Liner Notes- 09.June.2022

Just an old guy ruining all the vibes.

Photo: Getty/serefozdemir

“The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.”

~Bruce Springsteen

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This year I committed to listening to & reviewing 100 new (to me) records. I'm close to halfway through the project, but a very early takeaway is that, if nothing else, it was going to knock me out of my comfort zone from time to time. That was probably a given (unless New Order has a new record out. Do they? My DMS are open).

On some level, I knew that was coming--it was a given. But in large part, it's been driven by the absolute random ways I'm coming across the material. That was intentional; I wanted to take as much control as possible out of the process.

It would've been easy to dig up 100 records from the early 90s, post-punk, or whatever else I'm normally into. Probably easier to write about, too. But not nearly as fun. Or mind opening. Or interesting to read.

So I bet the other way and built in some chaos.

So far, I've sourced records from:

• Other writers on platforms like Medium

• Radio shows I listen to

• Requests on Twitter

• Proximity

The latter found me listening to Travis Scott's "Astroworld" early on in the project (my son owns it, so I listened to his copy). It was an okay record. To my ear, "hip hop" is a more bouncy sound oozing with samples of 70s soul and a good dose of window-rattling 808. And this wasn't it. So that's what I wrote. It was passable- I could see why so many people dug it— but it wasn't for me.

And a LOT of people wrote me to make sure I knew this record wasn't for me. I was about 25 years too old, and how could I possibly understand? Why was I even bothering?

Regarding the first point, I thought I had made that pretty clear right away, but people like to tell you things they already know because…internet.

25 years too old? Ouch, but fair point.

Why did I bother? They hadn't read the whole article--or even the first paragraph. Because, also internet.

30+ records later, I find myself in the same spot listening to Lana Del Rey's 2017 "Lust For Life" record. Someone has nominated Del Rey almost every time I request new material to review. I also can't go too far into the music journalism weeds without seeing her name; either someone's review, a reference to her work, or something on a playlist.

Del Rey has at least 3 albums on my list as of this writing (Born to Die, Chemtrails Over the Country Club, and Lust for life). I went with “Lust For Life” for the highly not-relevant reason that I like Iggy Pop's song by the same name.

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I couldn't help but think that this would be "Astroworld" 2.0. On the other hand, the one song I know is "High by the beach," and I kinda like it.

Still couldn’t shake this feeling, though: