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Liner Notes (April 16th, 2022)

Posted by Jason Tate
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This was a pretty damn good week for music. I share some thoughts on three of my favorite punk adjacent albums, as well as some commentary on other things I’ve been checking out over the past week. As always, there’s a playlist of ten songs I liked, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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A Few Things

  • Another week in the books, and this was a pretty great one for new music releases. One of the funny things I found myself doing this week was looking back through my Last.fm account and explicitly going to find a few different artists in my collection to see their stats. There are a few funny gaps, like my Early November and Copeland pages basically had … none of their albums. It’s just a byproduct of when I was listening to those bands most, and where, before I got my tracking system down (Neptunes + Marvis). But now, it’s almost like a weird Pokemon game, where I feel like I need to make sure I’ve properly collected them all. I don’t know what it is with my obsession with tracking things, maybe it’s a mortality thing, like one day someone can look back and there’s a record that I existed, what I listened to, what I watched, what I enjoyed. Or maybe it’s because I saw my Grandfather write down every book he ever read and every movie he ever watched in this tiny little notebook that he kept on the couch. (And that man read more books than anyone I’ve ever known.) Where ever it comes from, it is a part of me. So the past week I had some fun “filling out” some holes, and that meant some fun revisiting some albums I haven’t listened to in a long time. Those first few Early November albums I haven’t sat down with in ages.
  • Andrew McMahon and Dashboard Confessional announced a tour , and I grabbed two tickets for the Oregon date. This will be my first show in almost three years. I cannot wait. Seeing two of my all-time favorites, in an outdoor venue, feels like an ideal way to experience live music again. I’ve heard rumblings we might even have new Andrew McMahon music by then, and Dashboard’s latest is still one of my favorite of the year.
  • I have yet to see Everything Everywhere All At Once, but I am extremely excited for when I can. It looks very in my wheelhouse. Even without seeing the film, I absolutely loved this interview with Ke Huy Quan. He was one of those actors I completely associate with my childhood, between The Goonies and Temple of Doom, and seeing him return to the big screen, and the emotions of doing so, brings a massive smile to my face.
  • Honestly, I think Elon Musk is a jackass, and I think almost everything he does is eye-rollingly stupid. This about sums up my thoughts on his whole bid to buy Twitter. If he’s successful, I see myself using the app even less than I currently do. But it’s his shocking ignorance about content moderation that ticks me off. I’ve spent a good portion of my life thinking about this topic and the complex problems it poses at scale, and the arrogance to think no one’s ever thought of his basic ass ideas is pathetic.

In Case You Missed It

Music Thoughts

  • My most listened-to album this week was once again Cold Years’ new one, Goodbye to Misery, and I’m about 90% of the way done with my review of the album. The plan is to post it up around Wednesday or Thursday of this coming week to build the excitement for the release next Friday. This is one of those albums where I just felt I had something specific to say about what it means to me, and why, and try and put it into context with our entire music scene and the state of the world. I hope I did it justice and I look forward to sharing it in a few days.
  • This week saw some phenomenal punk albums dropping to make sure your weekend is nice and loud. First up is the new one from A Wilhelm Scream. I’ve been talking about this for a few months and it does not disappoint; it’s fast, melodic, punk music with just the right amount of catchy. This is a band with a catalog full of incredible music, and it’s a true joy when they decide to grace our ears with new music.
  • Next, we have the face-melting new album from Greyhaven. Think Every Time I Die, maybe a little of that melodic Lorene Drive for anyone that remembers that band. It’s loud, fast, angry, and the perfect album to punish your eardrums with at the gym. It’s everything I was hoping it would be after adoring their last record, and I’m looking forward to Hannah telling me to put on headphones for the next month while I perfect my air-guitar head-bang.
  • And then we have the new album from Prince Daddy & the Hyena. Don’t let the name scare you off; this album is fucking awesome. It’s maybe a little Lawrence Arms-y, but they leveled up on this one and include a whole lot of melody and super exciting elements in the songs. This one comes highly recommended as well, and I could see it settling pretty high on our collective end-of-the-year list. It’s got that feel. It’s also got one creepy-ass album cover. I can’t think of a release date in a while where there were three just awesome punk/metal/rock albums all released at once. And I can throw all three on in continual rotation and be as happy as a middle-aged punk fan with slightly grey hairs starting to show up can be. What a great weekend to let things get loud. Now bring on the warm weather!
  • The new Phoebe Bridgers single sounds like a Phoebe Bridgers single. Maybe a little Japanese House element tossed in there, which makes me miss/want/need new Japanese House music.
  • One of the big discography dives I went on this week was, once again, Green Day. The new Cold Years album got me wanting to revisit some of their music, specifically American Idiot, to reflect on that album’s place in history.
  • The other album that I hadn’t heard in a while but ended up getting multiple listens to this week was the Early November acoustic album, Fifteen Years. I’ve always been drawn to Ace’s acoustic renditions and find that album damn near perfect for what it is. Just great songs performed with undeniable passion, and they work so well in that context.

The Stats: Over the past week, I listened to only 18 different artists and 411 different tracks (543 scrobbles). My most listened-to artist of the week was Green Day (and that discog dive is why I ended up not listening to as many artists last week), while my most played album was Cold Years’ Goodbye to Misery. Here is my Top 9 from last week, and you can follow me on Apple Music and/or Last.fm.

Entertainment Thoughts

  • We watched the horror film, X, last night. And it was pretty damn solid. It knew what it was, it did it well, and there are some unique little flourishes that I think let it stand out from the pack. Plus, it doesn’t overstay its welcome—perfect length for that kind of movie.
  • The second season of Atlanta was remarkable. Funny, thought provoking, and just all around great. We’re going to wait and let the third season finish before diving in, but I’m so glad we finally sat down to watch this. Next up? Severence.
  • Our current late night show is the latest season of Below Deck and I’ve only wanted to throw things at the television a few times so far. The new chief stew has something about her that just grates at on nerves, every time she needs to tell the camera how she’s “climbed the ladder” I can feel my skin crawl.

Random and Personal Stuff

  • This week I shared some thoughts/memories and photos on Instagram for Box Car Racer, Copeland, and Yellowcard’s acoustic album. I’m also once again running out of room for records. Oops.

Ten Songs

Here are ten songs that I listened to and loved this week. Some may be new, some may be old, but they all found their way into my life during the past seven days.

  1. A Wilhelm Scream – The Enigma
  2. Grayhaven – In A Room Where Everything Dies
  3. Price Daddy & the Hyena – El Dorado
  4. Cold Years – Kicking and Screaming
  5. Green Day – Redundant
  6. Hit Like a Girl – Boardwalk
  7. Copeland – No One Really Wins
  8. The Early November – In Currents (Acoustic)
  9. Phoebe Bridgers – Sidelines
  10. Yellowcard – Back Home (Acoustic)

This playlist is available on Spotify and Apple Music.

Community Watch

The trending and popular threads in our community this week include:

The most liked post in our forums last week was this one by Daniel in the “General Politics Discussion IX” thread.

I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of their weekend.

Previous editions of Liner Notes can be found here.

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