2021

Different year, same pandemic.

Questions. Are we indefinitely in pandemic-mode? Or will somebody (WHO, CDC, idk) tell us that it’s over? Delta was a thing, right? Now Omicron? There was a moment in March 2020 when an epidemic became a pandemic. Will there be a moment in the future when this pandemic becomes something else before the next one starts? Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?

Oh, silly musings. The second Covid-year at LNHQ was very much like the first with maybe slightly fewer high-pitched convos about the intersection of individual choices and collective well-being. And, by those italics, I mean approximately the same number. Everybody here, I’m happy to report, got vax’d. Eventually. Trevor was a holdout for most of the year because he and his new partner (not sure if they’re married, maybe?) are “trying.” Jane’s response was a body-gag and an eye-roll, and then, “Yeah, ffs, they’re super trying.” Sometimes, as our esteemed Editor-in-Chief indirectly reminded us, trying is a better predicate adjective than a present participle. Grammar, ftw. Anyway. No stress, and no breakthroughs. We’re ok.

We’re also still sorta remote. OM is rarely here, but he’s the Board Chairman, and less involved in day-to-day ops. Trevor is something board-related. He is not sitting on the board (because no way), but he’s sort of an Executive Whisperer – my term. Mainly, he floats into the office to “drop off papers” and “check in.” Here’s an example from mid-summer:

TA: Hey, boss! [I’m not his boss anymore.] Need some signage. (Flings folder across the desk.) You stayin’ out of trouble?

JF: Hey, Trev. Good to see you. How’s stuff? How’s [your partner]?

TA: It’s Tre, by the way. Haha, rhymin’ like Simon, as per always. (Wink.) Aw, man. It’s alll good. You stayin’ out of trouble?

JF: Uh. Yeah? You doin’ ok? What’s up at Board level? Haven’t talked to OM in a bit. You bigwigs fixed the world yet?

TA: Haha, so funny. You’re always so funny. So you stayin’ out of trouble?

JF: I’m really not sure what that means. You’ve asked me three times.

TA: So funny. So so funny. Aiight. If you could just … (weird air-signature motion), Imma jet. [I’m honestly not sure what I signed, but there was a on-top memo from OM, so it seemed legit.] See ya.

Not if I see you first, bruh. I really don’t like that guy, and I don’t like that O does. Actually, I’m not even sure that he does. He and I chat regularly (weekly-ish), and he never mentions his would-be henchman. Maybe TA is a sleeper-agent like Tom on Succession. Yikes. He’s undoubtedly skilled in the dark arts of upspeak (or “high rising terminal”), while the rest of us at HQ prefer vocal fry. It’s no wonder that he doesn’t fit in.

Recently, I not-so-humble bragged to O that the Liner Notes Instagram is probably the tightest music blog account in the world. He didn’t agree, but sorta shrugged – it was a text convo, so I’m reading in the shrug. He posited that he’s the LN Peter Gabriel – “important at the beginning,” but less so now – and I’m the LN Phil Collins. My response was, obviously, “Dude, stfu.” And then, “You’re still important – you run the freaking board that I answer to. Or Ed does, or whatever. Also, you’re not Peter Gabriel. You’re more like Peter Green, and I’m Lindsey Buckingham. The guy who took this entity to the next level, and then stuck around for a long-a$$ time doing cool sh!t until he got unceremoniously dumped for a prettier face. Which means ECM is the LN Stevie Nicks. Anyway, thanks for putting ‘Land of Confusion’ in my head.” I don’t interact with O enough. I miss that guy, and wish that I saw him more.

And I wish that I saw brand-new, well-caffeinated LN CEO ECM more! He’s awesome, and does a truly righteous version of “Rhiannon” on the keys. (Not kidding.) We’re rarely at HQ at the same time, so we connect via Zoom and FT otr. I haven’t seen much of the staff, either, but the aforementioned EIC JTB asked me to mention her dogs and add that they’re well.

I’m well, as well, if you care, and I’m staying out of trouble. Or trying to. And one of the things that helps in that regard is running and listening to Spotify. Seamless segue into my stats.

Spotify does this Wrapped thing. (I covered some of the problems with streaming services in the 2020 post. Those problems still exist. Spotify should pay artists more.) It’s a mildly entertaining Snapchat-ish video that tells what you heard, but, more importantly, how tethered you are to the green dot. And, yeah, real tethered here.

