new order & spoon entries are like looking in a mirror! though confusion (off substance) is my favorite new order song. thanks for sharing this, it was a blast to read :)
Very creative idea, Kevin....mad props! As Chris's skill sets, to me anyway, are so unusually coupled...and, certainly, enviable (the merging of the artistic with the analytical), I've been trying to think of ways to "use him," and have come up empty!
Chris, this had to be fun for you...I'm picturing Mr. Burns rubbing his hands together: "Excellent!" I'm trying to restrain myself from being the first to rush up to you, going, "Ooh, do me, do me!"
For those who would like Chris to "do you," the tactful and tasteful thing to do, of course, would be to....ahem.....drop a little coin into his subscription box....as the kids would mumble, "just sayin'!"
Kevin deserves a little coin-coin, too, yo, for this creative (and revealing!) idea, not to mention for his consistently delicious ear candy we're happy to consume!👂🍬🎶👍 Well done, gents!
Bravo Kevin and Chris! I already knew about your love for New Order and the B52’s but - The Go! Team and more Janet Jackson than I would assume made my heart do tippy taps. This is such an intimate way to get to know someone. I would want something like this read as my eulogy.
As for Janet, what can I say? Control was a tape I got through Columbia House, and the record still sounds fresh. There's a handful of her songs that are impossible not to love.
I should've worded that better; A handful that I find impossible love. Probably a dozen-ish, I'd guess. A couple of others that I like 'cause of the time/event/experience I associate them with.
If you ever decide to do this, I'd love to see it!
My question is whether or not you spin vinyl Because that would potentially significantly distort the numbers, depending on how you listen. I don't think my Spotify profile would be at all accurate because the most important stuff that I listen to is on vinyl.
I thought about that the other day. How a lot of artists are not going to be accurately represented in terms of their popularity on Spotify because they're the kinds of artists who get played on vinyl most frequently. Obviously the Beatles, but also Fleetwood, Mac, Pink Floyd, the Stones, etc.
I occasionally feel guilty for spinning vinyl because I'm not upping the stream count on my favorite artists. This is what the algorithm has done to our brains...
Good question! I do spin a fair amount of vinyl, though there's a a good deal of overlap between my turntable and what's being played on my phone. I'll also sometimes start a rcord at home, and then keep playing it on Spotify once I leave the house.
In moments of madness, I've considered streaming the album I'm playing in vinyl silently just to add the stream count. Then I talk myself down from the crazy.
Tunnel of Love, huh? Solo Bruce. I do love a lot from that era. There's old Bruce, BIUSA Bruce, solo Bruce and new Bruce and I'd put Magic up against anything from old or solo Bruce.
"And one thing is for certain: As I said before in reference to Clarence Clemons — I told a story with the E Street Band that was, and is, bigger than I ever could have told on my own. And I believe that settles that question.
But that is the hallmark of a rock and roll band — the narrative you tell together is bigger than anyone could have told on your own. That’s the Rolling Stones; the Sex Pistols; that’s Bob Marley and the Wailers. That’s James Brown and His Famous Flames. That’s Neil Young and Crazy Horse."
thanks. Yeah, there's that third thing, where it's a band in a way that goes beyond what the name is.
I'm thinking here of Billy Joel's original line up, and how he said they didn't have a name only because they never thought of a good enough one. But that era of his sound is definitely "the band" rather than a solo artist.
And that makes me want to say things about Wings, but it would take too long to unravel that and I don't want to hijack Kevin's thread while I go on and on about the tangled, complicated dynamic of Wings.
Would it be a music discussuon without some tangents? lol.
That said, this might be a subject worthy of it's own post/discussion. And great point about Billy Joel's backing band! I'd never gave it much thought, but there is definitely a distinct sound there.
Sep 13, 2023·edited Sep 13, 2023Liked by Kevin Alexander
Yeah, but to truly talk about Wings would require saying some quiet things out loud and if I do that, I should do it on my own platform, which is what it was built for....
But some things I can say without saying the quiet things would be...
