Arjan Writes keeps it Superfraiche in Atlanta
Music blogger/tastemaker Arjan Writes has an ear for sweet and crunchy pop. Ask Lady Gaga
- Loren Hoffmann/The Hoffmeister
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Long before the rest of the world went goo-goo over Lady Gaga, Arjan Writes was all over her (like way back in ’08). Since 2003, the music blogger has been breaking artists (remember when DJs used to do that?) and flaunting his taste for superfraiche (that’s fresh in French, yo!) pop. Besides being heralded by the likes of Billboard, OUT, and even Forbes magazine, the internationally respected pop blogger happens to reside right here in Atlanta.
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Tonight, he presents his first Superfraiche Pop Night in Atlanta, which presented me with the perfect, and long-overdue, opportunity to talk to him about all things, uhm, sweet and crunchy.
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With Dragonette, Shy Child, Barry Brandon. $10. 9 p.m. Drunken Unicorn, 736 Ponce de Leon Ave. www.thedrunkenunicorn.net.
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This is going to sound so typically American of me, but you have the coolest accent. I know you grew up in Amsterdam. What kind of music were you exposed to growing up there?
Yeah, I was exposed to a lot of music from the States. When I grew up in Amsterdam in the late 80s, I listened to a lot of great pop music that came through from the U.S., so all of the artists who were big in the States at that time were big in Holland as well. A very prominent genre in Western Europe, that was also big in Holland at that time — Amsterdam in particular — was dance music, so I also grew up with a lot of dance music. In Amsterdam and in Holland, DJs are the rock stars. I mean, you turn on mainstream radio, and what you get is dance music.
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I’m sure that influenced your taste as an adult, right?
Yeah, very much. I’ve always had that leaning. My thing is pop music, and really it goes from the sweet to the crunchy. So really, I’m interested in pop music that is a little less cute — the type of music that you have to listen to a few times to really appreciate it. It’s like you have to chew on it a while before you really get a taste for it.
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Describe “sweet and crunchy.” When you use that to describe the kind of pop music that you like, what exactly do you mean?