#148: A Shoutout To Craft
A Shoutout To Craft
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 musician, writer, and educator Jennifer Gersten; critic/essayist Mark Reynolds; and NYLON editor Steffanee Wang. Plus! Reading recommendations, a doc about Carlos Paredes, and more! But first…
Point / Counterpoint
Source
Reading List
- Theresa Vargas talks about why Lizzo played a really old flute last week
- Michaelangelo Matos provides an oral history of EXAT, an experimental and ambient techno night in '90s Detroit
- Sowmya Krishnamurthy runs down what she’s learned in a decade of freelancing
- Ian Chainey highlights metal musicians focused on the environment
- Gareth Shute looks at the intersection of music and New Zealand's drinking laws
- Sean Smith profiles Country & Western's new genre
- Laura Barton explores why musicians are canceling tours to protect their mental health
- Larry Fitzmaurice explains how he listens to music as a music journalist
- Zoey Shopmaker wonders whether New York clubs need stricter door policies
- Geoff Edgers wants to know whether perfect sound exists
Lede Of The Week
"Tom Port is a 68-year-old man who spends his days in an office park outside Los Angeles where he takes it upon himself to determine which records are the best-sounding in the world. This is a task for which he considers himself uniquely qualified." - Geoff Edgers
Q&A: Jennifer Gersten
Jennifer Gersten is a musician, writer, and educator. At the moment, she's in the final stages of a doctorate in violin at Stony Brook and living in Oslo on a Fulbright. In 2018, Jennifer won the Rubin Institute Prize in Music Criticism. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Which Sinfonia, and more. In this excerpt from our interview, Jennifer describes the biggest change in her writing work over the past few years.
Forcing myself to show my writing to people has been a useful practice, though in moderation as with anything (too many cooks, etc.). In general I am also trying to think of the long line, both in music and in writing—that is, to mind the details, yes, but to prioritize where the details are going.
What would you like to see less of in music journalism right now?
I’d like to give a shoutout to craft. I often see a lot of carelessness or indecisiveness there, particularly regarding economy, precision, and grammar. I also am completely uninterested in hagiographies.
Read the full interview with Jennifer here.
Interesting Thread!
Source
Pitchfork Does The '90s (Again)
- This past week, Pitchfork published its latest list of the best albums and best songs of the '90s
- Editor-in-chief Puja Patel explains why
- Ann Powers highlights albums that didn’t make the list, but were highly rated by critics during the '90s [h/t Laura Stavropoulos]
- Jack Hamilton promotes his own favorite list of '90s music
- Joshua Minsoo Kim points out just a few genres that weren't mentioned
Podcasts!
- The New York Times Popcast went live
- Bandsplain is now run through The Ringer
- The Face has launched a new podcast
- Endless Scroll had some thoughts on the Pitchfork '90s list
- The Vergecast invited Switched On Pop co-host Charlie Harding to talk about the future of music
Q&A: Mark Reynolds
Mark Reynolds is a critic/essayist at the intersection of history, race, and culture. Mark began writing in the '80s and had a long tenure at PopMatters, where he published the long-running “Negritude 2.0” column. In this excerpt from our interview, he explains a bit of his journey.
In 2004, I started writing for PopMatters, an online magazine (I figured it was time to start being on the internet). By that point, I’d decided that I didn’t want to, or have the time to, keep up with all the stories happening in music, let alone compete with all the folks who did. But I could carve out a niche for myself by drawing connections between the present and the past, which is pretty much what I did for the next several years. My column, which I entitled “Negritude 2.0,” ran monthly for several years, then bi-monthly, then sorta faded away as I just contributed reviews and essays as the spirit moved me. I wrote about virtually all things Black culture, but music was always my strongest wheelhouse. That continued until mid-2020, when I ran out of juice to stay there.
I should mention here that for all my work as a journalist and critic, that was never my main source of income (or, in the case of PopMatters, any income at all). When I started in the ‘80s, I was a mail sorting clerk at the Main Post Office in Cleveland. I parlayed my journalism work into a role as the primary PR person for the Postal Service in Cleveland, then parlayed that into a two-year stint running the in-house video programming for the USPS in Philadelphia, and then became the lead PR person for USPS in Chicago in 2006. I retired from there in 2016 to take a job as head of marketing & communications at my alma mater, Antioch College (which in itself is another long story). I’ve been back in Chicago since 2017, still working day jobs and writing when time and the muse allow. It’s been a dual-edged sword: I’ve never had to worry about writing having to pay my bills and provide benefits, but didn’t push expanding my platform and visibility as hard as I maybe could/should have. (That’s about to change.)
