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Reviewer A:

	Excellent use of the Rock's Backpages Archive, a pointer to other IASPM
researchers, on other aspcets of the field, in the future.

- Thank you very much!

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Reviewer B:

Thank you so much whoever wrote this, it is utterly refreshing to read a
content analysis of music journalism for our field. So many have focused on
socio-cultural contextualisations that this feels quite substantial. I’m
also delighted to see the mining of such a historically important archive of
our profession. It might be worth pointing out at the outset or in
reflection that RBP is journalist-led in terms of submission rather than a
compulsory repository so by no means complete. 

- Yes, this is a good point, we should have highlighted this more clearly in the version submitted, and have done so in the revised version. We mentioned it as one of the limitations of the study, but have added it to the methods section now, too.

The literature review has a hard task here in terms of setting the scene and
the new Powers book on the emergence of music criticism in the States,
specifically around Village Voice, is worth a mention. 

- Yes, we used the dissertation version of the book and should have included the reference to the book. Thank you.

Both in the literature review and around the context for the data capture itself, there
could be some more clarity about the reach of the research and data set in
terms of country of origin – it leads me to ask if there is a difference
in the spikes/shifting patterns. It might also be worth noting the economic
conditions of recruitment in the UK press which was inspired by that of
their States counterparts – the style might have been the zeitgeist but
the bottom line was circulation was the key to the hiring of the new
journalists. That said the shift then into the commercial straightjackets is
well conveyed here but I would argue it is still worth maintaining that this
is not universal (thank goodness!).

- Good points. We have added some text to the methods section, and some additional discussion in the conclusion regarding these.

Content analysis is a good tool and works well. For what it is worth a
critical discourse analysis might add the dimension of industry as
institution so it might be prudent to make that as a specific suggestion to
add to the section on future research. 

- Thanks for the suggestion, we've added mention of this.

What I really enjoyed about this paper was the exemplification which is very
supportive of the thematic considerations and it felt natural to link back
using Sanjeck to come round to the point about music journalism as a form of
publicity although the potential of music journalism to challenge isn’t
there – I think one of the joys of creating, consuming and studying this
area is that it can be all those things at ones.

- Thank you!

Finally a very, very small point – you could make a comment that Harris
was a music journalist himself first – perhaps that’s why he argues for
aspirational music journalism?

- Thanks, we have done so.