This essay looks at whether book learning or trade learning is better for a critic. Actually, it turns out that neither of the two is what makes a critic great. When I was an undergraduate at uni, from 1999 until 2002,…
Where is the criticism?
One of the reasons why I began writing my music journalism course was because I became totally and utterly fed up with the poor standard of music journalism one tends to find around the place. But it transpires that lack…
Aspiring music journalists: think ‘criticism’, beware adjectives
In the past few months, as I have been engaged in far more editing of other music journalists, than I have been in my own journalism (something which a big part of me rues slightly), I’ve realised just how poorly…