Music Writer Eric R. Danton Joins Fluence

Fluence builds software for people who share and receive media actively. For fun or business, our platform helps curators, journalists, bloggers, DJs, writers, and other tastemakers manage the media submitted to them, give feedback, and share.

Eric R. Danton is one of the latest people to start using Fluence. He is a prolific contributor and journalist for The Wall Street Journal, Salon, Paste MagazineM Music & Musicians, Diffuser.fm, ListenDammit.com, and more. The Fluence team is super-jazzed to feature Eric and share more from him.

Eric R. Danton on Fluence

Eric has contributed to “Schools That Rock: The Rolling Stone College Guide” and American Songwriter, as well as the bygone publications Spinner.com, No Depression, Performing Songwriter, and Ironminds.com. He was also rock critic at the Hartford Courant in Connecticut from 2002-2012 and regularly appears on the Best New Song of the Week segment on WRSI-FM in Northampton, Mass.

We had the chance to ask Eric a few questions about his career and highly enjoyed his recommendations for finding fresh cultural news and emerging artists. Take a look!

You’re now one of the foremost writers on music and pop culture for RollingStone.com, The Wall Street Journal, Salon, and more. During the start of your career, what motivated you to begin writing about music?

I started as a news reporter who wrote about music on the side. It was a way to engage with something I love and have been fascinated with since I was a kid, and it didn’t hurt that it meant getting free CDs, either.

Did you ever receive a piece of inspiring advice from someone early in your career?

When I started as the rock critic at The Hartford Courant in 2002, I asked David Segal, then the critic at the Washington Post, what advice he had for a newbie? His take: “listen to as much music as you can, read as much about it as you can and cover the beat as if you were a foreign correspondent, bringing your readers reports from a place many of them will never go.” Great advice, all of it.

Who are three music writers you deeply respect?

Jon Pareles at The New York Times is the best music writer in the country, period. He has deep knowledge, far-reaching taste and an enviable elegance of style. I also greatly admire the late, great Ellen Willis for her smart criticism and conversational style, and Michael Azerrad, whose book ‘Our Band Could Be Your Life‘ is essential reading.

Do you have any favorite websites or avenues for finding new artists or cultural news?

The best way to find artists is by word of mouth from trusted sources (friends, certain publicists, writers you respect) and by listening to a lot of music, which seemingly shows up of its own accord in substantial quantities.

The New Yorker, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Paste magazine, NPR and Salon are all in regular rotation for cultural news.

What single piece of advice would you give to aspiring or emerging artists?

Don’t be boring.


Follow Eric’s Tumblr here to read some of his outstanding reviews, and check out Listen Dammit to get your rock ’n’ roll fix. You can send media directly to Eric here. Eric doesn’t charge anything to review your media, so don’t be shy! It’s easy and free.

Request a beta account for your own profile here, and we’ll get you set up as we build the system. If you’re looking to get feedback and exposure for your media, send it to curators and experts here on Fluence.