pianists know so little about pianos?”
Stephanie Phillips goes in search of the Black disco queens
Q&A: Dr. Lucy O’Brien
Dr. Lucy O’Brien is the author of many music books, but this year marks the publication of the 25th anniversary edition of She Bop: The Definitive History of Women in Popular Music. It starts in the early 1900s and ends in the present day, drawing on 270 interviews conducted over the past quarter-century. In this excerpt from our interview, Lucy explains what’s changed since the book was published in 1995.
There has been a huge shift in the music industry since I first published the book, with much greater awareness of gender and race issues, and a recognition of the need for diversity—otherwise the industry won’t sustain itself. While I was researching and writing the new chapter ‘Future Feminism’, I noticed a clear divide between the old industry and the new industry. Power in the old industry was consolidated in a very male-dominated network across the major labels and in live music. It was a kind of power that put the onus on women to use their sexuality to increase sales, and in that sort of reductive environment women found it difficult to progress as artists. They had to be very single-minded to negotiate their way through that (a common theme with so many of the women I interviewed), and success came at a cost, and through struggle.
The new industry that has grown with the arrival of the internet is much more exciting and diverse, with women less reliant on major labels to get their music heard. Now all kinds of voices are coming through…. Women are still hugely under-represented in the industry (only 18% of UK performing rights society PRS members are women, and just 3% of the Record Producers Guild membership). The EU-funded Keychange organisation is pledging equal gender balance in music by 2022—that’s a very ambitious figure, but over 300 music organisations have signed up, so the conversation has started.
Read the full interview with Lucy.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Dr. Lucy O’Brien:
I’d like to highlight the Alzheimer’s Society, the UK’s leading dementia charity. They campaign for change, fund research to find a cure, and support people living with dementia today. Your mind and memories are crucial to your identity and sense of self. We need greater social care and more funding to combat this cruel disease.
Check out all of the causes highlighted by the folks I’ve interviewed.
Podcasts!
The week in Ringer podcasts: Charles Holmes and Grace Spelman are launching a new podcast; Rob Harvilla and Kiana Fitzgerald discuss The Geto Boys’ “Mind Playing Tricks on Me”; and Micah Peters and Justin Charity break down the new Tekashi 6ix9ine documentary
Joey Akan and Mankaprr Conteh join The Pitchfork Review to talk Afrobeats
The Culture Journalist wraps up its first season with guest Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, a guiding force behind Justice at Spotify
Dylan Jones talks about The New Romantics for The Fantasy Setlist
Edward George explores The Strangeness of Dub [h/t Matthew Pinto]
Jashima Wadehra and Miki Hellerbach kicked off the series Stirring the Sauce with a deep look into Ice Cube’s “Contract with Black America”
Just Polishing A Couple Of Things…
Q&A: Fullamusu Bangura
Fullamusu Bangura is a poet and essayist, and the author of one of the essays in Shea Serrano’s new Halfway Books series. The series, for those not familiar, has writers tackling a single rap album, with the resulting essays individually for sale as downloadable PDFs. Fullamusu chose Lil Kim’s Hard Core. In this excerpt from our interview, Fullamusu explains why she picked it.
I was really interested in Lil’ Kim growing up, in a “I know I’m not supposed to listen to this but I like it” kinda way. When I got older, hopped on Tumblr, and went to college, it was such an awakening of sex-positivity and gave me the language to talk about what frustrated me for so long: namely, misogyny. When I finally got put on to Kim, Foxy, Junglepussy, etc, it was a really weird time when I was also obsessed with “disrupting the canon” so I constantly wanted to write about them, whether it was my class essays or for the publication I edited. It’s been a dream to immortalize women in hip-hop through literature and I’m really glad I get to do that for the Queen Bee.
Read the full interview with Fullamusu.
YouTubin’
Barack Obama chats with TwinsthenewTrend
Nathan Zed explains the power of album covers [h/t Chandler Shortlidge]
Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael chat about the excellent Louder Than a Riotpodcast
12Tone breaks down why music experts were recently fighting about Ludacris’s “Roll Out”
Polyphonic explores The 27 Club and mental illness
Noisey explores whether British rapper Sneakbo turned into a cat
Q&A: Sam Stephenson
Sam Stephenson is a writer from North Carolina, currently based in Bloomington, Indiana, and planning a move next year to Texas. He won a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship for an ongoing project about Jane's Addiction against the backdrop of Los Angeles and America at large in the 1980s and early 90s. He’s also currently ghostwriting Lucinda Williams’ memoir. In this excerpt from our interview, Sam describes some of his working process.
To this day I maintain letter writing – hard copies, initially – as a key part of my work. Recently I wrote Jurgen Klopp, the manager of Liverpool Football Club in the English Premier League, and I sent the letter to his agent’s office in Mainz, Germany. I figured if I sent it to the LFC offices in Liverpool it would be one of thousands of letters he gets weekly. I asked his agent if they ever considered authoring a book and, if so, if he would use a ghostwriter. I didn’t really expect to hear anything in return. But about 40 days later I got an email from his agent asking for more work samples and encouraging me to stay in touch because they liked my letter.
I had admitted I was not a sports writer, much less a football writer, but I was very comfortable doing ultra long interviews and working with the transcripts to create text in the voices of the subjects. There’s still probably 1/100 chance that this will work out. But before I wrote that letter there was no chance. I must say that most of my letter writing efforts fail. Probably only one in ten or fifteen do I hear from. I don't believe that time was wasted when I don't hear anything from someone. The effort is always worthwhile, even if it's only your craft of thinking and articulating is exercised a bit more.
