PopMatters Associate Columns and Music Editor
You can walk, you can talk, you can fight / But inside you’ve got something to write / In your hand you hold your only friend / Never spend your guitar or your pen.
— “Guitar and Pen” from the album Who Are You
Many music journalists start out as wannabe musicians, yearning to play for pay before hordes of adoring fans. However, once the dream of being the next Jimi Hendrix drifts away in a delusional purple haze, many of us channel our energies toward perfecting the written word in lieu of the musical note. Admittedly, wielding a pen rather than a vintage Les Paul doesn’t afford many rock-star perks, but it’s still a way to stay connected with the sights and sounds we’re most passionate about.
However, calling oneself a music journalist does not necessarily a competent writer make. Writing is an imperfect science, one that requires constant practice and refinement. The fanciful notion that simply listening to music is a journalistic qualification, leads to music critique of dubious quality, while the importance of clearly articulating one’s words and thoughts is routinely ignored. Countless fledgling Cameron Crowes dive head first into the journalistic pool (regardless of their skills) and muddy the waters for those of us who take pride in our craft.
As a public service to aspiring music writers, I have devised a brief True/False quiz to test your music-journalism instincts. Please note: While most evaluative exercises are scored in multiples of 10, this test goes to 11. The written portion of the exam will follow under separate cover. Pencils ready? Begin…
True or False
1. Amazon.com customer reviews are acceptable clips for music journalists.
2. Words such as vox and chanteuse make a writer appear convincingly hip and intellectual.
3. Guitarists are mathematicians, and what they play is aptly described as angular.
4. Lester Bangs was a god.
5. References to LSD should be made only by those who have personally taken more than a dozen mind-altering trips.
6. Finding the key to unlock the musical universe is predicated on staying alive with the MC5.
7. Pete Townshend is spelled with an H, John Entwistle is not, and Roger Daltrey has an E.
8. Successful music journalism is grounded in the Beat Generation.
9. The Sex Pistols and Nirvana are grossly overrated.
10. “Stairway to Heaven” is the greatest rock song ever recorded.
11. Credible music journalists should distinguish between useful critical terminology and marketing-minded corporate-speak.
Answers
1. False. Compulsive shoppers may enjoy waxing poetic almost as much as getting free shipping, but this growing body of prattle is merely glorified buyers’ feedback. Sure, Amazon is willing to publish a treatise on the latest Groovin’ to the Oldies 10-disc mega-compilation, but that doesn’t mean it is suitable as journalistic resume fodder. Writers write, shoppers shop, and never the twain shall meet.
2. False. Unfortunately, music writing is rife with language that is as cringe-inducing as it is obtuse. For the record, Vox is a proprietary brand of amplifier (not a colloquialism for vocals), and a harp is not a harmonica, but a stringed instrument favored by angels and the funniest Marx Brother. Inaccurate but widely tolerated use of either word evokes not a hip, knowledgeable writer but a fat, balding, and painfully Caucasian journalistic equivalent of Bruce Willis trying to morph into a bluesman. Additionally, anyone with the temerity to incorporate the words ethereal and chanteuse into the same sentence should immediately have their thumbs removed with a bolt cutter. (Complete list of offending words/phrases is available upon request for a nominal fee).
3. False. Although an arpeggio can often be as difficult to master as integral equations, guitar playing is not a branch of mathematics, and it doesn’t require a protractor or slide rule. Angles are figures formed by two lines extending from the same point, and are completely unrelated to power chords. Until a team of academics finds a correlation between the Pythagorean Theorem and the opening riff to “Back in Black”, the term angular guitars should not be part of a music writer’s lexicon.
4. False. An imaginative wordsmith with a flair for rebellious writing, Bangs fell victim to his own inflated sense of self-importance. For all his gifts of articulation and critical observation, Bangs committed the cardinal sin of journalism: He made himself bigger than his subjects. Plus, his gratuitously confrontational style grows tiresome very quickly. Read the two collections of his work (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung and Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader) then judge for yourself.
5. True. A convenient method for describing a given band’s psychedelic sound is to employ the old failsafe of saying it sounds like Artist X on acid. This strategy is typically perpetrated by the chemically naïve and is an inaccurate and erroneous metaphor. Bands that “sound like bands on acid” are actually taking acid. To suggest that a non-acid-consuming group could sound similar is an assertion anyone with a modicum of pharmaceutical experience would never make.
