Can't Get Much Higher

Last week, I went on Substack Live to chat with Mike Pesca about the new Billy Joel documentary, And So It Goes . Check out our conversation if you missed it. And, if you haven’t watched the documentary, yet I recommend that too. It’s fantastic. I’ll be back on Thursday with more standard Can’t Get Much Higher fare. If you enjoy this newsletter, consider ordering a copy of my debut book, Uncharted...

Before we talk about using data to measure the influence of rock artists, there’s some book-keeping to attend to. * In last week’s podcast, I crunched some numbers to figure out if Thanksgiving music exists. Spoiler: It does. One of my readers was kind enough to add all of the most popular Thanksgiving songs to a playlist. You can check it out here . * I spent the last six months researching this...

Every few days, I scroll through the top music apps on my iPhone. Usually, things are fairly status quo. Spotify. Shazam. YouTube Music. All the stuff you’d expect. But occasionally an app catches my eye that had previously eluded me. That happened this week with a somewhat peculiar app reaching the upper echelons of Apple’s paid music app chart. It’s called “ Amen Break Generator (Revived) .” In...

I’ve never been a huge fan of Halloween or purposefully subjecting myself to ghostly fear, but today is October 31, so I thought it would only be appropriate if we spoke about what constitutes the ghoulish musical canon, why it is different than the Christmas carols that flood our airwaves at the end of each year, and how it might be growing more popular than ever before. As a reminder, this is th...

Being a songwriter is hard. And I’m not just talking about the fact that writing great songs is no easy task. I’m talking about how the economics around songwriting have made turning it into a career a near impossibility. As I mentioned a few months ago , songwriters don’t get paid upfront for their work. They only get paid via the royalties their songs generate after they come out. In other words...

Earlier this year, I spoke with Paula Toledo about her whirlwind 15 minutes of fame. Toledo made music in the 2000s that never got too big, and then moved on with her life. The problem? Nobody on the internet could move on. Unbeknownst to Toledo, people online had accidentally stumbled upon her songs and had spent a decade trying to find her. Catherine Sinow, a frequent contributor to this newslet...

In a 2011 piece for the AV Club , music critic Steven Hyden defined a new metric for musical greatness: the five-albums test. An artist passes this test if they release at least five consecutive masterful albums. According to Hyden, very few artists pass this test. The Beatles do. So do Queen. That said, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones come up short. Inspired by Mr. Hyden, I want to propose a tes...

A few weeks ago, an upcoming writer named  Chris Gunther  reached out to me with an interesting theory. He claimed that song titles were appearing later in songs. Here’s an example he gave me. The Rolling Stones’ classic “ Angie ”, released in 1973, starts with Mick Jagger intoning the title. Compare that to Olivia Rodrigo’s “ Vampire ”, a piano ballad from 2023. It takes 132 words before Rodrigo...

A few months ago, my sister graduated from college. She’s the youngest of our 22 first cousins and the final person to complete her higher education. Naturally, we were very proud and threw a big party to mark the occasion. As the drinks were flowing, my aunts and uncles began recounting family lore. One slice of that lore, stuck with me after the party ended. It was a story my grandmother had oft...

I always admire people who write in a way that I know I can’t. Robert C. Gilbert is one of those people. Gilbert runs Listening Sessions , a weekly newsletter that dives deeper into single artists, songs, and albums than I even thought possible. I know he’s good at what he does because he can open my mind to new perspectives on music that I’ve been listening to for years. Since I’m away at a weddi...

Not too long ago, I couldn’t get my writing published anywhere. I was pitching so many stories that it felt like publications were being created just to reject me. Then I pitched a story about the decline of key changes in popular music to Tedium, a publication run by Ernie Smith that explores “the dull side of the internet.” Much to my shock, Smith agree to publish the piece. And I’m glad he did....

I got in an argument last week. As is typically the case for me, it was about an important topic: the best year for Album of the Year at the Grammys. Since my friend and I couldn’t come to an agreement, I figured a newsletter about music and data was the best place to resolve it. Luckily, I write one. We decided the loser owed the other a beer. Data, don’t fail me now! As a reminder, this is the p...

