How to become an honest-to-god music journalist?

May 10, 2008 10:55 AM

How do I go about becoming a music journalist?

I've recently come to the realization that Music Journalism might be the only career path that I'm suited for. How do I go about making this a reality? I've found a bunch of articles on this subject through Google, but most of them come from sites like Associated Content, which leads me to believe they are less than reputable. Any honest-to-god music journalists here who could dole out a bit of advice?

posted by clcapps to work & money (23 answers total)

Not an honest-to-God music journalist, but I have worked along side self-aggrandizing music reviewers who fashioned themselves as "music journalists." Some of these people are my close friends.

Step 1: Take whatever savings you have a stock up on Ramen noodles, and powdered milk. The value of of a music reviewer is next to zilch. You'll be lucky to be paid in promos let alone real money.

Step 2: AP style book. Strunk & White.

Step 3: Write, write, write. Every day. Review, review, review. Then write some more. Subscribe to every music entertainment magazine and industry rag you can get your hands on. Read everything you can get your hands on. Report what you learn in a fashion suitable for a diverse music listening audience.

Step 4: Approach every media outlet in town with your by now substantial collection of reviews. You've got show three things: 1.) That you can write to a high journalistic standard. 2.) That you're not a junkie or a flake. And 3.) You can hammer out reliable, articulate, original content every single day and I never miss a deadline.

Step 5: Be prepared to work for free at first. After you have some clips under your belt then you can work on getting a "real" job in journalism.

Step 6: Optional, but possible helpful in this era: Register a domain name, pay for hosting, and setup your own website. A blog is fine as long as it is indexed and searchable.

Step 7: Realize that to move ahead you need a journalism degree. Go back to college.

Sorry if any of this comes off as snark, but it's really a cut throat, undervalued line of work where there is always someone who maybe isn't as good but who is willing to work for nothing (*cough* college students *cough*.) Good luck.
posted by wfrgms at 11:13 AM on May 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

How old are you (just so that I know whether or not I can recommend school or not)? Why music journalism? What kind of music journalism?

Do you want to write for magazines or for newspapers or for blogs? Do you want to cover industry news or be a critic?

Look, there are a couple of things that I'd say regarding music journalism as a career: First off, there are more people who want to do it than there are opportunities to get paid for it. So broadening what you can do is a good idea. Second, those paid opportunities are disappearing more and more, so it's not necessarily the best field to go into. Third, you don't really know whether you're suited for it until you've tried it. Fourth, prepare to be discouraged—if you can't handle that, you won't make it.

My girlfriend just pointed out that I should mention that I've been getting paid to write about music for the last ten years or so, though I don't consider myself all that successful at it. I had a column for about five years, and have freelanced around at a variety of magazines, national and regional.

Further advice: When I was in Michigan, the number of full-time music journalists (who only did music stories) that I knew was two, one at the MetroTimes, one who worked at the Free Press, Oakland Press, and a variety of freelance gigs around the country. There are more in entertainment/media capitals, but it's not a gig that a lot of people make a living on. It's a gig that a lot of people supplement their living on and do for free CDs.

If I recall correctly, the user Bookhouse here is also a journo, and he's done better than I have in professional music writing. Maybe he'll be along.
posted by klangklangston at 11:18 AM on May 10, 2008

I have a close friend that writes for a few major music publications and also provides research for compilation albums.
He got his start by writing his own music blog and using the resulting posts and traffic numbers as his resume for approaching other publications to write for. He attributes this to his eventual success in finding more stable paid work. As an aside, I also know that networking is a KEY tool for him in finding more high-profile jobs. I see him at just about every show I go to and he's always doing his part to meet new people and talk to bands. In the beginning he would use damn near any tactic he could find to get backstage access to shows and festivals in order to gain access to higher profile bands, which he would solicit for interviews. In the end though, It's the quality of his writing that has pushed him to where he is, he doesn't just write reviews and profiles, he places his subjects in the context of history and expands into the more philosophical realms of music. In other words, he provides value to the reader that extends beyond the literal subject of his work.

Hope that's at least of some help!
posted by ISeemToBeAVerb at 11:23 AM on May 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Haha. On non-preview, wfrgms pretty much summed up my career arc, right down to the j-school. My advice? Don't do it unless your favorite way to spend all of your time is writing about music, even to the exclusion of listening to music.
posted by klangklangston at 11:28 AM on May 10, 2008

As a (former) music writer I agree with Klang above. A couple of things:

- Everyone who likes music thinks they would be a good music writer. Be prepared for harsh crit from douchebags.

