Meet Rachel Brodsky | Music & Culture Writer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rachel Brodsky and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachel, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
It was a combination of things, really. For one, I’d been working full-time media jobs for about a decade, in New York and Los Angeles. And I’d worked at such a variety of companies — TV stations (MTV, CBS), websites/magazines (SPIN, Paste, Time Out NY), newspapers (The Independent), a non-profit (The Recording Academy). I think after COVID and lockdown happened, I just sort of threw my hands up in the air and decided I was done with office life — for the foreseeable future, anyway. I never say never.

I’d always been terrified of pursuing a freelance writer’s life, because when I graduated from college in 2008, I was essentially forced to scrap together a tiny income and do gig work before “gig work” was in the cultural lexicon. All I wanted was a full-time job in media; I put the idea of a full-time job on a pedestal, thinking it would solve all of my problems. Then when I finally landed a full-time job, followed by numerous other full-time jobs, I realized, “Oh, this is just another, different set of problems.”

I think having worked in the full-time world AND the independent world has given me a ton of valuable perspective. With the encouragement of my amazing husband, I decided to take a leap in 2021 and officially go freelance. It was a big deal in my mind because I’d been terrified of going back to that Recession-era place. Just the trauma of desperately looking for work in an unstable field with very little safety net had done a number on my psyche.

That said, I’ll always be grateful I went for it. Particularly since I think juggling different gigs and projects is becoming more normalized across industries. I have more control over my schedule, I work early in the morning(s) and take it easy in the afternoons. I save a lot of money on transportation because I don’t have / need a car anymore.

But to more directly answer your question, my thought process went something like, “I’ve been fantasizing about going freelance, but I’m afraid. Mmmmmmmm FUCK IT, I’M DOING IT.”

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I graduated from college in 2008 — one of the worst times possible to be a professional writer in any capacity. No one was hiring, obviously. I had barely any media connections, since I didn’t go to school in a city. My school (s/o Muhlenberg College) was wonderful for many reasons, and I got a top education, but I didn’t leave with anything resembling a professional network the way you might if you attended, I don’t know, somewhere more nationally prestigious like NYU, Oberlin, or Vassar.

What I did have, however, was proximity — my family lived in New Jersey, an hour away from New York City or Philadelphia — and the extremely good fortune not to have any student loans. Whenever I speak to prospective journalists or students interested in knowing my career path, I always emphasize how fortunate I was to have parents who were in a position to pay my tuition at a private college, which gave me a running start a lot of people just do not get. As I’ve gotten older and seen how much our country’s middle class has deteriorated, I feel a heightened mixture of gratitude and survivor’s guilt. So I really try to pay it forward and offer my time to students / interns / writer-curious creatives as much as possible.

While in college, I was the most actively involved in college radio, and I’d done summer internships at XM Satellite Radio (before it merged to become SiriusXM). Initially, I thought maybe I’d pursue a career in radio, a dream that died almost immediately when Sirius merged with XM to become SiriusXM (layoffs), which also happened in 2008, my graduation year. So I kind of had to go back to square one and — sigh — do more internships.

I took an editorial internship the summer after I graduated at this company in New York that published online events calendars for cities around the country, kind of like a newer, marginally hipper Time Out. I juggled that with a second internship at a record label and then a third internship at a music publicity company. Two out of the three internships were paid (barely anything), but it was something. Train fare and lunch money at best.

Those first two years after college were, frankly, a nightmare. I couldn’t find full-time work ANYWHERE, no matter what I did, who I knew, or how well I tweaked my resume/cover letter. I felt like that meme in the 2005 Kiera Knightly version of Pride & Prejudice where her friend tells her “I’m 27 years old, I’ve no money and no prospects. I’m already a burden to my parents… and I’m frightened.” (I was 21-22, but still. Point remains.) I ran through a series of Craigslist part-time jobs and one-off gigs so demeaning that I still occasionally have nightmares about them. I was hired and then fired from Us Weekly as a fact checker. I was also hired and then fired as a barista. I quit a job assisting Susan Lucci’s publicist after one week. I got sexually harassed at NYC music clubs where I worked the door for extra cash. I got some interviews in book publishing but no job offers because I’d never had an internship in book publishing.