I wish I could find Denny Laine's quote back where he says basically, "Look, you can call it Wings or whatever, but it was Paul McCartney and his backup band and that's all it ever was."
He's both right and wrong, as most of these things are. In some ways, yes, ANY band post-Beatles that features Paul McCartney is going to (rightly) be Paul McCartney And His Back-up Band, just like any band that would have featured John would have been John Lennon and His Backup Band.
Denny Laine sounds resentful and resigned when he says this, but to a large extent, he earned his own trouble here. If you're going to share a recording studio with Paul McCartney for any length of time, much less almost a decade, you better be confident enough to bring your A-game without succumbing to the inevitable inadequacy of comparison with what Paul can do in a studio, given he more or less (along with Martin and Emerick) invented the idea of recording studio as an instrument. (insert the George Harrison discussion here, one of the quiet things, but I won't go there because I don't want to spend my whole day arguging on your thread...)
Poor Denny Laine wasn't made of strong enough stuff, confidence-wise. Laine spent most of his post-wings career recording Wings songs -- I count no fewer than six "Denny Laine Sings Wings" albums on Spotify, and these are songs that Paul wrote, for the most part, mind you.
Recording with Paul McCartney is going to break a man (I would add women, but Paul's never really recorded with a woman, and no I don't count Linda and yes, this is another quiet thing I will skip over) unless he's massively creatively confident.
I will add before I move on that Deliver Your Children off London Town is one of Wings' finest efforts and it's cowritten and features Laine on lead vocal. But I submit that the chord progression along with Laine's solo output makes it fairly clear that it was written primarily by Paul.
So in some ways, Denny is right. In other ways he's dead wrong, because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and Wings was a band made up of weak links, which is, I realise, unfathomably puzzling to many people given Paul could have recorded with virtually anyone in the world and still can and instead he chose.. well, we know who he chose.
It's not puzzling at all to me, but here's where it's really hard to say anything useful without saying the quiet parts out loud. Let me give it a go.
After the Beatles break up, I think Paul needed to ground himself -- literally -- after flying so close to the sun (and falling into it). I don't think it's an accident that he literally goes back to earth, to be a farmer of all things. Farmer Paul is odd... but it also probably saved his life.
The music of Wings is earthy primal elemental music in the sense that it's basic and rudimentary, esp by the standards of the architect of Sgt Pepper. It's meat and potatoes music from meat and potatoes musicians. Putting aside Paul's determiniation that nothing he did post beatles should sound like the Beatles (and we could dissect the poor reasoning of that at another point...), Wings was a reset in the same way the farm was a reset.
John was in his scorched earth period where you basically have to discount every single fucking thing he says, but he was right when he said "Paul can do better." Paul *can* do better, we all know that, but that's not what he needed to do in 1971, not if he was going to survive and I mean that literally because the break up almost killed him and would have were it not for Linda. (insert some quiet things here) and in no position to make music that touched the sun.
Wings touched the earth. Was it brilliant? Outside of Band on the Run, I don't think anyone thinks it was, including Paul. But it was basic and grounding and solid in an odd way, and again, I think it saved him in the same way that a simple bowl of unimaginative chicken soup heals a flu .
And I think it's also bizarre to expect a man whose whole life has just fallen apart and who's lost every single thing he cared about (more quiet things here) to be focused enough to create the masterpiece out of the box that everyone expected. Neither he nor John did that, nor is there any reason why they would have been able to given the circumstances. They're gods, but they're human gods.
That's what I've got and it's woefully incomplete because, you know, quiet things.
The E Street Band members show up here and there on this record, but Springsteen recorded almost all of it himself. It's not a E Street band record the same way, say, Born in the USA might be.
thanks! I like Bruce but I don't know more than the average music person about his musical history so I appreciate the perspectives.
I actually know more about Bruce the man than Bruce the musician -- someone somewhere today was asking about the best rock star memoir and Bruce's would be my answer. And I loved his podcast with Obama. But I'm much less versed in Bruce the artist.
