One piece of essential music writing each day of the working week

In depth, long-form, very clever and/or vaguely ridiculous

Pre Substack

Founded in 2005 by me, Stuart Stubbs, Loud And Quiet had predominantly been a London-based independent print magazine that’s focused on discovering emerging musicians that weren’t traditionally covered by mainstream titles. Up until February 2024, we published 163 editions of our physical title, a lot of which you can find on our archive site at www.loudandquiet.com.

We’re also the people responsible for the interview podcast Midnight Chats.

But now we’re trying something new here on Substack – a quality over quantity approach to music journalism, for readers and writers who take music seriously but not necessarily themselves.

Here on Substack for free

This Substack is the home of our newsletter the Loud And Quiet Weekly, delivering new music news and recommendations to you every Friday morning, directly to your inbox. Typically, it features our Track of the Week, a 3 Sentence Live Review, indie news, hot links and salacious rumours/whopping lies.

Why sign up for a paid subscription

Loud And Quiet as a print publication has been on hold since March 2024, and, truth be told, might not be back for some time. It just costs so bloody much to keep an independent/any print magazine going these days. But I feel there’s a natural home for L&Q here on Substack.

As our newsletter has grown, we’ve published more articles here that are exclusively for our paid subscribers, with the help of the brilliant music journalists who’ve made Loud And Quiet what it is today. In order to do that, it’s important that the writers involved be paid fairly.

In the busiest of weeks, paying subscribers will receive 5 articles, one per day, Monday through to Friday. Friday’s newsletter remains our weekly roundup; all other articles are for paying subscribers and include in depth album reviews, artist interviews, essays and opinions, columns about how music affects our lives, and podcasts.

Imagine, if you will, a new way of reading about music. By limiting our output to a maximum of 1 article per day through the working week, we won’t be overstretched, you won’t be overwhelmed, and every piece of writing published will be the best it can be. And besides, music writing needs a bit of a shake up… and to become a bit more of a laugh again, too.

Also for paid subscribers

Paid subscribers also have access to our Sweet 16 podcast archive, where musicians recall what they were up to at that pivotal age, all archive posts (free posts will be automatically archived behind the paywall after 4 weeks), and the power to create chats in our community chat function.

All for less than £1 per week. Come and give it a go.

Thanks very much. Stu