Music journalism

Music journalism (or "music criticism") is media criticism and reporting about popular music topics, including pop music, rock music and related styles. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on what is now thought of as classical music. In the 2000s, a more prominent branch of music journalism is an aspect of entertainment journalism, covering popular music and including profiles of singers and bands, live concert and album reviews.

Origins in classical music criticism

Music journalism has its roots in classical music criticism, which has traditionally comprised the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of music that has been composed and notated in a score and the evaluation of the performance of classical songs and pieces, such as symphonies and concertos .

Before about the 1840s, reporting on music was either done by musical journals, such as Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung or the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (founded by Robert Schumann), and in London such journals as The Musical Times (founded in 1844 as The Musical Times and Singing-class Circular); or else by reporters at general newspapers where music did not form part of the central objectives of the publication. An influential English 19th-century music critic, for example, was James William Davison of The Times. The composer Hector Berlioz also wrote reviews and criticisms for the Paris press of the 1830s and 1840s.