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Music journalism is a specialized branch of entertainment journalism — especially criticism and reportage about Music . Ranging from lengthy profiles of Singer s and Band s to brief Album reviews, music journalism is at least several decades old. Magazines such as '' Rolling Stone '', '' Urb '', '' New Musical Express '', and '' The Source '' are well known for their musical journalism.



HISTORY OF MUSIC JOURNALISM


  • , and which gradually supplanted it, or else by reporters at newspapers whose main interest was in politics, and which gave only slight attention to music. Several changes — possibly education, the Romantic movement generally and in music, popularization (including what some referred to as Lisztomania), among others, led to an increasing interest in music among the general papers, and an increase in the number of critics by profession (and of varying degrees of competence and integrity, of course. The situation here was distinguished from that before the 1840s , in that the critics now — on the whole — were not also musicians; and so this could be considered a turning‐point of a kind.)


The main source for the claim that music criticism underwent a fundamental change in the 1840s50s , is a letter by Liszt , and admittedly, given the time and the context— the beginnings of the War Of The Romantics , the contrast he describes may be produced by nostalgia for a time when artists critiqued artists (his own ideal, as his writings are interpreted by Alan Walker ; of course, such a situation runs a risk of creating a guild mentality, though in that same context this might have seemed less true) However, the contemporary situation he describes can be independently confirmed.

  • I use "Germany" as a convenient shorthand here for German‐speaking regions in a certain geographical radius, since Germany under a single government, though the goal of a movement for quite some time in the 19th century, only began with Bismarck.





MODERN MUSIC JOURNALISM


The profession of music journalism, which started off without precedents, direction, or ground rules, found its feet in less than a century. The world of modern music journalism can be partially divided into — on the magazines’ side — recording and concert reviewers, interviewers, publishing staff, and editorialists and other writers. A record label or musician’s promoters will often send free recordings, or demonstration copy to the magazine to be passed on to its reviewers for audition. Announcements of future expected recordings might be made available by some recording companies and published by some magazines (by Gramophone in classical music, for example).


REFERENCES

  • La Mara (Lipsius, Marie), ed. ''Franz Liszts Briefe.'' 8 vols. (Volume 1, ''Von Paris bis Rom'', quoted.) Leipzig, 1893–1905. Translation by Constance Bache published by New York: Greenwood Press, 1969 (again 1995). ISBN 0837111048.

  • Walker, Alan. ''Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, 1848–1861.'' Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1989, paperback (c) 1993. Pages 395–7. ISBN 0801497213.