#176: Everyone’s A Critic
Everyone’s A Critic
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 music scholar Kendra Leonard, Tammy Wynette expert Steacy Easton, and girl group authority Susan Schmidt Horning. Plus! Reading and podcast recommendations! And more! But first…
Skaingham Palace
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Reading List
- Isabelia Herrera documents the fight for queer nightlife
- David Kilgour remembers the New Zealand zine Garage
- Katherine Bassett explores music merch
- Andre Gee wonders if it matters that no hip-hop artist has topped the charts in 2023
- Chris Payne explains the interviewing process behind his new book on emo
- Ashley Carman says Mexican music is taking over the world
- Ben Barzilai examines the world of battle rap
- Ed Gillett has fun doing research for his new book
- Brian Dillon celebrates old magazines
- Fiona Maddocks talks about the deep process behind her new book on a Russian composer
Lede Of The Week
- All life goes into a book. Unless it’s a kiss'n'tell, this truth may bypass the reader. A study of steam trains or tax systems or, in my case, the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov (I’ll come back to the spelling) will seep into the crevices of a writer’s daily existence even if the resulting text appears harnessed in cool objectivity. - Fiona Maddocks
Q&A: Kendra Preston Leonard
Dr. Kendra Preston Leonard is the founder and executive director of the Silent Film Sound and Music Archive. She describes herself as a “scholar focusing on music and screen history and women and music; and a poet, playwright, lyricist, and librettist.” In this excerpt from our interview, Kendra explains what she’s been working on lately.
[It’s] a new book project called Race and Gender in Silent Film Music. I’ve been doing research on gender in silent film music for a long time and have published a lot on specific topics under that umbrella. But because of systemic racism, there’s much less information available about Black cinema musicians. So I’m working through Black newspapers, census records, and more to identify and find out more about who played for Black theaters and what they played. The article I’m working on right now includes research on Marie Lucas, a Black multi-instrumentalist who directed Black women’s orchestras in several cinemas and for live theater.
Why do you find this area of research so interesting?
So much of this history has been ignored and erased, and it is important to understand in the development of music for film. Scholars who work in film music of later eras credit composers of the 1930s with developing the sound of the movies, but those composers went to silent films growing up. What accompaniments did they hear for the movies they saw? Who was playing them? The White, androcentric focus of most musicologists on men who composed for the movies has to be recognized as deeply flawed, and we need to better understand women’s roles and labor in silent film music.
Read the full interview with Kendra here.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Dr. Kendra Preston Leonard:
I’m a big fan of the ACLU, a nationwide organization that fights for civil rights and liberties. Right now they’re fighting for reproductive freedom and against anti-trans legislation, as well as countless other important issues.
Check out all of the causes highlighted by folks I’ve interviewed.
Same, Except For Music Journalism Newsletters
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Podcasts!
- Gary Suarez talks with the Louder Than a Riot team about their second season
- 99% Invisible explores an iconic Mexican sound
- Kim Mack chats about Living Colour on ImmaLetYouFinish…
- Miki Berenyi and Clare Wadd reminisce about Alphabet Soup on The Fanzine Podcast
- Abi Bliss goes deep on AI music on Infinite Remix
Q&A: Steacy Easton
Steacy Easton is a music critic and the author of Why Tammy Wynette Matters, which “reveals a musician who doubled back on herself, her façade of earnestness cracked by a melodrama that weaponized femininity and upended feminist expectations, while scoring twenty number-one hits.” In this excerpt from our interview, Steacy explains how they came to this subject for the book.
I was moved deeply by her work, profoundly, by how sad it was, the affect of it. I kept wondering about how unrelentingly sad her work was, how to write about that sadness, the complexity of that feeling, and the depth of it. Not only sadness, but the whole complex matrix of disappointment or mourning or longing or even, in rare moments, in joy. I wanted to write about Wynette as a great artist, as a great artist in the domestic mode. (The domestic code is central here.)
