LWA Blog — life without algorithms

It's been a minute since I posted here, mainly because...2023 was, well, it's been something. I went back and forth a couple times on whether I wanted to do this or not. The old habit won out in the end and here we are. As usual, the download version is the one I prefer because, well, reasons. But here's a Spotify link if that's your thing, no judgement. The download version has a couple tracks and a couple nifty things that aren't available from the corporate machine.  Details details details. This is just stuff I like and what I was able to...

I feel like lately there's been a lot of R.E.M. discourse happening, maybe thanks in part to The Bear, the excellent Hulu drama (seriously, watch it, I didn't think I'd like it but guess what), which features a couple R.E.M. songs. Strange Currencies, Half a World Away and Oh My Heart. I had to look up that last one, late-period R.E.M. kinda escapes me. I'm not one of those "Oh I only listen to the I.R.S. stuff" assholes, but I did kinda fall off after Up. It just didn't feel the same at the time, I was more on the...

These are the songs of the summer as far as I'm concerned. I'm listing these in the order they were released, it's not an indication of preference. I think they're both equally fucking great. 1. CRJ's Psychedelic Switch, from The Loveliest Time. She basically made a Daft Punk song and it's glorious. Hits all the right vibes for me.  2. Hailey Whitters' I'm in Love. This is just a boppy little gem (I think it's a cover?), from her EP of the same name. Short, sweet and totally singable. Check it out.

Happy 65th birthday (born 30 July 1958) to one of my all-time favourite weirdos and overall super cool lady. Above is a pic of her filming in a water tank for a video sequence (for The Ninth Wave suite) that was included in her Before the Dawn shows in 2014. Probably the greatest concert I've ever attended. The word "concert" doesn't even do it justice. I also just made a 9-track playlist, 1 song from each album (Director's Cut doesn't count in this exercise). Kind of a sampler, I guess, for the uninitiated. You know, if anyone actually reads this and...

Didn't really consider myself a Kpop person, but a buddy tipped me to TWICE. Listened to some tunes I really liked, but KNOCK KNOCK is far and away my fave. This is pop perfection. Guess I'm on the bandwagon now.