For a good while, Beatique was just a personal blog where I would post my playlists, updates on gigs and the occasional story. In January, I figured I should turn it into a regularly updated music and culture blog that’s still very personal. Now that we’re near the middle of the year, I’m happy to say that the project is going well. There are new posts most weekdays. Interviews are a regular feature, with at least one running every week. There are also album and live reviews, event recaps, record store spotlights and the occasional rant.
Not to brag, but even I’m a little shocked that I’ve been able to post that much in between working two jobs, one of which involves a lot of writing, without using AI. It’s actually because journalism is my day job that I started putting some actual effort into the blog. Music, arts and culture journalism— which has been my beat for my entire career— is in a dismal place. It’s not just that I missed getting the music and alt culture assignments that never really came back after lockdown, but I missed reading stories that aren’t about the World’s Most Boring pop star and TikTok hits. Basically, I’m writing what I want to read, so thanks for joining me on the ride. If you want to stay up-to-date, sign up for the new mailing list. Newsletters will go out on Thursdays beginning this week and it’s free. The only thing I’m adamant about with this project is that there will be no subscriptions or paywalls.
Please share what you like, whether it’s on socials or just directly with your friends. I’m not interested in the quantity of readers so much as the quality of them, so if you know someone who is all like, “I’m really tired of paywalls on stories about social media posts,” then send them this way.
I debated whether or not I should post the Top 5 stories of the past six months because I don’t want to judge a story by how much traffic it gets, but I think these five stories are also reflective of what you’ll find here and what I have in store for the future.
Continue reading Top 5 Beatique Stories of 2025 (So Far)