Interview for Music Journalism Insider with Todd L. Burns
In 2018, my work with Red Bull Music Academy gave me the opportunity to identify a bunch of impressive young music journalists in Berlin. Every single person that I asked for a lead mentioned Laura Aha. Laura has since taken on a full-time gig at electronic music bible Groove. In this interview, I asked Laura a lot of questions about the German language music journalism landscape and she was more than happy to outline what’s going on there these days.
Tell me a bit about yourself and your current job.
My name is Laura Aha and I am Berlin-based music journalist currently working as an editor for Germany’s longest standing electronic music magazine GROOVE. The topics that interest me mostly circle around pop, club culture, and feminism, which I have been writing about for about four years for different magazines such as Musikexpress, Spex, Nicetry Magazine and kaput mag, as well as for daily newspapers like taz. Die Tageszeitung and Die Welt.
If I went to a normal newsagent in Germany, what music magazines would I probably see? What are they all about?
Unfortunately 2018/19 have not been great years for printed music magazines in Germany. Indie-focussed magazine INTRO Magazine (INTRO GmbH & Co. KG) ended their print and digital outlet completely in 2018, pop-discourse magazine SPEX and electronic music magazine GROOVE (both Piranha media GmbH) stopped their print edition in 2018, the publishers hip hop outlet JUICE (also Piranha GmbH) followed in 2019—all three are continuing online with a subscription model though.
Music magazines you will still be able to see are German edition of Rolling Stone (pretty rock-focussed in comparison to the American version), Metal Hammer (a metal niche outlet), and Musikexpress which touches general topics from indie rock to r’n’b and electronic music (all Axel Springer SE, Berlin). Also you might see Classic Rock and Riddim (Piranha media GmbH, Munich), tech house magazine FAZE (FAZE Music & Verlags GmbH, Wuppertal), Rock Hard (self-explanatory, I guess / Rock Hard Verlags- und Handels-GmbH Dortmund), and indie-magazine VISIONS (VISIONS Verlag GmbH, Dortmund).
What're the bigger online magazines that deal with music in Germany, and what do they focus on?
As hip hop is the most popular youth culture at the moment and the german rap scene is very big, there are a lot of German-language online-only magazines which focus on the German rap scene. JUICE and Backspin were the only former print magazines, as far as I know, similar text-focussed outlets are All Good, hiphop.de and rap.de, though they also create video content on YouTube like 16bars and former splash! mag which turned into Nicetry Magazine in 2019. GROOVE focuses on the German as well as international techno scene, as well as Das Filter (which emerged out of the former print magazine DE:BUG staff). SPEX is dealing with local and international pop discourse topics. Musikexpress (print and online) always finds room for national and Austrian acts, as there is a very active German-language indie rock scene at the moment.
Is there a big online zine scene for music?
There have definitely been a couple of indie magazines popping up in print. I am thinking of Borshch Magazine, GOSH, Das Wetter, Die Epilog. I don’t think there are a lot of relevant “classic music blogs” in the German language at the moment, hip hop magazine All Good comes to mind, as well as frohfroh, kaput mag, and Das Filter which is more of a “proper magazine” now.
There's been a recent spate of online operations like Deadspin that have been bought by private equity firm type enterprises and gutted. Is anything similar to this happening in Germany?
I am not aware of something similar here, no.
How are music magazines dealing with the decline in revenue from ads?
SPEX, GROOVE, and JUICE have started a subscription model similar to the former print subscriptions this year and installed a paywall on there sites, as well as using classic ad and brand partnerships like most free online magazines do. Feminist pop culture magazine Missy Mag have done subscriptions with a “Karma Club” for a little longer. There are new sponsored magazines such as Applause Mag, which is funded by Ticketmaster or Nicetry Magazine, which is funded by Goodlive Booking Agency.
You were involved in a relatively high-profile controversy in the electronic scene a few years ago. Can you describe what happened, and how you feel about it all today?
In 2017 I was writing a tour report for GROOVE about Giegling, a German electronic music label based in Weimar which was quite popular at the time, also internationally. I accompanied the crew for two days in which the head of the collective made a couple of sexist remarks about female DJs in my presence and discussed the matter in a quite an inadequate way with me. After confirming his views with other members of the crew, the GROOVE editorial team (I was a freelancer at the time) and I decided to make his opinions public as part of the article. This caused a controversy in the German scene as well as internationally and sparked a general discourse about sexism and power structures in the electronic music scene.
Of course the uproar on social media was quite upsetting for me at the time, as we hadn’t expected such huge feedback considering the relatively small size of our magazine. And, of course, seeing this DJ getting dropped from festival line-ups and called out on Twitter made me realize the power and responsibility we as journalists have in a very direct way. Still, looking back at the solidarity we got—both by women and men stepping forward—I am convinced we did the right thing not to stay silent about this. This conversation still has to happen and I am very happy that there still are at least some independent magazines like GROOVE who publish critical music journalism.
What's your favorite part of the job?
Meeting people behind the scenes, being allowed to ask all the questions I have, and being able to connect cultural and musical topics with political ones. Also, it always makes me very happy when I manage to sneak women, PoCs, and other marginalized groups into all-male, all-white best lists of mostly all-male, all-white editorial staffs.
Where do you see music journalism headed?
As pop fans grow older, pop music has already become a crucial part of cultural sections of general newspapers and a lot of pop critics have found a spot there. Still, music magazines will remain relevant for genre niches. The general music magazine, which tries to cover everything, will vanish, I guess, as special interest outlets will thrive. As reading and screen time becomes scarce, video and audio formats like podcasts will become more important, especially if magazines try to reach younger audiences. In the internet age, where everything is available to everyone, music journalists no longer hold the position of “gate keepers” they used to have. Instead, they might become more like curators, who sort the flood of information and prioritize accordingly for their readers and listeners.
What would you like to see more of in music journalism right now?
More diversity in editorial teams, especially in leading positions.
What would you like to see less of in music journalism right now?
Less bro-culture—especially in hip hop journalism, where journalists, artists, and labels are too closely connected, in my opinion.
What's one tip that you'd give a music journalist (or editor) starting out right now?
Don’t be scared away by all the name-dropping and nerding out in editorial staff rooms, the things you care about are interesting and relevant enough to join the conversation. In the end, nobody knows as much as they pretend to know and everyone is bluffing all the time anyways. Also: If you’re creative, you will find a way to make money in this field, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise—journalism is one of the best jobs ever, people are just trying to protect their jobs from smart-ass newbies like you.
What artist or trend are you most interested in right now?
I think a lot about how we are going to bridge the gap between the hedonistic lifestyle the electronic music scene (and basically: any music scene) is based on and taking responsibility for the environment in order to create a more sustainable music business—especially as the scene is growing more and more international and ravers and DJs alike fly around the globe every weekend.
What was the best track / video or film / book you've consumed in the past year?
Best track: Bella Boo “Your Girlfriend.”
Best album: Octo Octa - RESONANT BODY.
Best book: Anke Stelling’s Schäfchen im Trockenen