Journalism….and Music Journalism….
I once did an interview with a journalist about specialist woodworking machinery. I hosted him for a day at our Windermere factory, providing him with lunch and sustenance for his train journey back to London, and masses of important information about the company, its history, and the products we had manufactured on that site since 1859. He was small, somewhat timid for a journalist, and frankly unimpressive!
The article that eventually appeared could have been written by a school child. It was brief, included little of what I had contributed, none of the history, told one or two brazen untruths, and generally failed to reflect anything serious about the company, its excellent machines, let alone the warmth and hospitality meted out to him from our quiet but highly skilled Cumbrian backwater.
Ever since then, I’ve taken everything that journalists write with a large pinch of salt, whether in articles whose viewpoints I generally share or those whose viewpoints I generally despise and despair of. A journalist is generally after their version of a story first, the headline, the strapline, the juicy quotation – although how you’d contrive a juicy quotation about woodworking machines is completely beyond me.
My experience of music journalism is thankfully very different. Okay, I’ve had the odd unsatisfactory review but views have always been honestly held and most importantly, it’s been clear they’ve actually listened to the thing they’ve been reviewing. I can take constructive criticism. I think it’s helpful, partly because I know the faults in my own music and partly because I know you can’t please everyone all of the time. The world in which we live is one of superfluity. Not everything can be ‘amazing’, ‘fabulous’, or ‘the best thing I’ve ever heard’. To that extent, I find it refreshing when a reviewer highlights something they find less than amazing.
Honestly, most of the reviews received by my solo and collaborative music projects have been very positive, thoughtful, and have sometimes drawn comparisons I either cannot see or am incredibly flattered by. The music industry has a reputation for being unforgiving, and it really can be, but at independent level we’re faced with a bunch of people who, even when they aren’t or haven’t been musicians themselves, are absolutely committed to getting across the message that you don’t have to be ‘signed’ to be good at what you do. I thrive on being independent. I always have done, in business life as well as in music. I’ve always known my own mind when it comes to the practical side of life. I’ve been less good at the emotional side, but that’s something that I’m correcting little by little as this wonderful life in Berwick moves into a new phase.
So support independent music journalists to support independent radio shows who play the music of independent musicians. You’ll find a mine of interesting and inspirational stories!
Peace.
John