The State of Music Criticism

When layoffs happen, like the ones that recently hit the editorial staff at Bandcamp, writers and industry insiders take the moment to lament the sorry State of Music Criticism. The truth is that Music Criticism suffers from the same set of circumstances that have corroded the worlds of arts and culture writing more generally: It’s hard to make a living as a full-time writer, those that do are under enormous pressures from traffic KPI’s and SEO races that demand more breadth than depth, more PR and less, well, criticism. On the other hand, the public’s taste for music writing has also changed–especially when and how they want to learn about new music or gain new insights from music they already love. Music criticism is taking on a wider range of formats—from TikTok videos, podcasts, newsletters, to blogs.