Music journalism was the canary in the coal mine.

After last year's music media blitzkrieg, how are things going? Erm ...

Six months ago, I went on the warpath.

For those new to this newsletter (hello!), or have particularly short memories, let me explain: I did podcast after podcast, wrote post after post, and had conversation after conversation, detailing the death of music journalism in Aotearoa.

I covered the lack of concert and festival coverage. I asked why important local music issues weren’t being covered, and why artists weren’t being interviewed.

I met the creators of a report called New Mirrors that looked at music media’s decimation and timed its release perfectly. I wondered what young music journalists would do if they couldn’t write about music anymore.

In short, I panicked…

• Two major music festivals received zero media coverage. Why?

• Rodney Fisher wants someone – anyone – to review his new album

• Music journalism is broken. Is this how we fix it?

• What was it like writing New Mirrors? 'Bleak'.

• RIP: A eulogy for Stuff's seemingly dead Music section.

Many media outlets picked up on my coverage. Some of the nicer ones asked me to come and chat on their podcasts, and I accepted those invitations. So here’s me on The Spinoff’s The Fold, NZ Herald’s The Front Page, and RNZ’s Mediawatch.

I did all that in a single week. It was a lot.

So, six months on, I want to spend today examining where things are at right now.

How are things faring? Has anything changed?

The answers probably won’t surprise you.

Because they’re much, much worse.

Looking back, the death of music journalism felt like a premonition, a warning shot, a cry for help. It was the canary in the coal mine.

What for?

The act of newsgathering. Of interviewing, processing that information, and publishing for readers to digest.

In other words, journalism.

The New Yorker’s eerily prescient premonition of an extinction-level event only came out in February, yet it seems to be happening faster than anyone thought possible.

In the past six months, local newsrooms have been shredded. In one week, Newshub’s closure on July 5 was announced, and TVNZ slashed 10% of its staff. Sunday aired its final show this past weekend, and Fair Go’s was last night.

Cuts have been made at newsrooms around the country. The Wairoa Star, a newspaper with a 100-year history, has closed. Magazines are shutting up shop too. The Spinoff estimates there will be just 1439 journalists left once Newshub closes on July 5.

Those podcasts I went on have been detailing all of this media slicing and dicing in increasingly frequent and incredibly depressing instalments, ones I can only take in small portions before I need to go outside and stare at a tree for a bit.

Did the government care that journalism could die, that democracy is at stake, that the thing many of use have done for most of our adult lives could roll over and die very soon?

Erm, no.

Faced with all of this, I’ve found it hard to sit here and complain that there isn’t enough music journalism around.

The problems run far deeper than a lack of album reviews or concert coverage.

Because there’s barely any journalism at all anymore.

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I’m trying to stay positive.

I’m doing what I can, right here, in this newsletter. (A big THANK YOU to all of my beautiful paying subscribers who help keep this thing going, you are wonderful.)

I end each of these regular instalments by linking to the best music journalism I can find (see below). Increasingly, it’s getting hard to find enough stories to put in there.

But there have been bright spots.

There was a recent week where I felt a pang of hope.

In the same five days, Tova O’Brien interviewed the lead singer of Chumbawamba, there was incredible coverage of Fred Again’s surprise New Zealand tour, there were concert reviews, album reviews and festival reviews to get excited about, and a series of really good radio and print interviews.

It was a week outside of the norm.

Music coverage on our biggest news sites continues to be dire. Most of it comes from overseas sources, or is incredibly gossipy, or tabloid fodder. Clickbait, in other words.

A reminder: it is, right now, May, which means it is New Zealand Music Month, a time when there is every excuse under the sun to go hard celebrating local talent.

Yet, as I write this, the headlines in our biggest local entertainment sections are as follows:

Sigh.

There is one exception to this rule, a website that seems to be trying to go against the norm.

The entertainment editors at Newshub appear to be alive and kicking. They seem to be doing their best to inject life into their site, to cover local issues, to provide a decent mix of stories.

There are local movie reviews, Aotearoa-focused news stories, interviews with local artists, concert reviews and more. When I checked in, its lead stories were depressing, but at least they were New Zealand-focused.

Considering today’s topic, they’re timely too.

Go there now and make the most of it while you can.

Those editors, like the rest of Newshub, have until July 5.

Then they’re going the way of almost all of the country’s music writers.

Oblivion.

Everything you need to know…

• Last week, I reviewed Back to Black, the Amy Winehouse movie with just one good thing about it: the film’s star, Marisa Abela. She speaks to the New York Times ($$) and it’s an incredible deep dive into her life and attitude towards that scary role. In it, Abela reveals for the first time that she’s recovering from cancer.

• A decision on whether Serato, the pioneering local DJ software company, is allowed to be sold to AlphaTheata has been delayed yet again by the Commerce Commission. Now, we’ll have to wait until June 27, the sixth delay. My deep dive into the situation is available in the latest Metro magazine, out now.

• Forty years ago, a little song called ‘Poi E’ topped the charts for an entire month. Stuff’s resident music writer Lyric Waiwiri-Smith reveals how Dalvanius Prime and the Pātea Māori Club spent day and night in the studio, tinkering with the song, making sure every element was fine-tuned to perfection.

• In 2022, Kings of Leon delivered one of the finest post-Covid concerts Spark Arena has seen (with excellent sound, too). With a new album out, they tell NZ Herald’s Karl Puschmann that was one of the best shows they’ve played, and it provided inspiration for their excellent new album. They want to come back, too.

• Childish Gambino released his surprise (and really quite good) album Atavista last night, and he’s announced a New Zealand show too. The Atlanta star and Coachella headliner will play Spark Arena with Amaarae on January 28 as part of Donald Glover’s New World Tour. Pre-sales begin on Thursday at midday.

• A while back, local scuzz-rockers Earth Tongue told me about their impressively huge European jaunt. They’re out there doing their thing right now, and to help document the occasion they’ve started their own Substack. Go check it out!

• Finally, here’s your Eurovision winner, Nemo’s batshit concoction of drum n bass, dance-pop, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’-style genre switches, a lot of falsetto, and some very good co-ordination on children’s playground equipment. Is it music? Dunno!