Rock Criticism Arranged As A Football Team
In my very limited free time since my 2nd kid was born I have been writing about music, and while giving feeds I have also been playing Football Manager on my laptop. Inevitably these pastimes have merged into one, and I realised that my ideal music publication would be as carefully balanced and composed as a football team.
Goalkeeper: Fact-checking, sub-editing, good ability to spot stuff the team is missing out on.
Central Defenders: Massive knowledge, solid prose, able to nail short-form pieces with unquestionable accuracy and authority.
Full Backs: Enormous specialist knowledge and authority, will break out of their genre coverage on occasion to provide useful insight.
Holding Midfielder: Combines knowledge, clarity and insight - rarely flashy but can open up a conversation with a killer line.
Central Midfielder: Insightful, often beautiful writing - can be expected to dictate conversation and debate if in a playmaker role.
Left/Right Midfielder: Often specialists, often trolls, their lively writing is designed to bamboozle and entertain but also to open up conversation - they’re sometimes guilty of showboating or wasting opportunities but they can delight audiences.
Striker: Possibly stylists rather than - or as much as - great thinkers: the “stars” of the team, might only write one or two things at a time but bring the readers in and send them away buzzing. Usually direct and very quotable/linkable even if they’re stating the bleedin’ obvious.
The broad schema is knowledge in defence, insight in midfield, style up front. Of course some exceptional critics are comfortable in almost every role and most can play in different positions as needed.
The beauty of this model is that you can identify different styles of play in different music magazines and sites: the long-ball game, for example, would be a reliance on short-form reviews with the occasional big crowd-pleasing piece, bypassing insight entirely. Rolling Stone, maybe? The 80s and 90s UK music press were suckers for flashy wingers and midfield fannydanglers but rarely managed to get the ball in the net. And Pitchfork has a reputation for absurd showboating but these days plays a kind of catenaccio, passing the ball elegantly around at the back before winning with a setpiece. (aka a list).
