Welcome to Gilded Minutes by Christian Archer.
A hello to new friends and important links.
Howdy!
If you’re here, you have exquisite taste in music and I thank you for trusting me to help you refine that exquisite taste ever further.
My name’s Christian Archer, I’m based in Brooklyn, NY. My life has been intertwined with either the making of music, the making of businesses around music, the collecting of music, or the deep listening of music for at least the last decade and now it seems I can add the curating of music to my musical resume.
I’m someone who has a deeply emotional relationship with the music I listen to online and collect here at home (I’m the proud owner of around 650 records) and my heart grows 3 times it’s size when I’m able to introduce people to music that moves them closer toward their hearts or the moment at hand.
What’s my goal? What’s this about?
First some context: radio, music videos, music journalism, mixtapes, and music blogs are dead. We’re in a time where music discovery is dominated by impersonal algorithms and trending TikTok audio, and I don’t know about y’all but I’m not happy about it. On top of this, while it has never been easier to create and release music, it has also never been harder to make a living as a professional musician, even as we consume music at a level like never before in history.
But look, I’m not here to complain, I want to help.
How? Well, consider me your personal musical curator but also your friendly neighborhood musical altruist and artist advocate.
Over the last few years I have consistently listened to anywhere between 10 to 30 new albums a week, from the grammy nominees to the underground obscurities, I try to listen to it all so that I can listen to what’s actually good and not just what culture is telling me is good, because you know, culture can (somehow) very easily be manipulated by outsized marketing budgets and clever TikTok campaigns.
What to expect:
• 3 standout albums from the last few months in your inbox once a week.
• Easy and accessible links to all mentioned music and playlists.
• Access to my “Favorite Albums of 2024” master playlist.
• Exclusive music/audio gear related giveaways.
• A tight knit community of music lovers!
Playlist Links:
• Archer’s Albums to Live In (refreshed weekly)
• Archer’s Songs to Study (2024 - 2025)
• Archer’s Favorite Albums of 2024
FAQ:
“Why wouldn’t I want to listen to 10 - 30 new albums every week myself?”
Answer: Well, it’s very time consuming and not always rewarding. There can be more music uploaded in a day than released in entire years of the 20th century. That means there’s a lot of good stuff, but it also means there’s a lot of middling and downright bad stuff that you should maybe avoid and instead spend your time listening to the stuff you love.
So yeah, let me do it for you.
Oh yeah, I’ll also be giving away records, turntables, and maybe even full sound systems as the months go by because I’ve learned the best way to put money into the pockets of our favorite musicians is to BUY their music, and record collecting makes it very easy and incredibly fun/sentimental to do just that. So yes, my master plan to get the world’s musicians paid a living wage for their work is to get people buying their favorite albums by giving away record players.
Okay, that’s it. Until next time 👋.
I understand how sacred privacy is in our day and I feel tremendously honored when someone trusts me enough to let me into their inbox week after week. Thanks for being here ❤️.
If art is how we decorate space and music is how we decorate time, then it would appear these minutes are gilded - shining, precious, and ever fleeting.
Looking forward to recommendations! I’m a former record store clerk from NI. I loved recommending music to customers who were open to new and different things. Best of days!