A couple of years ago, I quit my job working as a customer service agent for a large company in my hometown. Deeply ashamed, I pretended to go to work anyway. I would wake at the normal time and sit at McDonald's with a hash brown and a coffee, wondering what the hell I was doing with my life.

Headphones on, I would listen to music for hours. Music is the only thing that has ever kept me sane and it was here that I had a small pang of inspiration. I began to jot down bits and pieces, critiques and enjoyments about the songs, mostly by small unsigned artists, that I was listening to. It felt good.

I knew I needed to do this properly but I didn’t own a laptop. Thankfully, I knew that the local library offered free use of the internet for two hours a day and so I could use that space as my office, albeit only for that limited time per day.

And so that’s what I did. Up at seven, sat in the cafe until the library opened and then frenetically type until my time was up. I began to reflect on my newfound vigour. Where was this tenacity and work ethic beforehand? Why hadn’t my previous academic or workplace experiences spurred me on like this? Was it inspiration? Partly. Was it desperation? Probably. Was it the fact that I felt I had no alternative but to throw myself into this project for fear of the deep dark void? Absolutely.

In retrospect, it smacks of ADHD but I guess we’ll have to wait for the doctors to get back to me.

I began to realise I wanted to do this properly. Over the next two weeks, I used my last remaining pennies to purchase domains and built a website using Wix. I mapped out how I wanted my articles to look, thought up basic branding and designs and built the website up. I sent email after email to artists, labels and organisations that I felt fitted with our ethos. I wanted to be a space for unsigned artists, such as myself, that never really got a look-in for reviews or a platform that wasn’t behind a paywall.

Bad Taste was born.

I made long lists of people I vaguely knew in the industry and planned out two years of content broken down into weeks. I was impressing myself, and felt I was blossoming into the young and exciting creative I always thought I should be. Even so, I started to realise I needed help. I hired a team of volunteers, whittled down from a remarkably high number of applicants that blew me away.

It felt like a bit of a therapy experiment, any injustice I felt I faced as a young and broke artist I wanted to fix for others. It wasn’t about money but I had used the last of my own.

My mum needed my rent money. I couldn't pay it. In all the excitement, I still hadn’t come clean about my employment status.

I broke down completely and was put to work finding a new job.

During the next month, I systematically shut myself off from Bad Taste. Regretfully, I stopped responding to the journalists who were wanting to put out articles through us and I wrote my last draft of an article in April 2023. It had come to a grinding halt and my mental health fell through the floor.

I knew burnout was a real thing but I’d never experienced it like this. I don’t think I’d dared to work hard enough at something like this before. I had put everything in it for those short few months but it all came cascading back down upon me.

And it was a lesson I was too ashamed of admitting I’d learned until now.

I believe that Bad Taste is a great idea and I’m committed to getting it back on its feet again. Slowly but surely, I will be back posting reviews and articles on the page - possibly just at a rate that is a little more comfortable for me. So keep your eyes peeled for more updates and thank you to anyone who has taken the time to listen to my stream of consciousness spiel.

The Rise & Fall of a Mid North-Western Music Reviewer

The brief and wondrous life of Bad Taste Music Reviews

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