- I wrote for a big-city weekly and made $25 for record reviews (100 words), $75 for live reviews (300 words) and $225 for features (700+ words). Reasonable part-time-job money, shitty career money. You'll need to diversify if you want to freelance full-time.

- Most of the time writing about music isn't really THAT related to loving music. You'll be listening to lots of music you don't like, going to shows you hate, and interviewing bands you don't give a shit about.

Contrary to popular opinion, unless you're some self-styled Lester Bangs, music writing is not about sitting around pontificating about whatever you're currently fancying. (Even if you get that opportunity you're probably boring the shit out of almost everyone who reads it. Or maybe I just have a thing about music blogs.)
posted by loiseau at 11:48 AM on May 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Other random pieces of advice:

Don't write about indie rock, heavy metal, punk, underground rap or alt-county. Write about Gospel/CCM, Latin music, World music, Celtic, and New Age music. You can't throw a Pitchfork without hitting literate writers who can wax ecstatically about !!!, Mastodon and Lupe Fiasco, but finding somebody who can write a worthwhile review of these "un-hipster" genres can often fill a niche at a magazine or internet content provider.

Also, be prepared to stop liking music after a while. If you are unwilling to wade through a 30-count box of budget-line Greensleeves reggae compilations and variations on "Now That's What I Call Gospel, Vol. 28" you might want to start looking for work elsewhere.

It ain't all Wilco and TV on the Radio, amigo.

Signed,
Burned Out McBuzzkill
posted by Overzealous at 11:53 AM on May 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

I'm a full-time freelance music writer. I write for both online and print. I'm in my mid-20s and I've been doing this full-time since I moved to New York three years ago.

In the last couple months about half a dozen decent print magazines have closed, and the biggest four music magazines (blender, spin, rolling stone, vibe) have had plummeting ad sales. It's tough right now. Aside from the basics of starting a blog and writing every day, I'd strongly recommend having another skill set like HTML (you'll pick those up from your blog, I'm sure), being able to record/package audio for radio shows or podcasts, video editing, etc.

Like Overzealous said, be prepared to write about many genres, and to be an expert in something other writers aren't (I am still working on this).
posted by miniminimarket at 11:59 AM on May 10, 2008

What about working on the other side, PR for a label? You would write press kits and releases etc. That may potentially be more stable.

I too have known many a part-time music writer who never got enough work to go full-time. Even in Sydney, where I live, opportunities are very limited. Most freelancers work for the street press for small change, which is now syndicated nationally meaning fewer writers are needed every year. Titles are closing.

There would actually be more work in other media (radio, TV, Internet) depending on what market you're in. Many music writers I know work in several media - blogs, public radio, TV production, and writing. You still have to write when your work in other media - perhaps another idea.
posted by wingless_angel at 12:09 PM on May 10, 2008

I've been a fulltime music journalist for the last 2 years. I don't agree that there isn't any work out there, or that you don't get paid, or that you need a big list of clips, etc. In fact, I disagree with everything the first poster said, except for the part about doing a blog.

You certainly don't need to go to journalism school.

The most important thing is to develop an area of expertise which is different from other people. A niche. The more specific the better (I write about techno). And the next most important thing is to get your writing up to scratch. Which is what the blog is for.

Get to know all of the magazines and websites which are in your niche, and then after you've written your blog for a while, offer them some stories/interviews/reviews. If a) you know your shit, and b) you can write well, editors will almost always say yes to your pitches.

It's all about being able to write about things that other people can't.

Be prepared to work hard though. Good luck ;)
posted by dydecker at 12:13 PM on May 10, 2008

Agreeing with what everyone else said, let me reiterate: music journalism probably seems a lot cooler when you're not doing it. I bailed after about 5 years of steadily working up the freelance ladder, and by the time I was done, I was completely fried. It felt exactly as fun as my day job (oh yeah, be ready to hang on to a day job for quite a while), with a lot less pay and some disturbing effects on my listening habits. I'm not saying it's something you should avoid; just that the grass isn't nearly as green as it looks.

As for the how, it's pretty well sketched out above; in my case, getting started really was just a matter of finding out who the music editors were at the Minneapolis alt-weeklies and sending them decent pitch letters; since a lot of pitch letters are either illiterate or sent to the wrong staff member, you can get way ahead of the pack just there. Once somebody gives you a shot, it's important to write well, but it's at least as important to meet your deadlines and avoid being a cock to your editors. If you get known as a person who'll reliably produce decent stuff and not be a pain in the ass to work with, it's not that hard to move up, especially as old editors move on to new publications and take their relationships with them.