6. True. No band personified music more than the Motor City’s quintet of hard charging revolutionaries. The MC5 embodied everything good and bad about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll; from flawless musicianship and a keen fashion sense to explosive live performances and self-destructive addictions, the band lived life to the fullest under the “Kick out the Jams!” banner. Although commercial success eluded the 5, its catalog is an aural masterpiece of big guitars, R&B, freeform jazz, psychedelia and blues. Listening to, and learning about the MC5 is all one needs to reach total spiritual enlightenment. And let’s not forget, other than Peter Fonda’s Captain America bike in Easy Rider, there is no more lasting image of the stars and stripes in pop culture than Brother Wayne Kramer’s Fender Strat.
7. True. Government studies have shown that nearly 80 percent of all articles written about the Who have Townshend, Entwistle and/or Daltrey spelled incorrectly. You don’t have to like the Who or even know much about one of rock’s greatest acts, but if you’re penning a piece that makes even a passing Who reference, spell check the band members’ names or risk looking amateurish and ill-informed. And no, you don’t get any points for not screwing up Keith Moon.
8. True. The original Four Horsemen of the Beat Apocalypse (William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac) were clever, eloquent, adventuresome and fearless when it came to expressing themselves. Their works resonate with honesty and excitement, bringing readers into each piece, be it a poem or cultural essay. This is the template that the best music journalism is built around. If you haven’t indulged in any Beat Generation writings, do so immediately, ’cause if you don’t know On The Road, you don’t know Jack.
9. True. Two perfect examples of right place, right time. The Pistols were obnoxious, no-talent cretins whose reputation as punk rock’s poster children is woefully overblown. The Ramones were the original punks, not Rotten and Co.; the Pistols made good front-page fodder, but as a band were four incompetent boors. As for Nirvana, Kurt Cobain’s legacy as a brilliantly tormented voice of a displaced generation is a romantic, albeit misguided, notion and little else. He was a whining, embittered junkie who penned a handful of decent songs, then offed himself because he couldn’t deal with the trappings of celebrity. He also significantly tarnished his limited accomplishments by foisting Courtney Love on us.
10. False. Logic dictates that any song containing the lyrical ambiguity of “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now ” can merit only the dubious distinction of being the most requested rock song ever recorded. Closer inspection will reveal that “Stairway to Heaven” does not even rank among the greatest Led Zeppelin tracks. Don’t be fooled by the legions of glassy-eyed baby boomers who have adopted the song as their own; each New Year’s Eve these nostalgic buffoons add to the song’s mythic status by jamming radio-station phone lines with pitiful pleas of “Play Stairway, man!” just as members of this call-in coalition insist on yelling “Free Bird!” at any and every concert they attend.
11. True. With alarming frequency, music marketers and their PR minions spew forth contrived monikers to classify the products they are trying to push. Haphazardly coined genre names are universally nonsensical —neo-grunge and emo are but two examples. Tacit approval of industry wango-slango enables the cycle to continue unchallenged and shows the accepting writer to be gutless and wholly devoid of imagination. If Bob Pollard can write 17,863 songs without grammatical (or thematic) repetition, music journalists can avoid using a single word of inane corporate-speak in their reviews and essays.
Scoring (Number of correct answers)
11: Congratulations! One louder than 10.
10: Your foundation of knowledge is strong; you should be on staff at a leading music periodical, assuming you can write well and are willing to do it for free.
8-9: With some practice, you should be able to name that tune in three notes or less. You might even know the meaning of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”.
6-7: You consistently reap modest paper profits while playing along at home with Rock and Roll Jeopardy, but you’ll need to invest significant time studying the work of esteemed music critic Dave Marsh to reach an acceptable level of competence.
4-5: You probably have an impressive collection of Amazon reviews to your credit.
1-3: Throw away your writing instrument and pick up a musical instrument: You’ve got a better chance of becoming an internationally acclaimed rock star than a music journalist.
0: Bad news — you are completely ignorant about the history of popular music and how to write about it. Good news — You can likely earn a six-figure salary as a Senior VP at one of the major labels.