Music television
139-844: Hungarian Recording Industry Association (Hungarian: Magyar Hanglemezkiadók Szövetsége , more commonly abbreviated to MAHASZ or Mahasz ) is the Hungarian music industry association, founded in 1992. MAHASZ issues the Hungarian Music Awards , awards music recording certification and maintains the music charts for Hungary. Mahasz runs the following weekly charts: Since 1 January 2018, MAHASZ combined all music recording certification into one combined "album" certifications, which includes albums and singles of all genres and origins. For Gold status an album needs to sell 2,000 units and for Platinum 4,000 units, where ten singles are counted as one album. The certification also includes streaming at
278-420: A disruptive technology to the commercial interests which published sheet music. During the sheet music era, if a regular person wanted to hear popular new songs, he or she would buy the sheet music and play it at home on a piano, or learn the song at home while playing the accompaniment part on piano or guitar. Commercially released phonograph records of musical performances, which became available starting in
417-487: A road crew : a semi-permanent touring organization that travels with the artist during concert series. The road crew is headed by a tour manager . Crew members provides stage lighting , live sound reinforcement , musical instrument maintenance and transportation . On large tours, the road crew may also include an accountant, stage manager, bodyguard, hairdressers, makeup artists and catering staff. Local crews are typically hired to help move equipment on and off stage. On
556-591: A "scrum in rugby", in that "[e]verybody pushes against everybody else, and we move forward in a huge blob of vehement opinion and mutual judgment". Music critic and indie pop musician Scott Miller , in his 2010 book Music: What Happened? , suggested, "Part of the problem is that a lot of vital pop music is made by 22-year-olds who enjoy shock value, and it's pathetic when their elders are cornered into unalloyed reverence". Miller suggested that critics could navigate this problem by being prepared "to give young artists credit for terrific music without being intimidated into
695-434: A "slap at the establishment, at publications such as the hippie homestead Rolling Stone and the rawker outpost Creem ", adding that the "1980s generation" of post-punk indie rockers had in the mid-2000s "been taken down by younger 'poptimists,' who argue that lovers of underground rock are elitists for not embracing the more multicultural mainstream". Powers likened the poptimist critics' debates about bands and styles to
834-470: A 2010 interview, stating, "Most of us [critics] begin writing about music because we love it so much. We can't wait to tell our friends and neighbors about what we're hearing." According to McCall, even over the course of a long professional career, the enthusiastic impulse to share "never fades". McCall expressed his interest in "examining why people respond to what they respond to. I hazard guesses. Sometimes I'm wrong, but I hope I'm always provocative." In
973-422: A biography of Mozart. In the 19th century, sheet-music publishers dominated the music industry. Before the invention of sound recording technologies, the main way for music lovers to hear new symphonies and opera arias (songs) was to buy the sheet music (often arranged for piano or for a small chamber music group) and perform the music in a living room, using friends who were amateur musicians and singers. In
1112-629: A booklet called "Jungle to Jukebox" that used racist, exotic tropes to illustrate the dangers of rock music to white youth. In the 2000s, online music bloggers began to supplement, and to some degree displace, music journalists in print media. In 2006, Martin Edlund of the New York Sun criticized the trend, arguing that while the "Internet has democratized music criticism, it seems it's also spread its penchant for uncritical hype". Carl Wilson described "an upsurge in pro-pop sentiment among critics" during
1251-415: A certain market niche. Only the industry's most popular artists are signed directly to the major label. These companies account for more than half of US market share. However, this has fallen somewhat in recent years, as the new digital environment allows smaller labels to compete more effectively. Total album sales have declined in the early decades of the 21st century, leading some music critics to declare
1390-486: A challenge "for those of us concerned with historical memory and popular music performance". Simon Frith said that pop and rock music "are closely associated with gender; that is, with conventions of male and female behaviour". According to Holly Kruse, both popular music articles and academic articles about pop music are usually written from "masculine subject positions". Kembrew McLeod analyzed terms used by critics to differentiate between pop music and rock, finding
1529-526: A challenge to taste hierarchies, and has remained a pugilistic, exhibitionist business throughout pop's own evolution". Powers claimed that "[i]nsults, rejections of others' authority, bratty assertions of superior knowledge and even threats of physical violence are the stuff of which pop criticism is made", while at the same time, the "best [pop criticism] also offers loving appreciation and profound insights about how music creates and collides with our everyday realities". She stated that pop criticism developed as
SECTION 10
#17328840936511668-419: A composer's music might only be known in the city she lived in and its surrounding towns, because only wealthy aristocrats would be able to afford to have hand copies made of her music. With music printing, though, a composer's music could be printed and sold at a relatively low cost to purchasers from a wide geographic area. As sheet music of major composer's pieces and songs began to be printed and distributed in
1807-553: A considerable amount of criticism from conservative Christian communities within the United States. This criticism was strongest throughout the 1960s and 70s, with some of the most prominent Christian critics being David A. Noebel , Bob Larson , and Frank Garlock . While these men were not professional music critics, they often claimed to be qualified rock critics because of their professional experiences with both music and religion. For example, Larson tried to assert his authority as
1946-464: A daily or hourly rate) in a recording session . In the 21st century, advances in digital recording technology have allowed many producers and artists to create " home studios " using high-end computers and digital recording programs like Pro Tools , bypassing the traditional role of the commercial recording studio. The record producer oversees all aspects of the recording, making many of the logistic, financial and artistic decisions in cooperation with
2085-514: A fixed price per song or album, Spotify pays artists based on their "market share" (the number of streams for their songs as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service). Spotify distributes approximately 70% to rights-holders, who will then pay artists based on their agreements. The variable, and (some say) inadequate nature of this compensation, has led to criticism. Spotify reports paying on average US$ 0.006 to US$ 0.008 per stream. In response to concerns, Spotify claims that they are benefiting
2224-559: A frame of mind where dark subject matter always gets a passing grade", stating that a critic should be able to call a young artist "a musical genius" while "in the same breath declaring that his or her lyrics are morally objectionable." Reacting to the state of pop music criticism, Miller identified a major issue as critics' failure to "credit an artist with getting a feeling across", specifically pointing out critic Lester Bangs as "a ball of emotion at all times", who nonetheless "never really related to his favorite artists as people who develop
