1. Turn it back on the journalist. How much do they know about music? Can they even play hot cross buns on a ukele? Hmm? They probably don’t even know what an E flat sounds like. They wish they were a *real* musician but went into writing cuz they sucked at music and resent everyone who doesn’t.

2. Decide the journalist is a petulant, joyless bastard who hasn’t gotten laid in a year. “Yeah, I bet all you do is sit in your dirty, weedsmoke room masturbating while making ironic comments on 4chan.”

3. Decide the writer doesn’t deserve his job, which you imagine to be a well-paying gig at a relevant publication but is actually a freelance deal that he doesn’t get paid for. Write a letter to his editor with links to weird stuff about him you found on Google.

4. Cry. Why are people so mean?

5. Tweet about the immature people in the world who are trying to take down all the creative types who are. just. trying. to make. a difference.

6. Send the writer a Facebook message that says, “Why do you hate me? I’m just trying to make music.” Check 30 times a day for his response.

7. The next time a blog disses you, get your publicist to threaten legal action if they don’t take the review down. Call the editors and tell them it’s slander, and kinda homophobic too.

8. Cry. Let all your emotion out on your next album, which gets so real that ANY journalist would be crazy to hate it.

–Becky Lang was once begged by a PR person to fire a journalist who had written a negative review.