The Rise of the Independent, Part V - Journo Anti Journo
Written by Sorana Santos on Wednesday the 9th of February 2011
I still remember those startled and defensive stares I got at my first journo meeting way back - my first 'job' outside of music college when I said "The average Joe doesn't really follow individual reviewers, per se, they just read the reviews.” Silence reigned, "Yes. They do.” said the stern head journo, droog baby journos nodding and looking at me as if I had suddenly grown horns out of my head.
Surprisingly, the publication no longer exists. However, one good thing did come out of it as this was the very place I gained the useful, if not distressing knowledge, that Music reviewers in most publications have almost no knowledge or training in the medium itself. At all. Call me idealistic, but when I go to the GP, I expect them to be knowledgeable on the General Practice of medicine, likewise I'd imagine my dentist had a pretty good idea of how to use a drill. If I employed builders I'd expect them to build, a translator to translate, a judge to judge, and so on, each with sound knowledge of their craft. What kind of a world would it be in which it was acceptable common practice to be misdiagnosed or for builders to use porridge instead of cement? Why do we not have these same expectations of those reviewing creative work? After all, these people are, at least in part, responsible for shaping and advising the opinions of society itself.
Music is a phenomenon. Although you need no prior knowledge of it in order to enjoy it, it is essentially a language that is studied, learned and acquired through complex cognitive processes, it is performed with the mentality of a sportsman, its construction can be understood and unravelled by way of mathematical formulae, and its recording and transmission understood in terms of the laws of physics, yet, it is quite happily reviewed by someone knowing nothing of the above.
So, what actually makes a good song? Ask most people and they'll say something like: We don't really know, different individuals like different things, when in fact, the answer is much more complicated. What baffles me is that rather than endeavouring to try and understand the phenomenon that is music, we seem to be quite happy believing that a hit song or great album is such because more people liked it more than the other stuff 'for their individual reasons'. If that is the case then why do we need reviewers telling us what they think is good or bad? Well, because as human beings we are highly impressionable! ... Cue the existence of marketing, advertising and PR. Not such an individual with an individual response now eh. What is worrying is that if we are indeed as highly impressionable as the existence of these industries suggest, and those being hired to impress this or that produce upon us aren't really in the know, what kind of value is our society creating with this infrastructure? Even more worrying and humiliating than this is that at its core, it is inherently our fault that things are as they are. After all, we're the ones buying the papers, reading the articles and making the motion to buy into whatever we are sold because we ourselves do not know how to value value itself. Rather, we are a society that is perfectly happy to accepting information from the uninformed.
What does this mean for the independent musician? Unfortunately, until people gradually awaken to the true nature of things in this industry, and the industry itself shows signs of settling into a new business model, there can be no significant protocol for how an Independent Musician might generate their own PR when not yet earning the income that major labels (or mummy and daddy) can afford. (I recently put forward an appeal to an established creative industry forum to begin research into how this could be achieved, but my proposal was rejected) At the moment the focus seems to be on how the industry will prevent its own collapse, with less focus on the smaller compliant industries. Realistically, marketing, advertising and PR in the record industry will all have to adapt to the changes that continue to take place.
The implication of 'we just like what we like because it's nice and we don't like what we don't like because it's ugly' is that there is no craft to being a musician! Were that the case the study of it would not exist! For us IM's this affords the opportunity to carve a niche, one that is built around those who seek to master their craft, of understanding, of developing a voice that is truly individual and unfettered by the seasonal whimsies and approval of the record industry. It is an opportunity for us to build a new industry together, one that has these values at the forefront of its mission and reflects the better nature of the society we live in, but above all, one that nurtures, strengthens and protects true artistry and doesn't, ironically, force those who master their craft into the peripheries of the industry itself.
Surprisingly, the publication no longer exists. However, one good thing did come out of it as this was the very place I gained the useful, if not distressing knowledge, that Music reviewers in most publications have almost no knowledge or training in the medium itself. At all. Call me idealistic, but when I go to the GP, I expect them to be knowledgeable on the General Practice of medicine, likewise I'd imagine my dentist had a pretty good idea of how to use a drill. If I employed builders I'd expect them to build, a translator to translate, a judge to judge, and so on, each with sound knowledge of their craft. What kind of a world would it be in which it was acceptable common practice to be misdiagnosed or for builders to use porridge instead of cement? Why do we not have these same expectations of those reviewing creative work? After all, these people are, at least in part, responsible for shaping and advising the opinions of society itself.
Music is a phenomenon. Although you need no prior knowledge of it in order to enjoy it, it is essentially a language that is studied, learned and acquired through complex cognitive processes, it is performed with the mentality of a sportsman, its construction can be understood and unravelled by way of mathematical formulae, and its recording and transmission understood in terms of the laws of physics, yet, it is quite happily reviewed by someone knowing nothing of the above.
So, what actually makes a good song? Ask most people and they'll say something like: We don't really know, different individuals like different things, when in fact, the answer is much more complicated. What baffles me is that rather than endeavouring to try and understand the phenomenon that is music, we seem to be quite happy believing that a hit song or great album is such because more people liked it more than the other stuff 'for their individual reasons'. If that is the case then why do we need reviewers telling us what they think is good or bad? Well, because as human beings we are highly impressionable! ... Cue the existence of marketing, advertising and PR. Not such an individual with an individual response now eh. What is worrying is that if we are indeed as highly impressionable as the existence of these industries suggest, and those being hired to impress this or that produce upon us aren't really in the know, what kind of value is our society creating with this infrastructure? Even more worrying and humiliating than this is that at its core, it is inherently our fault that things are as they are. After all, we're the ones buying the papers, reading the articles and making the motion to buy into whatever we are sold because we ourselves do not know how to value value itself. Rather, we are a society that is perfectly happy to accepting information from the uninformed.
What does this mean for the independent musician? Unfortunately, until people gradually awaken to the true nature of things in this industry, and the industry itself shows signs of settling into a new business model, there can be no significant protocol for how an Independent Musician might generate their own PR when not yet earning the income that major labels (or mummy and daddy) can afford. (I recently put forward an appeal to an established creative industry forum to begin research into how this could be achieved, but my proposal was rejected) At the moment the focus seems to be on how the industry will prevent its own collapse, with less focus on the smaller compliant industries. Realistically, marketing, advertising and PR in the record industry will all have to adapt to the changes that continue to take place.
The implication of 'we just like what we like because it's nice and we don't like what we don't like because it's ugly' is that there is no craft to being a musician! Were that the case the study of it would not exist! For us IM's this affords the opportunity to carve a niche, one that is built around those who seek to master their craft, of understanding, of developing a voice that is truly individual and unfettered by the seasonal whimsies and approval of the record industry. It is an opportunity for us to build a new industry together, one that has these values at the forefront of its mission and reflects the better nature of the society we live in, but above all, one that nurtures, strengthens and protects true artistry and doesn't, ironically, force those who master their craft into the peripheries of the industry itself.
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