2363-459: A gendered dichotomy in descriptions of "'serious,' 'raw,' and 'sincere' rock music as distinguished from 'trivial', 'fluffy,' and 'formulaic' pop music". McLeod found that a likely cause of this dichotomy was the lack of women writing in music journalism: "By 1999, the number of female editors or senior writers at Rolling Stone hovered around a whopping 15%, [while] at Spin and Raygun , [it was] roughly 20%." Criticism associated with gender
2502-490: A graduate degree. One critic of the study pointed out that because all newspapers were included, including low-circulation regional papers, the female representation of 26% misrepresented the actual scarcity, in that the "large US papers, which are the ones that influence public opinion, have virtually no women classical music critics", with the notable exceptions of Anne Midgette in the New York Times and Wynne Delacoma in
2641-545: A label continues to be a popular choice for up-and-coming musicians, especially in genres like hardcore punk and extreme metal , even though indies cannot offer the same financial backing of major labels. Some bands prefer to sign with an indie label, because these labels typically give performers more artistic freedom. In the first decade of the 2000s, digitally downloaded and streamed music became more popular than buying physical recordings (e.g. CDs , records and tapes ). This gave consumers almost "friction-less" access to
2780-510: A laptop in a bedroom and to distribute it over the Internet to a worldwide audience. This, in turn, has caused problems for recording studios, record producers and audio engineers : the Los Angeles Times reports that as many as half of the recording facilities in that city have failed. Changes in the music industry have given consumers access to a wider variety of music than ever before, at
2919-542: A large amount of data is processed. Access to big data may increase transparency in the industry. Music publishing using machine-printed sheet music developed during the Renaissance music era in the mid-15th century. The development of music publication followed the evolution of printing technologies that were first developed for printing regular books . After the mid-15th century, mechanical techniques for printing sheet music were first developed. The earliest example,
SECTION 20
#17328840936513058-412: A nationwide and sometimes even a worldwide scale. Moreover, whereas attendance at the top symphony and opera concerts was formerly restricted to high-income people in a pre-radio world, with broadcast radio , a much larger wider range of people, including lower and middle-income people could hear the best orchestras , big bands , popular singers and opera shows. The "record industry" eventually replaced
3197-610: A number of other major newspapers "still have full-time classical music critics", including (in 2007) the Los Angeles Times , The Washington Post , The Baltimore Sun , The Philadelphia Inquirer , and The Boston Globe . Music writers only started "treating pop and rock music seriously" in 1964 "after the breakthrough of the Beatles ". In their book Rock Criticism from the Beginning , Ulf Lindberg and his co-writers say that rock criticism appears to have been "slower to develop in
3336-467: A percentage of the artist's income. An entertainment lawyer assists them with the details of their contracts with record companies and other deals. A business manager handles financial transactions, taxes, and bookkeeping. Unions, such as AFTRA and the American Federation of Musicians in the U.S. provide health insurance and instrument insurance for musicians. A successful artist functions in
3475-542: A performing artist and a venue owner and arranges contracts. A booking agency represents the artist to promoters, makes deals and books performances. Consumers usually buy tickets either from the venue or from a ticket distribution service such as Ticketmaster . In the US, Live Nation is the dominant company in all of these roles: they own most of the large venues in the US, they are the largest promoter, and they own Ticketmaster . Choices about where and when to tour are decided by
3614-456: A perspective previously reserved for jazz artists to the rise of American-influenced local rock and pop groups, anticipating the advent of rock critics. Among Britain's broadsheet newspapers, pop music gained exposure in the arts section of The Times when William Mann , the paper's classical music critic, wrote an appreciation of the Beatles in December 1963. In early 1965, The Observer ,
3753-504: A price that gradually approaches zero. However, consumer spending on music-related software and hardware increased dramatically over the last decade, providing a valuable new income-stream for technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Pandora Radio . According to IFPI, the global digital album sales grew by 6.9% in 2014. Source: Nielsen SoundScan, Official Charts Company/BPI, GfK and IFPI estimate. World music market sales shares, according to IFPI (2005) Prior to December 1998,
3892-580: A printer and publisher who was able to secure a twenty-year monopoly on printed music in Venice during the 16th century. Venice was one of the major business and music centers during this period. His Harmonice Musices Odhecaton , a collection of chansons printed in 1501, is commonly misidentified as the first book of sheet music printed from movable type. That distinction belongs to the Roman printer Ulrich Han's Missale Romanum of 1476. Nevertheless, Petrucci's later work
4031-650: A rate of 1,000 paid streams or 5,000 free streams per album. Certifications have existed in Hungary since the mid-1970s. During that period, albums had to sell 50,000 units to qualify for Gold status and singles required 100,000 units. Over the years, Mahasz awarded certifications for albums, singled and music videos (DVDs). For pop albums, separate thresholds were in place for domestic repertoire and international repertoire, as follows. Mahasz certified classical music, jazz, world music and prose albums, requiring 1,500 units for Gold and 3,000 units for Platinum. For singles,
4170-433: A record company. In the 2000s, consumer electronics and computer companies such as Apple Computer have become digital music retailers . New digital music distribution technologies and the trends towards using sampling of older songs in new songs or blending different songs to create "mashup" recordings have also forced both governments and the music industry to re-examine the definitions of intellectual property and
4309-480: A report in 2012, noting that these labels controlled 88.5% of the market, and further noted: Note: the IFPI and Nielsen Soundscan use different methodologies, which makes their figures difficult to compare casually, and impossible to compare scientifically. Market shares as of September 2018 are as follows: The largest players in this industry own more than 100 subsidiary record labels or sublabels, each specializing in
Association of Hungarian Record Companies - Misplaced Pages Continue
4448-430: A rise of music critics who used YouTube and social media as their platform. According to Vice magazine's Larry Fitzmaurice in 2016, Twitter (X) is "perhaps the last public space for unfettered music criticism in an increasingly anti-critical landscape". In 2020, The New York Times described YouTuber Anthony Fantano as "probably the most popular music critic left standing." Fantano's channel, The Needle Drop,
4587-560: A rock critic by stating: "As a minister, I know now what it is like to feel the unction of the Holy Spirit. As a rock musician, I knew what it meant to feel the counterfeit anointing of Satan". Christian criticisms of rock music in the mid 20th century often centered around arguments that rock was both sonically and morally bad and physically harmful to both the body and soul. Using these central arguments, Noebel, Larson, Garlock, and other Christian critics of rock music wrote extensively about
4726-549: A set of liturgical chants, dates from about 1465, shortly after the Gutenberg Bible was printed. Prior to this time, music had to be copied out by hand. To copy music notation by hand was a very costly, labor-intensive, and time-consuming process, so it was usually undertaken only by monks and priests seeking to preserve sacred music for the church. The few collections of secular (non-religious) music that are extant were commissioned and owned by wealthy aristocrats. Examples include
