MASARYK UNIVERSITY IN BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English Language and Literature Rock Journalism The Language of Music Reviews Diploma Thesis Brno 2014 Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová, Ph.D. Author: Markéta Hubková Bibliographical Record HUBKOVÁ, Markéta. Rock Journalism: The Language of Music Reviews. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Department of English Language and Literature, 2014. Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová, Ph.D. Annotation This thesis deals with the language of Rock Journalism, specifically, it offers a summative characterization of the genre and its development since the 1960s. It focuses on an analysis of the language of music reviews in the most prominent Anglo-American music press, studying them both from diachronic and synchronic point of view. The main aim of the thesis is to describe the main linguistic and stylistic features of music reviews. Based on the established research on media language in general, the methods of linguistic analysis would be applied on samples of archived music magazine articles. The research should survey the progress from the uncritical fan approach of the British Invasion era writers through the more literary-ambitious style of rock star journalists in the 70s, as influenced by the New Journalism, to the various difficult periods of major music publications whose authority is challenged by ‘indie’ fanzines, MTV and the Internet. The thesis would discuss mainly the most dominant and longest running periodicals, the British New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Sounds, and Record Mirror, as well as the American Rolling Stone, Creem, and Billboard. The intended result is a concise presentation of the roles of objectivity, expertise in the music field, literary flair, and personal approach in music journalism which may serve as a basis for a thorough definition of what can be defined as music media style today. Keywords Art criticism, formality, language of the news, linguistic analysis, linguistic features, music magazines, music reviews, objectivity, rhetorical strategies, rock journalism. 2 Prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem práci vypracovala samostatně s použitím uvedené literatury a zdrojů informací. 30. listopadu 2014 ……………………………. Markéta Hubková Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work, that I wrote independently, and that I used the sources listed in the list of references. November 30, 2014 ……………………………. Markéta Hubková 3 Acknowledgments I would like to hereby express my sincerest gratitude to doc. Mgr. Olga Dontcheva- Navrátilová, Ph.D. for her patient guidance, insightful comments and overall invaluable assistance in supervising this thesis. 4 Contents 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………. 6 2. History of Rock Journalism ……………………………………………………. 7 2.1 The Sixties ……………………………………………………………. 7 2.2 Weeklies ……………………………………………………………………. 7 2.3 Role of the National Press ……………………………………………. 8 2.4 Legitimization ……………………………………………………………. 8 2.5 Rise of Rock Journalism ……………………………………………. 9 2.6 The Rolling Stone in 1970s ……………………………………………. 9 2.7 New Journalism …………………………………………………………… 9 2.8 British Press in the 1970s …………………………………………… 10 2.9 Punk Fanzines …………………………………………………………… 10 2.10 The Eighties and Commercialization ……………………………. 11 2.11 1990s and Commercial Struggles ……………………………………. 12 2.12 2000s and webzines ……………………………………………………. 12 2.13 Rock Journalism: Controversial Issues ……………………………. 13 2.13.1 Issue: Commercialism ……………………………………. 13 2.13.2 Issues: Elitism ……………………………………………. 13 2.13.3 Issues: Nostalgia ……………………………………………. 14 2.13.4 Issue: Authenticity …………………………………………….. 14 3. Literature Review ……………………………………………………………. 15 4. Research Aims ……………………………………………………………………. 19 5. Methodology …………………………………………………………………… 21 6. Description of the Sampled Texts ………………………………………………… 25 7. Results of the Analysis …………………………………………………………… 27 7.1 Modern Reviews …………………………………………………………… 27 7.2 Classic Reviews ………………………………………………………….... 31 7.3 The Use of Adjectives in Music Reviews ……………………………. 36 8. Results Commentary and Discussion …………………………………………… 38 9. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………... 