John’s Music Blog is a twice-weekly newsletter created by an aging millennial hipster and failed musician. John also has bylines in T: The New York Times Style Magazine and Kpopstarz. New Musical Express is an exploration of the fractured and confusing contemporary music landscape, written by someone who is one mental breakdown away from moving to the Midwest and working at a gas station.

Before I was a music blogger, I was a touring musician. Precarity was built into that lifestyle: I spent many years crashing on floors and couches for extended periods of time, all in the name of keeping whatever little career momentum I had going. I really just had to play that bad show for 15 people at a dive bar in Lawrence, Kansas, and I put up with a lot of bullshit to do it. What was my problem?

Currently, from the look of the “media landscape,” it seems as if culture journalism, which at one point offered a slightly more stable career path than DIY music, is just as shaky as plugging away on the road. In the wake of the spate of layoffs within the industry, the critic and the artist are on more equal footing, which is to say that my recent move from musician to blogger has been a lateral one. Again, what is my problem? Have I learned any lessons?

The lack of arts funding in this country has been a major contributing factor to its musical narrative. “From blues to punk to rap, the history of American music is often intertwined with unstable living conditions” is the kind of stock statement that probably doesn’t even need to be stated. I used to take this all as a twisted point of national pride. I once got flown to Austria to perform an extended set at an arts festival inside a castle; everyone involved in this state-funded project was European, but somehow they felt the need to bring in a gonzo idiot from America to interject some chaos into the room. When I made an energy drink, I didn’t think of it as a conceptual art project, though maybe the Austrians who booked me did. For me, it was a piece of merch that I could sell so I could get to the next city.

Over the years, I’ve softened and shifted my stances on culture. Creative people, be they musicians, artists, or writers, should be entitled to some amount of material support on an institutional level to help them live a sustainable life. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon in America. Until then, I’ll be riding the same storm I rode as a fucked-up 23-year-old touring via Greyhound bus, taking it one day at a time, trying to make stuff that I’m excited about. Welcome back, my friends, to New Musical Express with John’s Music Blog.

THE NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS TOP FIVE

1. DJ CHOPPER - “JUMPTHEFUCKUP”

Whenever I listen to European hard dance, my above thesis about American music is somehow both affirmed and shattered. Anyway, It feels like just yesterday that I was watching a pixelated video of Dutch jumpstyle dancers on YouTube, but in reality it was over 15 years ago. Scanning like a cross between Dance Dance Revolution and European folk movement, jumpstyle was connected to an equally intense musical style, one that fused elements of banging hard house and hardstyle and likely a few other dance genres with “hard” or “tech” in their name. Now it’s 2024, and the New Jersey producer XXHARDBIT3S, who was behind one of my favorite rave tunes of last year, has started a record label called UNITED JUMPFRONT, which is dedicated to bringing back that old time jumpstyle energy. Taken from UNITED WE JUMP!, the label’s first compilation, this tune, which features a Steve Harvey soundbite, is pure jumpy madness. A label to watch, for sure. I’ve heard reports of coordinated dance routines on stage at raves…

2. Kaliii - “BOZO”

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