4865-627: A single composition and a single recording will typically be distributed via many media. For example, the song " My Way " is owned by its composers, Paul Anka and Claude François , Frank Sinatra 's recording of "My Way" is owned by Capitol Records , Sid Vicious 's recording of "My Way" is owned by Virgin Records , and the millions of CDs and vinyl records that can play these recordings are owned by millions of individual consumers. Songs , instrumental pieces and other musical compositions are created by songwriters or composers and are originally owned by
5004-424: A skill of conveying feelings. You don't feel that he comfortably acknowledged being moved as a result of their honest work. Artists in his writing were vaguely ridiculous, fascinating primitives, embodying an archetype by accident of nature." Jezebel ' s Tracy Moore, in 2014, suggested that one of the virtues of writing about how music made one feel, in contrast with linking it to the sounds of other artists,
5143-481: A small tour with less financial backing, all of these jobs may be handled by just a few roadies or by the musicians themselves. Bands signed with small "indie" labels and bands in genres such as hardcore punk are more likely to do tours without a road crew, or with minimal support. Artists such as singers and musicians may hire several people from other fields to assist them with their career. The artist manager oversees all aspects of an artist's career in exchange for
5282-515: A song", in the way that working musicians might discuss "the A-minor in the second measure of the chorus". Stevie Chick, a writer who teaches music journalism at City University London , said, "I think more than any other journalism, music journalism has got a really powerful creative writing quotient to it." Tris McCall of the Newark Star-Ledger discussed his approach to music criticism in
5421-476: A sympathetic readership, given the nature of his publication, Goldstein's task was to win over a more highbrow readership to the artistic merits of contemporary pop music. At this time, both Goldstein and Williams gained considerable renown in the cultural mainstream and were the subject of profile articles in Newsweek . The emergence of rock journalism coincided with an attempt to position rock music, particularly
5560-531: A tradition of writing about rock since the 60's" has been "largely hidden in American culture". Brooks theorized that perceptions of female artists of color might be different if there were more women of color writing about them, and praised Ellen Willis as a significant feminist critic of rock's classic era. Willis, who was a columnist for the New Yorker from 1968 to 1975, believed society could be enlightened by
5699-572: A wider area, this enabled composers and listeners to hear new styles and forms of music. A German composer could buy songs written by an Italian or English composer, and an Italian composer could buy pieces written by Dutch composers and learn how they wrote music. This led to more blending of musical styles from different countries and regions. The pioneer of modern music printing was Ottaviano Petrucci (born in Fossombrone in 1466 – died in 1539 in Venice),
Association of Hungarian Record Companies - Misplaced Pages Continue
5838-590: A wider variety of music than ever before, across multiple devices. At the same time, consumers spent less money on recorded music (both physically and digitally distributed) than they had in the 1990s. Total "music-business" revenues in the U.S. dropped by half, from a high of $ 14.6 billion in 1999 to $ 6.3 billion in 2009, according to Forrester Research . Worldwide revenues for CDs, vinyl , cassettes and digital downloads fell from $ 36.9 billion in 2000 to $ 15.9 billion in 2010 according to IFPI. The Economist and The New York Times reported that
5977-500: Is Mamma Mia! The Movie Soundtrack by the Mamma Mia! film cast, certified 6× Platinum in 2018. Below is a list of all albums that have been certified multi-platinum by MAHASZ, as of May 2022. Music industry The music industry refers to the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions , creating and selling recorded music and sheet music , presenting concerts , as well as
6116-526: Is called "popism" – or, more evocatively (and goofily), "poptimism". The poptimism approach states: "Pop (and, especially, hip-hop) producers are as important as rock auteurs, Beyoncé is as worthy of serious consideration as Bruce Springsteen , and ascribing shame to pop pleasure is itself a shameful act." In 2008, Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times argued that pop music critics "have always been contrarians", because "pop music [criticism] rose up as
6255-440: Is centered on a perception that rock critics regard rock as "normative ... the standard state of popular music ... to which everything else is compared". At a 2006 pop critic conference, attendees discussed their "guilty pop pleasures, reconsidering musicians ( Tiny Tim , Dan Fogelberg , Phil Collins ) and genres " which rock critics have long dismissed as lightweight, commercial music. Rosen stated that "this new critical paradigm"
6394-410: Is his main outlet, but he also streams music commentary on Twitch and posts on X. In an article published in 2024, Jessica Karl, a Bloomberg News columnist, opined that "the way we critique music is broken". She argues that the current culture of consuming new music, particularly with the release of Taylor Swift's album The Tortured Poets Department (2024), is unhealthy. While she found some of
6533-560: Is less clear-cut. Some date it to the start of the Great Depression in the 1930s when the phonograph and radio supplanted sheet music as the driving force of American popular music, while others consider Tin Pan Alley to have continued into the 1950s when earlier styles of American popular music were upstaged by the rise of rock & roll . At the dawn of the early 20th century, the development of sound recording began to function as
6672-645: Is now regarded as classical music. In the 1960s, music journalism began more prominently covering popular music like rock and pop after the breakthrough of The Beatles . With the rise of the internet in the 2000s, music criticism developed an increasingly large online presence with music bloggers, aspiring music critics, and established critics supplementing print media online. Music journalism today includes reviews of songs, albums and live concerts, profiles of recording artists , and reporting of artist news and music events. Music journalism has its roots in classical music criticism , which has traditionally comprised
6811-564: Is paid to songwriters, composers and recording artists. This royalty is typically much smaller than publishing or mechanical royalties . Within the past decade, more than "15 to 30 percent" of tracks on streaming services are unidentified with a specific artist. Jeff Price says "Audiam, an online music streaming service, has made over several hundred thousand dollars in the past year from collecting royalties from online streaming. According to Ken Levitan, manager from Kings of Leon, Cheap Trick and others, "Youtube has become radio for kids". Because of
6950-504: Is signed. A publishing company will also promote the compositions, such as by acquiring song "placements" on television or in films . Recordings are created by recording artists , which includes singers , musicians (including session musicians ) and musical ensembles (e.g. backing bands , rhythm sections , orchestras , etc.) usually with the assistance and guidance from record producers and audio engineers . They were traditionally made in recording studios (which are rented for
7089-624: Is the largest owner of radio stations in the United States . In the first decades of the 2000s, the music industry underwent drastic changes with the advent of widespread digital distribution of music via the Internet (which includes both illegal file sharing of songs and legal music purchases in online music stores ). A conspicuous indicator of these changes is total music sales: since 2000, sales of recorded music have dropped off substantially while live music has increased in importance. In 2011,
