REPLY ALT is now ZERO CRED
New name, same half-assed newsletter.
Hello it’s me Dan Ozzi and welcome to music’s only and therefore greatest newsletter. I will get back to regular posts soon, with a long interview going out this Sunday, but first…
A quick housekeeping note: Starting today, I’m changing the name of this newsletter from REPLY ALT to ZERO CRED.
To answer your immediate questions…
Why? I feel like it!
Who cares? Nobody!
No but really why? I’ve been telling myself that, after nearly five years of doing this newsletter, it’s time to shake things up. But the more I think about it, the more I believe it’s actually a subconscious desire to sabotage my internet presence. I hate the way the internet is now. I hate what the chuds in charge have done to our beautiful, weird online spaces over the last few years. I hate how we’re all unpaid employees of three billionaire tech dorks now.
The frustration I and many others feel about it was neatly summed up in a popular Vox article recently, entitled “Everyone’s a sellout now” (hm something about that title I like but can’t quite put my finger on!):
Corporate consolidation and streaming services have depleted artists’ traditional sources of revenue and decimated cultural industries. While Big Tech sites like Spotify claim they’re “democratizing” culture, they instead demand artists engage in double the labor to make a fraction of what they would have made under the old model. That labor amounts to constant self-promotion in the form of cheap trend-following, ever-changing posting strategies, and the nagging feeling that what you are really doing with your time is marketing, not art. Under the tyranny of algorithmic media distribution, artists, authors — anyone whose work concerns itself with what it means to be human — now have to be entrepreneurs, too.
I also recently wrote about how this push to treat art as a marketable commodity makes me want to kick against it, which I proudly do in this newsletter in my small ways. Basically, anything the algorithm likes, I do the opposite. The algorithm is not very kind to what I do—in depth interviews with musicians and authors, book and zine recommendations, personal essays about music. But even in the little details, I find myself stubbornly going against the grain. I mainly use black and white photos instead of flashier color shots. I tend to strip headlines down to “A Conversation with [Person’s Name]” instead of something clickier. No reels, no cheap prompt questions, no posting “content” 2-4 times a day. So, abruptly renaming the newsletter to begin with the very last letter of the alphabet? Sounds right up my fucking alley.
A few years ago, Facebook arbitrarily decided publishers should “pivot to video,” and thousands of writers lost their jobs as a result. Their pivots have only gotten worse since then. Every few months, they change their mind about what its users should be looking at and transition to something dumber. Maybe it’s video podcasts and man-on-the-street interviews today. Tomorrow it will be something new. Forget text-based journalism. They’ve decided that is long dead, soon to be replaced with soulless copy churned out by an AI bot.
But you and I are proof that people are not the braindead morons they think we are. In spite of being a thorny prick about all this, I have managed to build an audience of several thousand very smart (and presumably hot) readers over the last few years. I hear from many of you regularly, both online and in real life, and I love the personal nature of those interactions. I talk to you at book parties and readings. Lately I’ve even been receiving letters, zines, and postcards at my PO Box, which is an affront to the internet that I take great pride in.
Thank you for proving that the internet doesn’t have to cater to the lowest common denominator. Thank you for reading actual fucking words. Thank you for giving a shit.
I hate writing about all this crap, you understand. It’s very boring and not what I want to be focusing on. I want to get off my high horse and get back to music, and I will be doing that promptly after this. I just finished work on a giant book that I look forward to telling you all about this year. Yesterday I did an interview with a friend and musical hero, and I have more interviews to come.
Nothing will change here besides the name. (You can also find it at zerocred.ink.) Subscriptions are free, but you can upgrade to a paid subscription which helps me greatly. A paid subscription also gets you my weekly book column, semi-annual postcards, and exclusive discounts in my store. Speaking of my store, I throw ZERO CRED stickers in with every order.
ZERO CRED is independently run. No ads. No Condé Nast backing. No typoes. Thank you for the support.
Dan.
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Real life: PO Box 11352, Glendale, CA 91226
Get my book SELLOUT at Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon.