Wow. What a ride it has been.
After twelve years of blogging and tipping all of you about exciting new pop music, the time has come to take an indefinite break and focus on exciting new projects. Following my stint at CNN, The GRAMMYs and Beats Music, I'm now curating songs at Apple Music. Everything that I was doing on this blog for all of those years, I now do at Apple with a great team of like-minded people passionate about music. It's an exciting move for me. To present and contextualize new music at a global scale is a dream come true. All of the years of writing this blog (6772 posts to be exact) has led to this amazing opportunity that takes my personal and professional life on an exciting new adventure. (If you're curious, this what arjanwrites.com looked like when it launched in 2002.)
I want to thank all of my loyal readers who have been following this blog for all those years. Your response and feedback meant the world to me. I cannot thank you enough for tuning in every day to get your new music fix. I also want to thank the artists who shared their music with me and allowed this blog to be a platform to debut their music. From Lady Gaga to Lana Del Rey, and from Ellie Goulding to Bebe Rexha, and many others, they all stopped here first to tell their story. I'm truly humbled and thankful for the opportunity and trust you've given me.
What has always been important to me is that this blog was never about critiquing music. It was about telling the stories about the music, offering perspective, contextualizing an artist and giving them a home to serve up the music as it was intended. My goal was to celebrate pop music in all of its glory.
This blog has led to so many incredible opportunities that are memories of a lifetime. From doing my first phone interview with Pet Shop Boys in China to being the first credentialed blogger to attend the MTV Video Music Awards, and from coordinating Lady Gaga's first television performance to covering the The GRAMMY Awards for five years in a row. Somebody pinch me! All of those special experiences never got old. I still cherish each and every one of them. I never stopped being a music fan, first and foremost. I just happened to write about the stuff I was listening to and excited about.
The passion for music will continue to drive me on my new endeavours. Perhaps one day, I will return here but for now I'm 100% focused on my new gig at Apple where I can fully apply my enthusiasm for music. If you'd like to stay in touch, feel free to reach out on Twitter. Say hey or tell me about your new music!
For now, I'm signing off. See you on Apple Music!
Thank you! x
Arjan