In which Alex breaks the silence and ignores the topic of blogging altogether
Things are going well right now. My wife Kayleigh and I made a little Christmas album which we shared with our friends and family via the internet. I'm working on a split album with my friend Sonny Baker. Still feeling good about the fun-a-day project I wrote and recorded throughout February. And there are a ton of best-of end-of-year music lists to explore.
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| Christmas card/album! Nice dog, eh? |
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| Whoa, NPR is streaming a ton of songs from 2014! Neat! |
I really like these, even though they inevitably leave me angry and bitter. I like to see what new releases I let fall through the cracks in the last 365 days. Then I feel angry about the other crap that other people arbitrarily ranked higher than the stuff I love a lot. I know all about arbitrary...although it usually applies to things I dislike.
Like, I hate Ariel Pink even though I've never heard an Ariel Pink song, nor do I know anything about Ariel Pink. Nothing at all. It's the name, it just rubs me the wrong way for no reason. Then there are artists like St. Vincent, whose music I enjoy, although I don't seem to like her as much as most people. Then again, I remember years ago (nearly 10 of them) that I was listening to sound clips of The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday and thinking to myself, "This sounds like crap, what's the big deal? How did this make Pitchfork's Top 50 list?" (If memory serves, it was #5 that year) (Ha, never mind, I looked it up and it was #26) A few years later and Separation Sunday is one of my favorite albums ever.
I should really give Ariel Pink a chance, I guess.
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| Is Pom Pom the best thing I've never heard? Is Pom Pom even what that says??? |
If not for year end lists, I wouldn't have listened to Hurray for the Riff Raff or Alvvays this year. Last year, I heard that Macklemore song about gay marriage on an NPR end of year podcast and I thought it was amazing. Or was that the year before?
Time moves fast as hell. Happy 2015.
