Numlock Sunday: Chris Dalla Riva on the state of music

Photo by Heidi Fin on Unsplash

By Walt Hickey

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.

This week, I spoke to Chris Dalla Riva, author of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher.

Chris is responsible for one of my favorite newsletters, you folks will recognize him as one of the writers who covered for me during my honeymoon, he’s doing things at the intersection of data and music that nobody else is doing.

We spoke about why duets have become increasingly mediocre of late, the myriad ways streaming has changed the industry, and what that means for music criticism.

Dalla Riva can be found on Substack and most social media platforms.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Chris, thank you so much for coming back on.

Thanks for having me again.

You are the writer behind Can't Get Much Higher, which I think is doing some of the most interesting, compelling stuff in music — criticism, journalism, all of it — and I just wanted to have you back. You were one of the guests filling in for me during my…