I almost got scammed a few years ago. A woman hit me up on Instagram asking if I wrote songs. “Of course,” I responded. She then sent a long message asking if I could compose a song for her son Daniel’s sixth birthday. She claimed she’d pay me $500. I agreed. I already wrote and recorded music regularly. It sounded like an easy $500. Then the scam emerged. After I sent the song, the delighted woma...

If you read this newsletter each week, you’ll know that I typically rant about some topic, usually one that brings together music and data. Then I recommend both a new song (i.e., one released in the last few weeks) and an old song (i.e., one released at least five years ago). You’ll still get a rant from me this week. (It’s about crappy duets.) But the song recommendations will come from my frien...

Since today is Independence Day in the United States, I decided to explore why "The Star-Spangled Banner" is as American as the tomato is Italian. As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher . Click here to read the newsletter . It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify . For a playlist o...

The other day a friend of mine asked me if I liked being a music critic. “Music critic?” I asked. “I’m not a music critic.” And I really meant that. Yes, I write about music. Yes, I give you my opinion on certain things. Yes, I recommend songs that I enjoy. But I don’t think I’m a critic in the same way that or Jessica Hopper or or are critics. I don’t think I’m giving you deep insight into partic...

I feel like recent music news is often bad news. And I’m a contributor to that. Just last week I wrote a long piece about problems in the music industry that don’t get enough attention. But tomorrow is my 29th birthday. In celebration, I wanted to talk about some great things that are happening. As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher . Click here to read...

I think the adage “Never meet your heroes” is generally good advice. I can’t say for sure, though. I haven’t met many of mine. Except one time. When I was in high school, I had a chance run-in with my greatest musical hero. It made me think that maybe some of our heroes are worth meeting. As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher . Click here to read the ne...

I've got a new song out today. It's called "Late Nite Kicks". In today's podcast, I give you an inside scoop of how my creative process works as we walk through how the song came to be. Listen to " Late Nite Kicks " wherever you stream music. As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher . Click here to read the newsletter . It contains charts, graphs, and pict...

Over the last few weeks, there has been an explosive beef between hip-hop stalwarts Drake and Kendrick Lamar. What started out as a standard tit-for-tat has devolved into a volleying of nuclear bombs, accusations of predatory behavior, domestic violence, and absentee parenting flying with abandon. If you want a summary of a situation that is starting to require way too much time to follow, I recom...

One of my favorite newsletters is Dan Epstein's Jagged Time Lapse . In each edition, Epstein captures how music intersects with our lives in unexpected ways, how it can send us hurtling through space and time, how it can be both magical and mundane. This week, Epstein brings one of his stories to Can't Get Much Higher . If you enjoy it, make sure you subscribe to Jagged Time Lapse . As a reminder,...

Beyoncé announcing the lead single to her latest album Cowboy Carter in a Verizon commercial during the Super Bowl reminded me of how intertwined music and commerce have become and how selling out isn’t an idea anymore. This week we try to figure out what happened to selling out. As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher . Click here to read the newsletter...

In 2023, only 36% of recorded music revenues in Japan came from streaming. 55% came from physical sales, the large majority of which was from CDs. This week we explore why CDs remain so popular in Japan. As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher . Click here to read the newsletter . It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Cl...

Last week, Rolling Stone magazine published an article about Suno AI , a startup that allows you to generate two-minute songs from a text prompts. I was playing around with this music-generation tool and was both blown away and scared. It made making music way too easy. It made me wonder if that ease was an issue. As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher ....

A few weeks ago, I met somebody who named their newborn daughter Lennon. That’s odd, I thought to myself. Given that the name Lennon is derived from the surname of John Lennon, I assumed it would generally be used for newborn boys. I decided to download some data to find out. Lennon, it seems, used to be more popular among newborn boys. Now, it’s mostly used for newborn girls. But in order to figu...