A mission statement, I guess
Why did I start my own Substack? Well, let me explain.
A couple of months back, my friend (and former editor) Chris Schulz messaged me on Facebook to ask a pertinent question for something he was writing.
“What craziness are you committing to here? An album review a day for the whole year? Why?” he wrote, seemingly confused why listening to an album and writing a couple hundred words about it every single day (well, every business day) would appeal to someone.
At the time, I explained that a) I like listening to a wide variety of music and this exercise would force me to do that, and b) I like writing and this exercise would force me to do that, too. But this isn’t something new for 2024. In fact, it goes back a few years now, to a time when I was listening to music selected at random from the book 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die.
But even that isn’t the whole story. Let me explain.
No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
So, the year is 2021 and I’m heading to work on January 6, and I’m picking what to listen to, and it dawns on me that I’ve inadvertently listened to a different album every day so far - six albums in six days. In that moment, I decide to listen to a different album every single day for the rest of the year. I put a call out on social media for recommendations and people make suggestions. I try to focus on the widest variety possible, with at least one NZ album every week, and an attempt to listen to as many 2021 albums as I can stomach (the answer: 60). I was super into TesseracT when I started the exercise. They were album #3.
The first album I counted for this exercise was the Deftones remix album Black Stallion, a track by track remix of White Pony. The last album was Eternal Blue by hard rockers Spiritbox; it was the 355th album I listened to before I gave it up for the year and took a break.
I tried to do it again in 2022, starting on January 8th with Gorillaz’ Song Machine. And I was doing fine until mid-August when my work situation - yes, I’m doing all of this while holding down a job - deteriorated and I decided something had to go. The last album I listened to for this exercise was Lady Gaga’s The Fame; it was #206 for the year, and the date was August 19th.
The thing is, I missed doing it. So I decided to start it up again on January 8th this year, dropping back to 5 albums a week, posting about one each weekday on my social media accounts, including ChrisListensToMusic, an Insta I set up specifically for this task.
I didn’t think much about why until Chris asked me that question back in January. He ended up mentioning me on his Substack (link below). As I say, I told him I like hearing new (or new to me) music, and I like writing - and I like spamming sharing music I find on social media - so it was a no brainer.
My answer was honest, but I don’t think it was the whole truth. I’d also recently listened to an episode of the brilliant podcast Search Engine (link below) that dealt with the challenges of finding new music. Chris came to the question a bit later, following news of Pitchfork’s demise which shook the web.
For me, the question hasn’t really been that broad. To be honest, my “why” came from two realisations at more or less the exact same time.
First, my music habits were stale. There, I’ve said it now. Prior to 2021, and in late 2022 and 2023, I was in a habit of sticking to set genres I know I like, listening to compilation playlists I had made myself - and a handful made by Spotify and Youtube Music - and going back to the same albums again and again. I would choose audiobooks or podcasts over albums most days. I mentioned my work situation deteriorating before; that ended with a redundancy, and a mental health crash that sucked out all the energy I had.
The good news is that I started a new job in the second half of the year, and my energy gradually came back. I started listening to music again. I even made a playlist from scratch called The 90s Aren’t Dead, a carefully curated collection of music from when I was growing up. Hey, I’m proud of it. So when this year started, I put my foot down and decided to try and listen to more new music. My brain immediately thought of that album-a-day exercise from 2021 and early 2022 (with weekends off this time).
The second realisation was that I missed writing. I work in the television industry, and have done since the first half of 2014. But prior to that, I was a writer by night, working in music by day. I wrote my own blog and eventually parlayed that into feature writing for a local community paper named Scene Magazine. I reviewed albums for Investigate Magazine between 2007 and 2010. In late 2010, I started blogging about television at Stuff. I tried to launch my own website (named TeeV) and podcast (also named TeeV) in late 2013, around the same time I took my talents to South Beach the NZ Herald. My day job was programming music playlists for bars and restaurants. It was a good time.
