a grammar

money changes everything

Oddly enough, I was just posting something about the differences between full-time and part-time music criticism when Zach Baron covered it for me. This is all in reference to someone from Hype Machine responding to Chris Weingarten’s lovable Old Testament Crank speech (highlights here!) about the state of music writing. The thrust of the response seemed to be that there’s always good criticism happening, if you look for it, and it’s beyond flattering that this blog was mentioned as an example of something good. But that distinction — the full-time vs. part-time one — makes a huge difference.

As Zach points out, and you’ve probably guessed, I’m not a full-time music critic. I don’t wish to be one. I work a regular forty-hour non-music week, and have other things that I do besides. For me, and other people in this position, there are huge advantages: we can write whatever we think is useful, and not worry too much about whether anyone wants to read it; we don’t have to scramble for freelance work, try to keep up pageviews for whoever’s paying us, or any of that stuff. But there’s also a disadvantage for readers, beyond the fact that we might just get busy and not post for a month: we have at least eight fewer hours per day to do the work that full-time critics do. Sorting through countless promos, tracking every new development, constantly hitting shows and festivals, continually finding things to say — this is music writing as a job. It’s not an easy one, and, well … this’ll sound corny, but I’m continually impressed by the people who have the passion and constitution to keep that work up, continually, for not a ton of money, and do it well. Some people imagine critics swanking around acting hip and getting on guest lists. A more accurate image probably involves chopping through release schedules over cereal.

Me, I have only as much time for this stuff as any other gainfully employed civilian who likes music a whole lot but also has to talk to people and do laundry. So, much like political bloggers rely on old-fashioned journalists to turn up a lot of the news they comment on, I rely on front-line full-time critics to start figuring out what’s happening. And front-line full-time critics rely on one another for the same thing, along with fans and scene-watchers and publicists. Not everyone can do everything. So you’re not going to catch me being the first one to notice some great new act that just tore up SXSW, and one reason is that, you now, how many vacation days can I take again?

That’s not a complaint: I much prefer it that way. And I’m not suggesting this paycheck stuff is a general rule, either: I know on-the-side writers who consume staggering amounts of music and information, and there are full-time writers I’m fairly sure don’t consume a ton. It’s personal; it has to do with your stamina, your geekdom, and your lifestyle; it has to do with whether you have kids or whether your boyfriend can’t stand you listening to metal all day when he’s trying to read. And I’m sure it matters none to readers how a given writer pays the rent: why should you care?

But it does make a difference in what kind of writing you get: it makes a difference in what people have time to know, and what it’s worthwhile spending their time writing about. This is the same argument that crops up anytime someone suggests an egalitarian online future where musicians are all amateurs, our information all comes through blogs, and everyone does stuff for the love of it. There’s beauty and value in that vision, for sure, but of course there are also things we love that require some kind of professionalism to make happen: investigative journalism, action movies, lavish studio recordings, music critics who follow everything. This isn’t a question of love, it’s a question of how well-funded anyone is to really deliver on that love.

Again: this isn’t a complaint. I don’t think people in this world are really that indignant about the basic market forces of needing to produce stuff someone might want to read. I’m not sure people think they “deserve” money to do great work if nobody’s interested in it. People mostly aren’t dumb or that arrogant. But if you’re talking about whether good criticism’s being produced, or how much, it’s probably important to ask what type of criticism you mean, and how easy it is to find, and whether the people producing it are doing it for a living or not. Because that’s part of the systemic stuff this conversation is trying to unravel, right?