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Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive weekly curation of my favorite songs and links. All typos are intentional.
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Well, hello there. How are you?
I missed last week’s newsletter. Apologies. Life got in the way. That also explains why there’s no podcast this week. Hoping to set the next one up soon.
Also, yes, today is Friday, not Wednesday. That’s because …
This Week’s Thing: Newsletters
Very meta, I know, but stay with me.
I hit a few speed bumps this week in how I managed my time. New work came up. Friends came in and out of town. I’ve been spending more of my evenings and weekends out of the house. Which is great. Yet within the past few months, this newsletter began to crystallize into something that imposed a certain expectation on my life. That I had to be free for a certain number of hours and days per week to devote to this newsletter. A newsletter I still love, by the way. It’s great when I have these hours and days in the week. It’s great until that time is gone. Then it’s bad. But I don’t regret this time spent.
So something, eventually, has got to give.
Or does it?
Can it also adapt … and, like, relax a litte?
Did I learn about the concept of “taking yourself less seriously?”
Maybe.
Why are you looking at me like that.
Stop it.
See, I’m trying something new this week.
Another reason why this newsletter is free this week: As I spend more time on post-COVID Internet, I now have no idea how newsletters work, or frankly, how anything on the Internet works anymore.
Have I ever known? Maybe not. But at least I could understand the shapes and outlines of discussions held by my friends and colleagues. I knew who I was speaking to.
Now it’s just a blur of … I don’t even know? Calling it brainrot makes it sound funnier and more useful than it actually is. Outside of Instagram, where most of my actually enjoyable brainrotlives, most of this stuff is just …. stuff? And we’re still so serious about it. Stuff like viral newsletter posts titled “This is how this ends.” and it’s 30,000 words long and it’s about something vaguely interesting but not useful like an analysis on the reclaiming of The King of the Hill by The Left (or The Right or The Center or Whatever Keeps You Up At Night) and it has a dramatic lede and the rest is poorly written and it has 561 likes and it ranked No. 1 on Hacker News and it turns out that the post only cited two or three people who have actually watched King of the Hill.
No disrespect to King of the Hill, of course.
Can we bring “dislike” buttons to Substack?
Can we bring public “dislike” buttons back to YouTube?
Can we add a “This caught my attention but I found your point uninteresting or bland so I’d like my time back please” button to everything?
So, I felt confused this week, more so than usual.
I think about this newsletter’s paywall, too.
I think about the “value” of what I do as a writer, and more specifically, the value of this newsletter, with my links and mixtapes.
I think I’ve been approaching it wrong.
Not totally wrong.
But for a while, I was curious to learn and understand if the most valuable thing about what I offer as a writer, thinker, builder, and professional music listener and seeker—the “thing” you’d pay me for—was my curation. Or at least, you’d pay for my taste.
I think it’s still true.
In fact, I know it’s still true.
So many of you send very nice emails (and even tell me in person if you’re also in LA) about all the great music you discover through this newsletter.
These emails always make me smile. I always appreciate them.
And believe me: I stand by my taste.
“You have really good taste,” my mom said, in a conversation I just made up to prove my point. (Hi, Mom.)
I stand by what I offer.
But I think I’m going to rethink what “value” means, especially when it comes to the literal money spent in exchange for the content on this newsletter, or some kind of access.
More to come, of course.
And yes, for everyone this week: Please enjoy the free newsletter.
I put a lot of work into these links and tunes.
There’s a lot of bad stuff out there. I’m protecting you from all those imaginary King of the Hill thinkpieces you were never going to read anyway. I do it out of love, of course.
Happy Friday.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.