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The Complexities of Music Journalism in the 21St Century

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The Complexities of Music Journalism in the 21St Century 1 University of Colorado, Boulder THEN AND NOW: THE COMPLEXITIES OF MUSIC JOURNALISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY Kylie Ketchner Independent Study Dr. Rolf Norgaard . 2 Music journalism. As a lens through which we see and interpret music, the field has undergone drastic changes to adapt to the digital-age in the past six decades. From its popularization in the mainstream culture at Rolling Stone in the 60’s and 70’s, as well as the ​ ​ sometimes overlooked but no less important voices of The Source, Creem, and Village Voice, ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ music journalism has historically offered a platform for audiences to reach musicians through analysis and interviews. By extension, then, music fans and enthusiasts have found themselves more and more connected to the artists and songs they love. The field’s growth has parallelled that of the entertainment industry, skyrocketing popular journalists to fame and creating a new critical and up-close institution through which to view music. Jann Wenner, Lester Bangs, Hunter S. Thompson come to mind, as well as Nelson George, Jeff Chang, and Jessica Hopper; but the monopoly on music journalism, and criticism, is not limited to the writers living in big cities, and talking to big names. My first music critic was my dad, Buddy. When I was a kid, every night he would sing my brother and me a song before bed, usually “Angels from Montgomery” by John Prine, plucking the guitar chords and tapping his foot along with the rhythm. At the time, I found the whole thing hilarious due to the line “I am an old woman / Named after my mother,” which, of course, my dad is not. My eight-year old sense of humor endures to this day - it is a little funny to see him ​ ​ sing that. However, as I grew older, the other lyrics began to mean more and more to me. Now, when I listen to the song, the lines that catch my attention are different: “If dreams were thunder / And lightning was desire / This old house would’ve burnt down a long time ago.” In Bonnie Raitt’s cover, she sings it with such melancholy sadness that the line grips my heart like a cold hand, giving a squeeze and I lose my breath for just a moment. On its own, the song is unquestionably beautiful - the guitar is smooth and gentle, plucking and gliding over the slow, steady beat of the drums. Raitt’s voice is timeless, a treasure trove Ursula from The Little Mermaid would give everything to possess. But that isn’t why I love ​ ​ it so much. I love it for the sleepy-eyed moments before I drifted to sleep as a child, when everything was good, and I gathered only hints from the lyrics about the realities of life and regret. My heart twists when I listen to it, but it isn’t in a bad way. It’s in the way that music touches you when it's more than just the sounds - it is a physical part of your past, your story. Remember, now, that criticism and appreciation are tightly woven concepts. It wasn’t just my dad’s late night singing that gave me a deep-seated love for music. It was also the dancing in the kitchen to Stevie Wonder, and the track “See The World” by Gomez on home-made family footage films. And, on the flipside, the rebellion of listening to Nicki Minaj’s “Superbass” at my neighbors house just before it was probably appropriate. I got a rush when I listened to it then, ​ ​ and still do now. 3 For many of us, our parents are our first music critics. It could be something as simple as the muting of a radio channel when a particular genre comes on, or conversely, the turning up, ​ ​ but their influence is powerful, one way or another. The name John Prine will always hold meaning to me, even though I don’t know much about his other work, or the genre he worked in. As much as I love new music and my other favorite artists, there is a certain specialness that can never be replaced by those songs embraced (or warned against) by our first music critics. As we grow, and our world view widens, other critics start to matter more. What are people listening to? Who reports on it? Why? We are all music critics in our own ways, but the institution of journalism and criticism has historically offered a platform to discuss, analyze, and interview. Those who talk and write about music in popular culture have a strong hand in influencing the modern musicscape - giving valuable promotion to what and who they deem worthy. Music journalism has had a long, winding transformation over the past few decades as its journalists have adapted to the digital age, and now there are new questions and challenges that must be addressed. Perhaps most importantly, how to make sense of the social media age as a field that has largely relied on its ability to access, both musicians and their stories, and is ​ ​ now faced