SECTION 50
#17328840936517228-600: The Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (founded by Robert Schumann in 1834), and in London journals such as The Musical Times (founded in 1844 as The Musical Times and Singing-class Circular ); or else by reporters at general newspapers where music did not form part of the central objectives of the publication. An influential English 19th-century music critic, for example, was James William Davison of The Times . The composer Hector Berlioz also wrote reviews and criticisms for
7367-539: The Chicago Sun-Times . In 2007, The New York Times wrote that classical music criticism, which it characterized as "a high-minded endeavor that has been around at least as long as newspapers", had undergone "a series of hits in recent months" with the elimination, downgrading, or redefinition of critics' jobs at newspapers in Atlanta, Minneapolis, and elsewhere, citing New York magazine's Peter G. Davis , "one of
7506-427: The Renaissance music era. His printing shop used the triple-impression method, in which a sheet of paper was pressed three times. The first impression was the staff lines, the second the words, and the third the notes. This method produced very clean and readable results, although it was time-consuming and expensive. Until the 18th century, the processes of formal composition and of the printing of music took place for
7645-547: The Squarcialupi Codex of Italian Trecento music and the Chantilly Codex of French Ars subtilior music. The use of printing enabled sheet music to be reproduced much more quickly and at a much lower cost than hand-copying music notation. This helped musical styles to spread to other cities and countries more quickly, and it also enabled music to be spread to more distant areas. Before the invention of music printing,
7784-418: The artist's management and the artist, sometimes in consultation with the record company . Record companies may finance a tour in the hopes that it will help promote the sale of recordings. However, in the 21st century, it has become more common to release recordings to promote ticket sales for live shows, rather than book tours to promote the sales of recordings. Major, successful artists will usually employ
7923-654: The booking agents , promoters , music venues , road crew , and audio engineers who help organize and sell concerts. The industry also includes a range of professionals who assist singers and musicians with their music careers. These include talent managers , artists and repertoire managers, business managers , entertainment lawyers ; those who broadcast audio or video music content ( satellite , Internet radio stations , broadcast radio and TV stations ); music journalists and music critics ; DJs ; music educators and teachers ; manufacturers of musical instruments and music equipment; as well as many others. In addition to
8062-534: The death of the album . (For instance, the only albums that went platinum in the US in 2014 were the soundtrack to the Disney animated film Frozen and Taylor Swift's 1989 , whereas several artists did in 2013.) The following table shows album sales and market value in the world in 2014. Source: IFPI 2014 annual report. In its June 30, 2000 annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission , Seagram reported that Universal Music Group made 40% of
8201-544: The guitar shop , and now social media : when it comes to popular music, these places become stages for the display of male prowess", and adds, "Female expertise, when it appears, is repeatedly dismissed as fraudulent. Every woman who has ever ventured an opinion on popular music could give you some variation [of this experience] ...and becoming a recognized 'expert' (a musician, a critic) will not save [women] from accusations of fakery." Daphne Brooks, in her 2008 article "The Write to Rock: Racial Mythologies, Feminist Theory, and
8340-633: The "ecstatic experience" of visions expressed through music's rhythm and noise and that such joy would lead people to different ways of sharing. Brooks wrote that "the confluence of cultural studies, rock studies, and third wave feminist critical studies makes it possible now more than ever to continue to critique and reinterrogate the form and content of popular music histories". In Brooks' view, "By bravely breaking open dense equations of gender, class, power, and subcultural music scenes", music journalists, activists and critics such as Ellen Willis have been "able to brilliantly, like no one before [them], challenge
8479-402: The 1930s and 1950s, when records replaced sheet music as the most important product in the music business. In the commercial world, "the recording industry"—a reference to recording performances of songs and pieces and selling the recordings–began to be used as a loose synonym for "the music industry". In the 2000s, a majority of the music market is controlled by three major corporate labels:
SECTION 60
#17328840936518618-621: The 2000s, traditional lines that once divided singers, instrumentalists, publishers, record companies, distributors, retail and consumer electronics have become blurred or erased. Artists may record in a home studio using a high-end laptop and a digital recording program such as Pro Tools or use Kickstarter to raise money for an expensive studio recording session without involving a record company. Artists may choose to exclusively promote and market themselves using only free online video sharing services such as YouTube or using social media websites, bypassing traditional promotion and marketing by
8757-531: The 2010s, some commentators noted and criticized the lack of negative reviews in music journalism. Saul Austerlitz from the New York Times Magazine noted that unlike other art forms, "music is now effectively free. Music criticism's former priority — telling consumers what to purchase — has been rendered null and void for most fans." He argued that this and " click culture " causes music critics to act as "cheerleaders" for existing stars. The 2010s saw
8896-605: The American south among black populations. Early conservative Christian criticisms of rock music had strong footings in racism. Most white conservative Christians in the mid 20th century understood that rock started among black populations and feared what the success of the genre implied for the church, segregation, and racial equality. When critiquing rock music, Christian critics commonly portrayed rock music with "primitive and exotic imagery to convey [its] African-roots". For example, The American Tract Society in New Jersey released
9035-538: The Beatles' work, in the American cultural landscape. The critical discourse was further heightened by the respectful coverage afforded the genre in mainstream publications such as Newsweek , Time and Life in the months leading up to and following the release of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album in June 1967. Within this discourse, Richard Meltzer , in an essay for Crawdaddy! in March, challenged
9174-666: The French-owned Universal Music Group , the Japanese-owned Sony Music Entertainment , and the US-owned Warner Music Group . Labels outside of these three major labels are referred to as independent labels (or "indies"). The largest portion of the live music market for concerts and tours is controlled by Live Nation , the largest promoter and music venue owner. Live Nation is a former subsidiary of iHeartMedia Inc , which
9313-428: The Internet. With streaming services, the user pays a subscription to a company for the right to listen to songs and other media from a library. Whereas with legal digital download services, the purchaser owns a digital copy of the song (which they can keep on their computer or on a digital media player), with streaming services, the user never downloads the song file or owns the song file. The subscriber can only listen to
9452-514: The Paris press of the 1830s and 1840s. Modern art music journalism is often informed by music theory consideration of the many diverse elements of a musical piece or performance, including (as regards a musical composition ) its form and style, and for performance, standards of technique and expression. These standards were expressed, for example, in journals such as Neue Zeitschrift für Musik founded by Robert Schumann , and are continued today in
