I’d like to take a moment and just express my gratitude to everyone who has shared, liked, and subscribed recently. <3

I see a lot of folks on Substack (and on other social media) routinely bellyaching about their lack of paid subscribers or avenue to achieving their version of fame and fortune through their writing. I’d like to go the other way and send my love and appreciation to everyone who has amplified my minuscule corner of the music criticism wing on this platform. Whatever a fraction of a percent if the world’s content that may be.

I do this for fun, without any illusions that the world owes me anything, and it’s the conversations and story-swapping that still get me excited to get my butt in the chair, the hands on the keys, and move through my next album review. Without you, those don’t happen.

At over 1.5k subs (not saying that as a flex, btw), my total readership is now far bigger than the capacity of the largest lecture hall at my university. Imagine if this was an in-person endeavor? More than a thousand people in a room, choosing to listen to what I have to say about the Beatles or Wu-Tang or whatever. It’s insane. It’s beyond what I could’ve ever imagined for this newsletter when I started it. The weekly notes of encouragement mean the world. Seriously.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.