Merry Christmas

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Today’s Christmas eve, so I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone who celebrates a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday. We will be on a relaxed posting schedule over the next few days. The music industry is pretty much in hibernation mode.

I hope everyone has a wonderful few days filled with friends, family, and good food and drinks. We are currently working on putting together our annual “best of” feature and it should be ready to run early in January as we ramp back up for a new year.

I know the holidays can also be a difficult time for many, just know that our community is here for you and there’s a bunch of resources online if you need someone to talk to.

Kodak Black Tops the Charts

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Kodak Black has the number one album in the country this week:

The set, which was released on Dec. 14 via Dollaz N Dealz/Atlantic Records, earned 89,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Dec. 20, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 5,000 were in traditional album sales — as the bulk of the album’s units were driven by streaming activity.

House of Heroes to Play ‘The End Is Not the End’ Show

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House of Heroes have announced a reunion show in Columbus, Ohio:

On Dec. 28, they’ll play “The End Is Not the End,” their breakthrough album, from front to back, which has charted in the top 20 of Billboard Christian albums.

“There was a lot of labor to get it done and released,” Skipper said.

Skipper said the band plans to put out an EP with three new songs and two re-imagined, previously released songs, but don’t regularly plan to tour after the Columbus show.

Liner Notes (December 21st, 2018)

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This is the second to last Liner Notes before the end of 2018. This year has been impossibly long while flying by at a record pace. It makes absolutely no sense. I hope everyone is gearing up for a nice weekend and preparing to spend the holidays in whatever way makes you happiest. I plan to spend some time offline, reading, and enjoying the company of family. As a little holiday gift, I’m making this version of Liner Notes, which are usually exclusive to supporters, free for all.

This week’s roundup includes my ranking of All Time Low albums. After discovering these “do teens know 2000’s pop-punk” videos on YouTube (and immediately feeling old as hell), I got on a pop-punk kick and ended up listening to their catalog all week. I also share my thoughts after spending a week with Apple Music on the Amazon Echo, ten songs I loved this week, and, of course, my weekly media diet. The supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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The Miracle of ‘Springsteen on Broadway’

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10 years ago this week, I fell in love with the music of Bruce Springsteen. It happened almost by coincidence: a conversation at my uncle’s 50th birthday party that shifted toward The Boss and his legendary live shows. From there, it didn’t take much to transform me from a casual Springsteen fan to a die-hard: just a drive through the winter storm from hell, my iPod, and a little song called “Thunder Road.”

A lot has happened in my life in the 10 years since. I graduated from high school, and then college. I fell in love with a girl and married her. I became a part of her family, and she a part of mine. I moved away, and then moved back home. I bought a house, sold it, and bought another one. I chased my dreams and watched them die. I lost my grandpa. I lost my first dog, and then my second one. I had my heart stolen by a little, devious, trouble-making kitten. I started a career. I even got to see Springsteen (three times) and shook his hand (once).

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Daniel Pemberton Talks About “Scratching the Orchestra”

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I found this tweet thread from Daniel Pemberton, the composer for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, about how they put together some of the music for the film, utterly fascinating:

So – here is how we ‘scratched the orchestra’ for #Spiderverse. We’d go record and mix all the live players – then get it transferred to ‘vinyl’ – then spend ages putting the notes back in the mix bar by bar […]

This scene here (nicknamed ‘bongo train tug’) we worked on for ages, trying to get every scratch and musical move to mirror the action and movement in the animation and on screen.. No one had really done anything like this before so we were working out how to do it as we went.

Pete Wentz Has Learned the True Meaning of Christmas

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Alex Robert Ross, writing for Noisey, about the band’s holiday song “Yule Shoot Your Eye Out:”

Wentz says that they didn’t overthink the lyrics, that it was “mostly just a goofy song that we took and burned on a cd and gift wrapped in holiday paper and gave out to kids at the show.” […] “Maybe that was a bit overdramatic,” he says now. “I don’t think it was awful. I think monotonous would be a better word. I think when you are a punk rock kid in the suburbs, the holidays represent the biggest version of the monoculture. How could you not take a shot at it?”

Unreleased SZA and Beyoncé Songs Leaked Online

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Both Beyoncé and SZA had unreleased songs leaked on Spotify and Apple Music over the past few days:

Under the name Queen Carter, the albums “Have Your Way” and “Back Up, Rewind” appeared on Spotify and Apple Music, featuring demos, previously released songs and unreleased tracks by Beyonce. Hours later, they were removed.

And:

Nine unreleased SZA tracks were leaked on Spotify today. The songs, two of which feature Kendrick Lamar, were listed as an album called Comethru under the moniker Sister Solana. SZA has since responded to the leak on Instagram: “These are random scratches from 2015. Def not new new! But… creative? And scary?” Comethru was later removed from Spotify, but the Sister Solana artist page remains on the platform.

Alan Day of Four Year Strong Starts a Christmas Tree Farm

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Alan Day of Four Year Strong talked with Alternative Press about starting a Christmas tree farm:

“It fell in our laps a couple of years ago, because a friend of a friend was selling their grandparents’ farm,” Day explains. “It was a lot of land, so we went to check it out not really expecting to go for it, but we did. We planted our first batch of trees last spring, and we’ll plant more in the new year. We’re not selling our own trees yet—we won’t be for another four or five years, because they take that long to grow—so we’re still selling retail. But we’re building a life around this thing, for some reason, and at its peak, we’re hoping the farm will have up to 10,000 trees.”

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