Is there a field of writing more predictable and cliché than music journalism? Besides all of the other types of entertainment journalism, I mean. (And not so fast there regular news journalism.) Writing about music is so typically cliché-ridden (a phrasing itself that’s cliché), that it has its own cliché aphorism to describe its pointlessness that is in itself one of the most overused clichés when talking about how music writing is cliché. Harsh but true, but having been a music journalist myself for many years, it’s not racist when I say it. A lot of my best friends are music journalists, actually.
There’s a reason why we, yes, myself included, resort to clichés. It’s because the subject matter we’re writing about is so often rife with its own. (“Rife with,” by the way.) Garbage in, garbage out, as they say. A lot. They say that a lot. But there’s another, more mundane reason as well: we’re all lazy. Not just music writers, that is, but all of us as people. It’s the same idea behind how we speak in verbal clichés when we’re talking to someone we can barely muster the barest effort to engage with in person, you just reach for the first thing that comes to mind and plop it out on the word table, hoping that you can get in and out of this meaningless conversation as fast as possible.
Not all clichés were born that way, mind you. Some clichés are bigger than others, to subtly riff off of two well-known song lyrics to show that I’m aware of bands that exist. Some are actually quite evocative, and were perfectly chosen at the time, but years of misuse have rendered them sterile. When they retire an athlete’s number in sports it’s because they were so good at their job that no one else will ever be able to live up to the legacy. Think of this list of music writing clichés we’d like to see retired like that then—once exciting and vibrant, but now suffering from back pain and probably doing regional TV spots for local car dealerships.
Instead of just linking you to my own body of work from over the years and having you just pick and choose through the deluge (“deluge”) of bad writing contained therein, I’ll save you the trouble, and suggest a few of the most egregious examples. Yes, I’m aware that the idea behind this list itself is kind of a cliché too. You see how depressing this whole thing can get?
Read the rest at Bullett.
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2 comments:
Funny list! Definitely had me squirming in my chair a bit. I reckon I've used 80% of these cliches at some point.
havent we all?
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