I was in the shower thinking today, and I wondered why I became a music critic. I listen to a LOT of music.. on average I spend over a couple hours a day on music related things (listening, reading about bands, reading metacritic and pitchfork, downloading, sorting, writing about music). Sometimes I think maybe I should have taken up a more productive hobby.

I became a music critic in late 2004 after hearing Modest Mouse's the Moon and Antarctica. Another major contributor was that someone sent me a link to Pitchfork's top 50 albums of 2004, and I download some highly rated by pitchfork albums.

I guess a few factors contributed to it.

1. I think my parents raised me on music. It was diverse. Some was what we would call good, some wasnt. It represented a lot of genres.

2. I was looking for something to distinguish me from others and show my maturity without being pretentious or having to act grown up. Music has worked well for that, I must say. My friends at college do hold my taste in high regard, even though they don't have what we here consider to be good taste.

3. I was looking for people to relate to. Before I became a critic, I would practically beg my friends to listen to the music I liked, just to have someone to connect to musically. Now I can connect to other music buffs more easily through the internet, but also in real life. We all know that either you are a music critic or you aren't. There are far more people who aren't, but it is easier to relate to the few who are (I hope that makes sense). This may be because we are connected through our following of review sources such as Pitchfork.

4. I was getting bored. Being introduced to Modest Mouse is what put a whole new dimension in the musical experience of my life. I didn't consider music to be art until I heard them.

5. You can tell a lot about a person by what their favorite music is. I am on a quest to find music that best expresses me.

I'm not really sure about my goals for the future. I want to boaden my taste by listening to more genres, I know that. Right now I am mainly listening to popular/rock style music. I want to listen to more classical, jazz, blues, etc. Also, I want to become more aware of lyrics. Lyrics don't really mean much to me right now. I know they are important, though.

I dunno. Just felt like typing that up during a break from studying for exams.

How about you?

i became a music critic about a year ago too, because I realised that if all I wanted to do was listen to music, then I'd better work out a way of getting a job that facilitates that.
That is either:
a) working in a record shop
b) being a DJ (very hard to do well enough to earn regular money from), or
c) be a music crit

being a music crit means you are PAID to know about music and articulate your opinions. So I started writing for the student newspaper, jus to see if I could write well about it, and now I'm contributing to a nationwide magazine, and when I leave Uni hopefully I'll be in a position to move into this full-time.

But I disagree with one thing you said - I take music very seriously but I prefer the company of people who love music but don't take it as seriously as other writers. Otherwise you can quickly forget the importance of enjoying music under a weight of music-snob point-scoring.

I'm a music critic because I'm a fucking loser that got lucky.

I don't really mean to expose myself as the asshole that I am, but are you guys all critics or reviewers? I'm also not picking a fight. I just think that people often don;t understand the difference between the two, so I thought this was our best existing thread for that.

you might want to inform us of the differences...

i have always thought of myself as a critic. i write reviews for my website, but that is nothign real.

I think what mark means is, "Are you paid to review music?"

I study journalism and cover the arts (mostly music), so I suppose I'm a "music journalist."

I usually split my time between actual reporting and writing non-reporting stories (record reviews, commentaries, blog entries, etc.)

Since I come from the film perspective, I think of a reviewer as someone who tells somebody what they think of a record/film and why. I think of a critic as somebody who interprets music/film/genres/specifics in the context of music/film history. The critic gets into auterism, contexts of homages, thematic context, etc. That's all. I don't think one is better than the other. I just think they fulfill different positions. I was also just asking a question, not picking a fight.