We’re not going to lie, writing about music is easy. But there are a few undemanding things you can do to make your writing more interesting and our lives as editors a shade easier. First of all, whilst it’s not essential, we really recommend you come along to our meetings in Student Development on Wednesday afternoons, at 4pm. Most of all because it’s great for us to put a name to a face, but it’s also where we hand out our review material, such as tickets for live shows, CDs, interview opportunities, etc. Generally though you can write about whatever albums, singles or shows you want, just follow the style guide below and email them in to music@redbrickonline.co.uk. Obviously we can’t print all of the articles we receive, but there’s also the Redbrick website, which receives thousands of views every week! Articles need to be in by Sunday evening to be considered for that week’s paper.

Just write your article in a word document and attach it to an email, make sure you include your name, twitter username (if you have one), and any other information required such as a star rating. Also, if you have an account on the Redbrick website, we can credit the article to your account when we publish it. Just go to http://www.redbrickpaper.co.uk/wp-login.php?action=register to register, and include your username with your review!

In articles, we use italics for album names, and single quotes for a ‘track name’. Quotes also use a single quote mark.

We run several different flavours of article: Album/EP reviews, Single reviews, Live reviews, and Features.

 

Album/EP reviews

These should cover elements like overall sound or genre, production values and the progression/differences from other work if it’s not the artist’s debut. More idiosyncratic talking points like topicality, lyrical content and artwork are at your own discretion, talk about whatever you are comfortable with, essentially. Every review has got to come with a star rating out of 5 and at least one artist that the album sounds like, just added in at the bottom. Definitely feel free to review a release that you loathe, as those reviews are usually always a good read! Should preferably be of a recent release from within the last 2-3 weeks.

Approximate print word count: 200-300 words.

Examples: Frank Ocean – Channel ORANGE | The Shins – Port Of Morrow | Frank Turner – England Keep My Bones

 

Single reviews

Brief review of a latest single release, preferably within the last 2 weeks.

Approximate print word count: 150 words.

Examples: Jai Paul – Jasmine | Enter Shikari – Arguing With Thermometers | Foo Fighters – Rope

 

Live reviews

Try to focus on things like acoustics, crowd mood, lighting and lasers as they are just as important as band performance for giving an idea of the complete experience. Live reviews don’t need a star rating.

Approximate print word count: 250-300 words.

Examples: Madonna | Blur | The Stranglers

 

Features

We run a variety of different features throughout the year, varying from special one-offs to interviews with bands.

Interviews: Our most common kind of feature, usually titled “Redbrick meets…”. They’re usually offered to us through promoters and we hand out the interviews to our writers at our Wednesday meetings, but if miraculously your neighbour knows a guy whose friend went to school with a promoter who could get you an interview with Dave Grohl, then by all means go for it and let us know!

Interviews might be conducted over the phone, by email or face-to-face. In all cases it’s important to devise questions beforehand that give the interviewee a chance to wax lyrical on topics that you would like to know. It’s best to take a dictaphone along with you so that you don’t have to try and scribble everything down whilst they’re chatting to you. If you don’t have one, let us know and we’ll see what we can do.

Since we only have limited space in the paper, it’s best to write up your interview as a feature, giving some context of where you met up with them and what the occasion was, as opposed to a list of questions and answers. But do still send in a full transcript along with the cut down article as we can put it online, along with the audio recording if you wish.

Approximate print word count: 500 words.

Examples: Kaiser Chiefs | The Vaccines | Frank Turner

Essential Albums: One of our regular features is our essential albums list. It generally just features articles that people believe should be in everyone’s record collection, so consider it the perfect opportunity to express your crazed love of your favourite albums. The writing style for them is up to you, but it’s good to talk about the context of their release and their impact on the musical landscape, as well as their sound.

Approximate print word count: 400-500 words.

Examples: Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced? | Outkast – Speakerboxx/The Love Below | Nirvana – Nevermind

Redbrick Music’s Essential Guide To… : Similar to the essential albums feature, but where you highlight a band who you think are maybe a little overlooked, or are difficult to get into for a new listener. Just highlight their best 3/4 albums, explain why, and maybe compile a a top 10 list of their best tracks and why. These articles will probably be online exclusives, since we can enhance them with YouTube videos, a Spotify Playlist of your top 10 tracks, and even an interactive timeline of their career. If you’re interested in doing one of these, email us and our online editor Josh will get back to you and show you what we can do to make it look great on the website!

$#*! My Dad Sings To: A humorous feature where you get to name and shame your Dad for his musical taste. Nothing too serious, but definitely include the most embarrassing photo of your Dad that you have!

Approximate print word count: 400-500 words.

Example: Charlotte Lytton

Opinion: We also have opinion pieces, sometimes titled “This Much I Know..” Basically just your a piece on whatever you love or loathe in the music world, from your hatred of Madonna, to questioning the motives behind the series of band reformations over the past few years.

Approximate print word count: 500 words.

Example: Band Reformations: For The Fans?

One offs: If you have a great idea for a feature piece, then either let us know, or just write it! We’ve had loads of great one off features over the past year, so let us know if you have any thoughts!

Examples: Our Monarch In Music | Whitney Houston: An Obituary