Who are the best music journalists currently/ever?
- Thread starter Corpsey
- Start date
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
WOW I actually Love the goofy "Pop" book with the metaphor of driving with Kylie Minogue, just because he starts shipping Kylie with Merzbow. Its so absurd and whimsical that I can't help but feel he transcended his theories and his concepts and fully dove into just pleasing himself in a less masturbatory way.
Meanwhile on the flipside, his bauhaus article in Ask is tragic because he doesn't realize he's being had. Penman for me >>> Morley, much as I like both a ton.
I wanna co-sign droid on the negative influence of Bangs; I really do like him but like say, Bukowski or something, people become obsessed with the style and the persona rather than the content and the ideas. Like, even though I'm sure Bangs hated a lot of synthpop, I always look at synthpop the way he looked at early garage rock in "watching kids emulate their heroes ineptly, and the brilliance that emerges". Everyone else is just more or less into the parody of him in Almost Famous... Which is fine, if you need a personality to graft. And in my terribly mediocre attempts at being a music writer I find a lot of them have that struggle.
Toop is great, I know Tompkins basically got a lot of his style straight from one moment in Toop's rap writing. I love reading Kevin Martin's stuff when he was trying to write music, even though its someone playing with Kodwo and Reynolds and Toop concepts badly. So its very relate-able to know "Well if I'm as clumsy as Kevin Martin was at my age, there ya go." Morrissey is a great music writer in the fact that whenever you read his reviews or whatever from when he's a teen, and he's super dismissive, its the most vicious takedowns ever. Wish he would do more, like a monthly column somewhere for IDK, Q or Mojo or whatever magazine where he just remarks on old singles.
I've fawned about Ronin Ro's rap writing anthology "Gangsta" at least a dozen times right? So good. The article about Luke of 2 Live Crew in Japan is such a potent encapsulation of the reality of rap's marketing as a global culture in the early 90s. I'm almost scared to read his non-rap-writing, because I know it'll be shit on a certain level.
Evrett True is good; I loved his Nirvana biography as a teen and while I haven't been able to pick it up again properly its got a warm place in my heart. I also used to love Chuck Klosterman's stuff but ever since he's wanted to become a cultural theorist and blather about whichever, its been pretty downhill in bad takes.
Ian Svenonius from Nation of Ulysses/Make-Up/Weird War is another musician turned music writer and I FUCKING LOVE all of his work. "The Psychic Soviet" is honestly some of the best joke analysis of pop culture through a Marxist lens. The conspiracy that global food trends mirror 1st world Imperialism still both enraptures me and cracks me up and leaves me bemused; but seriously his analysis of early 50s rock is appealing as far as theorems, whether or not you can disprove them or whatever.
I guess Nik Cohn is good? I don't know if I can trust him though, he takes The Who seriously.
I still like Reynolds a lot. I appreciate Chris Ott as a multimedia troll. I like Kodwo as a practitioner even though reading More Brilliant Than The Sun was honestly hugely disappointing.
Oh, Kim Gordon is really good at music writing sometimes, even though she's coming from a 'visual artist' perspective and I've come to really grow sick of Literary and Artistic minds trying to approach music. For example, its telling that I could never take a school class on how to study rap as a music form (and by no means would I want a professor to tell me about why Wayne is good or whatever), but there's always going to be an English seminar about rap as 'poetry'.
I like Greg Tate fine, but following him on Facebook demystifies him and reveals him to be a cornball of the umpteenth degree, that was my fault.
Rap-wise, Noz is good. David Drake is fine. I like Martorialist a lot. I like Hancox and Blackdown's writing/blogging stuff on grime obviously. I liked Lauren Martin's Wiley piece a bunch, but I find her hit or miss. I think Fintoni is out here trying to force back things in the narrative of 'important music' that weren't actually as important as he thinks they were, but I like his writing okay. I'm biased because we're friends but I think Matt Ramirez on Pitchfork will become a good music writer if he buckles down and guns it one day.
Who wrote that long-form article about Quiet Storm for Pitchfork? That was fantastic.
I liked Woebot's stuff a lot but I've fawned on him elsewhere in the board.
I don't know, I guess that's about the best I can think of.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
OH, and when I read In Their Own Write, I spent fucking whole hours laughing at every absurd OTT thing Julie Burchill wrote. I don't care if I haven't read enough of her isolated writing, I was so consistently side-split.
craner
Beast of Burden
The thing about Morley that people don't often mention, and is what makes Ask so good, is that he was brilliant at conducting and writing up interviews. I really enjoy his stunt-like, ultra-provocative approach to the game, which is not something Penman really did. Penman was more about words.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
Yeah, Penman mined the material, Morley sifted. But I have to say Penman toned down his desire to springboard from material he analyzed into loftier realms of interest at a point, whereas Morley doubled his efforts. Works well for both both choice of preference.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Wanted to mention Neil Kulkarni: http://fuckyouneilkulkarni.blogspot.co.uk/
Doesn't share many tastebuds with me but I find his writing consistently entertaining, even when (or especially when) its at its most enraging.
Doesn't share many tastebuds with me but I find his writing consistently entertaining, even when (or especially when) its at its most enraging.
luka
Well-known member
It's not about ambient it's about a way of listening
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
Its about music being immersive/oceanic/spacial rather than being about ambient music. So it talks about dub, some dance music and other stuff.
droid
Well-known member
luka
Well-known member
Yeah, I wasnt too keen on this bit.
Lol alright smartarse autocorrect dunnit
luka
Well-known member
Neuromancer
Here's the tracklist from the cd that came with the book
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=o...MHF5ppXkllSKSTHxSeFZLAGgxQPFxKfBwDLKWuzhAAAAA
Here's the tracklist from the cd that came with the book
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=o...MHF5ppXkllSKSTHxSeFZLAGgxQPFxKfBwDLKWuzhAAAAA
jenks
thread death
He followed that cd up with a few more:
Crooning on Venus (1996)
Booming on Pluto: Electro for Droids (1997)
Guitars on Mars (1997)
which are all studded with odd connections and beautiful segues.
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Meant to mention Bill Brewster as well though he doesn't write as much now and has wound down the DJhistory website. Hancox did a great profile on Skepta last year for The Fader, I think. Definitely one of the best pieces among the current slew of grime coverage. Sherburne had a decent run of US centric stuff a while back