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Perhaps if the story I tell is too fantastic, no one will believe it. I was always taught as a writer to be able to help the reader along to suspend their disbelief. Honestly, I look at the world around me and see plenty of things I can’t believe are true. Yet they are. I…
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When Taylor Swift dropped 1989 in 2014, she was pivoting the entire pop landscape. That record captured a generational shift: the country girl had fully transformed into a pop architect, and the world adjusted to her new rules. Ten years later, a similar moment may be unfolding—not in the stadiums of the most powerful artist…
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Coming across an article in the New Yorker called “How music criticism lost its edge” (behind paywall), it got me thinking: Has criticism gone shallow in its quest for safety? And what does that mean for cultural honesty? What passes for “criticism” right now often feels like risk-managed copywriting wrapped in pseudo-thoughtful language. It’s less…
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Jonathan Leland begins his 2010 paper “The hunt for a descriptive theory of choice under risk—A view from the road not taken” for the Journal of Socio-Economics.with a confession: his life’s path could have turned on trivial choices. A missed concert or an elective taken on a whim, and suddenly he’s not writing about decision…
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Freud unmasks us as murderous angels—civilization’s hypocrisy hides our primitive psyche, where love and hate entwine, and even our gentlest virtues are born of cruelty. Sigmund Freud’s Reflections on War and Death from 1915, written just six months after the beginning of World War I, reads like a mirror polished just enough to show the…
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Back in 2022, Substack writer Heath Racela got to meet legendary musician Ben Folds. Apparently, Folds holds master classes now, this one being in Concord, MA. The key take away that Heath mentioned in his write-up: “embrace the messiness of learning” Other keys: songs as a three-act story, “balance between the liberal and the practical”…
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“Cultural Moneyballism, in this light, sacrifices exuberance for the sake of formulaic symmetry. It sacrifices diversity for the sake of familiarity. It solves finite games at the expense of infinite games. Its genius dulls the rough edges of entertainment. I think that’s worth caring about. It is definitely worth asking the question: In a world…
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The 28% Problem There is a growing, uneasy sense that popular music has stopped moving forward. This isn’t just a feeling; it’s a fact. As music critic Ted Gioia pointed out in his 2022 essay “The Nostalgic Turn in Music Writing,” new songs now account for less than 30% of current demand—and that number continues…
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When I stumbled upon an early draft titled “Hierarchy of Ideas,” I realized that I had the bones of a schema that can sit alongside my CRAP framework as a kind of “compass” for orienting ideas. So, I decided to build my original ramblings into more useful, straightforward terms. I’ve thought a lot about what…
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Finally got around to parsing my notes from this solid book on writing. Here are the 11 points that I made sure to write down, reshaped and summarized for your reading pleasure. 1. Write short (and prune without mercy) Bernoff’s “write short” advice stings, because I’m allergic to brevity. Still, pruning works; like trimming a…