Get in Losers, We're Learning About New Music

Whether you're an old head, a new band, both, or neither -- if you've found yourself disillusioned with new music & want to change that, you're in the right place.

Need me to get to the point faster? Cool:

1. “WTF do you do here exactly?”

2. “Why TF should I pay?”

3. Times are tough — pay what you can.

I started this newsletter for people who stopped keeping up with new music.

There is so, so much new music. I completely understand why it feels overwhelming to sift through it, and why it’s so easy to get disillusioned with it.

100,000 new songs get uploaded to streaming services every single day. That’s a comically large number.

• Back in your day, the radio played good music.

• Back in your day, MTV played music, full stop. 120 minutes existed and played banger after banger for, well, two hours at a time.

• Back in your day, music recommendations came from your friends, from (paper!) magazines, from your friendly kinda judgy local record store clerks.

Now you’re stuck with algorithmically generated slop. I’m trying to

You don’t actually hate new music.

Remember having “that one music friend” who always had the perfect recommendation?

Maybe you were that friend, but now you have kids and a mortgage and a soul-crushing office job.

I’m here to fill some of the void left by the perfect music curation outlets we had when we were growing up.

I’m here to be “that one music friend,” if you’ll have me.

“What would you say you do here?”

• I draw connections between new artists and the older artists they’re inspired by, so that you can hear the similarities for yourself:

If You Like [X] Then You'll Like [Y]

• I introduce you to new artists you’re unlikely to have heard of on your own:

Known Unknowns #6 - Amazing Underrated Musicians in Endless Supply

• I carefully craft mixtapes of new music for interesting people:

New Music DNA - Pt. 1: Can I Turn Nostalgia Into Bespoke Mixtapes?

• I break down the best new music of the year:

The Best Albums for Old Heads of 2024, Pt. 1

…just for a start.

“Why would I pay for this?”

I don’t know your life. Maybe you’d never pay for a newsletter. That’s fine.

But here are several reasons you might want to pay for this one:

1. You like playlists.

• I offer a metric shit ton of them. So many that I made a tour. Many playlists are, but I regularly share paid-only playlists as well.

  The Playlist Grand Tour

2. You want a directory of every band I’ve ever recommended.

• Paid subscribers have access to the New Bands for Old Heads Directory, which lists every new band I’ve ever recommended in the newsletter, a reference for what they sound like, and a link to the post where I talked about them.

• It also has a tab for all of my playlists, all in one place!

3. You like getting extra community recs.

• If you like my recommendations, but you need them more than once a week, and across more genres than I tend to aim for — think of how nice an entire private community of music obsessives would be to bounce new music and playlists off of whenever you want.

4. You like free stuff

• I give away vinyl, CDs, and/or concert tickets routinely. Paid subscribers are automatically entered to win.

• Founding members also get some free merch (but all paid subscribers get a discount!)

  

5. You like listening parties

• That private community I mentioned? I recently started hosting pre-release album listening parties there. Listen to albums before they’re released, talk to the artists, chat with other music lovers. Think of it like an interactive pop-up video!

• We also host regular New Bands for Old Heads radio hours! Feel like being a DJ? Now’s your chance. Just want to sit back and listen to music with friends? That’s our jam, too.

6. You like reading

My posts are automatically paywalled when they turn 8 weeks old. Paying unlocks the archive and you get to read them all like they’re brand new again.

If you’re not convinced, try it out just for a little bit. I love a beefy trial period.

Paid content should be accessible — so I offer a sliding scale.

My subscriptions are priced fairly¹: $6.50/mo. or $65/year. That works out to just over a dollar per post.

But not everybody can afford that. That’s okay. If you need it, the links below will allow you to choose your own price for an annual subscription. As of January 2026, that’s $58.50, $52, $45.50, or $39/yr (who needs round numbers???).

If your circumstances change, you can always change your plan (in either direction).

Prefer to subscribe without supporting Substack directly?

(It’s $5 cheaper!)

Stay in touch. Tell me what else you want.

If you’re a musician and you want to submit music, you can do that too.

I hope you’ll stick around.

xo,

Gabbie

1. For some context, the default for new Substack writers is $8/mo and $80/yr. This is suggested as the base price so writers can actually earn a living. I’d like to get there someday, but I also want to find a balance that is realistic for you.