We're really stoked to bring you this post on music PR language

If you ask me (and I'm the only one here so ... well you kind of have to), so if you ask me ... entertainment industry PR-speak is possibly the most debased form of language known to wo/man. People are desperately trying to get you to attend their particular music event or buy their new record - and they're determined to scrape the bottom of the barrel a little harder than everyone else. You know the gibberish they come out with. Stuff like:

-"We're really stoked by" (insert title of new product) = we're pretending to be excited by

-"We're really psyched by" = [ditto]

-"Here at (insert name) towers" = a small company that affects to be very different to a large corporation but isn't

-"Those nice people at" (insert record label) = a business we receive product from

-"Sick" = in our opinion good, but we have to say sick to make our questionable taste appear up-to-date

-"(Insert record company) let us take a sneak preview of" = this was all carefully PR-d but we're trying to create the impression that it isn't and that you're getting some kind of unique access

-"Do yourself a favour, get down to" (add event) = we're desperate for people to attend

"You lucky people" = customers/potential customers

And so on. The people who churn out this nonsense either don't care whether you might find it authentic or (like me) an utter turn-off, or they have such tin ears they don't catch the strain of phoniness it contains. To be honest I find it difficult to even read a lot of music blogs and newspaper reviewers because of the dead-hand of PR puffery. (As such, there's probably a lot more of this pseudo-writing out there ...). In addition to the sheer awfulness of the prose, you just know the appraisals are bogus. The two are surely related. Anyone who writes this way simply can't be a decent judge of music. So no and thrice times no! It just won't do. Granted, no critical writing on music (or anything else) can be absolutely pure, an unsullied output free of the taint of prior contacts and outside influence. Much less the music biz. But still, what we're being subjected to just insults our intelligence. The answer, of course, is just to ignore it all and move over to something better. To what? Well there's always Niluccio on noise (no, only joking). No, check out people like Byron Coley at The Wire, in particular his Size Matters column. Now there's a person whose music writing is so enjoyable to read I don't even care if it's the result of PR skullduggery ....