This is so cool. It may not come as a huge surprise that I predominantly listen to music on vinyl (with the odd streaming whilst on the move). Some in the vinyl community like to point out that no one can “control” or “monitor” what you listen to when you spin vinyl. At the same time, gathering all this useful info about one’s own listening habits wouldn’t be so easy with vinyl, so I guess there are pros and cons with everything.
I remember when last.fm was a thing being mortified that there was no way to add an asterisk and explain all the Take That songs were for singalongs with my 8 yr old daughter.
Is Spotify the only way to make a playlist on substack?
Good question! I know you can embed Bandcamp links, but I've never used their playlist feature, so I'm not sure if it works. I would assume it does, but...
tx. I tried bandcamp once on my wordpress blog but it didn't work as I wanted for some reason. And I don't support spotify (a choice, not a criticism). Have just started playing with substack and thought maybe I could export my playlists when I post on wordpress but I think not. Not easily, anyway. And it's just a little hobby, so a list of songs and a link to WP is fine.
Lol. Brilliant Disguise is great! Valentine's Day is the only track I try not to play too often, and that's just 'cause it feels like a (beautiful) gut punch.
This is a good start, but we need live, minute by minute analysis of what Kevin is listening to and what he is doing. Chris, can you set up a live data connection to Kevin's Spotify account an publish a dashboard? Also, we'll need a GPS tracker and brainwave reader if we really want some answers! But seriously, really great piece. Here's an idea, have as many people as you can submit profiles, do a similar alphabetical band name analysis and connected anyone with a match on Notes! Sure that would require a lot of work, but somebody has to do it (not me).
Kevin, let's talk about Jawbreaker some time. I saw them in 1993 at a show in South Carolina. It was certainly one of the biggest punk shows I had been to up until that point, and I actually knew some of their songs!
HA! Fair point; there'll need to be some carve-outs.
I'm "all in" on any sort of Wrapped Discussion/Thread/Post. Before this, those annual reviews were the only insights I'd ever had as to what I was listening to.
Sep 13, 2023Liked by Kevin Alexander, Chris Dalla Riva
This was fascinating - thanks you Chris and Kevin! I had no idea that you could request your data from Spotify. I'm glad to see Husker Du is your top H band.
love this post! i often wonder what my spotify data would look like. As I also work as a music supervisor I would imagine its somewhat all over the place depending what show I am working on. Your top artist list shares a lot with mine, I imagine. #JawbreakerForever
Reading through your history would be a wild ride. If you ever decide to do anything with it, please let me know!
And yeah, #JawbreakerForever for sure! There's not a lot of Unfun on here, but that's mostly because I still have the record and play it. For some reason, Bivouac mostly gets played on CD.
new order & spoon entries are like looking in a mirror! though confusion (off substance) is my favorite new order song. thanks for sharing this, it was a blast to read :)
Great minds think alike. :)
I'm glad you enjoyed it! It was a ton of fun to put together.
P.S. I love Confusion too- including most of the remixes.
Great investigation of Kevin's listening history. I should check mine out now!
If you wind up doing a pull request for your history, I'd love to see what it looks like!
Requested it from Spotify. Gotta wait till the data shows up now. I'm guessing Spotify will see a spike in their data requests thanks to you, haha!
Lol. I wish I had that kinda draw. :)
Very creative idea, Kevin....mad props! As Chris's skill sets, to me anyway, are so unusually coupled...and, certainly, enviable (the merging of the artistic with the analytical), I've been trying to think of ways to "use him," and have come up empty!
Chris, this had to be fun for you...I'm picturing Mr. Burns rubbing his hands together: "Excellent!" I'm trying to restrain myself from being the first to rush up to you, going, "Ooh, do me, do me!"
For those who would like Chris to "do you," the tactful and tasteful thing to do, of course, would be to....ahem.....drop a little coin into his subscription box....as the kids would mumble, "just sayin'!"
Kevin deserves a little coin-coin, too, yo, for this creative (and revealing!) idea, not to mention for his consistently delicious ear candy we're happy to consume!👂🍬🎶👍 Well done, gents!
Thanks man! All credit to Chris for the idea (and for making sense of the data dump Spotfiy sent me).
