#180: Lose The Words
Lose The Words
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. And if you're not already subscribed to the newsletter, you can do so at musicjournalisminsider.com.
Today in the newsletter: Interviews with dance music expert Ed Gillett, music journalist Amy Linden, SSENSE managing editor Ross Scarano, and Vassar professor Justin Patch. Plus! Reading and podcast recommendations! And more! But first…
Truly The Goat
Source
Reading List
- Jide Taiwo explains his work documenting Afrobeats
- Souvankham Thammavongsa lovingly describes the sound of ice cream trucks
- Max Alper writes an open letter to a former student
- Maura Johnston talks about her work as a music journalist
- Michelle Lhooq writes about the museumification of techno
- Simon Reynolds celebrates the vintage house and techno writing of Paul Oldfield
- The New York Times interviewed 50 rappers
- Adam Steiner has published an excerpt from his new Bowie book
- Lily Moayeri discusses the importance of record stores in Iran
- Emily Yahr and Maham Javaid profile the Taylor Swift fans who couldn’t get tickets… and got jobs at the venue she was playing instead
Lede Of The Week
As the founder of an app that connects workers with hospitality gigs, Davis Waddell knows there’s always a surge in applications for high-profile events: Football fans clamor to work at the Super Bowl; baseball and basketball loyalists vie for all-star games. But he’s never seen anything like the volume of job seekers who flooded in when the app started offering hourly opportunities for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. - Emily Yahr and Maham Javaid
Q&A: Ed Gillett
Ed Gillett is a writer from South London. His first book is Party Lines: Dance Music and the Making of Modern Britain. Dan Hancox calls it “a landmark book, and a reminder that the dancefloor is always political.” In this excerpt from our interview, Ed describes the book.
So the simplest description is that it’s a social and political history of UK dance music. My original idea was to explore how politics, policing, and profit have shaped club culture over the last 40 years, but what became apparent while I was writing is that the reverse is just as important, if not even more so: not just politics shaping culture, but the critical role those cultures have played in moulding British social and political history.
Take something like the Criminal Justice Act 1994: everyone knows about the ban on unlicensed events featuring “repetitive beats” and its impact on dance music, with the end of massive free parties like Castlemorton and the subsequent rise of the superclub.
But that’s only half of it. When you look at stop-and-search statistics, and the Met Police targeting a disproportionate number of young Black men over fears about knife crime, the powers they use for those stops are in part drawn from the CJA; it’s the same thing with long-term retention of DNA data, which was first legislated in 1994 too. These powers were all justified in the media and the Commons with references to drug-addled ravers and so on, but they actually seep into every corner of British life—both have been the focus of sustained campaigning by Liberty and other human rights charities, for example. Everywhere you look, there’s some kind of connection back to dance music, some subtle but important way that it’s shaped whole swathes of UK society.
Party Lines is still a book about dance music, but it's also a book about why Britain is the way it is: how the act of dancing together, and the conflict between the people who want to party and the people who want to stop them, form a fault line running all the way through the UK's laws, politics, public life, and culture.
Read the full interview with Ed here.
Sad But True
Source
Podcasts!
- Starting a Riot is a new podcast about riot grrrl
- European Lab brought together a panel to discuss the future of independent music journalism
- Tressie McMillan Cottom joins Into It to chat about country music’s race problem
- The Buzz discusses the changes at JazzTIMES
- Ray Padgett joins Clear the Dance Floor to talk about his new Dylan book
Q&A: Amy Linden
Amy Linden is an educator and music critic/journalist. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The Source, The New York Times, and many more. She served as a consultant for the Academy Award-winning documentary Amy, and is also the co-host and co-producer of the pop culture podcast ImmaLetYouFinish. In this excerpt from our interview, Amy talks about where music journalism is headed.
I think the biggest problem, across the board, is that folks don’t read and streaming, social media, etc. has turned critical thought and examination into hot takes and clicks. Back in the day, we would get an advance and live with the music. Now, it’s just listen and get your opinion out there ASAP. Not feeling that, at all.
What would you like to see more of in music journalism right now?
Folks need to know about the roots of music, of the artists they’re writing about. One of the advantages of being young is that you’re not old. But a disadvantage—at least in the last ten years—is that you think you know more than you do. I actually had an editor at a Black music magazine tell me he didn’t know who Neneh Cherry was, and that’s just pathetic. I mean, Google it. I wasn’t alive when Elvis came out, but I knew enough about him so I can write about who he influenced. Niche is not always a good thing.
What would you like to see less of in music journalism right now?
Stupidity and over the top critiques. The world will not fall off its axis if you seriously critique Beyonce, to give an example. Lose the words “genius,” “iconic,” “groundbreaking,” “classic.”
Read the full interview with Amy here.
Stuff You Gotta Watch
Stuff You Gotta Watch celebrates music journalism in video form. This week’s column is by Ana Leorne.
No machine is ever just a machine, especially in the music world. That’s certainly the case with the Roland TR-808. Often credited with irrevocably changing the course of electronic music, the drum machine appeared in the early '80s and quickly became one of the most beloved instruments of the era.