Before revealing numbers, though, Spotify felt it was important to remind me that …

But that …

Hells yeah, I did! I can’t even describe how much I had to do, much less how I totally did it. My job, first and foremost. My other job, i.e., this blog. Husband and dad stuff. House work, yard work. I showered and shaved many times, and spent time in the bathroom for other reasons (even more) many times. I watched stuff on tv, and saw a few movies. I ate and slept. I traveled some. I ran my ass off, almost literally. I did the eff outta all that.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, who would be way cooler if he actually figured out how to buy Arsenal FC, instead of playing footie footsie with some of the Invincibles, doesn’t really care. He only cares whether I was listening to music on his streaming service, while I was engaged in those endeavors. Turns out … I was.

Mic droppp. That’s the affirmation that I was looking for. It’s like the SAT – you’re in the 99th percentile! And there’s more …

Like which ones?

Oh my gosh, I couldn’t be more excited that there’s a genre called Bubblegrunge and that it cracked my top five. Hold on, how many artists, though?

Wait. I got this. It was Caroline Polachek, right? She makes seriously good music. Her track “Bunny Is a Rider” was Pitchfork’s #1 of the year, and I listened to her 2019 album Pang almost every time that I rode the bus to work. Eh, jk. It was pry the Good Ol’ Grateful Dead.

Nope …

Whoa. Definitely didn’t see that coming. Top 1/1,000 %, though? Fantastic. Mr. Ólafsson and I should probably connect soon for an interview. Hmu, Víkingur!

Tbh, who can get enough of an Icelandic classical pianist born in 1984 (I was in high school) playing the prelude to a cantata titled La Damoiselle élue by a French composer born in 1862 (Claude Debussy) based a poem titled “The Blessed Damozel” by an English author born in 1828 (Dante Gabriel Rossetti)? Also, is it weird that Spot’s bot assumed that VÓ’s pronouns are they/them? Probably not.

VÓ released that track last year, but he released two records this year – a sort of remix version of his Debussy/Rameau album from 2020 and a new album of material by Mozart and his contemporaries. I listen to a lot of what my best friend calls “sleeping music” – mellow tunage on the bedroom speaker at night. Last year, it was mostly Erik Satie piano stuff. This year, it was (for a while) VÓ piano stuff. Hence, the minutes. Lately, it’s been a Spotify-generated playlist called “Melancholy Instrumentals,” which is really long – like six hours. Again, mostly piano stuff. My Wrapped thing revealed that my top five songs were from that playlist. My best friend says that I just padded my stats this year by hitting that playlist over and over and over. True-ish. That playlist did sorta unintentionally drive up my numbers, but I didn’t listen to it in order to do so. It also screwed up my algorithm. My Release Radar now features a lot of classical music.

Enough about Spotify. Let’s get down to business. The gold of 2021.

I’ve read all the usual year-end lists. Pitchfork’s was annoying – friend of the blog BH called it “pretentious garbage (at first glance).” NPR’s was even moreso. The others were ok. The best one by far (no surprise) was Amanda Petrusich’s piece for The New Yorker. There, she described music’s role in her life as “omnipresent, necessary, alimental,” until she had a baby and her listening habits “shifted.” AP, with characteristic eloquence, explained:

“The act itself—putting a record on to fill the room—felt significantly less compulsory to me. I had a baby, in June, and took several months of maternity leave; surely those events played some part in the decision not to have new releases blaring at all hours. Or perhaps it was a delayed reaction to the psychic tumult of 2020—my wounded spirit forcing me to account more quietly for what we’d collectively endured (and are still enduring). I thought often about something the saxophonist Pharoah Sanders said, after my colleague Nathaniel Friedman asked him what he’d been listening to: ‘I haven’t been listening to anything.’ He eventually elaborated: ‘I listen to things that maybe some guys don’t. I listen to the waves of the water. Train coming down. Or I listen to an airplane taking off.’

I like that way of thinking—gently separating the idea of listening from the purposeful consumption of so-called music. There has always been a lot of beautiful sound in the world, things so plainly lovely that it feels humiliating even to type them out: songbirds at sunrise, a creek after a storm, boots on a gravel driveway, a blooming bush beset by bumblebees. When I wasn’t using my stereo, I sang made-up tunes to my daughter—badly—and watched her discover her wild, throaty cackle. In the predawn darkness, I listened happily as she cooed to herself in her bassinet. I found that my partner has a secret voice—higher-pitched, goofier, almost quaking with joy—that he uses when talking to a baby. Those experiences colored the way I heard and metabolized new records. I found myself pulled toward albums that were elemental, tender, free—music that felt genuinely of the world and not a mediated reflection of it. Music that could melt into a landscape; music that had not been produced so much as conjured.”

