Paul Williams (journalist)
Paul S. Williams was an American music journalist, writer, and publisher who created Crawdaddy!, the first national US magazine of rock music criticism, in January 1966.
Williams, 1971
Music journalism is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on what is now regarded as classical music. In the 1960s, music journalism began more prominently covering popular music like rock and pop after the breakthrough of The Beatles. With the rise of the internet in the 2000s, music criticism developed an increasingly large online presence with music bloggers, aspiring music critics, and established critics supplementing print media online. Music journalism today includes reviews of songs, albums and live concerts, profiles of recording artists, and reporting of artist news and music events.
Music journalists (from left to right) Robert Christgau and Ann Powers and musicology professor Charles Kronengolm at the 2007 Pop Conference at Seattle's Experience Music Project
Hector Berlioz, active as a music journalist in Paris in the 1830s and 1840s
Richard Goldstein (pictured at the 2015 EMP Pop Conference) was the first American music critic to focus on rock music.
American pop music critic Ann Powers