The smoke cleared somewhat in 2009 when I took a 20-hour-a-week gig creating travel itineraries for a literary agent based in Upstate New York. The work was remote and consistent, and I liked my boss. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was juuuust enough to let me do some freelance music writing, which often paid nothing, on the side. I existed that way until about 2010 — two years after graduation, I finally got a full-time editorial job in New York City — at a parenting magazine. I wasn’t a parent, and I wasn’t ever really planning on becoming a parent, but I admired the woman who hired me. The managing editor had worked for places like Vanity Fair and Vogue. She’d actually ignored the “no one ride in the elevator with Anna Wintour” rule! She was / is a badass.

Unfortunately, though, the parenting magazine had an absolutely awful CEO; he took an immediately dislike to me because I wore a tiny stud in my nose and said I had too much “hubris.” Working with him was a daily exercise in humiliation. I spent about a year at that company and left for another parenting magazine (Time Out New York Kids). The year after that, I landed my first major job in entertainment: MTV.

I spent two years as the associate editor for MTV Buzzworthy, a long-defunct pop music/pop culture blog. Working at MTV was wild and a dream come true. I remember I wanted that job so badly that I spent three full days on the edit test, in complete hyper-focus mode, barely eating or going to the bathroom. I was so laser-focused on doing the absolute best I could to GET THAT JOB.

Working at MTV was brilliant and terrifying in equal measure. On one hand, I saw a pre-fame HAIM perform in the lobby of 1515 Broadway. I met so many smart, talented people, many of whom I’m still in touch with. I witnessed a lot of pop culture history happening in real time. I learned how to edit a team of writers and manage an editorial schedule. I met MGK and Mac Miller (RIP). I learned how to cover award shows, including the VMAs and the Grammys, our biggest and second-biggest nights of the year. On the flip side, I also lost a lot of sleep and developed debilitating anxiety for the first time in my life. My insomnia got so bad, I had to visit my doctor because I wondered if maybe I was dying. (I wasn’t. But this sure was my first brush with burnout.)

This is going pretty long, so I’ll try to speed it up. Following MTV, I spent two years at SPIN, which was more in line with the type of editorial writing I always envisioned myself doing: writing music news and reviews, interviewing a range of musicians, exercising my opinion as a Critic instead of doing what essentially amounted to branded content at MTV. (No hate on branded content, by the way — I still do some branded content/copywriting in my present-day career, and it 100% is why I can afford to take on “sexier” entertainment profiles.) I also worked with a truly kickass team of writers and editors at SPIN, and I cannot emphasize enough how much I learned there. If I had not been laid off in 2016 with a few other members of the team when they brought in a new Editor In Chief, I imagine I would have stayed a lot longer than two years.

In 2017, I started thinking seriously about moving to LA — I’d spent all of my 20s in New York and I was just TIRED in mind, body, and spirit. I was also kind of disillusioned with the music industry and wanted to try something else. Through an old MTV connection, I found a job with CBS Interactive (now Paramount+) writing and editing promotional editorial content around CBS shows, including the Grammys. About two years later, the Grammys themselves called — the Recording Academy was looking for a new Managing Editor for Grammy.com, a position I held from 2018-2020.

And then came the Covid-19 pandemic. One day in March 2020, I left my desk in Santa Monica thinking, “I might have to work from home tomorrow.” I literally haven’t worked in an office since.

Today, I juggle a series of jobs / clients and write about everything from music (my first love) to entertainment, culture, lifestyle, celebrity, and business trends.

My biggest client is a great file-sharing B2B SaaS platform called DISCO.ac, which is owned and operated by music sync professionals. They found me because I started a podcast about great music syncs in TV and film (check out *IN SYNC wherever you get your podcasts!). I also write band bios, blog regularly for Stereogum, and contribute to the LA Times, TIME, Rolling Stone, and other outlets. Given the state of media in 2024, and really the way it’s been my whole working life, I couldn’t afford to survive on editorial freelance work if I didn’t mix some branded content in there. But at this stage, I like having that mix and exercising different areas of my brain. I’ve never liked doing just one kind of thing. I love changing it up every day.

