Dan Ozzi Archives - Haulix Daily

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Nobody saw the recent boom in newsletters coming. While newsletters have been part of internet culture since the beginning, a recent movement amongst journalists and bloggers hoping to become independently successful (while also drumming up some additional freelance interest) has birthed a new generation of creators making content specifically for consumers’ inboxes.

There are free and premium newsletters for every topic imaginable, from ancient cooking techniques to cryptocurrency, and many more are created each week. The quality and consistency of these publications can vary, but searching for newsletters that suit your tastes and interest level is part of the fun.

We’ve scoured the internet searching for the best music newsletters, and we were overwhelmed by the amount of content we discovered. Rather than encouraging others to plunge into the litany of options available to them blindly, we pull together more than a dozen incredible music newsletters that offer something for everyone. Some are written by journalists and critics, while others are from industry professionals hoping to help your career. Check it out:

Music Journalism Insider by Todd L. Burns (Subscribe)

Whether you write about music or you want someone to write about your music, Music Journalism Insider should be considered a must-read for everyone in the industry today. Todd L. Burns is doing the Lord’s work by bringing together the latest and greatest criticism, essays, podcasts, videos, and everything in between that relates to the current music discourse. This weekly newsletter tells you what people are talking about and who those people are, including many voices you might not otherwise discover. Burns does offer a premium tier that unlocks a contact sheet for people hoping to pitch stories, but the free level is more than enough to keep you entertained and informed every Monday morning.

Cabbages by Gary Suarez (Subscribe)

Gary Suarez is perhaps the greatest hip-hop writer working today. If not the best, then at least top-five, living or dead. Gary’s ability to dig below the surface of a song and connect what’s happening in the music to the culture of the artist behind it is second to none. He can make you not only appreciate the artist and producer behind a song but the places that created them and all the people involved in their upbringing. Gary’s writing reminds us that art is an endless endeavor forever informed by every experience of our lives. We are a constant work in progress, and therefore, so are the things we create. Reading cabbages is like going to school for a degree in hip-hop, only with a better professor and much less debt.

The Waiting Room by Danielle Chelosky (Subscribe)

Every writer above the age of 25 worries about the day someone younger than them will appear with a fresh perspective and a gift for wordplay. Danielle Chelosky is that threat. Barely in her twenties, Chelosky has already established herself as one of the leading voices in alternative music. Her work on the intersection of sex, love, punk, cigarettes, and the music that makes us feel alive reads like the confessional of someone without regrets. Chelosky bares her soul without hesitation, and because of that, readers are rewarded with profound and often humorous reflections on the strange state of the modern music business.

Reply Alt by Dan Ozzi (Subscribe)

Dan Ozzi has quickly become one of the most influential writers in music today, and ready Reply Alt makes it easy to understand how that happened. Ozzi writes with an energy that tells you he does not care whether or not you agree with him. You get the sense from his writing that Dan doesn’t care if you like or hate what he has to share. He’s not making content to entertain you, or at least, not solely for that reason. Dan makes stuff because his curiosity compels him, and we, the consumers, can reap the reward of his hard work. Nobody has the wit or craftsmanship that Dan Ozzi brings to punk and underground music. His formula for success is often duplicated, but it’s never the same. Get your dose of Ozzi-ism straight from the source. Subscribe to Reply Alt and thank me later.

Tone Glow by various writers (Subscribe)

The age of underground zines lives on in Tone Glow, an experimental music newsletter based out of Chicago. Tone Glow is the product of many writers working together to uplift and promote artists whose music falls outside cultural norms. Each email contains new music, thought-provoking criticism, and — often — an interview much longer and far more thorough than a traditional publication would allow. The result is an email you actually look forward to receiving, and that’s the highest compliment we can offer.

