January 1, 2018
Hello friends, and welcome to The Pulpit. It’s been about nine months since the idea first occurred to me to create something in the mold of a music review site, and it’s nice to finally bring it into existence. Several previous versions, none of which saw the light of day, existed before a good friend came along and built most of the site from the ground up. It does not exist without his considerable efforts, so a tip of the cap to him.
I am blessed and lucky enough to currently be enrolled in college and surrounded by people far more creative and talented than I. Watching my peers create music, art, film, writing, etc. that others enjoy inspired me to attempt the same, so a tip of the cap to them as well. Two things I’ve always enjoyed are listening to music and writing, thus the idea was born.
The internet doesn’t need another opinion on popular music, however. For example, what could I possibly say about Kanye West that hasn’t been said already? There are plenty of opinions and reviews out there on the same music projects from the same mainstream artists. Websites dedicating to exposing new artists serve, in my opinion, a more important function than music review sites. My only complaint is these sites mostly fail to offer more than a paragraph of thought about how the music sounds. I almost wish they employed certain descriptive elements inspired by review sites.
This is my attempt at combining the two. I want to offer exposure for underrepresented artists but in the form of longer, fleshed-out album reviews and ideally fill a need that, in my mind, hasn’t been met. I won’t assign any number values because I’ll only be touching on projects I enjoyed. These reviews serve as the core of the site, but I’ll also sprinkle in blogs about songs I enjoy and occasionally weigh in on the happenings in the hip-hop/R&B world. Most musical selections will come from those genres, as they are the genres I enjoy the most and know the most about.
My main goals here are to expose people to music they probably haven’t heard and work on my writing. In that vein, feedback on the content is hugely appreciated (just don’t be evil). The site is a personal project more than anything, but if it catches on, elements can be added on a request-centric basis. For now, look around, read some reviews, listen to the music, and spread the word. This is The Pulpit.