I also think, personally, that I didn’t understand her position as a wife and mother. People in my life started having babies or getting married—and I didn't—so part of the thinking about Wynette was an extended attempt to understand the domestic. So, the book moves between Wynette as a figure—a social figure, a political figure, and as an artist.
Read the full interview with Steacy here.
Stuff You Gotta Watch
Stuff You Gotta Watch celebrates music journalism in video form. This week’s column is by Ana Leorne.
Manchester, England, May 21st 1982. The legendary nightclub The Haçienda opens its doors for the first time—according to DJ Mike Pickering, with the dance floor "still very wet" from paint. For the next decade and a half, the venue would host the most exciting raves, the craziest parties, and the most pivotal concerts. (Madonna's UK debut took place there in January 1984.)
Founded by impresario Tony Wilson and largely subsidized (albeit involuntarily) by Factory Records' chéris New Order, The Haçienda quickly became the northern cathedral of nascent acid house culture and the epicenter of a brand new music scene later christened "Madchester." Unfortunately, the club would also suffer the inevitable consequences of an ecstasy-fueled underworld which, allied to poor financial management and constant security problems, eventually dictated its decline.
This dizzying rise and spectacular fall of a place, a scene, and a way of life is superbly recounted by Matt Drury's BBC documentary The Hacienda: The Club That Shook Britain, which includes fascinating stories and insightful anecdotes from Haçienda regulars such as Ang Matthews, Peter Saville, Leroy Richardson, Noel Gallagher, Shaun Ryder, and Peter Hook, as well as previously unseen archive footage of the club's golden days.
Trivia Time
What actor portrayed Factory label co-founder Tony Wilson in the film 24 Hour Party People?
Bits, Bobs
- Ludwig Van was acquired by ZoomerMedia
- AudioCulture has published its readers poll
- AQNB has ceased publication
- Scott Schinder has died at 61
- Here’s a playlist of every video aired on MTV’s Headbangers Ball
Pivoting To Video
- toldinstone explains what music in Ancient Rome sounded like [h/t Open Culture]
- 12Tone breaks down the most sampled song ever
- Phil Dellio talks about his new book with Chuck Eddy and Scott Woods
- Mic The Snare chats AI music
- Anthony Fantano muses on music reviews
Womp Womp
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Q&A: Susan Schmidt Horning
Dr. Susan Schmidt Horning is Associate Professor of History at St. John’s University. She’s the author of Chasing Sound: Technology, Culture, and the Art of Studio Recording from Edison to the LP. (In case you’re interested, she donated the interviews for the project to the Nunn Center for Oral History.) In this excerpt from our interview, Susan explains her current project.
My work in progress is an oral history of the many largely unknown all-girl rock bands who proliferated in the U.S., Europe, Scandinavia, and even one in Indonesia from roughly 1963 to 1969.
How has your approach to your work changed over the past few years, if at all?
Chasing Sound was a technological history of sound recording culture and practice over roughly a century of music recording. I was focused on the work of engineers, producers, arrangers, basically all the unsung contributors to recorded music. I did dozens of oral interviews, researched technical journals, music history, periodicals, memoirs, so there was quite a bit of published information as well as the information I gleaned from the interviews. The major difference with my current research is that the data is even more difficult to find because so little was written about these bands, their histories are less documented, and I need to rely on oral testimony even more. I also explore the technology of performance, but also feminist history, sexuality, youth culture, and race.
Read the full interview with Susan here.
Academic Stuff
- New issues: Acta Musicologica, IMS Musicological Brainfood, and Musicology Australia
- Registration is open for "Music and Pleasure Before the Law"
- Call for Papers: INSAM Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology [Proposals due July 10]
- Robin James, an acquisitions editor, has published a sample book proposal
- Call for Papers: K-pop and the West: Media, Fandom, and Transnational Politics [Proposals due July 15]
- Registration is open for Sound on Screen
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
Steve Coogan played Tony Wilson in the film 24 Hour Party People. (This one was a bit too easy, right?)
A Final Note
Thanks for reading! 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...