Lately, music is not the primary focus of what I write. I’ve had essays published in two Belt Publishing anthologies, and one of those essays attracted the attention of the guest editor of Gravy’s 2022 issue about Black food and the Midwest. The piece I wrote for that, “In Search of My Parent’s Cleveland,” was a fond remembrance of local take-out barbecue joints, which hinged on discoveries I wrote about for a piece 25 years ago.
Read the full interview with Mark here.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Mark Reynolds:
Black trans people are especially endangered these days, and have been for some time. They are often ostracized by their families and traditional community support systems like the Black church. Mainstream LGBTQ+ groups haven’t always been as present, or even available, for them as one might think. Crimes against them are often not vigorously investigated. In the last few years and especially since the pandemic, mutual aid groups like Chicago’s Brave Space Alliance have emerged to provide love and caring support to and within the Black trans community; perhaps there’s such a group near you?
Check out all of the causes highlighted by folks I’ve interviewed.
Stuff You Gotta Watch
Stuff You Gotta Watch celebrates music journalism in video form. This week’s column is by Ana Leorne, talking about the 2006 documentary Perpetual Movements: A Tribute to Carlos Paredes.*
The Portuguese guitar is a curious instrument. Usually associated with fado, its origins actually go all the way back to the medieval troubadours and noble circles—though a need for bringing the instrument closer to the masses eventually allowed for its association with tavern music.
Carlos Paredes comes from a long lineage of virtuosity and passion. Both his grandfather and father were Portuguese guitar masters. By the time Paredes composed the legendary soundtrack to 1963 film Os Verdes Anos, he enjoyed a reputation in his home country and abroad—despite his numerous brushes with the law.
Edgar Pêra's Perpetual Movements pays tribute to Carlos Paredes’s legacy in a singular way. Put together as a poetic dialog between the Portuguese guitar and a Super 8 camera, the film is a mix of documentary and visual essay that relies on bits of archival footage and loose testimonies to tell the story of the musician's life and artistry. Employing a touch of mysticism and the untranslatable feeling of "saudade," Perpetual Movements is a fitting homage to Paredes while also standing as a work of art in and of itself.
Trivia Time
Which two artists headlined the first official Pitchfork Music Festival in 2006?
Pivoting To Video
- Adam Neely goes deep on the music theory behind Hudson Mohawke's viral "CBAT"
- Trash Theory explains how Manchester became Madchester
- David Bruce explores the importance of instrument design
- Polyphonic looks deep into a Yes album cover
- 12Tone highlights a book hugely important in jazz
Bits, Bobs
- NPR Music is celebrating its 15th anniversary later this year
- Liz Pelly is writing a book
- Art Rosenbaum and Joe Bussard have passed away
- Lo Carmen collates a number of creative manifestos
- The New York Times explores the world of brown noise
Know Your Audience
Source
Q&A: Steffanee Wang
Steffanee Wang works as the associate music editor at NYLON, where she covers "established, emerging, and new artists you haven't even heard of yet." Previously, she had a long stint at The FADER, where she moved from editorial assistant to assistant editor. Along the way, she's also freelanced for places like The FACE and NPR Music. In this excerpt from our interview, Steffanee explains where she thinks music journalism is headed.
I’m still stuck on this CJR piece about music journalism and access from a few years ago, and it’s hard not to feel cynical while witnessing every outlet basically turn into clones of one another. But also, I work with so many great writers who have so many smart ideas, and they give me a lot of hope! It’s hard to say.
If you had to point folks to one piece of yours, what would it be and why?
I’m still really proud of this Angel Olsen profile I wrote at The FADER. Sentimentally, it means a lot as one of the first longform features I got to write, but it’s also most aligned with my platonic ideal of a music profile.
Read the full interview with Steffanee here.
Calls for Papers
- My Tribute: The Life and Legacy of Andrae Crouch
- Just Can't Get Enough: Synth-Pop and Its Legacies
- Sounding South Asia: From Silence to Noise
- III International Conference on Sonorities Research: Sounds of the End of the World
- Music in Global Epidemics
- Music, Research, And Activism
- Conference on Politics in Music and Song at Queen's University Belfast
- Theorizing African American Music
- The Business of Music Symposium
The Closing Credits
Thanks for reading! And thanks to Miranda Reinert for her help with this edition of the newsletter. 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
Silver Jews and Os Mutantes headlined the first Pitchfork Music Festival in 2006.
A Final Note
Thanks for reading! I make playlists from time to time. Check them out if you're interested. 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...