Burnout
Other Grooves reviewer: One thing salient to this topic I’d like to bring up: I used to review for Alternative Press, but they never seemed to pay, so I stopped, but before I stopped I wrote something on the order of 100 100 word reviews, and I’ve done 30 or so for the local free paper, and I’ve done a few CD reviews for Grooves. The problem is this: It is hard to have anything to say about music any more.
Me: I’ve written something like 400 CD reviews. I know the feeling of being burnt out, there’s that awful sense of a slow-mo, unstoppable wave breaking over and over again. I’m just coming out of a period of that feeling, of wondering whether I’ve done enough, but then I think – even unpaid – that it’s a privilege to be able to think aloud about music.
Other Grooves reviewer: Should I just concentrate on “This rules/This sucks”, “Iggy Pop and Yoyo Ma trapped in an elevator with Casiotones”, or is there another rhetorical gambit to try that I’ve overlooked? Any more I am at a loss to have anything to say — it’s another CD, and unless it rips my head off (more and more a rare thing) or it’s like, yknow, another CD, like the two thousand or so that drift up in the corners of my house…
Me: I don’t know what your method is, but I always try to just listen uninterruptedly to the CD I’m reviewing and to describe the feelings and sensations it provokes. I try to locate it within a wider cultural circle than just music – what books, films, memories, feelings does it provoke? I write down as much as I can, then pare back and focus. I’m not so keen on the a + k = 7 route. Writing a review is a potentially creative act. It can be useful to step back in order to (re)gain perspective.
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