Hello to you from the Popjustice Substack
I was going to start this in January but maybe now is a slightly better time
Hiya!
Well, there’s nothing quite like impending social media apocalypse to focus the mind and so a Substack I’d intended to do in January next year springs to life today.
I have mixed feelings about the idea of Twitter possibly collapsing. I’ve made friends through Twitter (about eight), received clicks on my glorious content through Twitter (again, about eight), and found out about lots of stuff through Twitter. Also: will I ever again experience anything quite like the euphoria of David Cameron Pig Morning? That ridiculous website has made me laugh a lot over the years.
It’s also made me very cross and very sad. It’s annihilated my productivity, it’s distracted me from more important things in my life, it’s given me an unreasonable sense of my own importance even though I know deep down that most of my followers are inactive users who were briefly hopeful that I might tweet something interesting about Lady Gaga over a decade ago, and I’m not massively keen on a lot of what it’s done to The Noble Art Of Journalism.
Maybe Twitter is just a useful scapegoat for stuff that would have happened anyway. In any case I’d like it to hang on for long enough for Taylor Swift fans to bring down Ticketmaster. So, mixed feelings.
Hello old friends
To those of you who’ve subscribed to Popjustice emails/mailouts/newsletters at one point or another over the last 22 years (!), this is how you’ll be getting emails ‘moving forward’. This has a number of benefits:
It’s not hosted, like the previous list was, on a server I’ve configured myself, and I think if we’ve learned anything over the last few weeks it’s that one man being in total control of an online operation is not exactly ideal
It allows me now to experiment with Substack’s bullet points
To be clear, the afore-mentioned ‘number of benefits’ is: precisely two
Which makes me wonder if I should instead have experimented with Substack’s numbered lists, but we are where we are
You’re getting this because you’ve opted in to emails but if you don’t want to get these as you’ve done a lot of growing in the last few years and aren’t now interested in eg me wanging on about one specific remix of the last Lizzo single (ie this specific remix), hit unsubscribe and I’ll add you to my shitlist bid you a tearful farewell.
Hello new friends
I expect I’ll be posting a tweet after this is sent, saying something like “as Twitter is collapsing, you can find me on my new Substack”. I also expect that in the tweet I will have given the Substack some sort of self-deprecating context along the lines of “due to underwhelming demand”, despite knowing (and knowing you know, and knowing you know I know) that it would be nice to have some people subscribe to it.
Anyway, maybe you’ve followed that link and ended up reading this. And you’re wondering: “What will the emails from the Popjustice Substack actually look like?” A fair question.
I guess you can either sign up to get regularish emails, or you can not sign up and just come back and see what the emails look like before you commit. That is fine! It would be nice to stay in touch somehow though, if Twitter does go down.
FAQ
Is this Popjustice Substack free or yet another thing I’m going to be expected to pay for?
Nothing in life is truly free, grow up.
My friends have stopped speaking to me since I claimed David Guetta and Bebe Rexha’s bold reimagining of Blue (Da Ba Dee) is the greatest cultural achievement of the decade so far — what should I do?
See if they like the Oliver Heldens extended mix?
What’s the best song that’s out this week?
It’s very clearly Fred Again… and Romy’s Strong, although I’d suggest an apropos-of-nothing, vaguely Christmas-themed-for-the-first-part cover of Westlife’s Fool Again (???) by Belgian singer Moli is worth a listen.
Is all the music released this week good?
I’m afraid to say it is not, but I will not be going into detail here — as the old saying goes, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything about the new Christmas version of 3 Lions.
What will actually be in Popjustice Substack emails?
Look, I said I’d been intending to start it next year, not that I’d actually been planning it. A subtle but very significant difference.
Is Popjustice still a thing though?
Popjustice is 21 things, and one of them is this Substack. More on that coming soon.
‘Soon’ soon, or soon soon?
Yes.
What’s happening with the Popjustice website/forum?
See the earlier comment about one man being in charge of things.
Are these going to be regular emails?
Well that was the original idea, before Elon Musk shifted my timeline a bit. I’m quite busy, as I’m sure are you. But I’ve missed writing about pop music and I’ve missed connecting with the people who read that writing, so let’s see how that goes.
With that in mind I will let you get on with your day.
I will now write my name, then add a PS.
Peter
PS: Do email me if you would like to say hello! It’s nice to hear from people.
What a pleasant surprise this turning up was
Yay I say! Yay!