Since leaving Substream 2014 and hanging up my column at AltPress soon after, I haven't done much writing about music. This week, an old pal called me out of retirement.
Twelve more months on God’s green Earth, absorbing hundreds more hours of media. It’s only right to denote them, once again, for future nostalgia.
Those songbirds which transcend conventional ability and became something altogether more greater. I listen to these artists when I want to feel a higher power.
Another year, another swath of media to devour, process, and regurgitate in the form of bulleted lists.
As is tradition, here is a distillation of my favorite media—formatted into digestable bulleted lists for posterity.
For the last decade or so, I've been a staunch proponent of music playback by album. Recently, I've found a deep appreciation for playlist building.
I’m sort of a nut about metadata and archiving my digital stuff. I also like lists and enjoy listening to music. It’s all of those things that led me to my ongoing bi-monthly playlist project, where I collect...
My lists are all short this year and I have a long holiday break to enjoy, so I’m going to combine this year’s My Favorite Things posts into one. I hope that’s cool. Music I gave fewer...
Old Best Friend has a new record coming out in February of this new year. The lead single from that record is called “Anna” and it premiered yesterday on Chorus.fm [https://chorus.fm/features/exclusive/old-best-friend-anna-song-premiere/]. Old Best Friend...
Perhaps the only event bigger than Christmas worth celebrating this year is the release of The 1975's latest album A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, which dropped on Friday. I've been enjoying the album a lot. So much so that...
Part 5 of our Revisiting The Beatles series dives into Help!, their August 1965 release. We discuss how the band’s rising fame seeps into their songwriting, Chris gets a crash course on “Paul is Dead,” and we continue building our Beatles Perfect LP.
A new podcasting publisher has popped up called Engle [https://www.anotherengle.com/] and their first show is a hit. The Undersiders is a series about the intersections between the burgeoning hip-hop movement and the sale of drugs at mass....
Episode 205 of The Modern Vinyl Podcast takes on The Weeknd’s new release (NOT EP), “My Dear Melancholy,.” Chris and Mike, along with special guest Jacob Tender (Bantha Fodder), discuss where the EP belongs in the Abel Tesfaye story, along with misogynistic trends in his writing.
In a new EP [https://www.universal-love.com/] titled Universal Love, six classic love songs have been reimagined to be more inclusive. > As marriage has become more inclusive, it seems like it’s time the music we use to celebrate...
Jason at Chorus.fm noticed [https://chorus.fm/news/purevolume-to-shut-down/] today that PureVolume will be shutting down at the end of the month. According to a pop-up on the site's homepage, folks with songs hosted there "will have until April...
There's plenty of great music out this weekend. Here's what I'd recommend: The Weeknd - My Dear Melencholy The Weeknd dropped a new EP tonight. The biggest surprise wasn't 6 new tracks with just two days notice, but the throwback...
Jon Plester at McSweeney's [https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/what-to-do-if-your-favorite-indie-band-goes-mainstream] : > Option 1 Denounce their entire catalog. Declare them corporate shills, forever dead in your eyes. Option 2 Continue to listen to them, but only their self-released albums from before they...
Variable Bitrate has been on a hiatus for the past year, which has taken some of the pressure off of listening to new music, which naturally means I listen to more new music.
In 2013 A friend introduced me to Old Best Friends [http://obf.wtf]’s ‘Keep In Touch,’ an EP that changed my world. Over the next year Mike Comite and I became friends. In 2015, we started a podcast called...
On the newest episode of The Modern Vinyl Podcast, the hosts debate and dissect Rolling Stone’s recent “50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums” list. The conversation is split into categories, such as “Most Underrated,” “Most Overrated,” and “Right Band, Wrong Album.”
Mansions is/are back, baby. New tunes coming, one of which is streaming at the link. via Brooklyn Vegan [http://www.brooklynvegan.com/mansions-return-with-synthy-deserter-ep-listen-to-heel-theme/] : > We’re premiering the EP’s first single, “Heel Theme.” which does have a noticeable electronic...
Jacob Tender returns to the podcast for an extremely geeky chat about digital storage and backing up data.
Jacob Tender returns to talk about Frank Ocean's early career, his discography, and so much more.
Over the years, I've amassed an extensive collection of Lonny Breaux reference tracks and Frank Ocean rarities. After years of digging through blogs and scouring Internet archives, I've brought together the rest of Lonny/Frank's pre-Blonde discography and made it available to download in one place.
Jacob Tender returns to talk about the complex features of Apple Music.
James and I recorded an episode of Variable Bitrate together in Chicago. Unfortunately, it was shit. Time constraints and the weariness of walking and talking for 3 hours around Navy Pier didn't allow us to do the thing justice. I...
Despite hosting a podcast revolving almost entirely around movers and shakers in the alternative music industry, I’ve listened to very little new music this year. Of that, an even smaller percentage has stuck. The result is a shorter list...
John Mayer has been teasing his return to pop music for some time, most notably through his Instagram. Of late, he’s been touring with The Grateful Dead as a member of their band.
This week, along with our latest episode, Mike and I put together a remix of Childish Gambino's "Freaks & Geeks" from the perspective of Lando Calrissian.
My friend Dan Cox and I have followed an eerily similar trail since 2010. We get deep into the weeds of early 2010 leak blogs, music blogs, and Internet social justice. Dan is genuinely a fan of my show and...
Danny is the NICEST guy! He's also well traveled, committed, and hardworking. Ladies? > Danny Samet has toured with bands like Say Anything, Two Door Cinema Club, Motion City Soundtrack, Thrice, The Academy Is, and so many more. In just 5...
This has been a long time coming. Ben and I met at my dad's place where he and the rest of the guys on his tour stayed the night before taking me on the road with them. We didn't get...
When I attended Hocking College for music industry management and production, my classmates and I worked collaboratively on a project that encompassed all of the skills taught to us over the past two years. Together, we booked a number of...
Johnny Minardi is something of a legend in the alternative scene. He launched the careers of some scene favorites and aided in the release of countless more. He has scores of stories regarding the glory days of Fueled By Ramen...
It took a while, but I finally got Gunz on the show. After a few weeks of rain delays and train crashes, the Idobi posterboy gives us the dish on his career in broadcast journalism. > Mike Gunzelman aka Gunz is...