“Writing About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture”

“Writing About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture”: Taking the pulse of Popular Music Journalism. Our Annual Music Journalism Panel. Our annual music writing panel discussion is back with a vengeance - come join the debate! A MUST for anyone interested in music writing, or getting into writing about music... As soon as young people began producing ‘pop’ music, other young people were critiquing and reporting it. The negative responses in the US mass media to the emergence of Elvis Presley (reinforced by the Melody Maker in the UK), for instance, were equalled by fans in their own responses. From the emergence of the countercultural music press in 1960s America with Rolling Stone and Creem to the power of the weekly “inkies” in the UK the following decade - the likes of NME, Melody Maker and Sounds - some of the key moments in popular music history have been matched and mirrored by media reaction and response. Whether abrasive moments such as the Sex Pistols appearance on the Bill Grundy TV show; the purity perceived in Joy Division by Paul Morley; or the ‘rock & roll future’ glimpsed by Jon Landau when reviewing Bruce Springsteen, writers have been ever present… just to the side of the stage. But why do we do it? Is it about a need to share our love for our favourite bands and artists… or is just assisting consumer decisions about which albums to buy… which gigs to go to? Or is there much more to it than that? Is it the journalists who impose order on the musical maelstrom, joining up the dots and connecting bands into scenes and movements? Or is it, as photographer and academic Rachel McHaffie might assert, all to do with logging and recording experience as fixed memories? Music photographer Rachel McHaffie will be with us for this panel, sharing some of her fabulous gig and club photography. Joining Rachel is the editor of local music title Silent Radio Andrew Neal, who is also available to talk after the panel, if you would like to start your own career in music writing. Current music writer Martin Guttridge-Hewitt will also offer advice about freelancing for a range of titles. For the really dedicated, you can study Music Journalism at University, and each year students join the Music Journalism degree at the University of Chester to spend three years doing just that. That course is lead by Louder’s Dr Simon A. Morrison, in order to explore the ways and means to write and critique music. Simon will chair the panel and is also delighted that current students will join the event, including current third years on the panel. Someone once rather cheekily said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture - abstract, hard to do. Well… if you are interested in music writing - or indeed might want advice by current practioners about how to do it… would like to study it… or indeed want to connect with people that might publish your work… join us on the Saturday lunchtime at Louder and let’s all dance about architecture … About Simon Morrison: Simon A. Morrison is a writer, academic, and Course Leader for Music Journalism at the University of Chester. He has reported on music scenes everywhere from Beijing to Brazil; Moscow to Marrakech and written books including the collected journalism Discombobulated: Dispatches from the Wrong Side (Headpress: 2010); Dancefloor-Driven Literature: The Rave Scene in Fiction (Bloomsbury: 2020) and the co-edited Routledge Handbook to Pink Floyd (Routledge: 2022). His research interest - in the intersection of words and music - has involved contributions to books such as DJ Culture in the Mix; Kerouac on Record and Ink on The Tracks, and journals including Popular Music. He has presented this work at conferences in Portugal, Holland, Germany and Australia. His most recent publication was the co-authored title Transatlantic Drift: The Ebb and Flow of Dance Culture (Reaktion: 2025). The book was well reviewed in titles such as The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, as well as forming a discussion on the Evan Davis Radio 4 programme PM. About Andrew Neal: Andrew Neal writes for and is editor of Silent Radio, a Manchester based music website. His writing career started as the editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, which ran for 15 issues between 1988 and 1995. He has subsequently contributed to The Guardian, Record Collector, the Louder Than War website, The City is Ablaze! book and numerous fanzines.