During the '70s and '80s, if you lived in the middle of nowhere and you wanted to know about the popular culture of the nation at large, you watched movies and television (the big three -- ABC, NBC, CBS -- as well as PBS) and you read magazines, especially the reviews sections. The monoculture loomed large back then, with no clear avenues into nearly anything counterculture, so I happily lapped up mainstream films, shows, and music recommended by middle-aged white men of the establishment, hoping to one day do what they did.
The first time I was paid for reviewing anything was as a grad student at Central Michigan University, working for the college newspaper CM Life in the early '90s under a variety of editors. (And there was talent in that editorial pool, too; one editor later worked for the Wall Street Journal and a D.C. insider enclave, while another editor co-created Robot Chicken for Adult Swim. I even dated one of the other editors, but that's another post.) I reviewed movies from time to time, but I was mostly on the music beat; at my peak, I was reviewing four CD's a week, with the odd concert here and there. (In the fall of '94, I saw Tori Amos two nights in a row at East Lansing and Ann Arbor, and wrote a combo review of both nights, as Tori was fond of shaking up the set list from gig to gig back then.) But I never thought it would turn into a career, so as I focused on my thesis and teaching, my work at CM Life eventually turned into a trickle, then stopped altogether.
When I first started diving into the internet in the mid '90s, I contributed reviews for two different David Bowie new releases to a now-defunct (and missed) Bowie fan site, but I was otherwise silent on the review front. It wasn't until a chance meeting in Record World with the editor-in-chief of Alternative Press that I had an actual connection into print media, a connection that reached fruition in early '06. From that point, I wrote monthly album reviews for Alternative Press -- and later, the NY-based feminist-leaning Bust -- until early '10, and I can remember that burst of pride when I walked into Barnes & Noble and pulled up two different magazines that had my work therein. It made me a Published Author, of a sort, and who wouldn't want that?
The biggest problems with my brief writing career was simple:
(1) I wasn't very good, and I was only getting marginally better over the years
(2) what I did as a writer had little to no impact anywhere on anyone
As to the latter, I wanted the influence on the buying habits of young kids that the reviewers I read had on me. Rob Sheffield, the writer who worked for Rolling Stone and elsewhere, is the direct reason why I fell in love with an '80s UK band called The Comsat Angels; Sheffield name-dropped the band in a review for another artist, so I tracked down their first three albums from England as quickly as I could. I can't remember the Rolling Stone writer who reviewed the debut from Nine Inch Nails, but that review made me buy the album before any of my friends knew who that band was.
Sadly, I never had that power, as half of my reviews were of bands I didn't care about, and nearly all of my reviews were forgotten as soon as they were published. I didn't pursue my Doctorate in Social Psychology because I didn't want to contribute to minutia -- among other things -- so why should I do that with my reviews? Thankfully, based on the former, the decision to stop writing for both magazines was largely made for me, as my assignments got fewer and more esoteric.
However, my brief time as a freelancer made me respect their efforts, as well as bemoan their nearly nonexistent pay. I still have some of the press clippings, and while it's almost all cringe-worthy work, I'm at least glad I had the chance to give it a try. As much as it's a cliche, I've learned more from my failures over the years, and each of these seven jobs have given me much to learn from. But what will the next job be? Stay tuned...
The first time I was paid for reviewing anything was as a grad student at Central Michigan University, working for the college newspaper CM Life in the early '90s under a variety of editors. (And there was talent in that editorial pool, too; one editor later worked for the Wall Street Journal and a D.C. insider enclave, while another editor co-created Robot Chicken for Adult Swim. I even dated one of the other editors, but that's another post.) I reviewed movies from time to time, but I was mostly on the music beat; at my peak, I was reviewing four CD's a week, with the odd concert here and there. (In the fall of '94, I saw Tori Amos two nights in a row at East Lansing and Ann Arbor, and wrote a combo review of both nights, as Tori was fond of shaking up the set list from gig to gig back then.) But I never thought it would turn into a career, so as I focused on my thesis and teaching, my work at CM Life eventually turned into a trickle, then stopped altogether.
When I first started diving into the internet in the mid '90s, I contributed reviews for two different David Bowie new releases to a now-defunct (and missed) Bowie fan site, but I was otherwise silent on the review front. It wasn't until a chance meeting in Record World with the editor-in-chief of Alternative Press that I had an actual connection into print media, a connection that reached fruition in early '06. From that point, I wrote monthly album reviews for Alternative Press -- and later, the NY-based feminist-leaning Bust -- until early '10, and I can remember that burst of pride when I walked into Barnes & Noble and pulled up two different magazines that had my work therein. It made me a Published Author, of a sort, and who wouldn't want that?
The biggest problems with my brief writing career was simple:
(1) I wasn't very good, and I was only getting marginally better over the years
(2) what I did as a writer had little to no impact anywhere on anyone
As to the latter, I wanted the influence on the buying habits of young kids that the reviewers I read had on me. Rob Sheffield, the writer who worked for Rolling Stone and elsewhere, is the direct reason why I fell in love with an '80s UK band called The Comsat Angels; Sheffield name-dropped the band in a review for another artist, so I tracked down their first three albums from England as quickly as I could. I can't remember the Rolling Stone writer who reviewed the debut from Nine Inch Nails, but that review made me buy the album before any of my friends knew who that band was.
Sadly, I never had that power, as half of my reviews were of bands I didn't care about, and nearly all of my reviews were forgotten as soon as they were published. I didn't pursue my Doctorate in Social Psychology because I didn't want to contribute to minutia -- among other things -- so why should I do that with my reviews? Thankfully, based on the former, the decision to stop writing for both magazines was largely made for me, as my assignments got fewer and more esoteric.
However, my brief time as a freelancer made me respect their efforts, as well as bemoan their nearly nonexistent pay. I still have some of the press clippings, and while it's almost all cringe-worthy work, I'm at least glad I had the chance to give it a try. As much as it's a cliche, I've learned more from my failures over the years, and each of these seven jobs have given me much to learn from. But what will the next job be? Stay tuned...
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