It’s time for all in the pop-writing business to realise that the game has changed

There are many resolutions a pop writer like muggins here could make at this time of year. I could resolve never ever to confidently predict that a gig is not going to sell out when, in fact, 80,000 fans head off and buy a ticket for Guns ’N’ Roses’ forthcoming Irish show within 24 hours of the same items going on sale. That would be a fairly good resolution to make. You could keep that one.

Or I could resolve to be nicer to all Irish bands. Less snark, more positivity. Less awful, more awesome. Fewer two-star reviews, more this-is-the-best-thing-I’ve-ever-heard kind of thing. Then again, do you really want another of those anodyne, banal, beige, dull and colourless writers praising every single Irish release which comes his or her way? Thought not.

Another resolution which might make life easier would be to stop writing about certain things. Stop writing about ticket touts and the secondary ticketing market, for example.

Stop asking about how and who exactly is involved in getting large quantities of tickets for sold-out shows to the resellers. Stop thinking out loud about how easy it would be to nip this greedy practice in the bud. There’s a resolution which would save me all sorts of aggro and would be a good look in many quarters for 2017, but it’s probably not going to happen.

Perhaps the resolution for 2017 should really be to stop writing about pop full stop. Like, do we really need music writers to run the rule over tunes and trends and tracks any more when all the releases are out there on Spotify, Soundcloud, Bandcamp and whatever-you’re-having-yourself before our words appear on the page or screen?

Meanwhile, the rise and rise of the surprise album drop has rendered a lot of our trade null and void. There is something quite sad about a big-name album landing on a Friday morning and hacks working their hoops off to try to get the FIRST review online. We’re listening to it at the same time as everyone else and, like, that’s all we have to say about it?

Much of the pop game has changed (although we still have the album, by the way), but the way of covering the pop game remains stubbornly the same as it was when those OGs from the 1970s were starting out with their notebooks, tape-recorders and access-all-areas passes.

We cover music in a way the hacks of old would recognise: interviews with lads and lasses talking about how and why they make music, reviews of new releases and news stories about stuff which pop stars do. No wonder we’re talking about relevancy.

It’s time for all in the pop-writing business to cop on that the game has changed. Readers don’t want what they can find anywhere else or work out on their own. Readers want context and colour and smartness and insights. Yes, some want to know about Thom Yorke giving out about Spotify, but others want to know just if that criticism really stacks up. And it’s those readers who should be our core audience.

So the resolution for 2017 is about adding more contextual width and depth, as opposed to the current additional width and depth from a season of over-eating and feasting on chocolate Kimberleys.

The pop world has changed and it’s up to those of us lucky enough to still make a living from covering that beat to change too. More digging, more in-depth coverage, more working out why two and two doesn’t always necessarily add up to four: we’ll see you on the other side.