with the fact that access is no longer the music-lovers dilemma. ​ ​ With the introduction of said social media and the internet, and with mass distribution and consumption of music, photo, and video, one might wonder why the nuances of music journalism even matter. After all, if artists can directly broadcast their messages to their fanbase without the need of a physical publication platform, then what really is the fields place? The declining readership of Rolling Stone, the scattered and fragmented world of modern music ​ ​ journalists, and the disheartened twitter rants and articles that come along with it paint a dismal picture - why does music journalism, and specifically print, even matter? How does it fit into our world today? I wanted an answer to this question. I’ve grown up in the social media age - I’m twenty now and I’ve never even known this mysterious world allegedly dominated by print publications. My life has seen the rise of Instagram, Facebook, and the emergence of new music journalism - ​ ​ Complex, Genius, Fader, some publications half-digital, half-print, desperate to find footing in a new age of journalism. But in all the chaos, I’ve always known that I love the long-form: the stories, the profiles, the photos. I feel deeply that they still have a place in our chaotic mediascape: perhaps even more so than before, now coveted deep breaths of fresh-air in a world flying by quicker and quicker. To answer my question more fully, I talked to a handful of working music journalists - freelance writers J’na Jefferson and Christina Lee, as well as Rolling Stone staff writer Charles ​ ​ Holmes and Fader senior video producer Chloe Campion - and researched the history of music ​ ​ journalism. After that, I studied the current mediascape, and finally, with a better understanding 4 for what it takes to be a music journalist in the year 2020, I wrote this piece to answer my big question: in todays digital age, why does music journalism matter? It is hard to simplify it, but the bottom line is this - humans are storytellers by nature and they always will be. The medium of music journalism might have changed, but this essential ​ ​ content has not. Through scrutiny of the interconnected nature of the music-world today, and the lenses of three stakeholders in the game (the artists, the critics, and the consumers), our society can find meaning, and understanding, for the artform of music through its journalism. A Brief Retrospective To analyze the current state of music journalism, we should look at its history. For many Americans, this starts with Rolling Stone. ​ Jann Wenner founded The Rolling Stone in 1967. His alleged goal? To meet his heroes, ​ ​ John Lennon and Bob Dylan - something for us to keep in mind in regards to celebrity culture and idolization. Through pure grit and a lot of organized chaos: “By the end of 1969…[Rolling Stone] was generally accepted as the most authoritative ​ ​ rock & roll magazine in the land. By 1971, Rolling Stone was what Esquire had been in the ​ ​ ​ ​ sixties and the New York Herald Tribune a decade before that: the breeding ground of explosive ​ ​ New Journalists like Hunter Thompson, David Felton, Grover Lewis, and Joe Eszterhas. Two years later, the magazine began to make money. Three years after that, it helped elect a President,” (Robert 6) Beyond Rolling Stone, other publications began to sprout up for various niche markets. ​ ​ In 1966, there was the precedent for Rolling Stone: Crawdaddy!, which was founded by Paul ​ ​ ​ ​ Williams. Later, came the Boston-based Fusion, Detroit’s Creem, and The Village Voice in New ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ York City, all three of which would boast contributions from such famous critics as Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, Patti Smith, and many more (Regatis 49, 62). The rise of the popular culture magazine was swift, and as the years progressed, the aforementioned critics gained fame, and often notoriety, while writing about their favorite and least favorite tracks of the times. Before continuing, we should note that modern music journalism is not, and historically was not, encompassed by Rolling Stone or any of the white, often male, critics mentioned ​ ​ before. Women, people of color, and LGBT writers were frequently ignored by the mainstream media. Alternative publications were thus instrumental in giving platforms to new genres of music and expanding both people’s musical palettes and their minds, although they were not always at the forefront of popular culture. Acclaimed hip-hop music journalist and author Nelson George writes in Raquel Capeda’s And It Don’t Stop: The Best American Hip-Hop Journalism of ​ ​ ​ the Last 25 Years: ​ 5 “...Somewhere in my files, I still have a copy of an article I penned in 1982 titled ‘A Consumer Guide to Rap,’ an introductory piece about the 12-inch singles of Blow, Eddie Cheeba, and the Treacherous Three.
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