Who are the best music journalists currently/ever?

T

the ig

Well-known member
is taylor parkes still doing bits? i was such a faaaaaaaaaaaan in the 90s peak-mm days (not forgetting, kulkarni, chris roberts, blissey babes, all em..)

last seen at quietus ruminating over pink floyd, but i've not seen anything for a while.
 
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luka

luka

Well-known member
Craner reveres Taylor Parkes. Not being bad but I think he's the worst writer ever to put pen to paper. I think he's got mental illness and drug addiction now so probably not publishing much,.
 
T

the ig

Well-known member
it's a long-while-ago feeling, not revised, reread in ages

prob reads bit purple prose-y now, dunno
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
no music writer is any good, so and so is the worst writer ever, etc. seems like you're hankering for a tussle.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
I think the most interesting writing about music is here. Pitchfork, fact, et al are a joke in my opinion. There's been lots of music writers I've liked in the past. I've probably mentioned them in this thread.
 
S

Simon silverdollarcircle

Well-known member
I like Neil kulkarni's writing but then he has terrible taste. You read his reviews and think fucking hell that sounds amazing must check that one out. Then you give it a listen and it's dogshit.

But taste isn't necessary for good writing. May be many of the best writers had bad taste actually.
 
T

the ig

Well-known member
i aligned with mm over nme at the time but there was so much over-hyped stuff w former as well, actually it was mm's role to kick up the hype from the 'underground' looking up, while nme just cornered the more established indie/britpop/grunge etc market

i mean before even going into nwotnw and silly new-romo and general sniggery 'let's kick off a scene from nothing' huckstering dreamed up in some camden pub

lots of energy and earnest, frothy prose expended on really average postrock/lofi bands for instance

but all those writers were fun to read, knocking ideas around, helpfully pretentious for a young'un looking for pointers..

yeah the contemporary music was almost incidental for mm at times, new-romo was just an excuse to hype up a missing strand of pop, and to write about quentin crisp and 'new gold dream' and whatever..

but i'm being pretty generous here
 
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luka

luka

Well-known member
Helpfully pretentious is a good phrase. I never read the weeklys but they clearly did a good job educating people cos loads of interesting people either wrote for them or read them.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
I was fascinated with the nme in the 80s, so that made it difficult to objectively evaluate melody maker at the time because they were the other team. it is funny/unfortunate how some bands would get caught in the middle through no fault of their own: if mm discovered a band who became their darlings, nme would at best ignore them or oftentimes slag them off (probably unfairly). both nme and mm readers scoffed at sounds.

lots of writers back then had character, or were characters. I don't haven't read pitchfork in ages but never had the sense I knew anything about their writers or could even tell them apart. only good was one-time dissensian Philip sherburne.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
It's the characters I miss about the wire which I did used to read. They've lost that now. its become very timid
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Like silver dollar says it doesn't matter so much if they've got good taste. Who cares. You just want them to be good company on the page.
 
T

the ig

Well-known member
yep for sure, but think NME was obs the inkie to read in 80s, very unusual and bold stuff - a whole issue on 'the voice' with long think pieces about frank sinatra and things like that, barney hoskins or someone writing about barthes 'the grain of the voice' (i'm possibly imagining this but was bit like that) - MM became the paper to read in the 90s, NME rather tamer by then
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
maybe the publishing world is too politically correct for characters nowadays. owners doesn't want to take the chance of alienating anyone, since they barely make any money as is. or the audience is too into descriptions of what the songs sound like versus an engaging narrative. also, few things worse than a badly executed attempt at engaging narrative.
 
B

blissblogger

Well-known member
against the grain

the ig said:
a whole issue on 'the voice' with long think pieces about frank sinatra and things like that, barney hoskins or someone writing about barthes 'the grain of the voice' (i'm possibly imagining this but was bit like that)
Click to expand...

no you're not imagining that, and it's a fantastic piece - Barney did these close studies of 20 or so great or beloved voices, mostly black American but Ian Curtis was in there - and Barthes's "grain" was indeed invoked - i have it scanned somewhere

then, nearly a decade later, I did a piece on the Voice (for a MM special issue on voices) that was a belated fanboy reply to Barney's piece and spoke up for the white indie / deficient voices that he'd neglected on account of their lack of robustness - Barthes and his grain again popping up, inevitably
 
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