808 is an ode to the groundbreaking impact of this little magical box. Narrated by Zane Lowe, the documentary details the history of the famous drum machine from its Japanese beginnings to world domination, explaining how it forever changed pop music. For about an hour and a half, we travel through some of the biggest hits crafted with the aid of the 808, such as Marvin Gaye's “Sexual Healing” and Phil Collins' “Another Day In Paradise.” This exciting tale is enhanced by the testimonies of an impressive group of musicians whose careers have been influenced by its unique sound: Damon Albarn, Questlove, Beastie Boys, Tiga, Pharrell Williams, and many others.
Real Scenes
- Isabelia Herrera on Puerto Rican queer femmes
- Miloš Hroch on Czech shoegaze
- Andy Beta on smooth jazz
- Jeff Ihaza on snippetcore
- Ben Salmon on country music
Trivia Time
With which jazz and popular music writer did Tony Bennett collaborate on his 1998 autobiography The Good Life?
Q&A: Ross Scarano
Ross Scarano is a managing editor at SSENSE. He’s previously written and worked for the likes of Complex, Billboard, The Believer, and more. In this excerpt from our interview, Ross talks about where he thinks music journalism is headed.
Truthfully it’s hard to muster much enthusiasm for the future, and not just because of the bloody year we’ve had in media. Resources have been thinning for years; freelance budgets aren’t what they used to be; it’s harder for rising writers to get the training and guidance they need to develop.
The battle for access feels like it’s over, and the journalists lost. Even at the business level, the stories I see told about Hollywood and the streaming era are better sourced than stories about the major labels. The music industry is smaller and as such is a more fearful environment—inside the labels and out. When I was at Complex, we would reach out to less-established producers and songwriters who placed something on a big album, and over the years we watched how the influence of big artists like Drake cooled our ability to get those people to talk on the record. Omerta has become the norm. Like everyone is pretending to be in the mafia. But still, we don’t stop working.
What Jake Malooley has done with his Steely Dan newsletter Expanding Dan—his reporting around the long-lost track “The Second Arrangement” specifically—makes me happy and excited. Unearthing the tape and publishing the interview with the engineer who deleted it feels nothing short of miraculous. There are so many stories from music history that remain untold and we should endeavor to tell them. I think a subscriber-driven newsletter can work as a good model for the niche work Malooley is doing, which as far as reporting goes is mostly, I imagine, phone calls and emails. More expensive and expansive reporting for a general interest audience that nevertheless sheds light on how the music industry works now—that’s a different story. (Evan Osnos’s recent piece about private performances is a good example of that.)
Read the full interview with Ross here.
Bits, Bobs
- Harriet Choice has passed away
- NME is relaunching its print magazine
- Declan McGlynn and Daniel Gill have started newsletters
- Activision is suing Anthony Fantano
- Various folks shared some of their music journalist inspirations on Twitter
Stone Cold Classic
Source
Pivoting To Video
- Black Music Archive produced a doc on the sound of gay and ballroom culture
- DW History and Culture produced a doc about the birth of techno
- Adam Neely asks, “Does music have a speed limit?”
- Enjoy Classical Music explains how zombies helped them understand Richard Wagner
- The Punk Rock MBA talks about why nu metal is popular again
Q&A: Justin Patch
Justin Patch is Associate Professor of Music at Vassar College. His research focuses on music in American politics, sound studies, East Asian art music, and music in the African diaspora. In this excerpt from our interview, Justin explains what he’s currently working on.
It’s a book about pro-Trump DIY art. I find this a window into the MAGA movement that any individual can contribute to. Since ordinary people are locked out of the political process, their political speech—fears and desires—manifest partially in art. I look at these displays as meaningful and am trying to theorize DIY political art in a way that makes sense in the digital age. Hopefully the manuscript will be completed in September.
Why do you find this area of research so interesting?
Art and politics are baseline interests for me. My mother was an art teacher and politics was always talked about in my house. I started on this path writing about the intersections of music, sound, and politics, so this was a natural extension of those interests. I was also taken with something anthropologist Susan Harding said about needing to have a closer vantage on conservative movements. Even though this project is not ethnographic, I'm beginning my approach with kindness, which is not always easy. But I live in Red New York, so I know Trumpers who are fundamentally good people, and that is part of the reason why I'm trying to understand pro-Trump DIY art, because people's pain is real, and even if I disagree with their analysis and solutions, I need to understand why they are hurting and how that is expressed in art.
Read the full interview with Justin here.
Academic Stuff
- New issues: American Music, Latin American Music Review, Early Music, Journal of World Popular Music Tempo, and SMT-V
- Call for Proposals: International Country Music Conference [Due October 27]
- Call for Papers: Home, Work and Music: Musical Practices in Domestic Spaces [Proposals due August 31]
- Call for Papers: A Century of Sound: Technology, Culture and Performance: The 8th Global Reggae Conference [Proposals due October 30]
- Call for Works: SOUND/IMAGE Festival 2023 [Proposals due August 25]
The Closing Credits
Thanks for reading! In case you’ve missed any special features, I’ve published a number of them in the newsletter, including articles about music journalism history, what music journalism will be like in 2221, and much more. You can check out all of that here.
I also do a recurring column in the newsletter called Notes On Process. The premise is simple: I share a Google Doc with a music journalist where we go into depth on one of their pieces. It hopefully provides an insight into how music writers do their work. You can check out all editions of Notes On Process here.
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Trivia Time Answer
Tony Bennett’s autobiography The Good Life was co-written with Will Friedwald.
A Final Note
Thanks for reading! Big shout out to James Lamont for their help on the newsletter this week. I make playlists every single week. Check them here! And 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...