Modern Music Journalism Sucks

I've noticed a trend over the last few years.

Every band I like seems to have "fallen off" or "lost their spark." It almost feels like, across the board, this is the consensus many major music publications have landed on. After seeing the same sentiment repeated enough times, I found myself starting to believe it too.

I'm not exactly proud of that. Truthfully, I wouldn't doubt that you've fallen into the same trap at some point.

I'm talking about the overwhelming amount of pessimism surrounding music journalism. I don't want to pretend everything I write is sunshine and rainbows, but I do try to avoid tearing artists down for the sake of it. If I bring up shortcomings, it's usually because they're necessary to explain a comparison, an idea, or a point I'm trying to make—not because I think dunking on someone's work is entertaining.

The competitive landscape of music journalism, however, often feels like it's become a contest to see who can sound the smartest while liking things the least.

Through clusters of egregious word choices, obscure genre references, and sly callbacks to previous albums, some reviews come across less like conversations about music and more like performances of intelligence. Everyone wants to sound like the definitive authority on what is and isn't worth your time.

I mean, in some ways, I do the same thing. The difference, at least I hope, is that I try to write from a place of appreciation rather than superiority.

This isn't meant to be an article patting myself on the back, though. It's an observation about where I think music journalism has drifted. There are a few things that continually stand out to me, but before any of that, I think it's important to establish one idea.

Music has no rules.

People love treating their personal preferences like universal standards.

As much as there exists a huge collection of experimental artists whose sharp, abrasive sound choices startle my mellow ears, I've also stood in packed venues and watched hundreds of people lose their minds over that exact music. It isn't formulaic, it isn't particularly palatable to me, and yet it clearly resonates with someone. That's enough.

When I was a freshman in high school, I had this friend Johnny. He made music, and at the time, I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Johnny belonged to this small collective spread all over the country. The reason he became so interconnected so quickly was because the style of music he made occupied such a tiny pocket of the industry. We'd practice improv together since he originally played drums, but when I'd listen to his own work—a barrage of guttural vocals over saturated electronics and sample-heavy production—I honestly couldn't wrap my head around it. It wasn't something I understood, but I wasn't really meant to.

There were plenty of songs I'd show Johnny that didn't click with him either. Whenever he'd upload a new release, though, I'd inevitably end up down the rabbit hole exploring everyone else in that scene. I saw how close-knit the community was, how supportive they were of each other, and how much the music genuinely meant to them. Eventually I realized my opinion wasn't really the point.

And to show Johnny some overdue credit, I'll happily admit he was good at what he did, whether I personally connected with it or not. That's one of the beautiful things about music.

As with all art, there isn't a checklist for success. Music exists to package emotion, ideas, and experiences into sound. Whether it's pristine studio production or a blown-out demo recorded in a bedroom, if it communicates what the artist intended, it's accomplished something worthwhile. I think that's something critics can be quick to forget.

I watched Anthony Fantano review an album recently—one I also had mixed feelings about. Here's the thing: I don't think criticism is obsolete. Far from it. I actually think Fantano, considering the sheer volume of music he covers, does a pretty admirable job staying level-headed. What fascinated me wasn't that we disagreed—it was how we disagreed.

His highlights were completely different from mine. The songs I found compelling barely registered with him, and tracks I skipped over became his favorites. That drove home something I'd been thinking for a while.

What draws people into music is never a level playing field.

I'm obviously no Fantano, but I'd also like to think I've spent enough time studying music to analyze it thoughtfully. Seeing two people who both care deeply about music arrive at wildly different conclusions made me wonder what baseline we're actually using when we say an album is "good."

The verdict: There really isn't one.

People often point to audio quality, lyrical depth, instrumental complexity, or originality as objective measures of quality. But the last few decades have challenged almost all of those assumptions.

Lo-fi embraces grit. Punk often celebrates simplicity, even if it sometimes reaches incredible lyrical complexity. Bedroom recordings full of tape hiss, clipping, buzzing amplifiers, and uneven performances have become beloved precisely because they feel human. What was once considered a flaw has become part of the appeal. Which leaves me asking the question:

Who are you to tell someone that their experience with a piece of music is wrong?

If critics limited themselves to objective observations, sure. Tell me the mix is muddy. Tell me the vocals clip. Tell me the performance was out of tune. But somewhere along the line, interpretation often starts masquerading as fact. That's where I become skeptical.

Publications carry influence, especially over readers who haven't yet formed an opinion of their own. A strongly written review doesn't just summarize an album—it can become the lens through which thousands of people hear it for the very first time. That's a responsibility I don't think gets emphasized enough.

Side note: I'll always advocate for forums. They touch on the good, bad, and ugly. You'll find every opinion imaginable, but at least everyone acknowledges they're just opinions.

Another gripe I have is this obsession with artists' personal lives. It's a fine line. I'm certainly not advocating that we ignore genuinely awful behavior, and there are absolutely situations where separating the art from the artist becomes impossible.

But too often, music journalism starts resembling celebrity gossip. I like pointing to Julian Casablancas.

While people have plenty of opinions about The Strokes—and more recently, Julian's political statements—one Angle (see what I did there) that refuses to disappear is the "nepo baby" conversation.

I understand the term and I understand why people apply it here.

Julian came from wealth, attended prestigious schools, and undoubtedly benefited from opportunities many people don't have. His father also carried a pretty unsavory reputation, though Julian himself has never exactly embraced him publicly.

Beyond that, though, Julian has never really pretended to be self-made. More importantly, the influence The Strokes have had on modern rock—myself included—shows there was genuine artistic merit behind their success.

My issue isn't that people acknowledge privilege. It's that, years later, discussions about the music so often circle back to the same biography, and it's one that really has nothing to do with the music itself nor does it belong under a spotlight remotely to the extent it has been.

At a certain point I have to ask: What does that actually have to do with the album I'm listening to? If we're discussing production choices, songwriting, performances, or creative direction, then let's discuss those things. If we're discussing ethics, then that's a different conversation entirely.

Too often, those conversations get mashed together until neither one is particularly insightful, and I think that's the larger issue with modern music journalism. Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like an invitation to discover music and started feeling like a courtroom.

Albums are treated like verdicts, artists become characters in ongoing dramas, reviews become declarations instead of conversations.

The funny part is that the best music criticism I've ever read rarely tells me whether something is objectively good or bad. Instead, it helps me understand why someone connected with a record—or why they didn't. It gives me another perspective rather than trying to replace my own.

At least for me, that's all music journalism really needs to be. Not the final word, just another voice in the room.