It's cool to be UNCOOL.

I'm all about supporting experimental models of selling good writing. I admit I'm a luck sonofabitch, because I've been writing for so long I've got a nice little niche I'm happy with, and since I also work a 9-to-5 I'm free to not fall prey to fighting for freelance dollars on site that survive on listacles* and stories that unfold over 25 piece photo galleries designed to up pageviews.** So when Maura Johnston got fired from The Village Voice and decided to stop chasing pageviews and start her own subscription magazine dedicated to writing slightly longer-form pieces I threw my money in the pot and subscribed for a year. And when David Greenwald lost his fulltime gig and decided that in order to (I presume) keep his sanity amongst all the chasing of freelance gigs he put together a Kickstarter to try and fund a magazine with a couple other folks that would build even further on the idea of longform music writing,  UNCOOL, I threw my money in that pot too.

UNCOOL didn't meet it's goal, the main purpose of the fundraiser being that they could fund freelancers and pay for a years worth of writing up front, but instead of just fading away and giving up Greenwald and friends have decided to produce a single issue anyway and see if it sells. If it does they'll make more. Simple! So of course I immediately bought an issue. It looks good and it's only $3.99 so I'm willing to buy into the experiment. If it sucks I won't buy the next one, but judging by the table of contents the writers onboard, and the brie scan I've been able to give my own downloaded issue, I don't think that it's gonna suck.

Do you feel like reading some probably better than decent music and culture writing? Then listen to David's sales spiel below and hit the "buy" button. And then once you download it, if you dig it, feel free to share with friends.

Let's keep quality music writing alive, folks. It's cool to be UNCOOL.


* I fucking HATE that word.
** Which is just for the benefit of advertisers. Though I've been saying for, well pretty much since everyone started to obsess over pageviews, that uniques are what count first, and time spent on the site comes closely behind. That is, if you're really looking for who is engaging with what you're doing.