43 10. References …………………………………………………………………… 44 11. Appendix …………………………………………………………………… 47 5 1. Introduction The present thesis deals with the relatively new genre of popular music journalism. In general, music journalism includes various types of music coverage in a range of publications, from specialised music magazines to music columns in general newspapers and life-style magazines, as well as music “biographies, histories and genre studies”. The music magazines and newspapers could themselves be further classified into mainstream music magazines, trade papers, “record collector magazines, fanzines,” etc. (Shuker, 2001, p. 83-84). This discourse has been established to follow “certain stylistic conventions” (Hill, 2006, p. 190). The modern music journalism directly follows or derives from the tradition of popular music reporting which started to develop in the 1960s. Popular music and its media coverage gradually evolved from the early British Invasion-era articles on pop celebrities in teen magazines to a more serious analyses in specialised press. What some may consider the golden age of pop music reporting started to appear in late 1960s and early 70s, when numerous journalists on both sides of the Atlantic looked for inspiration to the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote. These so-called “personality writers” would follow the New Journalism techniques of incorporating literary strategies into their reports. This new style of music criticism formed a blueprint for rock journalists for years to come. In the late 1970s, with the emergence of a new genre in rock, punk, its fans would take to creating their own music magazines. Punk fanzines, with their photocopied pages and handwritten text, set the standard that we commonly associate with the genre of music fanzines today. In the 1980s, an opposite trend started to manifest itself, and rock journalism started to shift increasingly more towards commercialization and focus on lifestyle topics. The 1990s saw the publishing industry falling into a financial crisis that lead to cancellation of several major music magazines (Forde, 2006, p. 286-287). Nevertheless, new opportunities appeared thanks to the internet, and nowadays internet reviewers and webzines can enjoy similar cult popularity mainstream magazines like the Rolling Stone had in their prime. Music journalism, though mostly ignored by linguists, is a vital genre that is not only a “cultural artefact” of its time, but also presents interesting opportunities for discourse analysis, as it is highly focused, yet individualistic, quickly evolving genre, that can be used to “investigate the norms and values of the intended readership,” namely the respective generations of teenagers (Basturkmen, 2009, p.68). The focus of this thesis is to examine the genre of popular music journalism and to discuss some of its most prominent characteristic linguistic and stylistic features. The practical analysis in this study is devoted specifically to music reviews and analyses articles from a range of pop music magazines and newspapers from the UK and the USA. 6 2. History of Rock Journalism This chapter describes the evolution of Rock Journalism from 1960s up to date and defines some of the most common issues associated with the genre. 2.1 The Sixties What is today most commonly understood as rock journalism started to form in 1960s, following the emergence of new teenage culture and music. The press media that would cover popular music included articles and columns in national press, music publications devoted to other genres (particularly jazz magazines), teen and fan club magazines, trade magazines, and underground and alternative press. 2.2 Weeklies In the 1960s, popular music was still considered “light” entertainment (Inglis: 2010), and the early pop and rock journalism largely reflected that with its somewhat shallow reports and a noticeable lack of significant and thorough music analysis. Especially in the early years of the decade, music reporting seemed to thrive on gossipy short pieces that aimed mainly at the newly forming youth culture. In the UK of 1960s, jazz-focused music weeklies gradually started including articles on rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll music (Brennan: 2006). Among them, the front-runners were the New Musical Express and Melody Maker. Melody Maker, one of the longest-running pop music publications of the twentieth century, was established in 1926. By the early 1960s, it was still remaining loyal to its original jazz focus and would generally disapprove of and disdain the modern pop and beat music. This musical eclecticism however backfired as it enabled the paper’s younger rivals, Record Mirror and New Musical Express, to target the unclaimed readership. Eventually, even Melody Maker had to cave in and by mid-sixties it would also engage with the pop and beat trend (“Melody Maker.”). The New Musical Express (NME) was first published in 1952. As rock journalist Nick Kent (2010) reminiscences, in its earliest incarnation the New Musical Express of the 1950s reported on “fifties crooners and light entertainment”. However, with the “explosion of Elvis Presley’s popularity”, the paper started targeting younger readers. In the early to mid-1960s, the paper held its finger on the pulse of commercial success of pop musicians with its singles chart and annual NME Poll (also discussed in Frith: 1983).