Wow. I honestly wish that I could say the same. Mediated reflection of the world? That’s badass, and reminds me of when I was a semiotician. (Jk, I was a mere pretender. And now I’m just yappy online.) I found myself pulled toward albums, and tracks, that … well, clicked? For me. I’m an intentional listener, but sort of an intuitive one (oversold both adjectives, high five), so I’d never describe the music that drew me in as anything other than good or cool. She’s a rock journo, and a more skilled writer than I am. That probably explains why she sounds articulate and thoughtful, and I sound like a jerk from college.

AP mentioned Pharoah Sanders. He’s an icon in a world short of them. Quick bio. (I’ll do a Jazz Is… post about him soon). Born in 1940 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Moved in 1959 after high school to Oakland, California and met John Coltrane. Moved in 1961 to NYC and met Sun Ra, who fed and clothed him at a while, and encouraged him to change his name from Farrell to Pharoah. PS joined Coltrane’s “classic quartet” in 1965 and contributed to the epochal recordings Meditations and Live in Seattle. He has had a fruitful solo career since then – you might have heard “The Creator Has a Master Plan” from his 1969 album Karma. And he’s still at it.

The best album that I heard this year was Promises by PS and Sam Shepherd, a Brit EDM producer, who records as Floating Points. As usual, the header image was a spoiler. The pic is from a quick meet-and-greet on the roof at LNHQ last spring. I was the only one here. We drank green tea at a distance, and chatted awkwardly about nothing in particular, until a songbird landed nearby and treated us to a concert. PS wordlessly sang a duet. It was amazing. (Also, full disclosure, this is all make-believe, but it’s fun to imagine.) Shepherd composed a nine-movement suite, featuring Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra, which is awesome in its subtle power. When the strings gain momentum around 3:20 into Movement 6, oof.

The list…

1. Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders – Promises
2. Low – HEY WHAT
3. The War on Drugs – I Don’t Live Here Anymore
4. Snail Mail – Valentine
5. New Pagans – The Seed, The Vessel, The Roots and All
6. Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg
7. Moontype – Bodies of Water
8. Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee / Live at Electric Lady
9. Fritz – Pastel
10. Clark – Playground in a Lake
11. Iceage – Seek Shelter
12. Lucy Dacus – Home Video
13. Tyler, The Creator – CALL IF YOU GET LOST
14. Olivia Rodrigo – Sour
15. Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams
16. Tirzah – Colourgrade
17. Cassandra Jenkins – An Overview on Phenomenal Nature
18. Steve Gunn – Other You
19. Saint Etienne – I’ve Been Trying to Tell You
20. London Grammar – Californian Soil
21. Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
22. Jeff Parker – Forfolks
23. Charles Spearin – My City of Starlings
24. Portico Quartet – Terrain / Monument
25. Joy Orbison – still slipping vol. 1
26. Tierra Whack – Rap? / Pop? / R&B?
27. Mogwai – As the Love Continues
28. The Weather Station – Ignorance
29. Hand Habits – Fun House
30. St. Vincent – Daddy’s Home
31. Buck Meek – Two Saviors
32. Damon Albarn – The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows
33. Lightning Bug – A Color of the Sky
34. Flying Lotus – Yasuke
35. CHVRCHES – Screen Violence
36. illuminati hotties – Let Me Do One More
37. Indigo De Souza – Any Shape You Take
38. Wednesday – Twin Plagues
39. UV-TV – Always Something
40. Goat Girl – On All Fours
41. Lily Kongisberg – Lily We Need to Talk Now / The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now
42. Parannoul – To See the Next Part of the Dream
43. Gustaf – Audio Drag for Ego Slobs
44. Nation of Language – A Way Forward
45. Nils Frahm – Old Friends New Friends
46. Arooj Aftab – Vulture Prince
47. Parquet Courts – Sympathy for Life
48. Lost Horizons – In Quiet Moments
49. Elori Saxl – The Blue of Distance
50. Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over the Country Club / Blue Bannisters

And the playlist. It’s real long. That might seem like an editing fail, but it’s not. The thing’s pretty-well sequenced, and each song is worth your attention. Remember, every stream puts food on somebody’s table in these trying times! Neil Young, Dave Grohl, and Megan Thee Stallion don’t need the pennies, but many of the rest do, so listen through.

Curious about that Spotify playlist image? Fun fact. Indiana State Highway 21 was decommissioned in 1965. It’s now part of U.S. Highway 35, which runs northwest to southeast. Basically, I’m a lifelong Hoosier, and I couldn’t find a good ’21 pic.

More soon.

JF