That was all swept away when I was offered a dream job within the television industry, programming a new science fiction channel at Sky TV. It was too good to pass up. The catch was that I had to stop writing as it was a conflict of interest. So I gave up the work at NZ Herald and let the domain name ‘TeeV’ lapse and stopped recording the podcast.
Its now been almost a decade in the industry. And here I am, consuming media and writing about it again, hopefully for your benefit.
So what is the plan here at Ephemeral? And why that name?
The name is easy: I just really like the word ‘ephemeral’. I had originally picked it as the name of a podcast project that explored random pop culture ephemera from the 1990s and 2000s. And those bits and pieces of ephemera will likely work their way onto my Substack as posts of their own. I’m not just planning to write about music, you know.
The plan right now is to keep listening to an album every weekday and write about them, sharing them daily at Instagram, and then sending them out on Fridays as a single post from here. Its grown beyond an album a day though; I’m now listening to a brand new 2024 album every weekday and listening to other albums as well - somewhere between 7 and 10 albums a week, I reckon.
I’m also going to write about other stuff, as the mood takes me.
I love TV and Movies, so I’ll probably write adjacently about those (given I work for a broadcaster, and want to continue doing so, I can’t be too critical). I love books too. I might write about those occasionally. I’m also a massive science fiction nerd, so that will pop up more than anything.
I work in media, so obviously that is something I’m interested in (especially since it seems to be collapsing at a rate of knots). Again, I need to be careful what I share on that front. But I’ve been keeping an eye on the media industry for nearly two decades, since I was in my early twenties. I’ve picked up some stuff in that time.
And there are those ‘Ephemera’ subjects I mentioned; I want to turn those into posts as well. I’ve been meaning to go back and explore a fake time traveller by the name of John Titor, so maybe I’ll start there.
Most of all, I’ll be trying to keep things positive.
If you’ve read my music write-ups, you’ll know that I’m not really casting too much of a critical eye over things. I truly believe that if I don’t like something that a lot of people do, then its probably my tastes that explain that, rather than the quality of the thing. Its okay if I listen to an album and it just isn’t my cuppa tea. My own dissatisfaction isn’t a reason to hate something.
I also value entertainment over technical achievement. If I enjoy watching or reading something, even if its not technically great, I’ll gush about it.
Oh, one last thing: I’ll be keeping things free. No paid subscriber only posts from me, unless there is a really good reason to do it. If you’re picking up what I’m putting down, just subscribe and interact; that is payment enough. If you like it enough to put some money toward it, I am flattered and honoured.
So if that all sounds good, I’m looking forward to you joining me!
One thing you can do to help me? Share Ephemeral on your social media pages, with your work mates, on your family email chain, in any graffiti you tag in public bathrooms, wherever you feel might be useful.
Five Songs Worth Checking Out!
Best of 2021 Edition … since that’s when I started doing this album-a-day thing.
> Manchester Orchestra - “Telepath”
One of the most beautiful songs ever written, and the music video will bring a tear to your eye. Manchester Orchestra’s The Million Masks Of God was my favourite album of 2021.
> Olivia Rodrigo - “driver’s license”
I know “Good 4 U” gets all the attention, but I think this is the best song on Rodrigo’s brilliant debut album.
> Teeks - “Without You”
The soulful Teeks has one of the most amazing voices in this country, and his album Something To Feel is one of the finest of 2021. The video was shot in his beautiful home province of Hokianga.
> Halsey - “I Am Not A Woman, I’m A God” (NSFW)
My second favourite album of 2021 was If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power from Halsey, and produced by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. This is my favourite track from the album - it sounds like a near perfect mash of Nine Inch Nails and pop.
> Silk Sonic - “Leave The Door Open”
I didn’t hear Silk Sonic - the supergroup featuring Bruno Mars and Anderson.Paak - until early 2022, but if I had heard it in 2021, it would have been among my favourites for the year.
If you made it this far … thanks again! And sorry its so long.
I’ll be back Friday!
Chris