In my current webcomic about the lower end of the music biz, I've actually done a couple of strips based on real-life music journalism follies of mine:
How not to write for your local alt-weekly.
How to write for Pitchfork (ok, that one's based on what I wish I'd done; I actually followed the advice in the 3rd panel and got-- and deserved-- the Heisman)
posted by COBRA! at 12:53 PM on May 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

What ISeemToBeAVerb wrote is exactly how MeFi's own Marquis went from writing for his music blog Said the Gramophone to also writing for The Guardian Unlimited.
posted by Null Pointer and the Exceptions at 1:50 PM on May 10, 2008

Whoa, I know Marquis. I didn't know he was Marquis though.

STG is the one music blog I like. Also: he's a good show promoter.
posted by loiseau at 3:01 PM on May 10, 2008

Yeah, I worked as a full-time music writer for an alt-weekly for a few years, after working as a freelancer before that, and as a movie critic afterwards. I'd stand by what Klang and wfrgms said, mostly. A few things:

1). As Klang said, the number of people who make a living at music writing is vanishingly small, and getting smaller every day. Again like Klang said, when I was a full-timer, I was one of exactly two salaried music writers in my city. People are very willing to give this stuff away for free, so the number of papers who will pay you for it are shrinking. These papers are also literally shrinking as prostitute classified ads move to Craigslist (among other ad woes).

2). So, give it away. Here's how I got started: I wrote CD reviews for a goofball website my friends and I shared. One day I emailed them to the local alt-weekly, and the music editor liked them enough to give me a shot (I'll say more about how to make an editor like you in a bit). When that shot came, I made it very clear that I was willing to write about any type of music, and not do it while holding my nose. Hell, I interviewed the guy from Dashboard Confessional. Whenever the editor was in a squeeze and needed a blurb about an unhip band, I was there. I didn't lie or pump up worthless bands, but I always tried to remember for whom and for what the music was intended for. When the music editor got fed up and quit, I was there to step in (I got lucky as this happened about a year after I started. It could have taken a lot longer).

3). As an editor, I got lots of emails from eager people who wanted to write for me. 90% of the time, I quit reading the samples after three sentences. God awful. Of the ten percent who made it past, most had tastes that were identical to all the proven freelancers I already had, so I'd only take them on if they were awesome. A good hip-hop writer or metal writer was more valuable to me than another indie rocker.

So, after making sure you can write, display some range. Gather up enough clips to impress your local alt-weekly. Any paying clip is a step up.

4). Web Hits! That's what your paper wants now. Learn how to write things that people will email to their friends. Two writers who do this very well, and in very different ways, are Rob Harvilla of the Village Voice and Mike Seely of the Seattle Weekly.

If the thought of angling for web hits bothers you, I'd suggest you stick to writing for free or as a profitable hobby. It is seriously hard to pay the bills these days, and downsizing is happening everywhere.

Please feel free to ask for more info.
posted by Bookhouse at 3:42 PM on May 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

Oh, on non-preview:

- Everyone who likes music thinks they would be a good music writer. Be prepared for harsh crit from douchebags.

True story: My paper came out Wednesday morning. Once for a period of two months I got long voicemail every Wednesday from some dude who went through the music section, page by page, and talked about how I was a bad writer, I had bad tastes and all of my freelancers were garbage. I don't know why I listened to every single message, but I did. I think I got two pieces of fan mail in two years.

*takes invisible drink*
I used to be a music writer. It's a tough racket.
posted by Bookhouse at 3:46 PM on May 10, 2008

2nd the no journalism school thing. That's only helpful if it can get you on the staff of your school paper writing reviews and getting clips. NYU has a class on writing about music. Not many other schools have that, or even have a class on entertainment journalism or arts criticism.

Bookhouse is right. When I was an editor at Pitchfork, and even now just as a staffer, I get emails with links to writers' clips. Their taste is fine, and they are usually knowledgeable. The quality of their writing is always the problem.

Every email from someone asking for my opinion on their writing comes with another from someone else telling me I'm an idiot and that I can't write.