Former Clarity by Dave Anthony (Subscribe)

The beauty of newsletters with a single author is that they can easily evolve with the person writing them. Dave Anthony did not set out to discuss navigating America’s complex health system with his newsletter, but that’s exactly what happened over time. Former clarity blurs the lines between life in music and life outside of music as few newsletters can. As Dave Anthony details his life and its soundtrack, readers develop a deeper appreciation for both Anthony and the artists he admires. It’s the writing that you’ll never see Rolling Stone pay to publish unless it’s written by someone whose bank account has millions of dollars in it, which is a damn shame because it’s precisely that kind of relatable writing that we need more of in the world today.

Flow State by MC (Subscribe)

We know almost nothing about MC, the mysterious person behind Flow State. What we can tell you with absolute certainty is that Flow State is about to become the soundtrack for your life. Every day — and we mean every single day – Flow State delivers at least two hours of music to your inbox. These are not pop hits or underground anthems, mind you, but music chosen for its ability to help you focus. Open the email, click the link, and lose yourself in the comforting art of musicians from all over the world. When your work is complete, return to your inbox and reading about the artist. Who knows? You may find your next obsession.

Music 3.0 by Bobby Owsinski (Subscribe)

Bobby Owsinski is a music industry veteran who believes in transparency. Bobby’s blog and accompanying newsletter take the biggest stories and moments from the industry and uses them to educate readers about the business of music as a whole. What his writing lacks in personal revelations is more than made up for with industry know-how, so if you’re looking to get ahead, Music 3.0 may be the answer.

The Nashville Briefing by Zak Kuhn (Subscribe)

Not enough people understand the power and influence that country music has on America. With The Nashville Briefing, a free newsletter from Zak Kuhn, the industry at large can finally see the cultural stranglehold that the genre has on this nation. From daily headlines to breakdowns of the latest influential Spotify playlists, Kuhn provides subscribers with everything they need to know about what’s happening in country and why, including deep dives on marketing campaigns and business insight.

Stream N Destroy by Ryan Downey (Subscribe)

Anyone who claims that rock ‘n’ roll is dead must not subscribe to Ryan Downey’s newsletter. Downey is a best-selling author and fixture of alternative music who uses his newsletter to keep everyone updated on all things rock. From the most popular artists on Spotify to the best-selling albums of any given week, Downey provides data dumps on the state of rock and its many sub-genres that no other publication seems to offer (at least not for free). We learn more look at Stream N Destroy each week than we do from several leading industry news sites, and we bet you’ll feel the same after subscribing. Don’t wait!

AmplifyYou by Amplify Link (Subscribe)

Who better to learn marketing from than a company that makes money by marketing? AmplifyYou is a weekly newsletter offering the latest marketing tips and tricks from people who make a living by getting people to care about things. It’s in this newsletter that you will find the emerging trends that will help set you apart before your competition knows they even exist. Best of all? It’s free!

Your Morning Coffee by Jay Gilbert (Subscribe)

One of two newsletters in this features that are tied to podcasts, Your Morning Coffee is your daily dose of everything related to the business of music. Jay Gilbert and Mike Etchart have great chemistry, and their insight into the future of music will have you excited about what tomorrow may hold.

Cherie Hu’s Water And Music by Cherie Hu (Subscribe)

Cherie Hu digs below the surface of industry headlines to crunch numbers, understand data, and develop a more meaningful snapshot of the music right now. Her insight into how events in the industry can shape the future of entertainment for everyone is second to none. Reading Water And Music will inevitably lead you to the podcast of the same name, and guess what? It rocks as well. We’re big Cherie Hu stans over here, and honestly, you should be too.

BONUS!

The Wampus by James Shotwell (Subscribe)

Full disclosure: James Shotwell works at Haulix.

Many people will tell you, “Music is my life!” But what does that mean? With The Wampus, writer James Shotwell seeks to provide an answer. Through essays about his life and experiences in the music business, Shotwell ties the soundtrack of his existence to specific moments and seeks to find meaning in the chaos of being. It’s the kind of newsletter that is never the same twice. One week may contain a funny story about an interview gone awry, while the next includes a somber reflection on the death of his best friend. Through it all, Shotwell tries to rationalize his obsession with various artists and songs in hopes of understanding how music helps us navigate this thing called life.

