Music criticism in Spain
I've been posting on a comments thread to La increíble verdad Redux, a Spanish-language blog by Iván Conte. There've been a number of different topics, one of which is the state of music criticism in Spain, a subject I know nothing about for the very good reason that I don't understand Spanish.
You might immediately ask, therefore, how do I manage to post on that comment thread, and the answer is that I've been posting in English - used the Google automatic translation program to get a vague sense of what Iván and his friend anhh were talking about, then jumped in, and since they know English they were kind enough to switch languages. The language becomes English at post 7. (By the way, anhh has occasionally posted on my lj.)
The convo about Spanish music criticism began at posts 19 and 20 and picked up again at 30, 31, 32, and 33. Iván says:
some of the most influential music critics in Spain write in this blog: http://www.musicaenlamochila.net/
and this is the most important magazine http://rockdelux.com/ although the latter has been much criticised in the last years... but well, the history of Spanish rock criticism is a strange one, and from my point of view a bit frustrating most of the time
...
the most legendary magazine is Vibraciones, published in the 70s, which then became for a brief time Rock Espezial, and then finally Rockdelux, which will celebrate its 25th anniversary in November. Rockcdelux’s golden era was the 90s, during which time they championed writing about electronic music as well as rock and pop and, specially, indie. It must be noted as well that another offspring of Vibraciones / Rock Espezial was Ruta 66, which antagonised Rockdelux in an interesting way, with its overtly ultra-rockist direction, whereas Rockdelux took a decidedly more eclectic direction.
Nowadays, Go Mag is an interesting magazine as well, its coverage of electronic music much more interesting than the one you can find in Rockdelux now, mainly because of Javier Blanquez, possibly one of the best Spanish critics, with a very personal, passionate and informed style - incidentally, I also contribute occasionally to this magazine. Rockdelux is at the moment at a strange place, I think, while in the past it prided itself on being a mixture of the NME, Mojo and the Wire, nowadays it seems to have taken a more adult, Mojo-like direction. I also contribute to this one, but more sparingly.
But in my personal opinion, the best Spanish rock criticism can be found at the moment in Ladinamo, which funnily enough is not a music magazine. Nevertheless, in its music section you can find many of the best music articles written in Spain in the last years. And the most amazing thing is that people write there for free!
I've found this piece by Javier Blanquez, and he co-wrote or co-edited this book.
Iván says that any of us who wants to contribute to the topic is more than welcome. As I said, I'm somewhat handicapped by not knowing anything about it and not knowing the language, but maybe several of you do know the language. (And of course you - and they - are welcome to post here too.)
You might immediately ask, therefore, how do I manage to post on that comment thread, and the answer is that I've been posting in English - used the Google automatic translation program to get a vague sense of what Iván and his friend anhh were talking about, then jumped in, and since they know English they were kind enough to switch languages. The language becomes English at post 7. (By the way, anhh has occasionally posted on my lj.)
The convo about Spanish music criticism began at posts 19 and 20 and picked up again at 30, 31, 32, and 33. Iván says:
some of the most influential music critics in Spain write in this blog: http://www.musicaenlamochila.net/
and this is the most important magazine http://rockdelux.com/ although the latter has been much criticised in the last years... but well, the history of Spanish rock criticism is a strange one, and from my point of view a bit frustrating most of the time
...
the most legendary magazine is Vibraciones, published in the 70s, which then became for a brief time Rock Espezial, and then finally Rockdelux, which will celebrate its 25th anniversary in November. Rockcdelux’s golden era was the 90s, during which time they championed writing about electronic music as well as rock and pop and, specially, indie. It must be noted as well that another offspring of Vibraciones / Rock Espezial was Ruta 66, which antagonised Rockdelux in an interesting way, with its overtly ultra-rockist direction, whereas Rockdelux took a decidedly more eclectic direction.
Nowadays, Go Mag is an interesting magazine as well, its coverage of electronic music much more interesting than the one you can find in Rockdelux now, mainly because of Javier Blanquez, possibly one of the best Spanish critics, with a very personal, passionate and informed style - incidentally, I also contribute occasionally to this magazine. Rockdelux is at the moment at a strange place, I think, while in the past it prided itself on being a mixture of the NME, Mojo and the Wire, nowadays it seems to have taken a more adult, Mojo-like direction. I also contribute to this one, but more sparingly.
But in my personal opinion, the best Spanish rock criticism can be found at the moment in Ladinamo, which funnily enough is not a music magazine. Nevertheless, in its music section you can find many of the best music articles written in Spain in the last years. And the most amazing thing is that people write there for free!
I've found this piece by Javier Blanquez, and he co-wrote or co-edited this book.
Iván says that any of us who wants to contribute to the topic is more than welcome. As I said, I'm somewhat handicapped by not knowing anything about it and not knowing the language, but maybe several of you do know the language. (And of course you - and they - are welcome to post here too.)