It’s funny because I’ve really come full circle in my career; I started with gig work and I’m back doing gig work. Except I don’t view full-time work as anything close to salvation anymore — it’s just a different kind of existence. I’m at a stage in my life where I like the flexibility of freelance life after years spent in-office. Freelance life involves a lot of self-management and planning ahead, but I’ve always been really good at that.

To end this absolute novel of a career story, I’ve learned a tremendous amount in the last ~15 years. I’m a natural survivor and have never been afraid to leap into new opportunities. But I’ve also had to learn self-advocacy, navigating workplace sexism and the inevitable politics (which I suck at because I’m such a straight shooter with a strong internal sense of justice), etc. I also bring a lot of enthusiasm and optimism to just about everything I do, and that’s one trait I’ve managed to keep going despite the never ending slew of reasons to turn cynic.

So, no: none of this has been easy. But I continue to write because I think I’m one of those freaks who simply couldn’t be happy doing anything else. Believe me, I’ve tried to be happy doing other things. I always come back to this, and I think there’s a reason for that.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’d be sure to book a dinner at Budonoki — a superb Japanese Izakaya restaurant in our building. My husband and I have taken so many friends (in town and out of town) to dinner there because the food and service are so spectacular.

As long as we’re still eating, a trip to Bavel or Bestia in the Arts District is key.

I love going thrifting and walking around flea markets, so I’d want to visit our across-the-street neighbor The Crowd Went Wild for some secondhand goodies, then visit the South Pasadena Flea Market. I find the Rose Bowl Flea overwhelming — the South Pas Flea is calmer and less crowded. Then, I’d want to stop by Sunbeam Vintage in Highland Park, not necessarily with the intention of buying furniture because their pieces get a tad pricey — but just to look and admire.

Also, L.A.G. Vintage on Virgil has the best T-shirts. I can’t go in their shop without buying a T-shirt. I have a crippling addiction to vintage T-shirts.

I also am a giant coffee / caffeine addict. Anywhere I go, there has to be the possibility of coffee nearby. I love Maru, File Systems of Coffee in East Hollywood, Cafecito Organico. My husband and I used to visit Rick’s Coffee on Virgil on a daily basis until they closed 🙁 Bring back Rick’s!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I definitely want to shout out my husband Taylor Barefoot — his encouragement and support has been so crucial. The way he’s always sharing my writing, telling his clients and/or family about someone I just interviewed… To have someone like him with whom I can always share in my success is meaningful in ways I still struggle to describe.

I also credit my parents! They never tried to micromanage my childhood or push me towards activities THEY wanted me to do, and they never gave me grief if I started something and decided I didn’t like it so much after all, like, say, karate or dance lessons. Unlike a lot of my peers’ parents, when I was growing up my mother didn’t pack my schedule with an abundance of activities; she recognized the value in having downtime and taking time to decompress. To this day, I really believe I’m skilled at balancing work obligations and life as a freelancer because my parents gave me space to just rest and read, making it so that I don’t heavily stigmatize taking time for myself after a period of intense work.

Likewise, my father was *legitimately* thrilled when I said I wanted to be an English major in college. I didn’t know it at the time, but a lot of parents might have scoffed and/or pushed their kids into something more obviously lucrative and with a more tangible skillset. But my family let me embrace my dreams of being a writer, no questions asked. They really wanted my sister and me to have choices and experiences they didn’t have, such as going away to school (they commuted) and being encouraged to pursue the arts if that’s what spoke to us. Fascinatingly, since retiring a few years ago, my mother has become a prolific painter. She’s featured in local art shows and winning prizes.

Finally, I’ve had the privilege of working with some wildly smart and talented writers and editors. I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without the guidance of the editors I worked with at SPIN in 2014-2016 — s/o Kyle McGovern and Andrew Unterberger. Likewise, I’m quite grateful to Stereogum’s Scott Lapantine and Chris DeVille, who have been welcoming my pitches for nearly a decade now (dang). I also feel like Stereogum is a place where I’ve gotten to explore and grow my voice as not just a music writer, but a writer-writer.

Website: https://rachelbrodsky.mystrikingly.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rebrods/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelbrodsky/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RachelBrods

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brodsky1