Yay, Chris, then! But, take a bow for not saying "no"!!
I honestly like the idea of doing this for paying subs
That’s a good idea!
Bravo Kevin and Chris! I already knew about your love for New Order and the B52’s but - The Go! Team and more Janet Jackson than I would assume made my heart do tippy taps. This is such an intimate way to get to know someone. I would want something like this read as my eulogy.
That's my kinda funeral. lol.
As for Janet, what can I say? Control was a tape I got through Columbia House, and the record still sounds fresh. There's a handful of her songs that are impossible not to love.
Way more than a handful in my opinion. She'd be pretty high up on my Spotify deep dive, I'm certain.
I should've worded that better; A handful that I find impossible love. Probably a dozen-ish, I'd guess. A couple of others that I like 'cause of the time/event/experience I associate them with.
If you ever decide to do this, I'd love to see it!
My question is whether or not you spin vinyl Because that would potentially significantly distort the numbers, depending on how you listen. I don't think my Spotify profile would be at all accurate because the most important stuff that I listen to is on vinyl.
I thought about that the other day. How a lot of artists are not going to be accurately represented in terms of their popularity on Spotify because they're the kinds of artists who get played on vinyl most frequently. Obviously the Beatles, but also Fleetwood, Mac, Pink Floyd, the Stones, etc.
I occasionally feel guilty for spinning vinyl because I'm not upping the stream count on my favorite artists. This is what the algorithm has done to our brains...
Good question! I do spin a fair amount of vinyl, though there's a a good deal of overlap between my turntable and what's being played on my phone. I'll also sometimes start a rcord at home, and then keep playing it on Spotify once I leave the house.
In moments of madness, I've considered streaming the album I'm playing in vinyl silently just to add the stream count. Then I talk myself down from the crazy.
Tunnel of Love, huh? Solo Bruce. I do love a lot from that era. There's old Bruce, BIUSA Bruce, solo Bruce and new Bruce and I'd put Magic up against anything from old or solo Bruce.
wait, solo Bruce? Did I miss a huge chapter in his career, or hasn't Bruce always been solo? Yes, I know he names his band, but... ?
"And one thing is for certain: As I said before in reference to Clarence Clemons — I told a story with the E Street Band that was, and is, bigger than I ever could have told on my own. And I believe that settles that question.
But that is the hallmark of a rock and roll band — the narrative you tell together is bigger than anyone could have told on your own. That’s the Rolling Stones; the Sex Pistols; that’s Bob Marley and the Wailers. That’s James Brown and His Famous Flames. That’s Neil Young and Crazy Horse."
thanks. Yeah, there's that third thing, where it's a band in a way that goes beyond what the name is.
I'm thinking here of Billy Joel's original line up, and how he said they didn't have a name only because they never thought of a good enough one. But that era of his sound is definitely "the band" rather than a solo artist.
And that makes me want to say things about Wings, but it would take too long to unravel that and I don't want to hijack Kevin's thread while I go on and on about the tangled, complicated dynamic of Wings.
Would it be a music discussuon without some tangents? lol.
That said, this might be a subject worthy of it's own post/discussion. And great point about Billy Joel's backing band! I'd never gave it much thought, but there is definitely a distinct sound there.
Yeah, but to truly talk about Wings would require saying some quiet things out loud and if I do that, I should do it on my own platform, which is what it was built for....
But some things I can say without saying the quiet things would be...
I wish I could find Denny Laine's quote back where he says basically, "Look, you can call it Wings or whatever, but it was Paul McCartney and his backup band and that's all it ever was."
He's both right and wrong, as most of these things are. In some ways, yes, ANY band post-Beatles that features Paul McCartney is going to (rightly) be Paul McCartney And His Back-up Band, just like any band that would have featured John would have been John Lennon and His Backup Band.