9591-517: The Pleasures of Rock Music Criticism", wrote that in order to restructure music criticism, one must "focus on multiple counter narratives" to break away from racial and gender biases as embodied in "contemporary cultural fetishizations of white male performative virtuosity and latent black male innovations". Brooks focused on "the ways that rock music criticism has shaped and continues to shape our understandings of racialized music encounters, and what are
9730-478: The U.S. than in England". One of the early British music magazines, Melody Maker , complained in 1967 about how "newspapers and magazines are continually hammering [i.e., attacking] pop music ". From 1964, Melody Maker led its rival publications in terms of approaching music and musicians as a subject for serious study rather than merely entertainment. Staff reporters such as Chris Welch and Ray Coleman applied
9869-410: The United States "the emergence of a 'serious' rock press and the rock critic" began in 1966, presaged by Robert Shelton , the folk music critic for The New York Times , writing articles praising the Beatles and Bob Dylan , the last of whom had just embraced rock 'n' roll by performing with electric backing at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival . Paul Williams , an eighteen-year-old student, launched
10008-480: The United States became known as Tin Pan Alley . The name originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan , and a plaque (see below ) on the sidewalk on 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth commemorates it. The start of Tin Pan Alley is usually dated to about 1885, when several music publishers set up shop in the same district of Manhattan . The end of Tin Pan Alley
10147-476: The United States, the music industry arose in tandem with the rise of " black face " minstrelsy . Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-black performers to represent a black person . The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of negative racial stereotypes of African-American people. In the late part of the century the group of music publishers and songwriters which dominated popular music in
10286-523: The World Music Institute interviewed four New York Times music critics who came up with the following criteria on how to approach ethnic music: A key finding in a 2005 study of arts journalism in America was that the profile of the "average classical music critic is a white, 52-year old male, with a graduate degree". Demographics indicated that the group was 74% male, 92% white, and 64% had earned
10425-425: The alternative stories that we might tell". Brooks pointed to Christgau's statement that, after the Beatles' arrival in America, "rock criticism embraced a dream or metaphor of perpetual revolution. Worthwhile bands were supposed to change people's lives, preferably for the better. If they failed to do so, that meant they didn't matter." Unsurprisingly, according to Brooks, "the history of women who've been sustaining
10564-494: The art. Applying critical theory ( e.g. , critical gender studies and critical race theory ) to music journalism, some academic writers suggest that mutual disrespect between critics and artists is one of many negative effects of rockism . In 2004, critic Kelefa Sanneh defined "rockism" as "idolizing the authentic old legend (or underground hero) while mocking the latest pop star". Music journalism "infected" with rockism has become, according to Yale professor Daphne Brooks,
10703-450: The artists. The record producer has a range of different responsibilities including choosing material and/or working with the composers, hiring session musicians, helping to arrange the songs, overseeing the musician performances, and directing the audio engineer during recording and mixing to get the best sound. Audio engineers (including recording , mixing and mastering engineers ) are responsible for ensuring good audio quality during
10842-437: The beats used in rock music could cause rebellion in younger generations due to their hypnotic and influential nature. Drawing from styles like rhythm and blues and jazz music, rock and roll was first innovated by black communities, but was soon appropriated by white populations. This aspect of rock's history has been overlooked by historians and the media, but music experts now widely agree that rock's true origins lie in
10981-420: The business relationship between a recording artist and the record company. In a traditional contract, the company provides an advance to the artist who agrees to make a recording that will be owned by the company. The A&R department of a record company is responsible for finding new talent and overseeing the recording process. The company pays for the recording costs and the cost of promoting and marketing
11120-519: The businesses and artists there are organizations that also play an important role, including musician's unions (e.g. American Federation of Musicians ), not-for-profit performance-rights organizations (e.g. American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers ) and other associations (e.g. International Alliance for Women in Music , a non-profit organization that advocates for women composers and musicians ). The modern Western music industry emerged between
11259-454: The columns of serious newspapers and journals such as The Musical Times . Several factors—including growth of education, the influence of the Romantic movement generally and in music, popularization (including the 'star-status' of many performers such as Liszt and Paganini ), among others—led to an increasing interest in music among non-specialist journals, and an increase in
11398-499: The composer, although they may be sold or the rights may be otherwise assigned. For example, in the case of work for hire , the composition is owned immediately by another party. Traditionally, the copyright owner licenses or "assigns" some of their rights to publishing companies , by means of a publishing contract . The publishing company (or a collection society operating on behalf of many such publishers, songwriters and composers) collects fees (known as " publishing royalties ") when
11537-417: The composition is used. A portion of the royalties are paid by the publishing company to the copyright owner, depending on the terms of the contract. Sheet music provides an income stream that is paid exclusively to the composers and their publishing company. Typically (although not universally), the publishing company will provide the owner with an advance against future earnings when the publishing contract
11676-543: The consumers after they buy them. Buyers do not typically have the right to make digital copies from CDs or other media they buy, or rent or lease the CDs, because they do not own the recording on the CD, they only own the individual physical CD. A music distributor delivers crates of the packaged physical media from the manufacturer to the retailer and maintains commercial relationships with retailers and record companies. The music retailer pays
11815-413: The country's highbrow Sunday newspaper, signalled a reversal of the establishment's cultural snobbery towards pop music by appointing George Melly as its "critic of pop culture". Following Tony Palmer 's arrival at The Observer , the first daily newspaper to employ a dedicated rock critic was The Guardian , with the appointment of Geoffrey Cannon in 1968. Melody Maker ' s writers advocated
11954-630: The debut of the Apple iTunes Store in 2003. The popularity of music distribution over the Internet has increased, and by 2011 digital music sales topped physical sales of music. In 2008, Atlantic Records reports that digital sales have surpassed physical sales. However, as The Economist reported, "paid digital downloads grew rapidly, but did not begin to make up for the loss of revenue from CDs". After 2010, Internet-based services such as Deezer , Pandora , Spotify , and Apple's iTunes Radio began to offer subscription-based " pay to stream " services over
