arjanwrites.com

After Twelve Years, I'm Taking An Indefinite Break...

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

Hot New Pop Alert: Iris "I'll Wait For You"

Debut single “I’ll Wait for You” by pop newcomer Iris shines like a beacon of hope for all of those who are looking for a glimmer of light in the dark days of winter.  

The song discusses that if you want something really bad and you’ll wait long enough for it that ultimately your dreams may come true. 

Iris speaks from experience. After battling poor health that almost took her life, she gained strength and used music to make a fresh new start. The result is a slice of pop heaven that is quirky, melodic and taken straight from the heart.

It’s the type of high-grade pop that fans of Robyn, Tove Lo and other left-leaning pop will salivate over.

Iris partnered with director Sebastien Duguay, cinematographer John Londono and producer Cult Nation on the video for the song "We originally intended to make a nice simple lyric video to support the single,“ she explains.

"But when I showed up on set and saw the wonderful team that we had and the iconic Panasonic anamorphic B series lenses, I knew we would have an awesome video. Way more than what we anticipated.”

She continues, “The whole video was pretty much improvised on set. I just felt the song and went with the flow. It was important to me to have the viewer feel the song through my emotions and my body language rather than having a storyline and acting. This music video is simple, visually beautiful, spontaneous and real.”

Hot New Pop Alert: "Verite "Strange Enough"

Hailing from New York City, newcomer Verite serves up an impressive pop sound that will capture you from start to finish. I first heard her demos a few weeks ago and was instantly blown away by her powerful and deeply emotive delivery.  

Whilst working hard in the studio with the producer Elliot Jacobson on her debut EP, Verite is sharing “Strange Enough” to give us a taste of what’s to come. Fans of Lana Del Rey, Ellie Goulding and other pensive pop will be in for a huge treat.

The singer (who still works as a waitress in a local Manhattan restaurant) explains in a press release that she wrote the song to contemplate “all the questions I’d ask myself about my relationship, and why we bother ourselves to try to make things work sometimes.” 

She adds, “The song goes back and forth between the nostalgia of what was. The reality of how things shift as time moves on, and how ultimately we romanticize moments that are fleeting.” 

P.S. Vérité is French for “truth” that is pretty darn perfect in this case.