music writing that feels like a relic from the past: a repository

[...]

Here is an epitaph:

The Definitive History of Landfill Indie in Seven Songs, Narrated by Johnny Borrell

"The Kooks were the missing link between Razorlight and McFly."

www.vice.com

 

[Leo]

i don't follow it so i don't know, but my impression is that its not in vogue. obviously people are still going to make that kind of music. the only thing i can think of that's really blown up is Idles, I guess Fontaines DC (who i've never listened to). and even then i think it's a lot less 'lads in the pub'. had a quick look at the glastonbury line up for this year, which is a good barometer for that stuff, and the UK guitar bands on the main four or five stages are like Primal Scream and Foals, so bands that got big at least a decade ago.

dry cleaning?

 

[Corpsey]

Here is an epitaph:

The Definitive History of Landfill Indie in Seven Songs, Narrated by Johnny Borrell

"The Kooks were the missing link between Razorlight and McFly."

www.vice.com

This is actually a really interesting read.

Nice to know Borrell was deliberately being outrageous to sell records, back in the days when I was reading NME and a die hard Libertines stan I despised Borrell. I guess I was young enough to be completely naive about everything, which is a blessing and a curse of course.

 

[...]

This is actually a really interesting read.

Nice to know Borrell was deliberately being outrageous to sell records, back in the days when I was reading NME and a die hard Libertines stan I despised Borrell. I guess I was young enough to be completely naive about everything, which is a blessing and a curse of course.

One of my best friends was also very close to Borrell. She lived in his Primrose Hill flat for a short while. She said he was a nice guy, but she always kept us far apart.

I met her once in a bar in Soho and she was there with some waif who was apparently the drummer in Babyshambles. He didn't have very much to say for himself so I decided to give him my opinion on the Iraq war. In great detail. By the end of the night he was fully on board with regime change. It was one of the easiest conversions I'd ever had. I just assumed he had been brain damaged by Shoreditch.

In 2005 I lived with a man called Pete who used to play 'The Hounds of Love' by The Futureheads over and over again whenever he came home drunk. He also sold telephones for Virgin.

These are some of my memories of the Indie Landfill years.

 

[Corpsey]

I was in at the start I suppose, or as close to the start as a provincial could be, listening to the Strokes and the Libertines et al. but I lost interest quite quickly, perhaps because it was a gateway to me getting into old punk music? Anyway I went to university started smoking weed and rediscovered rap music, then took ecstacy and was all in on drum n bass and zealously opposed to all guitar music on religious grounds.

 

[Corpsey]

A lot of music I got into after the golden years - indie, punk, drum n bass... So that I kept discovering things in their modern form, going mad for them, then discovering there'd been much better versions of all this music before and snubbing all the new shit.

An early symptom of retromania?

 

[IdleRich]

This is actually a really interesting read.
Nice to know Borrell was deliberately being outrageous to sell records, back in the days when I was reading NME and a die hard Libertines stan I despised Borrell. I guess I was young enough to be completely naive about everything, which is a blessing and a curse of course.

I read this interview with him when he went in HMV and there was loads of shit music playing, but he was there for a while and eventually there was this one fucking killer tune that blew everything else out of the water and was clearly showing the way for music to move forward, an amazing, transcendental experience of a track. So he was gonna ask what it was but as he got closer to the desk he heard it better and realised it was the new single by Razorlight. Glad to hear he says now that he was joking...

 

[shakahislop]

Here is an epitaph:

The Definitive History of Landfill Indie in Seven Songs, Narrated by Johnny Borrell

"The Kooks were the missing link between Razorlight and McFly."

www.vice.com

th

The thing he says in here, basically that there was some good stuff right at the start (I agree on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the first two albums are great), although frankly it looks like a tiny number of US bands, that sparked off an A&R assemblage in the UK at a very particular time, feels right to me. Would not have picked him as a purveyor of insights but that feels dead on.

