LWA Blog — life without algorithms

My faves of 2025, I've been working on this one for a while. When the year began, I thought I wasn't gonna do another one of these, but here I am. Listening to it. Thinking about it. Writing about it. Listening to it again. There was a ton of good stuff this year and I know I missed a lot. As usual, I made an mp3 mix. There's something therapeutic about putting the songs in an order that has some semblance of flow, and then attempting to get the transitions to feel natural. I tried to keep it on the...

Record of the Week is back! Did a little traveling for Thanksgiving and the week after, and we're still here. This week, the Randomizer brings us Wilco's Speak into the Rose, which is a companion EP to 2011's The Whole Love. This RSD copy from 2011 is what I'll be spinning today. Side 1 of the 4-track 10" EP serves up a 7-minute alternate version of Art of Almost and a demo of I Might. At first listen, one might think this is not Wilco. Very electronic, very experimental and very cool. Side 2 lines up a couple of b-sides,...

Welcome to the Thanksgiving Day edition of Record of the Week. This week, the Randomizer is serving up The National's Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. This "Vinyl Me Please" reissue from 2017 is the copy I'll be listening to today. Released in 2003, their second album is kinda The National forming their Sad Dads schtick that is very much their brand today. Very indie, a little bit rock and slightly veering into alt-country territory at points. This album, I think, is kinda underrated in The National canon, which is now 10 albums deep (not counting live albums). It just doesn't seem...

Welcome to the Thanksgiving edition of Record of the Week. This week, the Randomizer serves up The Dead Weather's Horehound, released on Third Man Records in 2009. This is the copy in my collection that I'll be listening to. As far as Jack White non-White Stripes projects go, I think The Dead Weather might be my favourite. Alison's vocals really do it for me. She sounds aggressive and venomous; like a cobra poised to strike. Side note, I do love the Stripes, but I think I'd love them more if there were more Meg vocals. Jack's vocals show up here occasionally,...

This week, the Randomizer brings us the Beastie Boys' stone cold 1989 classic, Paul's Boutique. This is the copy I'm playing today, on two gorgeous, violet discs. It's funny, I didn't even get into hip-hop right away. I was a rock n' roll kid, and it took me a bit to find my way in. But by the end of the 80s, my holy trinity was Public Enemy's Nation of Millions (1988), De La Soul's 3 Feet High (1989) and Paul's Boutique. Played those to death and they still sound great today as far as I'm concerned. There's not much...