On this very day 13 years ago I launched You Sing I Write. A few months out of college, I was struggling with a day job that didn’t involve writing and knew I needed a creative outlet. After weeks of brainstorming blog ideas with friends and family, my cousin’s husband suggested You Sing, I Write and I immediately loved the idea.
I launched my music blog in 2007 in hopes that it’d help keep up my writing skills while I dreamed of getting a full-time job interviewing bands and attending concerts along the way. I’m living proof that if you work hard and dream big even the impossible (like interviewing a Backstreet Boy and moving to Nashville) can come true. While I haven’t written here as frequently over the past year since getting my dream job writing about music full-time in February 2019 at Billboard and now covering the country radio industry for Country Insider, I hope in the coming months to amp up YSIW’s content.
I want to use YSIW to look back on some of my favorite interviews and live reviews over the years as well as write about up-and-coming artists I love. Since we’re all still in lockdown due to Covid-19, I’m hoping what once started as a creative outlet will serve as a time capsule and online portfolio for my clips while continuing to discover new music.
Each year, on Oct. 21, I love to look back on my very first post for You Sing I Write. It’s a reminder of where I came from but also a look at how much I’ve accomplished. Thanks for being such a huge support over the years and for the endless comments, messages, tweets and the sharing of my work. It truly means the world. Here’s to another 13 years!
I’m not a groupie…a music lover’s tale of getting that interview.
Despite popular belief, I am not a groupie. I’m a journalist. Sure, I hang around tour buses to get an interview with a band. But, that’s my job. Music has always been a passion of mine. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that I thought I could make a career out of it — music reporting that is. I still remember the concert. I was a correspondent at my college paper at the time, The Daily Targum at Rutgers University, when I covered the Gavin DeGraw concert on campus. Tickets sold out in record number, being that his song, “I Don’t Want To Be” was the theme song to a new hit TV show on the WB, “One Tree Hill.” His single began getting radio air time and popularity ensued.
I was standing in the front row, notebook in one hand, camera in the other when it hit me — I could do this for the rest of my life! I’ve always loved going to concerts and trying to meet the band. I did it for fun, but I could actually make a living out of it. Soon afterwards I began writing for my college paper’s entertainment section and while I’ve always enjoyed writing, music writing became my passion. I’d cover concerts on campus, in NYC, at Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ, a short drive from campus. You name the concert, I was there.
I was lucky enough to intern at Jane magazine as well as MTV News Online during my last year of college and learned more about the magazine/music industry and am confident that this is the field I want to go into. Since my current job isn’t a writing job I’ve decided to blog a bit on what I love — music. I’ll be going to some concerts and hopefully getting interviews as well as doing album reviews. In the meantime, I figure I’ll post past interviews with some bands I’ve covered and will hopefully get those up on the blog soon. If anyone knows of any good concerts or suggestions for this blog please let me know!
-Annie