 

[sufi]

Archive | The Who by Angela Carter - The London Magazine

Angela Carter The Who From the archive, the following review of rock band The Who by Angela Carter was printed in the October 1966 issue of The London Magazine edited by Alan Ross. Angela Carter was an English novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist, perhaps best known for her...

thelondonmagazine.org

i posted this before it is a genuine relic of 1966, a lot of things coming into focus

 

[shakahislop]

didn't want to make a new thread on it but have been idly wondering recently, is it still more or less possible to support yourself through writing about music. like could you do it and have enough money to for example raise a family pay rent and so on. does such a thing still exist. or is it something people tend to do on the side now. i genuinely don't know.

 

[entertainment]

It's very difficult to make music matter culturally I think.

Maybe I'm projecting but I'm sensing this new sort of besides-the-point-ness about music. A lot of the writing reads like echoes, conventions staying alive by virtue of being conventions.

Even if you find a way of writing about it that makes sense for younger readers, there is a large scale movement towards the periphery isnt' there?

I'd be very interested if anybody feels the opposite.

 

[Leo]

didn't want to make a new thread on it but have been idly wondering recently, is it still more or less possible to support yourself through writing about music. like could you do it and have enough money to for example raise a family pay rent and so on. does such a thing still exist. or is it something people tend to do on the side now. i genuinely don't know.

@blissblogger would have the best perspective on this. I'm sure there are editors at, say, rolling stone (maybe even pitchfork) who make a comfortable salary, but probably only a handful at the most senior level. so much of the content is freelance, farmed out for not much $$.

 

[sus]

I've heard going rate for a Pitchfork album review is like a $100; maybe things are different or I was misinformed. But would support Leo's description

 

[sus]

However, if I were a label or a large artist I'd think about bankrolling music writers who liked my stuff. Or at least TikTok'ers/YouTubers who produce language to support and contextualize and translate musical releases. In terms of long-term legacy and even sales/streams, that sort of criticism probably still has a non-trivial impact. Same could be said about art and literature. Obviously there are conflict of interest complications but with the way influencer culture is going, with the way corporate sponsorship of editorial bylines is going, it makes sense.

 

[IdleRich]

i've had both ends of this. had the very enthusiastic and can't wait for the hero to come onto stage thing. also had the 'jesus christ why the fuck did i buy a ticket for this, its 9pm and i want to go home now and they haven't even come on yet'. the latter is better for not being disappointed i think, every now and then what you've gone to see is actually amazing and new and its a nice surprise

Me too. I thought bands were stars from another dimension... but at the same time I hate live music and virtually always get bored at gigs.

 

[line b]

Listening to live music is one of lifes purest pleasures

 

[IdleRich]

Listening to live music is one of lifes purest pleasures

Is it though? Or if one could just magically experience a band playing in your living room or something then it could be but going to see a band is so often tainted by pointless rules and security, expensive shit drinks in horrible plastic cups etc

I mean to say that even if, theoretically, live music is a pure pleasure, going to a gig tends to be an adulterated version of that pure experience. Though what do I know, I'm pretty sure the pure live experience would bore me to tears anyhow.

 

[line b]

Is it though? Or if one could just magically experience a band playing in your living room or something then it could be but going to see a band is so often tainted by pointless rules and security, expensive shit drinks in horrible plastic cups etc

I mean to say that even if, theoretically, live music is a pure pleasure, going to a gig tends to be an adulterated version of that pure experience. Though what do I know, I'm pretty sure the pure live experience would bore me to tears anyhow.

I mean live music in general. I havent seen a big touring act in years. But I still love seeing local/small acts in a more casual setting. Last night I was walking down the street and heard bossa nova coming out of this bar so I hopped in for a tune. it was great

 

[luka]

I mean live music in general. I havent seen a big touring act in years. But I still love seeing local/small acts in a more casual setting. Last night I was walking down the street and heard bossa nova coming out of this bar so I hopped in for a tune. it was great

🤢🤮

 

[line b]

imagine not enjoying live music. it'd be like not enjoying colors or food. youd have to be a husk of a human being