If you are outgoing and simply love music and love being around bands, publicist is the (more profitable) way to go. It's easier to get an internship with a publicity company or a record label than it is with a music magazine at least in a big city.
posted by miniminimarket at 1:01 AM on May 11, 2008

I went to journalism school and have been to many a free concert as the +1 for my music journalist friends (my friends worked for Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, etc. Not small time papers). People have given a lot of good advice so far, so I don't have a whole lot to add other than this... it's a great job when you're in your early 20s. You want to go to free shows and be a big fish in a small pond and write about stuff you love, and that's fun and cool for a while. (Think Cameron Crowe.) But it's really a stepping stone job... it's good experience but you shouldn't plan for it to be a permanent career. There are things about it that are somewhat addicting (DEFINITELY not the pay!!!) but if you are still reviewing concerts after a decade or so, the lifestyle becomes kind of a pathetic sight when one has reached middle age. I mean, the two guys I know who kept it up are living pretty much paycheck to paycheck in slummy apartments... existing on Top Ramen in their 40s, unmarried and depressed while spending their evenings going to Hannah Montana concerts in between hip shows, being hired to interview occasional big names in between new musicians half their age that most of their peers have never heard of. It's just not as glamorous a life as it sounds for the long term, it's a rough life in some ways. For the short term when you're young it's a Hell of a lot of fun, though.

Here's a book I'd recommend checking out, BTW.
posted by miss lynnster at 3:06 AM on May 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yet another writer here.

I went to college, wrote music reviews from day one until I became editor-in-chief of the paper, became a regular reporter for a daily paper, got a fellowship to the Poynter Institute, got an AP award for writing, then leapfrogged into other writing because I was sick of occasionally getting $50 here and $40 there to review shows, albums, whatnot and having to take my own photos, develop my own film, drive my own car to out of town gigs, etc.

Oh, and that's what I was getting paid in 1993. Before there were a million blogs and whatnot all over the internet and content about the most obscure band on Earth was plentiful and free.

Yeah, it's neat to have a press pass for things like Lollapalooza and go drink beer with the bands and take photos. Don't get me wrong. But you won't be getting, say, dental insurance, or a book deal down the road out of it... probably.

I ended up teaching journalism briefly and then ditched it altogether for, in order: technical writing, project management, advertising, and now I'm editor of an online magazine. Sort of.

Everyone upthread is correct. If you come from a wealthy family and don't need money, and genuinely love music, do this as a career/hobby.

If you need to earn a living, drive a car, feed or clothe a child, or anything of that nature, you can do music writing in your spare time and look for a day job that you can tolerate.

Don't think you get to pick your assignments, either, if you're the only music reviewer for a local newspaper or small magazine. You'll be gagging your way through anything from Ashlee Simpson to the soundtrack to High School Musical 27.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 11:46 AM on May 11, 2008

You don't say what you're doing now. If you're still at university, start writing for the university newspaper/magazine immediately - obvious, I know, but the number of people who've asked me this question over the years without doing that as a first step is bewildering. Papers and magazines will pay more attention to clippings from the student press than stuff sent on spec or posts on your weblog (or at least they used to - weblogs hadn't been invented when I started out).

And I'll nth the idea of finding a niche. When I was a music journalist, I only really wrote about dance music/electronic music and it made life much easier - there's a smaller pool of editors to impress, you can get yourself a little reputation more quickly, build up a relationship with core PR/label people, &c. (Of course, the whole time I was a music journalist, I was also writing about annything else I possibly could, in order to earn enough to live on, but kept that general freelance stuff to publications the dance music press people would never see. This also meant that I could get out of music journalism and into writing about visual art when all the magazines I wrote for shut down!)

As others have said, it does really suck as a job after a while. Listening to ten records in a row by artists you despise, then interviewing a couple of talentless dickheads, then spending hour after maddening hour at a gig by a band you would never dream of paying to see isn't much fun, really. Give it a few years, and being the first to write about some mind-blowing record/hanging out with folk you've idolised since childhood/etc. doesn't really compensate for the everyday avalanche of shite.
posted by jack_mo at 11:58 AM on May 11, 2008

Thanks for all your input, guys. A few points of clarification:

I'm 23 - I don't have a degree yet, but I've studied Philosophy, The History Of Mathematics, and Contemporary Music Theory at the undergraduate level - I also have a pretty solid grasp of web development and design, as I worked full-time in that field when I was younger. I'm particularly interested in approaching the criticism of popular music in the same way art music is usually approached - frankly, I think it's kind of dumb that almost no one talks about theory in the pop music world. I also know quite a bit about various world musics, particularly southeast Asian and Indonesian Gamelan music.

