_{By Michael Luce, Editor}

Battle of the Bands — what a wonderfully chaotic thing. Every season, we have the opportunity to see group after group put on brilliant sets during some of the best-run competitions music can offer. The emotion, the passion, and the excitement are at an all-time high, and the result is incredible. To say we’re major fans of BotB is a huge understatement.

Yet, to some it might seem like our coverage at Provo Music Magazine indicates otherwise. Over the years, we’ve had bands, friends and families of performers, community members, venue owners, and others share their thoughts on our seasonal Battle of the Bands coverage, with a few expressing they feel we’re more interested in airing the dirty laundry of the acts competing than building the community. As The Boardwalk’s Spring Battle of the Bands kicks off next Tuesday, we figured now was the perfect chance to open up the conversation about what bands and fans alike can expect from our coverage.

With this post, our goal is to address the questions of why we cover BotB the way we do, apologize for the spots where we haven’t always gotten it right, and increase transparency for what to expect from coverage moving forward. While this isn’t the final time we expect to be having this conversation, we hope this can serve as a guiding document for those looking to understand our coverage in the months and years to come.

Why is PMM so critical in BotB posts?

We here at Provo Music Magazine pride ourselves on being a primarily positive publication, offering honest feedback for artists while still focusing on what they are doing well. Some have even criticized our reviews for being too positive. This saccharine style is by design though, as we genuinely want everyone to feel welcome making and sharing their art, namely music.

However, there are four weeks every year where the tone shifts: Battle of the Bands. Compared to our usual coverage, our BotB recaps can feel more critical — especially for bands getting public feedback for the first time. While we still absolutely want everyone to walk away feeling welcome making their own music, Battle of the Bands is uniquely a competition environment, meaning our coverage style also has to shift. (Side note: We understand music as a competition is a weird thing. We could write a whole extra post about our thoughts there, but we’ll save that for another day.)

However, these events can be opportunities for growth, dialogue, and connection if all parties are on the same page going in. With that in mind, here are four reasons we include criticism in our recaps:

1. To provide an honest review of the experience

At Provo Music Magazine, we tend not to review live performances, as there’s not much reason for readers to catch up on a show they missed; it’s over. BotBs, however, often serve as a first look into up-and-coming musicians in the scene, and fans looking to attend finals will often check previous nights to see what each group brings to the table. Additionally, a review contains (by definition) both the good and the bad, and we’d be doing our audience a disservice to focus only on one aspect of the night.

2. To provide bands with honest and concrete feedback

The second (and arguably biggest) reason we include criticism is so the groups that performed have a place to turn to for suggestions on how to continue honing their craft. Every night, after the winner has been announced, our writers (acting as judges) stick around and talk to the bands, providing them with feedback on their performance and explaining the decisions that were made. Sometimes, it takes someone outside your family and close friends to tell you when things need to change. Now, anyone who has ever tried to remember a long list of suggestions after a stressful moment can tell you that very very little of what is said afterwards is bound to be remembered by the next morning. We understand mental energy is low after a set, so we make sure our feedback is accessible for the bands whenever they’re rested up and ready for the next steps.

“So why not just email the bands with the notes directly instead of making it public?” you might be asking yourself. Well, that gets to our third reason:

3. To help bands learn how to sort through criticism for themselves

Look, it hurts to put your heart into creating something, let yourself be vulnerable enough to share it with the world, and then have someone push back on it and probe at it with the leering eye of criticism. Anyone who has ever posted their work online likely remembers their first-ever hate comment. If musicians are to find success, find their voice, and weather the storm that is being a creative in the 2020s, they need to learn how to take some pushback and then how to sort through which of that pushback is valid and which is just noise they can ignore. We’d rather these groups get their first “hate” from a source they can trust is interested in seeing the scene grow and thrive rather than some faceless rando on the internet.

And the best part? You don’t have to take our advice if you don’t think it’s valid. We’ve had bands push back, even calling out the magazine in their music when they found the comments didn’t ring true, and that’s freakin sick. The fact is, they were able to grow through the criticism and into greater confidence as themselves, and that’s awesome.

4. To help future competitors understand the BotB format and expectations

Finally, being honest about the flaws in the performances help bands in later battles understand what makes the difference between a good performance and a winning one. Hearing that judges look for musicality, performance, etc. are all good, but getting examples of what another band did well or poorly is one of the best ways for a group to figure out what the heck those categories even mean. We all build on the foundations laid by those who come before us, and some lessons don’t need to be learned again and again and again.

Now, have we always gotten it right?

Oh, absolutely not. Like everyone, we’ve made mistakes and let things go to print that probably should have stayed as drafts. There have been jokes that went too far, a few backhanded compliments, overenthusiastic aspiring critics, and more than one genre misdiagnosis. We’ve had some recaps that have been overly harsh, overly nice, off-topic, meandering, out-of-touch, and downright poorly written. For all of these, we sincerely apologize. But just like how we provide feedback to bands to help them improve, our readership has responded and let us know when we’ve been in the wrong. Because of this feedback, we’ve been able to refine some of these hard edges and have been working towards a better experience for writers, bands, and fans alike.

And instead of scrubbing our site of all instances of wrongdoing (except in extreme circumstances), we’ve chosen to leave these pieces up so you can verify yourself that we’re improving and are taking our responsibility as the voice of the Mountain West music scene seriously.

A push for transparency

All this said, our goal has never been to blindside anyone with our coverage. We’ve recently learned that some bands aren’t even aware of Provo Music Magazine or our coverage until their faces are front-and-center on our Instagram page. To groups like this, it makes sense they’d see us as a bunch of haters — their first exposure to our content comes during our most critical week of the quarter!

Because of this, we’ve begun working with venue owners to ensure bands are informed about our coverage before they commit to play at BotB, encouraging those who might not be ready for this feedback process to postpone participation until a later battle. We’ll also be linking this post on all future articles announcing BotB submissions so prospective applicants are aware of what participating groups can expect to get out of the experience.

As for the recaps themselves, each of our writers for BotB are hand-selected by the editorial team because of their skill in writing, time with the magazine, and attention to detail. They are fellow musicians, active members of the scene, and some of the most prolific music writers in the state of Utah. They have attended dozens (if not hundreds) of concerts, met with local bands, and are massive fans of music above all else. Rest assured, if you’re wondering “who are these people?”, they’re not just some random internet trolls without a connection to what’s happening; they too have the health of the scene close to their hearts.

Different ears, different takes

Finally, we aren’t asking you to agree with what we share or even the way we cover these events. Everyone is going to have a different opinion and approach, and that’s what makes a music scene so beautiful and diverse. However, we hope we can build mutual respect with those who disagree, as there are methods to our madness, and we do what we do because we genuinely care for the health and growth of the music scene and industry here in Utah.

If there are genuine concerns or areas where things go too far, we also welcome feedback and conversation. Provo Music Magazine and its predecessors have been covering these events for nearly a decade now, and while we’ve got a lot of things figured out, we also know there’s always room to grow. Please feel free to reach out to the magazine directly, either via email (provomusicmagazine@gmail.com) or via Instagram DM, instead of messaging the personal accounts of any of our writers.

So to everyone performing, attending, cheering from the pit, and especially those organizing the shows: a heartfelt thank you for making Battle of the Bands a truly special event and for being an important part of this community. Provo Music Magazine wouldn’t even be here if not for all of you.

Let the battle begin!