What is the function of record reviews in 2024?

Elijah is a profound thinker and this conversations draws on his influential grime nights with Stormzy & Skepta, writing about music, DJing and to his Yellow Square instagram posts, which are a form of community-building journalism that act as prods and prompts that agitate thoughts into focus.

DiS021 | S2: The Future of the Music Press EP13

From his experience as a pirate radio DJ to running Butterz label & clubnights to being a musician and artist manager, Elijah considers yellow squares to be a former of journalism and the conversation explores the ecosystem that feeds into it and swirls around it.

In this conversation with Drowned in Sound founder Sean Adams, we discuss mediums and spaces, online platforms and club cultures. The conversation sways from curation as a form of journalism, the YouTube mindset, Twitter, 10 minute or 10 hour radio shows.

We also try to deconstruct the gatekeeper and the creative challenges facing people working in music, journalism and anything that involves publishing online. We also discuss the joy of Tumblr, yow electronic music in the UK clusters around its pirate radio, BBC media structures,  and why not all clubs closing is a bad thing.

Quotes out of context:

“What’s the musical equivalent of a community note?”

“Some people say ‘I don’t make any money’. Well, what do you sell?”

“Imagine if a review is all the possibilities that the album lays down”

“It's one bit of work.  With all these different mediums,  but it’s just the language hasn't adjusted  to, to serve that yet, you know what I'm saying?”

“…there's a hundred thousand, ten thousand histories happening at once. And that's like something that music journalism, the box, cannot fully capture.”

“People just think, ‘oh, that's their job to write about music.’ And it's like, no, their job is to sell advertising space  wrapped around the coverage of music. That's what magazines have been historically. Right?”

Links

• Eli1ah on Instagram
• Various links: https://linktr.ee/Eli1ah
• YouTube recommendation: Super Eyepatch Wolf
• YouTube recommendation: Nathan Zed

• Make The Ting album
• Eli1ah's Resident Advisor Takeover
• Further reading: "Close The App, Make The Ting": Elijah's Yellow Squares are making a difference by cutting through the noise (DMY)
• Podcast referenced with Bandcamp founder

Please note, this conversation took place in November 2023.

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