I have been working as a music journalist for nearly twenty years now and in all that time have never seriously tried to make it the main focus of my occupation. Most of the time my interest in music discovery and collecting are my primary driving forces, wanting to write about it is a by-product, although I will admit the urge to write can sometimes be overwhelming. But writing about music? I can’t help but think that this is a very silly thing to do, surely the thing to do with music is just go off and listen to it? Music is so much like magic in the range of responses it conjures, and you don’t bother trying to describe magic, you experience it. But there it is, the frequency in which music discovery inspired me to want to write and spread the word is too ever present to ignore, it’s pretty much a daily thing and so, I have spent two decades regularly finding the time to put pen to paper on the subject.

In the early days I did go for it a bit harder, a few published reviews in national magazines pushed me to accepting any writing opportunity that came my way, for a time. Composing enthusiastic recommendations for artists you love is a great feeling, especially when you get a little feedback (mostly indirect but occasionally first-hand) that the artist themselves enjoyed and appreciated your efforts. But as the album reviews in particular began to snowball, inevitably I would have to write about records that I was not so keen on, or even on occasion downright detested. The sour taste this left in my mouth is the reason that, nowadays, I mainly just put my efforts into championing the things I really rate and get excited about. There is nothing clever about slagging off someone else’s work, people have their lives wrapped up in their creations. Why should they be pissed on by someone like me, who has never had people part with money to hear him perform? Someone who has never written a song, let alone mastered an instrument or created an albums worth of music? My only qualification is an avid listener with a fairly wide range of tastes; someone who would quite like to share with people with a similar ear, but that is all I have. I quickly realized that I did not feel comfortable pouring cold water on someone else’s dreams, particularly if their only crime is their music did not meet with my own tastes.

My turning point came around 2005 when I wrote a critical review for a singer-songwriter artist making his debut. I have blocked the episode out sufficiently to have forgotten his name, all I can remember was that the Waterboys leader Mike Scott had discovered this chap busking on the London Underground and offered him words of encouragement. Let me be clear, I would never suggest that I know more about music than Mike Scott, one of the greatest songwriters to come out of the twentieth century and still very much in possession of the spark of genius to this day, but you would not know that from my review. I also recall that the singer had a day job as a teacher, so I tackily ended my review with a condescending comment of the “must try harder next term” variety. Seeing that in print did not feel good, it felt even worse when a few weeks later I went to a gig at the Cambridge Corn Exchange and found that this artist had been the support act. I had missed his set but saw him standing there on the merchandise stand, looking friendly and welcoming, basically just a nice bloke who did not deserve a snide little two hundred word take down from me. And no, I did not bravely go over and introduce myself either.

So, from that moment on, I had a bit of a lukewarm attitude towards writing bad reviews of people. What is the point? I mean, if you actively dislike them why put yourself in a situation where you need to listen to their album more than once or stay for a whole performance? Far better to just put your time and efforts into the things that inspire and lift you. That said, if everything you write is all just praise then that does cheapen the positive words, I guess? For that reason, I do still occasionally kick down, in writing, at someone who I think is over praised or enjoying success that is out of kilter with the measure of their talent. Yes, I am looking at you Ed Sheeran and Coldplay. But these people aren’t going to even notice what I say, let alone be hurt or damaged by my words.

And the reason I have written this today? Well in the last week I was, in a situation out of my own control, exposed to a song by the band Stereophonics, in which they were singing about some graffiti on a train. Despite my ongoing mission to only write about things I love, I still made a mental note to myself that if ever there was a band sounding audibly bored with their own music, this was surely it. Who knows what the graffiti on the train was saying? With sludge-like music like this death-crawling its way to an exit, surely no one could bring themselves to care. It might have been something profound, but unfortunately the crowded room I was in were clearly not all feeling it either. Before too long someone shouted, “turn that shit off;” in my mind there is no way the graffiti on the train could have put it more succinctly than that!