The State of the Newsletter: 2023

It's the end of the year as we know it ... and the newsletter feels fine.

At the beginning of this year, this newsletter had 767 subscribers. Today, it has 4,235. Along with that subscriber growth, my 2023 newsletters have been viewed nearly 200k times across 113 countries. In celebration of this growth, I want to highlight some of the most popular posts from the previous 365 days, along with giving all of you a huge shoutout for the support. Please have a safe and healthy end of the year!

The 2023 Newsletter Recap

Most Popular Stories
These stories are ranked by the number of views that they received.

1. tHiS is a p0$t ABOUT Song t!tl3s: This strangely-titled newsletter detailed the unexpected history of song titles. It was so popular because it was shared by the Morning Brew, a very popular daily newsletter.

2. Writing Hits for Madonna, Celine Dion, and Demi Lovato: A Conversation with Billy Steinberg: The first issue of my interview series, this conversation with songwriter Billy Steinberg saw a ton of traffic because it was shared by Substack.

3. How Unprecedented is Taylor Swift's Popularity?: An exploration of the history of megastardom, this post saw an elevated level of search traffic from Google, likely because everybody was a Swiftie in 2023.

4. Listen to My Story 'Bout TV Theme Songs: In one of my favorite analyses of the year, I chronicled the evolution of the TV theme song. A chunk of the traffic came from World News Group, a Christian website that purports to be “Sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth”. Does this shock me? Yes. But I can’t find any mention of the article on their website.

5. Why is Everyone Mad at Spotify?: In my most controversial piece of the year, I detailed why I thought Spotify not paying royalties on tracks until they crossed 1,000 yearly streams wasn’t really a bad thing. I published a follow-up to answer all of the questions that emerged during heated discussion on the topic.

Most Enticing Titles
If you read this newsletter in your email inbox, all you can see before you click is the title. I figured that the newsletters with the highest email open rates had the most engaging titles.

1. How Musicians Get Paid: Pt. 2: Was this title really that engaging? I’m not sure. I guess people really wanted the rest of the story after part 1.

2. How Long Should Songwriters Own Their Songs?: Valid question. I’d click this one too.

3. The Mystery of Leroy Brown: In which I investigate why Queen and Jim Croce both have a song about a man named Leroy Brown and if these titular characters are the same people.

4. Men Almost Never Perform Songs Written by Women: I originally conducted this analysis with a website called The Pudding. I think it’s the most important piece that I wrote this year.

5. Listen to My Story 'Bout TV Theme Songs: In case it flew over your head, the title for this one was a play on the opening line from The Beverly Hillbillies’ theme song: “Listen to my story 'bout a man named Jed”.

Most Popular Interviews
In July, I started offering additional content for paid subscribers. Often this content is in the form of an interview. Of course, I speak with songwriters and producers, but I’ve also sought to speak with unexpected characters in the music industry, including journalists, Broadway stars, and executives. If you want access to paid content, consider starting a subscription here.

1. Writing Hits for Madonna, Celine Dion, and Demi Lovato: A Conversation with Billy Steinberg

2. The Guts of Songwriting: A Conversation with Dan Wilson: In my favorite interview of the year, Taylor Swift and Adele-collaborator Dan Wilson picked apart the nuts and bolts about what makes songs work.

3. From The Replacements to Maroon 5: A Conversation with Matt Wallace: The only interview that I did with a producer in 2023, Matt Wallace gave me deep insight into how rock music has changed in the last 30 years.

4. The Search for the Truth: A Conversation with Jonathan Bernstein: In a conversation with Rolling Stone fact checker Jonathan Bernstein, I learned how hard it is to determine what’s really true.

5. Making Music Work in Your Town: A Conversation with Shain Shapiro: The best way to describe this conversation is a quote from it: “[There] is a deep-seated prejudice that flows through all of us. We all love music, but it is not a serious job, right?”

Most Engaging Stories
There are lots of ways you can engage with my newsletter. You can comment on them. You can like them. You can share them. You can click a link within them. These are the stories that had the most engagements per email opener.

1. Writing Hits for Madonna, Celine Dion, and Demi Lovato: A Conversation with Billy Steinberg

2. The Day the Genre Died: A fun piece where I used song titles to chronicle the rise and fall of both surf rock and disco.

3. Old Bands are Lying to You: Where I use an ancient Greek paradox to try to understand how Lynyrd Skynyrd can be on tour when all of the original band members are dead.

4. The Absurdity of Ed Sheeran's Latest Lawsuit: There are so many dumb music lawsuits out there. This was one of 2023’s dumbest. Luckily, Mr. Sheeran won.

5. Listen to My Story 'Bout TV Theme Songs

Song Recommendation Breakdown
In my Thursday newsletter, I also recommend two songs: a new one and an old one. The new one is somewhere between a few days and a few months old. The old one is at least two years old but usually at least 10 years old. I wanted to generate some stats on what I’d been recommending. First, I wanted to see some demographics. Am I only recommending music performed by white dudes?