Denny Laine sounds resentful and resigned when he says this, but to a large extent, he earned his own trouble here. If you're going to share a recording studio with Paul McCartney for any length of time, much less almost a decade, you better be confident enough to bring your A-game without succumbing to the inevitable inadequacy of comparison with what Paul can do in a studio, given he more or less (along with Martin and Emerick) invented the idea of recording studio as an instrument. (insert the George Harrison discussion here, one of the quiet things, but I won't go there because I don't want to spend my whole day arguging on your thread...)
Poor Denny Laine wasn't made of strong enough stuff, confidence-wise. Laine spent most of his post-wings career recording Wings songs -- I count no fewer than six "Denny Laine Sings Wings" albums on Spotify, and these are songs that Paul wrote, for the most part, mind you.
Recording with Paul McCartney is going to break a man (I would add women, but Paul's never really recorded with a woman, and no I don't count Linda and yes, this is another quiet thing I will skip over) unless he's massively creatively confident.
I will add before I move on that Deliver Your Children off London Town is one of Wings' finest efforts and it's cowritten and features Laine on lead vocal. But I submit that the chord progression along with Laine's solo output makes it fairly clear that it was written primarily by Paul.
So in some ways, Denny is right. In other ways he's dead wrong, because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and Wings was a band made up of weak links, which is, I realise, unfathomably puzzling to many people given Paul could have recorded with virtually anyone in the world and still can and instead he chose.. well, we know who he chose.
It's not puzzling at all to me, but here's where it's really hard to say anything useful without saying the quiet parts out loud. Let me give it a go.
After the Beatles break up, I think Paul needed to ground himself -- literally -- after flying so close to the sun (and falling into it). I don't think it's an accident that he literally goes back to earth, to be a farmer of all things. Farmer Paul is odd... but it also probably saved his life.
The music of Wings is earthy primal elemental music in the sense that it's basic and rudimentary, esp by the standards of the architect of Sgt Pepper. It's meat and potatoes music from meat and potatoes musicians. Putting aside Paul's determiniation that nothing he did post beatles should sound like the Beatles (and we could dissect the poor reasoning of that at another point...), Wings was a reset in the same way the farm was a reset.
John was in his scorched earth period where you basically have to discount every single fucking thing he says, but he was right when he said "Paul can do better." Paul *can* do better, we all know that, but that's not what he needed to do in 1971, not if he was going to survive and I mean that literally because the break up almost killed him and would have were it not for Linda. (insert some quiet things here) and in no position to make music that touched the sun.
Wings touched the earth. Was it brilliant? Outside of Band on the Run, I don't think anyone thinks it was, including Paul. But it was basic and grounding and solid in an odd way, and again, I think it saved him in the same way that a simple bowl of unimaginative chicken soup heals a flu .
And I think it's also bizarre to expect a man whose whole life has just fallen apart and who's lost every single thing he cared about (more quiet things here) to be focused enough to create the masterpiece out of the box that everyone expected. Neither he nor John did that, nor is there any reason why they would have been able to given the circumstances. They're gods, but they're human gods.
That's what I've got and it's woefully incomplete because, you know, quiet things.
It might be incomplete, but you've made some great points here!
The E Street Band members show up here and there on this record, but Springsteen recorded almost all of it himself. It's not a E Street band record the same way, say, Born in the USA might be.
thanks! I like Bruce but I don't know more than the average music person about his musical history so I appreciate the perspectives.
I actually know more about Bruce the man than Bruce the musician -- someone somewhere today was asking about the best rock star memoir and Bruce's would be my answer. And I loved his podcast with Obama. But I'm much less versed in Bruce the artist.
Indeed! Magic is great, too. "New Bruce" is probably my biggest (relative) blindspot in his catalog, but I loved Letters To You.
Thanks for having me, Kevin. As a Springsteen stan I am still shocked by this Tunnel of Love knowledge. Lol
I like to keep people guessing. :)
Tunnel Of Love is one of two Springsteen songs I actually like (the other is I’m On Fire).
This is so cool. It may not come as a huge surprise that I predominantly listen to music on vinyl (with the odd streaming whilst on the move). Some in the vinyl community like to point out that no one can “control” or “monitor” what you listen to when you spin vinyl. At the same time, gathering all this useful info about one’s own listening habits wouldn’t be so easy with vinyl, so I guess there are pros and cons with everything.