Read the full interview with Sam.
Stuff You Gotta Watch
Stuff You Gotta Watch celebrates music journalism in video form. This week’s column is by freelance writer Jesse Locke.
The Rise of Experimental Music in the 1960s is a crash course in the American and British avant-garde. The 2005 BBC film is assembled with a series of phone conversations between musicians interspersed with footage of Mozart’s 18th-century game of chance, which entails arranging an orchestral piece via rolls of the dice. It’s a fittingly unusual format for the subject matter, setting a playful yet scholarly tone for a discussion that looks beyond traditional composition techniques.
Through a series of punnily titled sections such as “Serial Killers,” focusing on Stockhausen and Boulez, the history of Western experimental music is traced chronologically. The film’s most interesting passages arrive with archival footage of a pre-bearded Terry Riley performing “In C,” John Cage beaming onstage while wearing insect antenna, Cornelius Cardew’s graphic score interpreted on a cheese grater, and the joyful flubbing of the Portsmouth Sinfonia.
It’s no surprise that a mainstream project such as this would simply reinforce the canon, yet it’s still shameful to see Yoko Ono as the only non-white musician discussed in the film. History has been rewritten in the 15 years since its release, with overlooked innovators such as Julius Eastman finally included in the discussion, but sadly you won’t find him here. For a truly boundless look into experimental music, an updated version of this documentary could replace the names we’ve been taught for decades with those who have never had an opportunity to rise.
Q&A: Paul Du Noyer
Paul Du Noyer is an author, editor, and journalist based in London. His most recent book is The Complete John Lennon Songs 1970-1980. (Full disclosure: I work in the department at Universal Music that marketed a recent Lennon reissue.) Throughout his career, Paul has worked at various music magazines in the UK and was involved in the launch of both Q and Mojo in the 1990s. In this excerpt from our interview, Paul describes the launch of Mojo.
In the course of editing Q I became tired of following the current album charts to plot our editorial course. I sensed that even our younger readers were more thrilled by the past than by the present. I tried some “retro” cover stories and realised that cover images of, say, Jimi Hendrix or the 1965 Bob Dylan looked fresher, sexier and more youthful than most of our contemporary cover stars.
I picked the name “Mojo” because I’d always been a blues fan, and blues is the bedrock of what came after. I liked the secretive, mystic connotations of Mojo. And it reminded me of a great US magazine I’d bought for the title alone: “Who Put The Bomp?” At the same time we had no wish to make a merely nostalgic magazine. I thought that older readers who had come in to music via, say Captain Beefheart or The Clash, were by nature adventurous and drawn to extremes. So we hoped to find a way of introducing young readers to old music, and of telling older readers about the good things happening in new music, especially from outside the mainstream.
Read the full interview with Paul.
Bits, Bobs
Razorcake is undertaking its annual donation drive
Uproxx has has launched its third annual Music Critics poll
Eleanor Halls has launched a monthly newsletter of advice and intel for women music journalists
Farrah Skeiky has a fun live music coloring book for sale
Cherie Hu has a guide for incorporating gaming into your music strategy
New Feeling has discontinued publishing until it can pay its contributors fairly
Criterion Channel will focus on Afrofuturism in December, programmed by Ashley Clark
The Soul News Archive has made available issues of SOUL Newspaper and SOUL Illustrated from 1966 to 1982
If Only
Q&A: Anne Barjolin-Smith
Anne Barjolin-Smith is the author of Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida: Surfing, Musicking, and Identity Marking. She recently completed her Ph.D. in American Studies with a focus on lifestyle sports and music, and is currently a full-time French teacher at a high school in Florida. In this excerpt from our interview, she describes how she approached the book.
The subject and approach derive directly from my background. On the one hand, I love snowboarding, wakeboarding, and surfing. I also did much contemporary dancing at the competition level until I moved to the US in 2012. In other words, music and sports have always made sense to me. I often joke that I can't ride a half-pipe or the park without [the right] music on. On the other hand, being a linguist, I saw connections between linguistic and cultural phenomena. I have always been fascinated by the relationship between languages, cultures, and identity construction. So I relied on sociolinguistic theories to observe and discuss cultural mobility and identity issues in surfing culture through surf music. This made it possible to create models using fieldwork data, which made writing this book much fun!
Read the full interview with Anne.
Academic Stuff
New journal issues: Punk & Post-Punk, IASPM Journal, Music Education Research, Jazz Perspectives, The Soundtrack, Dancecult
Call for Papers: Blinded by the Light: Pop-rock Music and 2000s Cinema is looking for submissions by December 7; email clementine.tholas@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr and catherine.girodet@univ-reims.fr for more info
Talks this week: Natasha Gauthier is hosting a panel about systemic racism in early music performance; Kira Thurman is discussing Beethoven, Blackness, and belonging
SMT has announced its 2020 award winners, while Philip Ewell, Robert Komaniecki and Anabel Maler point out some of the issues with how the organization awards them
Call for Proposals: Phono: Black Music and the Global Imagination is accepting submissions
The 2020 ARSC Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research have been announced
Quick Programming Note
I’ll be taking next week off. I’ll be back on December 7th with a new edition. Until then, stay safe out there!
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…