Of Note 009: Year's End, DIY Champs King Gizz, Ghost Music, and More
Welcome to 2025! Allow me to reintroduce myself to the many new subscribers since last month: This is Of Note, a monthly newsletter highlighting music writing worth reading from the previous month. I know many of you new subscribers found me on Bluesky. So happy to have you here!
A few quick updates:
Each newsletter will now go by a number (starting today with 009) instead of the month to allow for flexibility in the future if the frequency increases.
I plan to read a recently published music book each month in 2025 and feature it in addition to my typical links. That will start next month with Liz Pelly’s explosive Spotify exposé Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and The Cost of the Perfect Playlist. If you know of any good books coming out, let me know!
On to the great music writing from December 2024!
My Favorite of Year’s End
The deluge of Year’s End content, lists, and reflections is overwhelming. Some may think they aren’t worthy of inclusion in a roundup of music writing worth reading, but I do. The challenge of summing up the year and distilling what made an album special after having more time to think about it leads to some worthy writing. If you’re looking for a ton of links, check out my thread on Bluesky and follow me there as I repost many stories that don’t make the newsletter.
I loved See/Saw’s Top 52 Punk and Rock’N’Roll Records Zine/Poster for subscribers. Something about holding a physical copy in your hands that makes the year that much more tangible.
Patrick Lyon’s reflection of his “Year in Maximalism” for his newsletter Inbox Infinity was a wonderful personal look back at the themes tying all of his 2024 favorites together.
Hanif Abdurraqib’s “123 Favorites Albums of 2024” for his Medium blog is a treasure trove and includes lots of links to profiles, interviews, and other great writing about his selected albums.
Zachary Lipez’s “I Guess Time Makes End Of The Year Lists of Us All: 50(ish) Albums from 2024” for his newsletter Abundant Living is the Willy Wonka of lists. Lots of jokes, lists within lists, and tons of links.
For a more traditional list, Madison Bloom and Nina Cocoran’s “The Best 30 Rock Albums of 2024” for Pitchfork is well considered, wonderfully written, and focused.
The Modern DIY Success of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard
Whether or not you’re a fan, some phenomena just beg attention. So it is with King Gizz. They are selling out huge outdoor shows everywhere they go and are breaking all the “rules” of the music industry in route to their success.
Grayson Haver Currin, who seems to building up a large portfolio of this kind of thing after pieces on Phish and Billy Strings earlier this year, profiled King Gizz for GQ.
This piece is full of fascinating details revealing how unique the band truly is, but also how they came to discover that uniqueness. I particularly love how they realized that chasing “playing tight” and perfecting their performance was disconnecting them from the music.
“When you spend all that time rehearsing, you lose your ear, your connection. You get really good at the one thing you’re doing and stop listening to what everyone else is doing.”
Ghost in the Playlist Machine
As mentioned earlier, I’ll be picking up Liz Pelly’s new investigation into Spotify soon and writing about it in the next newsletter.
If you just can’t wait, she has an excerpt published in Harper’s. You’ll get a glimpse of her excellent and thorough reporting as she tries to uncover the mystery behind “ghost artists” that have taken over many Spotify playlists as the company tries to lower its overhead cost and pay fewer musicians less.
Who was going to get excited about “discovering” a bunch of stock music?
A Few More Good Ones
Marissa R. Moss scores an interview with Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee for the newsletter Don’t Rock The Inbox. Few folks know country and Americana better than DRTI so this one gets deep.
Chris Richards at the Washington Post has a lovely review of the new collection of unearthed Robbie Basho recordings. A great primer on one of the treasures of solo guitar and strings.
Over at Flaming Hydra, Parker Molloy has a simpler explanation for why one of the year’s most beloved rock records, Ekko Astral’s debut pink balloons, resonates.
In his newsletter, Kaleb Horton shares a passionate personal reaction to the band X calling it quits.
Thank you for reading! See you next month.