I don't know - is there room (or demand) in the market for a slightly more academic approach to this sort of thing?
posted by clcapps at 12:00 PM on May 11, 2008

I'm a full time music journalist/editor and have been since 2001, before that I was a freelancer for a couple of years. The thing is, though, that I'm based in Stockholm, and I suppose a few bullet points concerning how to become a music journalist in Sweden is not the thing you're looking for...

...then again, maybe it is exactly the thing you're looking for? I'm speculating here, but based on a few observations, I think there are plenty of music magazines in Europe (for instance) who'd love to have a guy at the scene, so to speak. Your site seems to be down at the moment, so I don't know if you live in any major american metropolis (hell, I don't know where you live, period), but if you do, you might have a way in. Air travel/hotel rooms are not cheap. Having a correspondent in, say, NYC might be exactly what a budding music magazine in, say, Luxembourg is looking for.

There are, of course, a few drawbacks with this idea. Language problems might occur. (Are you fluent in more than one, it'd be peachy.) How do for instance European music magazines handle applications/articles not written in the language of the magazine? I suppose it varies. Are non US music magazines good at translating articles? I think so, generally. Will you be able to read what they print? Maybe not.

Another issue is payment. But I have - of course! - no idea how that works. But it can be done! And you might not always get a guestlist. But you will probably get interviews, and you're able to attend shows. More and more promos are delivered digitally nowadays, by the way.

So I suppose this is more an idea than an answer. But if I were you I'd contact a few European/Asian/African music magazines that seems to be into the kind of music that you're into.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 12:34 PM on May 11, 2008

...by the way, my Swedish is better than my English...

I should probably point out that when I write "music magazines", I mean publications somehow connected to music. Paper, Internet, web portals, e-zines, high profile blogs, in flight magazines, in house department store magazines, whatever.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 12:56 PM on May 11, 2008

"I don't know - is there room (or demand) in the market for a slightly more academic approach to this sort of thing?"

Unfortunately, no, not really, not as a popular market. And you'd be surprised at how many people come out of the same background. There's the Experience Music Project conference every year, where folks like Anthony Miccio and Ned Raggett attend (two ILXors with fairly good CVs). Kelefah Saneh, Dominique Leone, and Sasha Frere-Jones all tend toward that side too, and generally work as newspaper critics. And more than a few of the folks stuck interviewing Avril Lavigne know their Adorno from their Gramsci. If you can create a market for that, I'd be glad to come calling.

If you want to pursue that path, your best bet is to go for something like a Cultural Studies masters, or ethnomusicology, and write as a sideline. But that's an academic career, not a music journalist career (though, frankly, there's no real need to be just a music journalist, only that academia has a more prescribed path).
posted by klangklangston at 6:33 PM on May 11, 2008

I just finished working in the university press for 4 years and am now freelancing part-time. I specialize in arts journalism. I've decided not to do it full-time (unless a sweet-ass editing job presents itself, which is unlikely). I'm doing a masters in media studies once I'm done my undergrad so that I can work in the media in some way or another (as long as it's not PR/marketing... yuck). But who knows where I'll end up--not really worried about it right now, because I'm only 24. Since I'm not dependent on paying my rent through freelancing money, it makes writing so much more fun (and I don't need to write for shitty publications).

I TOTALLY second the college paper experience, for numerous reasons.

1. Confidence, skills, practise. Being a contributor for 2 years at my student paper, the Fulcrum, and another 2 years as an editor REALLY helped me hone my writing style. Because of this experience, I feel incredibly confident in my abilities to write stylistically, perform a gazillion interviews, transcribe, write under deadline, self-edit, and actually enjoy the whole thing, instead of feeling stressed out.

2. Friends. YMMV, but my peers at the Fulc were ridiculously helpful. Their feedback helped me become the writer I am today. I am still friends with many of them and we talk about journalism, share notes, career tips, etc. This is where you can build an awesome social network. Attending student journalism conferences and networking with professionals helped me get started as a freelancer.

3. Don't just write CD reviews. Do a news story. A feature story. Write about health issues, business trends. Write a humour article. Photography. Do all kinds of stuff. You will find out if you like writing, period, and if so, this will open many more doors if you decide to pursue it as a full-time gig. Sure, journalism is a hard career path no matter what, but it's a helluvalot easier if you're well-rounded.
posted by Menomena at 2:47 PM on June 10, 2008