12093-560: The decline in sales of recordings. The 2008 British Music Rights survey showed that 80% of people in Britain wanted a legal peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service, however only half of the respondents thought that the music's creators should be paid. The survey was consistent with the results of earlier research conducted in the United States, upon which the Open Music Model was based. Legal digital downloads became widely available with
12232-453: The differences between 'good' and 'bad' music. In The Beatles: A Study in Drugs, Sex and Revolution , Noebel explained why rock music was 'bad' by contrasting it with qualities of 'good' music. In The Big Beat: A Rock Blast , similar arguments were posed by Garlock, with the additional argument that 'good' music must come from distinguished and educated musicians. Additionally, Larson argued that
12371-586: The distributor, who in turn pays the record company for the recordings. The record company pays mechanical royalties to the publisher and composer via a collection society. The record company then pays royalties, if contractually obligated, to the recording artist. When music is digitally downloaded or streamed , there is no physical media other than the consumer's computer memory on his or her portable media player or laptop. For this reason, artists such as Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Kings of Leon, and others have called for legal changes that would deny social media
12510-451: The downward trend was expected to continue for the foreseeable future. This dramatic decline in revenue has caused large-scale layoffs inside the industry, driven some more venerable retailers (such as Tower Records ) out of business and forced record companies, record producers, studios, recording engineers and musicians to seek new business models . In response to the rise of widespread illegal file sharing of digital music-recordings,
12649-406: The early 2000s, writing that a "new generation [of music critics] moved into positions of critical influence" and then "mounted a wholesale critique against the syndrome of measuring all popular music by the norms of rock culture". Slate magazine writer Jody Rosen discussed the 2000s-era trends in pop music criticism in his article "The Perils of Poptimism". Rosen noted that much of the debate
12788-415: The early illegal file sharing days. However, the multitude of service offerings and revenue models make it difficult to understand the true value of each and what they can deliver for musicians and music companies. As well, there are major transparency problems throughout the music industry caused by outdated technology. With the emerging of new business models as streaming platforms, and online music services,
12927-574: The emergence of Crawdaddy! Lindberg et al. say that, while Williams is widely considered to be the first American rock critic, he "nevertheless looked to England for material". According to Gendron, Goldstein's most significant early pieces were a "manifesto" on rock 'n' roll and "pop aestheticism", and a laudatory assessment of the Beatles' Revolver album. Published in late August, the latter article provided "the first substantial rock review devoted to one album to appear in any nonrock magazine with accreditory power". Whereas Williams could be sure of
13066-483: The end of the 1980s, the "Big six" — EMI , CBS , BMG , PolyGram , WEA and MCA — dominated the industry. Sony bought CBS Records in 1987 and changed its name to Sony Music in 1991. In mid-1998, PolyGram Music Group merged with MCA Music Entertainment creating what we now know as Universal Music Group . Since then, Sony and BMG merged in 2004, and Universal took over the majority of EMI's recorded music interests in 2012. EMI Music Publishing , also once part of
13205-580: The highbrow aesthetic of rock proposed by Goldstein. The latter's mixed review of Sgt. Pepper in The New York Times was similarly the subject of journalistic debate, and invited reprisals from musicologists, composers and cultural commentators. Among other young American writers who became pop columnists following Goldstein's appointment were Robert Christgau (at Esquire , from June 1967), Ellen Willis ( The New Yorker , March 1968) and Ellen Sander ( Saturday Review , October 1968). Christgau
13344-473: The industry was dominated by the "Big Six": Sony Music and BMG had not yet merged, and PolyGram had not yet been absorbed into Universal Music Group. After the PolyGram-Universal merger, the 1998 market shares reflected a "Big Five", commanding 77.4% of the market, as follows, according to MEI World Report 2000: In 2004, the joint venture of Sony and BMG created the 'Big Four' at a time the global market
13483-429: The largest recorded music retailer in the world was now a digital, Internet -based platform operated by a computer company: Apple Inc. 's online iTunes Store . Since 2011, the music industry has seen consistent sales growth with streaming now generating more revenue per year than digital downloads. Spotify , Apple Music , and Amazon Music are the largest streaming services by subscriber count. The main branches of
13622-399: The late 1880s, and later the onset of widespread radio broadcasting , starting in the 1920s, forever changed the way music was heard and listened to. Opera houses, concert halls, and clubs continued to produce music and musicians and singers continued to perform live, but the power of radio allowed bands, ensembles and singers who had previously performed only in one region to become popular on
13761-461: The majority of their income, which in turn has made them more dependent – like pre-20th-century musicians – on patrons, now exemplified by music promoters such as Live Nation (which dominates tour promotion and owns or manages a large number of music venues ). In order to benefit from all of an artist's income streams, record companies increasingly rely on the " 360 deal ", a new business-relationship pioneered by Robbie Williams and EMI in 2007. At
13900-491: The market as a brand and, as such, they may derive income from many other streams, such as merchandise , personal endorsements, appearances (without performing) at events or Internet-based services. These are typically overseen by the artist's manager and take the form of relationships between the artist and companies that specialize in these products. Singers may also hire a vocal coach , dance instructor , acting coach , personal trainer or life coach to help them. In
14039-470: The market: After the absorption of EMI by Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group in December 2011 the "big three" were created and on January 8, 2013, after the merger there were layoffs of forty workers from EMI. European regulators forced Universal Music to spin off EMI assets which became the Parlophone Label Group which was acquired by Warner Music Group. Nielsen SoundScan issued
14178-565: The media. At that time, leading newspapers still typically employed a chief music critic , while magazines such as Time and Vanity Fair also employed classical music critics. But by the early 1990s, classical critics were dropped in many publications, in part due to "a decline of interest in classical music, especially among younger people". Also of concern in classical music journalism was how American reviewers can write about ethnic and folk music from cultures other than their own, such as Indian ragas and traditional Japanese works. In 1990,
14317-528: The most part with the support of patronage from aristocracies and churches . In the mid-to-late 18th century, performers and composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began to seek more commercial opportunities to market their music and performances to the general public. After Mozart's death, his wife ( Constanze Weber ) continued the process of commercialization of his music through an unprecedented series of memorial concerts, selling his manuscripts, and collaborating with her second husband, Georg Nissen , on
