"A fascinating look at a fascinating article" - Music Journalism Insider writes in an announcement of the latest edition of their Notes On Process segment. MJI's Todd L Burns talked to music writer Simon Reynolds about his 1992 Melody Maker article 'Gathering of the Tribes' about a free party that drew tens of thousands of ravers to the English countryside. MJI shared Reynolds' final draft and the article that came out in the UK music weekly. A great read!

"Very little of the present, internet-wise, may survive. The paradox of today is that we chronicle mundane existence to a degree that no human beings have ever done before, but we do so on phones with short lifespans and via platforms that will one day be bought, folded into each other, and shut down" - freelance writer and blogger Chris O’Leary says in Music Journalism Insider interview. "The 2000s already are full of holes—there are so many dead websites, ghost message boards by now... You see this play out all the time on YouTube—one day you’ll have every musical performance on David Letterman on there, then two months later, half of those videos have been pulled. Maybe they come back, maybe they don’t. It’s all sandcastles, really".

"I’ve spent a lot of my career writing about the 'emo revival' and it often feels like writers who cover this stuff are constantly in defense mode, myself included. I wish it wasn’t such an uphill battle to talk about this type of music compared to the type of indie rock that gets consensus critical acclaim, especially when the music itself isn’t all that different" - Brooklyn Vegan's Andrew Sacher says in the Music Journalism Insider interview about genres being mostly ignored by the mainstream media. "In 2021 so far alone, we’ve seen some big 10th anniversary pieces go up for debut albums by Joyce Manor, Title Fight, and Balance and Composure, and what’s really clear to me, is that people are REALLY reacting positively to these pieces. These are classic albums to a generation of music fans in their early 20s right now, and these albums got basically no press when they came out, outside of punk-specific websites. In 2021, those albums seem a lot more important than a lot of the stuff that had consensus critical acclaim in 2011".

A funny and intelligent interview by Music Journalism Insider with music critic and editor Kevin Williams from several Chicago newspapers; here's a snippet: "I reviewed everything from Kid Rock to Diana Krall, Cafe Tacuba to Wu-Tang, and was a constant annoyance for the copy desk. One review of Incubus was simply, 'Incubus? No, succubus'. Rewrite. I described Wu-Tang as like being at the 95th Street Red Line stop, just a bunch of smart brothas taking turns yelling at you. Rewrite. I had so much fun".

A great read in the Music Journalism Insider about rock fanzines from the late period of the Soviet Union, from 1977 to 1991, written by Russian academic Kat Ganskaya. Roxy from Leningrad (St Petersburg today) was the first big fanzine, Zerkalo (The Mirror) from Moscow followed, founded by Artemiy Troitsky, the first DJ in the USSR and one of the founding fathers of music journalism in the Russian language. One of the bigger fanzines was Kontrkultura (Counterculture), which can also be read as "counter the cult of UR".

Former Q editor Ted Kessler and staff members Chris Catchpole and Niall Doherty are launching a weekly music newsletter The New Cue. The first issue comes out on 26 February with new interviews with St Vincent, Arlo Parks and Tony Visconti, along with playlists and recommendations. The first few editions of the New Cue would be free, followed by a monthly subscription fee of £5 or an annual rate of £55 with occasional free weeks.

"Reading history, literature, poetry, and economics is a pleasure and a necessity; learning how the world works and our relation to it, as banal as it sounds, is an essential component of the writing life" - music writer Alfred Soto shares a bit of advice to music journalists in MJI interview. He also believes blogging still helps, he keeps one - Humanizing the Vacuum.

Iconic UK music brand NME has launched in Asia, with the aim of delivering a fresh approach to the South East Asian music scene - here's their choice of the best Southeast Asian albums of 2020 so far. Singapore-based website NME.com/Asia will initially focus on Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines and has plans to rapidly expand in the region. NME entered the Australian market at the end of last year. It also recently restarted physical publishing with a monthly magazine in Australia, its only current regular print edition. In 2019, the NME and Uncut magazine were sold to Singaporean music company BandLab Technologies.

"I want to see a new generation of female writers achieve even more without age-old sexism holding them back" - former NME editor Charlotte Gunn told Music Week about her new project - The Forty-Five, an online platform with an all-female base of contributors. The site's already online - there's an interview with former Maccabees frontman Orlando Weeks who's just released his solo debut; also, a commentary on Lady Gaga’s queer pop dominating the charts.