I can see people's concern about "monitoring," but the only "control" on an online platform is availability.
Agreed. Plus, from the moment you own a smartphone, you can’t escape a certain degree of monitoring, so... 🤷🏼♂️
Neat! tx guys
I remember when last.fm was a thing being mortified that there was no way to add an asterisk and explain all the Take That songs were for singalongs with my 8 yr old daughter.
Is Spotify the only way to make a playlist on substack?
Good question! I know you can embed Bandcamp links, but I've never used their playlist feature, so I'm not sure if it works. I would assume it does, but...
tx. I tried bandcamp once on my wordpress blog but it didn't work as I wanted for some reason. And I don't support spotify (a choice, not a criticism). Have just started playing with substack and thought maybe I could export my playlists when I post on wordpress but I think not. Not easily, anyway. And it's just a little hobby, so a list of songs and a link to WP is fine.
Anyway, carry on. As you were :)
I've got a (dormant) WP blog too. Let me see if I can get a Bandcamp link to work on it.
This was so cool! And also introduced me to Chris’s newsletter, which is fascinating.
I'm glad you liked it! And yeah, Chris' newsletter is well worth space in your inbox!
300 Points for listening to The Mountain Goats.
"Come, Come To The Sunset Tree (Demos)" is my favorite - but it's a bonus disc I can only find on YT.
I am partial to "Brilliant Disguise" over "Tunnel Of Love." But to each their own!
Lol. Brilliant Disguise is great! Valentine's Day is the only track I try not to play too often, and that's just 'cause it feels like a (beautiful) gut punch.
This is a good start, but we need live, minute by minute analysis of what Kevin is listening to and what he is doing. Chris, can you set up a live data connection to Kevin's Spotify account an publish a dashboard? Also, we'll need a GPS tracker and brainwave reader if we really want some answers! But seriously, really great piece. Here's an idea, have as many people as you can submit profiles, do a similar alphabetical band name analysis and connected anyone with a match on Notes! Sure that would require a lot of work, but somebody has to do it (not me).
Ha! I’m currently walking my dog and listening to Kerala Dust’s “Violet Drive.”
…But on Bandcamp, though…
Quick, somebody enter this data somewhere!
Kevin, let's talk about Jawbreaker some time. I saw them in 1993 at a show in South Carolina. It was certainly one of the biggest punk shows I had been to up until that point, and I actually knew some of their songs!
Yes, let's! I have many, many thoughts about this band.
I'd be happy to share my own experiences for a future piece, if that's interesting. I don't get to stretch my music legs as much as I'd like to.
Let's chat offline about this. I'm sure we can come up with something cool to put together!
"or tell you what you liked sucks."
Counterpoint: Florida Georgia Line and Imagine Dragons suck and people who listen to them need to know lol
Also, I am very excited about doing a Spotify Wrapped Notes discussion at the end of the year. Or even do a whole thread on it.
HA! Fair point; there'll need to be some carve-outs.
I'm "all in" on any sort of Wrapped Discussion/Thread/Post. Before this, those annual reviews were the only insights I'd ever had as to what I was listening to.
This was fascinating - thanks you Chris and Kevin! I had no idea that you could request your data from Spotify. I'm glad to see Husker Du is your top H band.
yup you can do it here: https://www.spotify.com/us/account/privacy/
Just requested - thx!
I'm glad you liked it! "New Day Rising" rearranged my mind. I don't think I ever recovered.
If you decide to do anything with your history, please let me know; I'd love to see it!
love this post! i often wonder what my spotify data would look like. As I also work as a music supervisor I would imagine its somewhat all over the place depending what show I am working on. Your top artist list shares a lot with mine, I imagine. #JawbreakerForever
Reading through your history would be a wild ride. If you ever decide to do anything with it, please let me know!
And yeah, #JawbreakerForever for sure! There's not a lot of Unfun on here, but that's mostly because I still have the record and play it. For some reason, Bivouac mostly gets played on CD.