Written by Noisey Music Editor Dan Ozzi

I am a music editor. [holds for applause] And as a music editor, a large part of my job entails working with freelance writers. I get to publish people’s written words about music and pay them to do it. With no disrespect to cancer research scientists or pornstars, that is the coolest fucking responsibility in the world.

But it’s hard to find good writers. Once every month or so, I send a tweet out into the world, reminding writers of my email address and that I am open to pitches. I’ll usually get a couple dozen responses. Of those, maybe one is pursuable. The rest vary from lukewarm garbage to steaming hot garbage. That’s not a knock at the skill of those writers. I have no idea how good their writing is, and I’ll never know, for this reason: Their pitch was so shitty. Pitching is as essential to being a writer as the actual writing itself. You’ve got to know how to pitch just as well as you like, know how to make all them good words and stuff.

I want to accept more pitches and publish more stories, though. I want to publish so much good music writing that we are bathing in a digital ocean of perfect word choices and beautifully crafted metaphors about songs. So in my small effort to combat this bad pitching epidemic, here are a few tips that might help you not blow it with editors.

Make Sure You Have a Fully Formed Idea and Aren’t Just Talking Out of Your Ass

You don’t need to have your whole article written, but you should have a clear idea of what the topic is and what points you will cover. I get a lot of pitches along the lines of: “How about a piece about how Michael Jackson was like, the original Drake or something?” These emails tend to come in after midnight and smell like Adult Swim commercials and Doritos if you know what I’m saying. Then I will send a response saying, “Cool, can you further explain WTF you’re talking about plz?” And surprise, surprise, the explanation is usually: “Like… Because they both wore red jackets and stuff. I don’t know, it might be stupid.” Cool, I’m glad we bonded over the shared experience of wasting our time together. Never forget.

Condense Your Piece Down to One Sentence

Instead of writing out five long-winded paragraphs explaining what you want to write about, give me a summary in one sentence. Or even a proposed headline. Have you ever heard of an elevator pitch? Sure you have. It’s how you would describe a larger project to a person if you had only a brief elevator ride with them. So imagine this: You are in an elevator with me. I am quietly sobbing because I suffer from severe vertigo and crippling phobia of smelling farts in enclosed spaces. How do you make me interested? Go! Sell me this pen!

Know the Outlet You’re Pitching

If you are pitching a site that is both #cool and #hip and sometimes even #edgy, you should craft your pitch to reflect that. Know their voice and also their audience. Do they mostly cater to people under 25? Do their readers use phrases like “on fleek” and “trill?” Is their audience primarily interested in cool vape tricks on Vine? Know all of this stuff and when pitching, don’t come across like you’re trying to write for some academia blog. Conversely, if you are pitching an academia blog, you probably don’t want to use phrases like “on fleek” and “trill.”

Know the Editor You’re Pitching

If you’re introducing yourself to an editor, start with a quick, personal opening line like, “Hey Dan, I really liked your last thinkpiece about how stingrays are the most punk fish in the aquatic kingdom. Good stuff.” This does two things: One, it lets me know that you are a real person who is catering to me, a fellow real person, and that you are familiar with what genres/beats I cover. And two, it kisses my ass just a tiny bit which I need because I am a music writer and require constant stroking of my ego in order to survive.

“Pitch” Is Not a Good Subject Line

That’s it, really. You won’t even get your email opened, let alone answered, if the subject is “pitch.” Put the basic idea of the article in the subject.

Here’s a good subject line: “This Venezuelan Hardcore Band Holds the World Record for Most Consecutive Hours Spent Masturbating”

Here’s a bad subject line: “pitch for you”

Check to See if It’s Already Been Done

Here’s a good use of two seconds that will save everyone involved a bunch of time: Before you pitch an idea, go to the site you’re pitching, enter the topic in the little search box, and hit “enter.” If this topic—or a similar topic—has already been covered, take your business elsewhere.

