Any Old Joe

The emergence of the internet and, specifically, bloggers like me, has brought with it criticism and concern that the tasks of such things as music commentary and criticism is shifting from the domain of real journalists to Any Old Joe with a computer and a broadband connection. But that assumes that said real journalists are in some way more qualified than A.O.J. to write on these topics. In my experience, this is actually rarely the case.

I went to college with the career goal of being a music journalist. I loved music and had confidence in my writing. I was not deterred by the fact that there was no such thing as a degree in "music journalism." My plan was to major in journalism while taking a solid regimen of music theory and history classes. I believed that one should approach one's writing subject with a wide breadth of knowledge about its mechanics, and about what came before it.

The first problem I encountered with this pursuit is that these two discplines, journalism and music, were not particularly compatible. These subjects are offered in different departments and almost any give college or university, and each have their own requirements which often makes it impossible to follow an advanced path in both at the same time.

But the bigger revelation was that most newspapers, which is where the vast majority of music journalist jobs used to be, don't really value this type of education anyway. It is rare that the job of "music critic" is actually hired based on specific qualifications. I learned this when I got to know Steve Morse, for years the chief rock critic at The Boston Globe, and therefore one of the country's biggest music writers. He originally got that job almost randomly; many years ago he was available to cover a concert one night when no other writer was available (at the time he mostly worked on obituaries). He quickly became the young writer who was willing to cover rock shows that the older arts writers had no interest in. That's ultimately how The Boston Globe hired their chief music writer. I soon learned that this story was very typical. This removed most of my incentive to continue to navigate the college waters for a specialized degree.

And this explains why most newspaper music writers are comfortable writing about what they know and like, but often stumble when they get outside of a fairly narrow zone. The main thing most of them have over Any Old Joe is simply more experience writing (and maybe a journalism major). But for any given subject, there are countless bloggers that just have more knowledge of that subject. There are a handful of pop music writers like Jon Pareles of the NY Times who actually have a music degree. But no more than a handful.

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Hard to argue the pure logic of Veronica's lastest post shedding no tears at the loss of the long-form album. For me, though, the evolution of the long-form structure of rock music with the album also represents the evolution of intellectual maturity in rock. I am, after all, the blogger who was willing to face endless scorn and ridicule to sing the praises of one of the most "bloated" concept albums ever created!

In many ways I see the return of the single as a triumph in pop culture of Attention Deficit Disorder. Most rock singles are boring and formulaic. While do I admire a well-crafted, 3-minute pop song now and again, I generally crave more substance in my music-listening diet. And while I cannot argue that the vast majority of pop albums created between 1965 and 2005 were simply collections of individual tracks with no real overriding arch, the ones that actually ended up reaching me, personally, on a deeper level, were almost always conceived as something greater than that.

Cries over the death of the long-form seem unwarranted to me anyway. The success of last year's Decemberists album, and the newest release from Arcade Fire which immediately landed at #1 on the Billboard charts, are proof that "concept" albums continue to have significant power to an audience. Meanwhile, everyone from Rush to Steely Dan are touring full realizations of entire classic albums, to great success. Fortunately, I don't think we've seen the end of the bloated concept album yet.