14456-421: The most respected voices of the craft, [who] said he had been forced out after 26 years". Viewing "robust analysis, commentary and reportage as vital to the health of the art form", The New York Times stated in 2007 that it continued to maintain "a staff of three full-time classical music critics and three freelancers", noting also that classical music criticism had become increasingly available on blogs, and that
14595-426: The music business by migrating "them away from piracy and less monetized platforms and allowing them to generate far greater royalties than before" by encouraging users to use their paid service. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) revealed in its 2015 earnings report that streaming services were responsible for 34.3 percent of the year's U.S. recorded-music-industry revenue, growing 29 percent from
14734-504: The music industry are the live music industry, the recording industry , and all the companies that train, support, supply and represent musicians. The recording industry produces three separate products: compositions (songs, pieces, lyrics), recordings (audio and video) and media (such as CDs or MP3s , and DVDs ). These are each a type of property : typically, compositions are owned by composers, recordings by record companies, and media by consumers. There may be many recordings of
14873-406: The new forms of pop music of the late 1960s. "By 1999, the 'quality' press was regularly carrying reviews of popular music gigs and albums", which had a "key role in keeping pop" in the public eye. As more pop music critics began writing, this had the effect of "legitimating pop as an art form"; as a result, "newspaper coverage shifted towards pop as music rather than pop as social phenomenon". In
15012-683: The now defunct British conglomerate, is now co-owned by Sony as a subsidiary of Sony/ATV Music Publishing . As in other industries, the record industry is characterised by many mergers and/or acquisitions, for the major companies as well as for middle sized business (recent example is given by the Belgium group PIAS and French group Harmonia Mundi ). Genre-wise, music entrepreneurs expanded their industry models into areas like folk music , in which composition and performance had continued for centuries on an ad hoc self-supporting basis. Forming an independent record label , or "indie" label, or signing to such
15151-457: The number of critics by profession of varying degrees of competence and integrity. The 1840s could be considered a turning point, in that music critics after the 1840s generally were not also practicing musicians. However, counterexamples include Alfred Brendel , Charles Rosen , Paul Hindemith , and Ernst Krenek ; all of whom were modern practitioners of the classical music tradition who also write (or wrote) on music. Women music journalists in
15290-543: The organizations that aid, train, represent and supply music creators. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate in the industry are: the songwriters and composers who write songs and musical compositions; the singers , musicians , conductors , and bandleaders who perform the music; the record labels , music publishers , recording studios , music producers , audio engineers , retail and digital music stores , and performance rights organizations who create and sell recorded music and sheet music; and
15429-536: The other extreme, record companies can offer a simple manufacturing- and distribution-deal , which gives a higher percentage to the artist, but does not cover the expenses of marketing and promotion. Companies like Kickstarter help independent musicians produce their albums through fans funding bands they want to listen to. Many newer artists no longer see a record deal as an integral part of their business plan at all. Inexpensive recording-hardware and -software make it possible to record reasonable-quality music on
15568-465: The overuse of YouTube and offline streaming, album sales have fallen by 60 percent in the past few years. When recordings are used in television and film , the composer and their publishing company are typically paid through a synchronization license . In the 2000s, online subscription services (such as Rhapsody ) also provide an income stream directly to record companies, and through them, to artists, contracts permitting. A promoter brings together
15707-456: The plaudits and criticism. She condemned the Paste review for making "a litany of petty, exclamation-pointed digs" at Swift, and dismissed the rave Rolling Stone review for calling the album a classic within a day, as well as criticizing articles by "reputable publications" like Time and The Philadelphia Inquirer for catering gossip to the masses and fandom instead of serious journalism of
15846-614: The pop journal Crawdaddy! in February 1966; in June, Richard Goldstein , a recent graduate and New Journalism writer, debuted his "Pop Eye" column in The Village Voice , which Gendron describes as "the first regular column on rock 'n' roll ... to appear in an established cultural publication". Rock journalist Clinton Heylin , in his role as editor of The Penguin Book of Rock & Roll Writing , cites "the true genesis of rock criticism" to
15985-414: The previous year and becoming the largest source of income, pulling in around $ 2.4 billion. US streaming revenue grew 57 percent to $ 1.6 billion in the first half of 2016 and accounted for almost half of industry sales. This contrasts with the $ 14.6 billion in revenue that was received in 1999 by the U.S. music industry from the sale of CDs. The turmoil in the recorded-music industry in the 2000s altered
16124-589: The publishing royalties described above. This portion is similar to a percentage, but may be limited or expanded by a number of factors (such as free goods, recoupable expenses, bonuses, etc.) that are specified by the record contract. Session musicians and orchestra members (as well as a few recording artists in special markets) are under contract to provide work for hire ; they are typically only paid one-time fees or regular wages for their services, rather than ongoing royalties. Physical media (such as CDs or vinyl records) are sold by music retailers and are owned by
16263-614: The realm of rock music, as in that of classical music, critics have not always been respected by their subjects. Frank Zappa declared that "Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read." In the Guns N' Roses song " Get in the Ring ", Axl Rose verbally attacked critics who gave the band negative reviews because of their actions on stage; such critics as Andy Secher , Mick Wall and Bob Guccione Jr. were mentioned by name. Rock music received
16402-444: The record industry took aggressive legal action. In 2001 it succeeded in shutting down the popular music-website Napster , and threatened legal action against thousands of individuals who participated in sharing music-song sound-files. However, this failed to slow the decline in music-recording revenue and proved a public-relations disaster for the music industry. Some academic studies have even suggested that downloads did not cause
16541-415: The record. For physical media (such as CDs ), the company also pays to manufacture and distribute the physical recordings. Smaller record companies (known as " indies ") will form business relationships with other companies to handle many of these tasks. The record company pays the recording artist a portion of the income from the sale of the recordings, also known as a "royalty", but this is distinct from
16680-555: The recording, but others may restrict the user to storing the music on a specific number of hard drives or devices. When a recording is broadcast (either on radio or by a background music service such as Muzak ), performance rights organisations (such as the ASCAP and BMI in the US, SOCAN in Canada, or MCPS and PRS in the UK), collect a third type of royalty known as a performance royalty, which
16819-524: The recording. They select and set up microphones and use effects units and mixing consoles to adjust the sound and level of the music. A recording session may also require the services of an arranger , orchestrator , studio musicians , session musicians , vocal coaches , or even a discreetly hired ghostwriter to help with the lyrics or songwriting . Recordings are (traditionally) owned by record companies . Some artists own their own record companies (e.g. Ani DiFranco ). A recording contract specifies
