“Rock Journalism - is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read” (Frank Zappa comment

What the hell is this? Never heard of Rock Journalism in my life and beside who is this Frank Zappa – don’t judge me if he is popular and if I am supposed to know who he is... It is very funny that I am in media and communications, yet I am not aware of this type of journalism. So, i will just take a stab at trying to explain what this really means, to me.

This is what I think Mr Frank Zappa was trying to tell us. Well, as I have already mentioned, I think that it is a type of journalism whereby the journalist in charge specifically writes on the music genre, rock. So this person would be profiling rock musician, giving an overview of the industry and keeping the relevant targeted public abreast on current affairs about their music preference.

As we may all know, Music is an universal language where people all around the world would be able to understand the next ones feeling through the music that they play. With specific reference to Rock music, it is one of those genre where if performed, one can automatically pick up the emotion of the artist. It is a very emotional genre and artist of rock do not need to write, talk or read because the music says speaks for them.

Rock is such a big music industry, yet fan of this genre know most of the artist, including the older ones. As a journalist in this industry, you do not need to write pages and pages like other journalist would do to communicate the message, but rather, the pictures of the artist i.e. instruments, costumes, accessories and the make-up, just tells you all you need to know and the people who they communicate to usually already know it anyway.