Thursday, January 15, 2015

Best Music Journalism: 2014

Red Bull Music Academy has posted up a great roundup called Best Music Journalism: 2014. It covers some of the issues facing music writers, and suggest some ways forward for music journalism... particularly like this one...

“Now Software’s driving the journalism”
So says Financial Times editor Lionel Barber, and he’s right. Instead of fighting it, it’s much smarter to embrace tech and keep up with it. Tech mags themselves are doing such a good job already parsing music industry issues like streaming royalties, which Gigaom and Pando covered so well. Get writers up to speed about tech and maybe hire some tech writers to cover the music beat, too.
... and highlights some stories, here's a sample...

Michael Dunaway, “James Brown: An Oral History From His Bandmates” (Paste)
After the underrated biopic of the Godfather, Get On Up, and the HBO documentary Mr. Dynamite, here’s the inside story of what it was like to play behind the Godfather, deal with his massive ego and participate in his history-making music. Sections are devoted to “MEETING MR. BROWN,” “THE PERFECTIONIST” and “THE PERFORMER,” and all for good reason. He transformed their lives, and transformed all of our lives, too.

Sample the Funk- 10 Legendary Samples and the Stories Behind Them” (FACT)

Speaking of funk origins, here’s a great lesson of where the beats of our favorite songs from the last few decades came from, along with a list of many of the places they wound up.

Phil Hebblethwaite, “Is Record Store Day In Crisis?” (The Quietus)

Music fans want to feel good and support something that seems as righteous as Record Store Day. But is it really such a commendable enterprise? Kudos to Hebbelthwaite for asking this tough question and finding out that, with vinyl production problems, majors honing in and some shops not getting the goods, maybe it’s not as righteous as we’d like to think it is.

Read the full list here

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