Progress Report
Too many thoughts in my head, not enough time in the day
Can I be a real a second, for just a millisecond? Let my guard down and tell the people how I feel a second?
(I hope you will forgive the Hamilton reference. I understand the issues people have with it, but I recently rewatched it and think it still holds up.)
I’m going to be honest, I’ve been struggling this year. I don’t know if it’s the break I took at Christmas, which was well needed, but I can’t seem to get my brain to settle and focus on one thing at a time. Reviews that used to take me a week are now regularly taking me up to 2, I’m getting the threads of ideas jumbled in my brain and can’t seem to untangle them. Luckily I’m still thinking of new ideas and new rabbit holes of research to go down, but unluckily for me, I can’t chase all of the rabbits all at the same time—I have to choose one and finish it before I start the next one but by the time I do finally finish one idea, three more have popped up in its place. It can seem like a silly thing to complain about, “Oh no, I’m interested and inspired all the time,” when there’s so many other things going on to think about and worry about. But at least I’m never bored.
Coming back from vacation, I’m again struggling to wrangle my brain into focusing on one thing and writing. Instead it just wants to jump from thing to thing, reading books and articles, watching movies, chasing research rabbits. I was stressing about what I was going to publish this week, I really hate to take two weeks off in a row. But instead of forcing my brain to do what it doesn’t want to, I’m working with my brain and instead letting you in on all of the ideas that are swirling around right now and that I’m excited to (eventually) dedicate the proper time and focus to. All of these pieces will become real and will find themselves in your inboxes all in due time, but for now, here’s a bit of what I’ve been thinking about recently.
Reviews I’m Excited About
Addison Rae—Addison
I don’t usually get a chance to listen to newly released albums, that’s kinda the whole point of this project. But I was hearing so much about this new Addison Rae album and just couldn’t wait months until it would organically pop up in my queue, so I moved some albums around to make time for this record. As always, I’m as interested in the reactions surrounding the album as I am the album itself. And, as you can imagine, being recently released means there’s a lot of articles, a lot of reactions to sort through so the research stage is taking a bit longer than usual.
Fontaines D.C.—Skinty Fia
I saw a clip on TikTok of Olivia Rodrigo playing a cover of their song “I Love You” and it got me really excited to dig deeper into their catalogue. As much as I love Ireland and dream of living in Dublin, I know it has its fair share of issues, just like anywhere else. But to hear about the specific issues plaguing this country I hope to make my home one day, from the first-hand perspective of people who were born and lived most of their lives there, is something I’m really interested in engaging critically with.
Tyler Childers—Purgatory
I’ve always maintained that Childers is at his best when he’s writing love songs and this album has two of them. I wanted to listen to this album because of “All Your’n” so as amazing as it was, I knew what to expect. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was “Lady May.” It’s been in my “On Repeat” playlist for a while now and I still have a few more reviews to go until I get around to writing about this one, so I guess I’ll just have to keep playing it until I’m ready to write about it.
Olivia Rodrigo—Sour
I’ve slightly avoided Olivia Rodrigo’s music for the express purpose of wanting to review it. Of course, she’s been impossible to avoid these past several years, but I’ve been waiting to dedicate the time to her albums.. until now. Waiting for what exactly, I’m not sure. I did start a review of this album shortly after it was released, but those notes where in a notebook that is now somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean or trash heap, I’d imagine. No matter, now I can come to this album with a fresh perspective.
Essays I’m Writing
Spotify Ethics
With the recent headlines about Spotify CEO Daniel Ek investing millions into AI-led military technology, evidence of Spotify not only allowing but creating AI musicians to thwart paying real life human artists, on top of their abysmal royalty payout structure that’s been haunting the company for years, I was reminded of a project I did in undergrad looking into the company’s ethics and how they fail to live up to their own ethical standards. I know, saying a multi-billion dollar business is unethical is like saying water is wet, but this piece will be going through each of these recent controversies, pointing at the exact ethical code they violate, and show how the company has been working against their own ethics that they set out for themselves from the very beginning.
Music Journalism versus Musicology
There’s part of me that thinks about working in academia, becoming a professor, or even going back for my PhD, but I really don’t think that’s the environment for me or for my work. I’ve long believed, and now even more so after completing my Master’s, that no one should have to pay thousands of dollars just to have access to information and these theories, these ideas don’t belong locked away high up in the Ivory Tower, but down amongst the people. There will always be a usefulness and benefit to the traditional academic university setting, particularly if you want a degree in a specific field which provides you specific training and allows you to contribute to the field, but anyone should be able to access the ideas and the information that is being discussed in the universities. That’s always been my dream for my music writing practice. There’s a hunger for popular music discourse, I’ve seen it with my own eyes on platforms like TikTok, but as democratizing as these platforms are which is to our benefit, there’s also a lack of critical and theoretical basis to much of this discussion. I simply want to make our discussions of popular music and popular culture at large better, smarter, and allow all to participate without gatekeeping knowledge.