Be Timely

Different pitches have different lifespans. A long, well-researched investigative piece has the potential to live on forever and ever in the ethers of the interwebs. But something quick and dumb about the Left Shark or escaped llamas has a shelf-life of a day, if that. Send a pitch about a day-old meme and prepare to have your email printed out and passed around the Secret Society of Editors to be mocked while you are forever branded as that freelancer who wanted to write something about the IKEA monkey.

Pitch Ideas, Not Bands

This is probably the single most important piece of advice and I guess I should have put it at the top but am too lazy to change it now. As a music editor, roughly 8,000% of the pitches I get are just interviews with bands the writer likes. “Hey Dan, I want to interview this band The Shitty Pitches. They rule.” Well for starters, tell me something interesting about The Shitty Pitches or what you plan to interview them about. Is there something special about them? Did they grow up on a remote island and not hear music until they were in their thirties? Do they play on instruments they hand-made from their parents’ checks to their liberal arts colleges? TELL ME. Otherwise I’ll just assume it’d be a generic interview that asks my least favorite questions and will pass.

Do Not Pitch to Ask if You Can Pitch

I get this one a lot and it never stops confusing me. Someone will email me and all it will say is “Hey Dan, I wanted to send you a pitch about a band. Would that be cool?” No one has time to lure a timid writer squirrel out of its hole. Pitch or get off the pot.

Do Not Send Generic Garbage Pitches for Garbage People

This is another one that seems like common sense yet happens all the time. Someone will send me something like “I want to write about the current state of punk.” This is kind of like pitching a Hollywood producer a movie about love. Narrow it down.

Do Not Rattle Off Any Old Whatever the Fuck from Your Phone

When you send me a one-line email with “sent from my iPhone” at the bottom, what that basically tells me is that a thought ran across your brain and instead of thinking it out, you just fired it off to me while waiting on line at Cinnabon.

Don’t Pitch Out of Your League

If you pitch an editor with “I want to interview Kanye West,” you damn sure better know Ye personally and had him sign a blood oath saying he’d be down for an interview. There is nothing more obnoxious than someone requesting to interview a celebrity and then asking the editor to put them in touch with that celebrity. We don’t have giant rolodexes of famous people here. (Just kidding, we totally do. But don’t assume that.)

And Lastly, Here’s a Good Sample Pitch Email

Subject: Bands and their grandmas

Hi Dan, [Hey, you used my name! Now I know you are a real person and not a Pitch-Bot 5000. Cool.]

Nice piece last week on how peanut butter is the punkest food. Thought it was pretty… nutty. Was that terrible? [Woah, you have a sense of humor and are maybe a person I could stand working with on a regular basis? Sweet.]

My name is John Q. Writer and I am a freelance writer who has written for CoolBlog dot com and OtherCoolBlog dot com. [Include a link here to your online resume or blog or something where I can get a feel for your style. DO NOT go into your life story—where you went to college, what you studied, the first time you did hand stuff under the bleachers. I do not care.]

As you probably know [assuming that I am on the pulse of culture, nice nice…], a lot of bands are taking their grandmas on tour these days [maybe include a link to something on this on the very, very small off-shot that I, a person “in the know,” am not glued into this particular important cultural trend]. I wanted to write a piece called “Get in the Van, Nanna” exploring this idea. Why do bands do this? What benefits are there to touring with your grandma? I want to talk to Band Number One, Band Number Two, and Band Number Three who have all done this and also speak with their grandmas. [Woah, all of this info is helpful and interesting and I could totally see my readers digging this and sharing it on TweetBook.]

Let me know if you’re interested. [I am.]

Many thanks,

John

[This is the blank space where you’ll notice it does not say “sent from my iPhone.”]

Sound good? Cool.