Earlier this month, I attended an interesting panel discussion at the wonderful Beaches Brew free festival on the Hani-Bi beach at Ravenna, Italy.
The talk was in answer to the provocative question ‘Does music journalism still matter?’
Needless to say, the answer to the question of the day was ‘Yes, it does still matter’ but explaining why and how proved tricky. Speakers addressed the huge challenges of making their voices heard within an increasingly deafening market place.
Making music and writing about it in 2021 obviously bears no comparison to life before the internet. In ‘1966 – The Year the Decade Exploded’, Jon Savage writes: “Music was no longer commenting on life but had become indivisible from life. It had become the focus not just of youth consumerism but a way of seeing, the prism through which the world was interpreted.” It’s difficult to imagine music having the same impact and influence now since it is just one of an overwhelming number of consumer choices.
Music still has the capacity to define a lifestyle but nowadays it is more likely to be regarded merely as a cool soundtrack to a video game, Netflix series or advertisement. In this way, music functions as a kind of product placement that inevitably softens and detracts from the product itself.
Sixties music represents libertarianism and punk rock symbolises rebellion but neither are viewed as threats to the establishment that they once briefly were. When one speaks of underground or cult music these days it’s usually to refer to bands or artists that have not achieved commercial success. The subversive element of music still exists beyond the mainstream but the impact is reduced when it has to compete within a crowded cultural landscape.
Growing up in the late 1970s (yes, I’m that old!) I remember reading the New Musical Express from cover to cover every week. I read articles by the likes of Nick Kent, Charles Shaar Murray, Julie Burchill and Paul Morley, often about artists I previously knew nothing about and had limited chance of hearing. This sense of music as discovery is now largely lost since entire back catalogues, alongside that of similar artists, is instantly available at the click of a mouse. One advantage of this is that journalists who built their reputation on praising the most obscure releases can now be immediately exposed as charlatans and poseurs.
“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” is a quote, bordering on cliché, attributed to Frank Zappa among others. With ‘The Mothers of Invention’, Zappa spoofed the cover of The Beatles’ ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ for a release with the self-explanatory title: ‘We’re Only in It For The Money’.
Music journalism, and by extension all journalism, still matters but should consist of far more than just a check list of who or what the music sounds like. Writers have a duty to expose obvious bandwagon jumpers and those who are plainly only in for the money.
The role of music journalists should be to focus on niches rather than pandering to mainstream tastes. If living with Covid has taught us anything it is that creativity does not exist in a vacuum. Good journalism ought to be about bursting bubbles, making connections and telling compelling stories. In this way it will continue to matter.