Live Aid
It’s 40 years since Live Aid, the first-of-its-kind benefit concert that spanned two continents, 16 hours, and raised $150 million dollars for the famine in Ethiopia. I, like probably many of my generation and younger, first learned of Live Aid through its faithful reenactment in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018). I left that movie fascinated by this massive cultural event, and more specifically about the man behind it, Bob Geldof. Geldof himself is a colorful, complex, controversial figure, which are always the types I find myself trying to wrap my head around. I haven’t quite gotten to the bottom of Geldof, nor will I ever most likely, but he is still a fascinating figure to me, not in any small part because of his involvement in Band Aid and later Live Aid. His involvement in these charitable works is not without its controversy, including if the money raised from the concert ever reached Ethiopia and if it made much of a difference. Looking back 40 years on, I’m interested in revisiting the origins of that day, including background on Geldof and Band Aid, the highlights from the day itself, including the infamous “Give us your money” quote and the Queen performance heard ‘round the world, and finally the aftermath and legacy of the event.
Sincerity is Scary… Part II
In addition to my weekly (ish) album reviews, I’ve recently started a series of posts where I’m expanding on an independent research project I did during my grad program about the 1975’s most recent tour. Only one post is up so far so I need to be working on the next one. I have a rough outline of each post, largely taken from the structure of the 5,000 word essay I submitted but also expanded. The first post was just an introduction to the project and asking the question that I (hopefully) answered over the course of my research. The second post will be an introduction to the band, particularly as is relevant to the discussion of their stage shows. It will also discuss their previous albums and tours, and how this one was different from what had come before. And of course I’ll be addressing the band’s controversies, particularly the ones surrounding frontman Matty Healy. This tour is in some part addressing those controversies while also, simultaneously, generating new ones. I feel a slight, internalized pressure to write these out as quick as possible before the new era begins and everything about this tour becomes irrelevant. But I’m also interested in taking my time to really expand and improve on the work I did before, as well as include evidence from the second leg of the tour that happened after my submission date and maybe even include a bit of their recent Glastonbury performance, which is more than likely the last performance of this era that we will see.
EmmainEdinburgh 7
In case you didn’t know, I do have a second Substack called Failing Better. It was my first Substack that I started in early 2022 when I was feeling lost and just needed a place to sort out all of my post-grad/suddenly-I’m-a-grown-up feelings. It, unfortunately, fell by the wayside as I moved to Scotland and began my graduate studies, as you can imagine, I was quite busy. But since I’ve been home, I’ve come back to writing on that platform, again about my post-grad/what-do-you-mean-I’m-a-grown-up feelings. A series I’ve been working on over there for the last year and a half has been documenting my time in Scotland, warts and all, called Emma in Edinburgh. These posts have become increasingly harder to write, one as my memory fades, but also it’s become emotionally difficult as I remember both the hardest time in my life and the fondest. I’m still chugging away at it, update 7 about November is up next.
Other Essays
I also have these other ideas, ones that need more research and are yet to have a thesis behind them, like about the concept of “Girl singers,” particularly in Country music, where a singular woman would be featured as the “little girl singer” on a man’s variety show, like Dolly Parton was for Porter Waggoner. I’m also interested in the city of Manchester in England and both how and why so many bands like The Smiths, Oasis, Stone Roses, and the 1975 have come from there. I’m interested in Post Malone and more specifically his foray into country music, coincidentally the same year as Beyonce, but one was accepted by the Country Music establishment and one was not. And I’m always interested in transforming my school work into pieces, I have one I did in undergrad about the relationship between popular music and literature, I have research I started for a conference proposal about music used in luxury fragrance advertisements, and of course, my Master’s dissertation on fandoms and scenes that I’m hoping to turn into a series like my Independent Research Project.
Reading about/researching/thinking about
Reading: Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo's Hidden History by Kristina R. Gaddy, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Researching: Missing link between 18th century music practices and 20th century Blues and Country music
Amongst my many and varied interests outside of music, one has always been the 18th century, has been ever since I was a kid and my parents took me to Williamsburg, Virginia for the first time. We’ve been back nearly every year since for our summer vacation and love it everytime. It’s not the Patriot Myth utopia I assume many people think it is, but it’s full of passionate people interested in telling the real history, the real truth of the 18th century and the founding of this country. When I first started getting into Country Music, I watched a documentary about the banjo and saw this painting of, what is thought to be, one of the earliest depictions of the banjo in the New World.
I had seen this painting before, it’s owned by Colonial Williamsburg. Ever since I’ve been obsessed with this painting and specifically, I want to know what it sounds like. I have a hunch, and it is just a hunch, but I wonder if we could hear what this painting sounds like, it wouldn’t sound unfamiliar to us. It might sound like old-time country or blues music. We know that our American popular music comes from Black music which was influenced by African musical traditions and Scottish-Irish musical traditions that were introduced to one another in the Colonies. But I’ve always felt like there’s a piece missing from this story, how we get from this painting to the people like Lesley Riddle and Rufus Payne that taught white Country musicians like A.P. Carter and Hank Williams how to play. I don’t even know how to go about researching this, as there’s not a lot of primary documentation on the musical culture of the enslaved population in the 18th and 19th centuries, nor am I even totally sure what it is I’m looking for, but that’s why I’m reading Gaddy’s book on the history of the banjo, which does include reference to this painting. Hoping I find a lead there to point me in the direction I need to go next.