16958-414: The reviews of the album were "well-considered", she opined others were pre-written and "daft". She explained that critics are "staying up until dawn to finish listening to an album as if it's a college paper we're cramming to complete by the morning" and long albums like the 31-track Tortured Poets frustrate them. Karl also felt that reviews appearing online within hours of an album's release discredits both
17097-555: The right to stream their music without paying them royalties. In the digital and online music market of the 2000s, the distributor becomes optional. Large online shops may pay the labels directly, but digital distributors do exist to provide distribution services for vendors large and small. When purchasing digital downloads or listening to music streaming, the consumer may be required to agree to record company and vendor licensing terms beyond those which are inherent in copyright ; for example, some services may allow consumers to freely share
17236-435: The rights of all the parties involved. Also compounding the issue of defining copyright boundaries is the fact that the definition of "royalty" and "copyright" varies from country to country and region to region, which changes the terms of some of these business relationships. After 15 or so years of the Internet economy, the digital music industry platforms like iTunes , Spotify , and Google Play are major improvements over
17375-459: The same thresholds applied independent of the origin and genre. For music videos (DVDs), the same thresholds applied independent of the origin. Jazz, classical, world music and prose DVDs were certified at 1,000 for Gold and 2,000 for Platinum. The highest certified albums by MAHASZ are Micsoda buli! by Hungária and Legendás dalok 1. by Locomotiv GT , both certified 10× Platinum in 2014. The highest certified international repertoire album
17514-461: The sheet music publishers as the music industry's largest force. A multitude of record labels came and went. Some noteworthy labels of the earlier decades include the Columbia Records , Crystalate, Decca Records , Edison Bell, The Gramophone Company , Invicta, Kalliope, Pathé , Victor Talking Machine Company and many others. Many record companies died out as quickly as they had formed, and by
17653-537: The song for as long as they continue to pay the streaming subscription. Once the user stops paying the subscription, they cannot listen to audio from the company's repositories anymore. Streaming services began to have a serious impact on the industry in 2014. Spotify , together with the music-streaming industry in general, faces some criticism from artists claiming they are not being fairly compensated for their work as downloaded-music sales decline and music-streaming increases. Unlike physical or download sales, which pay
17792-451: The study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of music that has been composed and notated in a score and the evaluation of the performance of classical songs and pieces, such as symphonies and concertos . Before about the 1840s, reporting on music was either done by musical journals, such as the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (founded by Johann Friedrich Rochlitz in 1798) and
17931-484: The traditional high / low culture split, usually around notions of artistic integrity, authenticity, and the nature of commercialism". These review collections, Shuker continues, "became bibles in the field, establishing orthodoxies as to the relative value of various styles or genres and pantheons of artists. Record collectors and enthusiasts, and specialisation and secondhand record shops, inevitably have well-thumbed copies of these and similar volumes close at hand." In
18070-652: The twentieth century who covered classic music performance include Ruth Scott Miller of the Chicago Tribune (1920-1921), Henriette Weber at the Chicago Herald-Examiner , and Claudia Cassidy , who worked for Chicago Journal of Commerce (1924–1941), the Chicago Sun (1941–42) and the Chicago Tribune (1942–65). In the early 1980s, a decline in the quantity of classical criticism began occurring "when classical music criticism visibly started to disappear" from
18209-404: The twentieth-century balance between artists, record companies, promoters, retail music-stores and consumers. As of 2010 , big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy sell more records than music-only CD stores, which have ceased to function as a major player in the music industry. Music-performing artists now rely on live performance and merchandise sales (T-shirts, sweatshirts, etc.) for
18348-457: The world of pop music criticism, there has tended to be a quick turnover. The "pop music industry" expects that any particular rock critic will likely disappear from popular view within five years; in contrast, according to author Mark Fenster, the "stars" of rock criticism are more likely to have long careers with "book contracts, featured columns, and editorial and staff positions at magazines and newspapers". Author Bernard Gendron writes that in
18487-419: The worldwide classical music sales over the preceding year. Interim physical retail sales in 2005. All figures in millions. Music journalist Music journalism (or music criticism ) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music , classical music , and traditional music . Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on what
18626-452: Was estimated at $ 30–40 billion. Total annual unit sales (CDs, music videos, MP3s ) in 2004 were 3 billion. Additionally, according to an IFPI report published in August 2005, the big four accounted for 71.7% of retail music sales: US music market shares, according to Nielsen SoundScan (2011) Nielsen SoundScan in their 2011 report noted that the "big four" controlled about 88% of
18765-522: Was extraordinary for the complexity of his white mensural notation and the smallness of his font. He printed the first book of polyphony (music with two or more independent melodic lines) using movable type. He also published numerous works by the most highly regarded composers of the Renaissance, including Josquin des Prez and Antoine Brumel . He flourished by focusing on Flemish works, rather than Italian, as they were very popular throughout Europe during
18904-465: Was graphically discussed in a 2014 Jezebel article about the struggles of women in music journalism , written by music critic Tracy Moore, previously an editor at the Nashville Scene . Moore described how another female music blogger, an "admitted outsider" who threatened no stereotypes, was greeted with enthusiasm by men, in contrast with Moore's own experiences as a self-described "insider" who
19043-446: Was nevertheless expected to "prove" or "earn" her way into a male-dominated journalism scene. According to Anwen Crawford, music critic for Australia's The Monthly , the "problem for women [popular music critics] is that our role in popular music was codified long ago"; as a result, "most famous rock-music critics – Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus , Lester Bangs , Nick Kent – are all male". Crawford points to "[t]he record store ,
19182-431: Was the "originator of the 'consumer guide' approach to pop music reviews", an approach that was designed to help readers decide whether to buy a new album. According to popular music academic Roy Shuker in 1994, music reference books such as The Rolling Stone Record Guide and Christgau's Record Guide played a role in the rise of rock critics as tastemakers in the music industry, "constructing their own version of
19321-467: Was to avoid excluding readers who may not have musical knowledge as broad as that of the writer. In contrast, Miller believed that analytical readers would appreciate "more music talk in music criticism", suggesting that "sensitively modest doses" of musical analysis would provide helpful support for a conclusion "that great melody writing occurred or it didn't". For example, Miller noted that critics rarely "identify catchy melodies as specific passages within
#650349