We Need To Talk
I think it's time to reassess my relationship to this newsletter.
The past few months have been magical. I adore writing this and have been introduced to treasure troves of music that I never would have found without it, but the cost is beginning to become too high.
For starters, I spend about 5-7 hours putting this together every week. As I start this new full-time job, it's no longer sustainable for me to commit this much time. But also, and perhaps more importantly, I'm realizing that my commitment to new music is causing me to not discover music that already exists. Being hyperaware that every single week has four or more full albums coming out that I'm excited for is kinda awful.
I want to be able to sit down and realize that while I have tickets to see Chris Farren in June, I haven't really gotten to know any of his solo work. I want to be able to take a week and just dive into his back catalog and damn everything else that's asking for my time. I want to be able to enjoy stuff that's more than seven days old without feeling like I'm neglecting the homework that I have to do in order to write about new music in a thorough sense.
So, here's the deal.
I'm going to keep making the playlist every week. It won't be as thorough and I'm going to miss a ton of shit that's worth hearing, but it'll have a lot more of my personal fingerprints on it.
It'll be a shorter playlist that's more meaningful to who I am personally and I'm only going to write about the stuff where I have something to say that can't be discerned from a press release.
Writing this newsletter is a joy for me. Truly. But too much of a good thing can make you sick and I want to throw up just thinking about having to face down another week of feeling as though I'm responsible for listening to and curating five hours of incredible music. It's too much to do every week.
This week, I'm going to take some time to myself. I might not even write a newsletter. Maybe I'll just send out the email blast and it'll be nothing but a link to the playlist, but I suspect I won't be able to help myself and I'll point to something or another that's caught my eye. What I'm not going to do, though, is point excitedly at every song that comes out. Excitement costs me too much for that, at this point.
I'll see you Friday. In the meantime, my friend B just put out an incredible EP today. I've shared music from Happy Birthday Mr. Baskets before, because I adore B's specific brand of hyperpop, and they've really upped the ante for sorry that I'm like this. I listened to it three times today, in between Chris Farren records. I nearly lost it when I finally heard the lyrics that close out the second track:
Sorry that I'm like this
I'm just waiting for the trauma response to hit
Didn't mean to make this your problem
You didn't sign up for the things it comes with
//
Sorry that I'm like this
The least I can do is stay silent
Fade into the background
'Til you decide if you want me around
Happy Birthday Mr. Baskets - trauma response
Isn't it nice to know that someone else feels like this, too? It's hard to engage with anyone at this point without having something brush up against trauma that I've lived through. It doesn't feel like that should have to be everyone else's problem, though. I'm trying to learn how to walk that fine line between sharing and oversharing and I honestly don't feel equipped for this. It'd be so much easier to just continue to play the background in social situations, but I don't want to be a background player in my own life, so I have to fucking figure this shit out.
Thanks, B, for sharing your shit and helping me think about mine a little more.
I'll see you all on Friday, for what I hope is a new, more sustainable chapter in this newsletter's life.