Listening: Bob Dylan
Still working on my Bob Dylan deep dive that I started at the beginning of the year after watching A Complete Unknown (2024).
Thinking about: Audrey Williams
Like I said, a few years ago I got really into Country Music and a lot of that had to do with a movie I watched about Hank Williams. Aside from the fact that he was played by Tom Hiddleston, I got really into the music and couldn’t stop thinking about it for a few weeks after I saw that movie. That started me down a year plus rabbit hole of researching the genre, including watching the entire 16 hour Ken Burns Country Music documentary series three separate times. But what’s always fascinated me about the Hank Williams story in particular was his first wife, Audrey. Audrey Mae Sheppard Williams was not only married to Hank, but it was her who called promoters and got him bookings and acted as his business manager. It is largely because of her that we have Hank Williams’ music now. But she also allegedly a very strong personality, who desperately wanted to sing and be part of her husband’s act, but by all accounts couldn’t sing well herself. Most recollections of her, particularly in the Hank Williams biography by Colin Escott that the movie I Saw The Light (2015) was based, remember her as being very bull-headed, mean, obnoxious, even gold-digging. I have a hard time believing such a one-sided, oversimplified account of a complex human being. There are lots of reasons that people would have had issues with Audrey, she was tough, ambitious, and didn’t get along with many people, but surely she had good qualities about her too and I don’t find many people writing about those. Everything we seem to know about her comes from one interview she gave just before she died in 1975 and other people’s memories, who mostly seem to hate her because her singing was bad and she insisted on doing it anyway. Well, I’m sorry but just because someone is a bad singer isn’t enough to malign an entire human being. And this isn’t to say that she was an angel and everyone else has it wrong, she might have been absolutely horrible, I don’t know. But that’s precisely my point, we don’t know a lot about her outside of her connection to Hank Williams and what other people in his circle had to say about her. And of course all the accounts of her from the perspectives of Hank’s band members are taken at face value, with no consideration given to the possibility that misogyny might be at play. And yes, maybe I have a little soft spot for her, but I like to think it’s empathy. We all know how Hank Williams was when he was alive, I can’t imagine it would be easy to be married to him. And yes, I know it’s likely that they were equally bad to each other, but shouldn’t it count for something that he obviously loved her and it broke him when they divorced? I just want to know more about who she actually was, not what other people with a grudge against her say she was, and judge her on her own merits.
Watching: Gimme Shelter (1970)
I recently read a book called Parachute Women about the women surrounding the Rolling Stones, namely Anita Pallenberg, Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, and Bianca Jagger. The book mostly focused on Pallenberg and Faithfull and their contributions to the band through their influence on the boys’ fashion and reading. Reading this book surprised me with how little I knew of the early Stones career, which also has me down a rabbit hole of 1960s and early 1970s British music and rock culture. As part of this rabbit hole, I have started watching Gimme Shelter, the 1970 documentary following the band through their American tour leading up to and including their performance at a free concert in 1969 at Altamont Speedway. I’ve always heard about that show and its disastrous end, but I didn’t know there was actually a film crew there following the Stones that caught the unfortunate death of 18 year old Meredith Hunter on film. The film also falls right into the time period in which the majority of the book documents, particularly the recording of the 1971 Sticky Fingers album, which features a bit in the film as well.
ER (1994-2009), The Bear (2022-)
Ever since watching The Pitt (2025) earlier this year and it becoming my new personality, (I ADORE Dr. Mel King) I decided to start its spiritual predecessor ER to fill the void until the new season airs in January. As many of the original viewers started watching the show for George Clooney and ended up falling in love with Noah Wyle, I thought I was starting ER for Noah Wyle as Dr. John Carter but Dr. Mark Greene, played by Anthony Edwards, quickly became my favorite character to watch. I’m in early season 7, which I won’t spoil anything even though this show is nearly 30 years old, but things aren’t looking too good for Carter or Greene, so needless to say, I’m worried for them.
And of course I’m watching The Bear, as I have for the past 4 summers now. I know there’s a lot of disappointment with the last two seasons, but as I’m working my way through season 4, I’m still choosing to believe in Chris Storer and the creative team. They’ve won my trust with those first two seasons, and with them already being renewed for a 5th, I am excited but anxiously anticipating how they will bring this story together.
What I’ve Been Listening To Lately
Amble—Reverie
Kingfishr—“Killeagh,” “Diamonds and Roses”
The Kinks
Sam Fender, Olivia Dean—“Rein Me In”
Maisie Peters
Hozier
Role Model—“Oh Gemini”
The Lumineers
Charlotte Anne Clark—“Easy on My Little Heart”
Sierra Ferrell—“Years”
Elizabeth Nicols—“I Got A New One”
Olivia Dean—“Nice to Each Other”
Tyler Childers—“Nose On The Grindstone”
John Mayer—“In Your Atmosphere”
Ariana Grande—“shut up”
Ella Langley—“Never Met Anyone Like You”
flowerovlove—“breaking news”
Dolly Parton—“Jolene”