WLeslie Conway "Lester" Bangs was an American music journalist, critic, author, and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock music criticism. The music critic Jim DeRogatis called him "America's greatest rock critic".
WMark R. Beech FRSA was a British author, journalist and broadcaster. Best known for his two books on the origins of names in rock music, and for his columns about music and the arts, Beech was the editor of DANTE magazine. A fellow of the UK Royal Society of Arts, he lived in London.
WGeoffrey Cannon is an English author, journalist and former magazine editor, and scholar. From 1968 to 1972, he was the music critic for The Guardian, a role that made him the first dedicated rock critic at a British daily newspaper. Having worked as the arts editor for New Society magazine, he became editor of the BBC publication Radio Times from 1969 to 1979. During that time, he also wrote on music and pop culture for The Listener, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, Creem, Rock et Folk, Melody Maker and Time Out.
WRobert Thomas Christgau is an American essayist and music journalist. One of the earliest professional rock critics, he spent 37 years as the chief music critic and senior editor for The Village Voice, during which time he created and oversaw the annual Pazz & Jop poll. He has also covered popular music for Esquire, Creem, Newsday, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Billboard, NPR, Blender, and MSN Music, and was a visiting arts teacher at New York University. Among the most revered and influential of music critics, he has been described by CNN senior writer Jamie Allen as "the E.F. Hutton of the music world – when he talks, people listen."
WRobert Hilburn is an American pop music critic, author, and radio host. As critic and music editor at the Los Angeles Times from 1970 to 2005, his reviews, essays and profiles appeared in publications around the world. Hilburn has since written a memoir and best-selling biographies of Johnny Cash and Paul Simon. He was a member of the nominating committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for more than 20 years and lives in Los Angeles.
WJessica Hopper is an American writer. She published The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic, a compilation of her essays, reported pieces, zines, and reviews, in May 2015. In 2018, she published a memoir, Night Moves.
WNick Kent is a British rock critic and musician.
WGreil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics.
WEvelyn McDonnell is an American writer and academic. Writing primarily about popular culture, music, and society, she "helped to forge a new kind of feminism for her generation." She is associate professor of journalism and new media at Loyola Marymount University.
WJeffrey Morgan is a Canadian writer and photographer who is best known for being the authorized biographer of both Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop and The Stooges. He is also the writer of the graphic novel The Brides of Mister X and Other Stories which Rolling Stone called "one of the 50 best non-superhero graphic novels".
WPaul Robert Morley is an English music journalist. He wrote for the New Musical Express from 1977 to 1983 and has since written for a wide range of publications. He was a co-founder of the record label ZTT Records and was a member of the synthpop group Art of Noise. He has also been a band manager, promoter and television presenter.
WPiero Scaruffi is an Italian-American freelance software consultant, university lecturer, and writer who maintains a website on which his reviews of music, film, and art are published. He has created his own publishing society called Omnipublishing that exclusively releases his books about music and science.
WArt, Artem, Artemiy or Artemy Troitsky is a Russian journalist, music critic, concert promoter, radio host, and academic who has lectured on music journalism at Moscow State University. He was born in Yaroslavl, then in the Soviet Union. In 1988 he was described in The New York Times as "the leading Soviet rock critic" as one of the foremost propagandists of rock music in the USSR.