a month of reviews, a Spotify hiatus, and back to shows
Thanks for opening another newsletter! I appreciate it. I did post one mixtape this month, and if you like the weirder ones, it’s for you! If you follow the Twitch channel you’ll get notifications when they’re starting.
#mwe month
If you were following on Twitter, you saw me post 2-3 good sentences about 28 different records that I had never heard before. It was actually much easier than I had anticipated.
My routine was pretty basic: listen to the homework album first, listen to it three or four times, and start writing the tweet as soon as any reaction arose. The hardest part was saying something of interest in 280 characters - I usually like to set a context about my expectations coming in, a story about how I found this band, etc. etc. With 280 characters, that’s just not possible. Having to choose those words so carefully, though, helped keep my adjectives fresh. Nothing worse than reusing adjectives.
https://twitter.com/dnord/status/1491800573930192908
One highlight: The Go! Team (a UK rock/hip-hop act) picked up my review of their newest album, and retweeted it to their 8,000 followers.
https://twitter.com/dnord/status/1495046234515525633
Not all of my reviews were positive - one of many reasons Nas and Earl Sweatshirt did not retweet me, I imagine.
It was great to give my full attention to a few classics I’d never sat with.
https://twitter.com/dnord/status/1495446103860256769
One thing I’ll remember is the hundreds of other reviews being posted each day just by visiting the hashtag. In particular, you could look at about a dozen reviews of the new Big Thief record in the day or two after it came out.
With 28 album reviews under my belt, I’m kind of spent. The newsletter is just going to be a little shorter this month.
https://twitter.com/dnord/status/1489315374134874121
what I missed from Spotify
For the month of February, I resolved to take a break from Spotify while they figured out why they can give tens of millions of dollars to deeply unfunny comedians who are “just asking questions” (and in the process inarguably contributing to the difficulty all live music acts have had just making a living again) but somehow only have pennies to spare for the actual artists. While I listened to Bandcamp and Apple Music, I am not sure Spotify has learned their lesson.
But there are a couple of areas where Spotify is leading, at least for the time being:
- Curation. There are a couple of playlists on Apple that I like a lot - BARS highlights lyrically dense hip-hop, and Untitled is a very good tour of what’s happening in indie rock/pop. But Spotify seems to have ten times as many high-quality playlists, more carefully curated, catering to more distinct genres.
- Recommendations. I’ll write more about Discover Weekly someday, but ten years later I am still in awe of whatever magic they have driving a very personal-feeling playlist that they concoct every week - for every subscriber. Release Radar (a similar algorithm, but with only recent releases) comes out every Friday. Apple’s custom playlists aren’t in the same neighborhood.
- User Interface. “Search” in Apple Music is a hilarious mess - your local library and the streaming service and the music store are all separate tabs, and they all have issues where you can land somewhere with no clear way to get back. Things that you’ve bought “go to the cloud” and suddenly need to be downloaded before they can be played again.
Given all that, I think I can overlook my distaste for Joe Rogan and Apple’s superior sound quality, switch back to Spotify, but spend more money on Bandcamp than I do with either streaming service.
A Calendar
Did I ever send you to my setlist.fm? That’s a little journal of live music, and you can just click the shows that you attended. Or gawk at how I spent my 20s! Or watch the list grow as I believe I am planning on six (6) things between now and April. (setlist.fm seems to be saying that my record is three shows in a calendar month? Can I do this?) Actual plans are bold.
- Thu Mar 3: Khruangbin at the Palace. I have long adored these guys and I’m excited to see them.
- Thu Mar 3: Wet Leg at First Avenue. That means I’m not seeing funny indie rockers Wet Leg. You have fun though.
- Fri Mar 4: Khruangbin is actually doing two nights at the Palace because this night sold out really fast.
- Fri Mar 4: The Beths at Fine Line. I have too many shows planned but man this is tempting. The Beths are so good.
- Fri Mar 4: Best New Bands Showcase at First Avenue. This is a very fun event and it takes nine hours and I can’t even.
- Sat Mar 5: Joywave at Fine Line. I recall these guys from 120 Minutes and have some of their records.
- Sat Mar 6: Katy Kirby at the Entry. Katy opened up for Waxahatchee I’m pretty sure and we liked her quite a bit.
- Sun Mar 6: Illuminati Hotties at the Entry. This is a fun band but they have got to do something about the name.
- Thu Mar 10: Parquet Courts at First Avenue. Probably my favorite band working today.
- Sun Mar 13: Tool at Target Center. In an alternative timeline I’d be at the Tool show.
- Mon Mar 14: Mitski at Palace. The new Mitski is good because Mitski is always good.
- Wed Mar 16: Car Seat Headrest at Palace. Friends of mine (with taste) really like these guys a lot.
- Wed Mar 16: Thao at Fine Line. I have heard good things about Thao and in fact you can livestream this from Fine Line.
- Thu Mar 17: Glass Animals at Armory. They were a highlight of pop radio for me last summer.
- Fri Mar 18: “Sparks 2022” is what they call it, and it’s at the Fitzgerald. I watched the Sparks doc and I don’t know, man.
- Sat Mar 19: Flobots at Turf Club. My wife is in a choir that performed with these guys two years ago - they are fun.
- Sat Mar 19: Guided By Voices at Fine Line. I have seen this band twice. I am going to say they have released thousands of albums because that will be hyperbolic but I think it is more than a hundred.
- Mon Mar 21: Animal Collective at First Avenue. I have seen Animal Collective once and I can promise you I have no idea what’s going to happen at this show.
- Mon Mar 21: Caroline Rose at Fine Line. I am bummed to have to miss this but I have seen her twice. “Loner” is amazing but her followup wasn’t as catchy.
- Tue Mar 22: Poppy at First Avenue. I can’t do it, but I think Poppy’s hyper-electro-metal-pop is interesting.
- Fri Mar 25: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at Turf Club. I actually don’t know a ton about these guys but I’m going with a friend. We’re all about broadening our horizons over here.
- Wed Mar 30: Perfume Genius at Fine Line. A couple of his songs have really gotten to me, but I haven’t gone too deep with him.