David Emery Online
2024 in Music
If you checked my Apple Music Replay it would tell you that for the 3rd year in a row Taylor Swift was my post listened to artist, and who am I to argue with a data story like that? That stat was bolstered by her latest album — The Tortured Poets Department — which I thought was one of her best, especially the second disc (i.e. the one with all the songs produced by Aaron from The National).
Two other albums got heavy repeat listening: Charli xcx’s Brat (and the superb remixed version “Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat”), and latecomer GNX by Kendrick Lamar, proving why you should always wait until January 1st to do an end of year wrap up.
Other highlights include Vampire Weekend, Four Tet, Fontaines D.C., Fabiana Palladino, The Smile (who released two albums, the first one being better, slightly), Nilüfer Yanya, Sault and many, many others.
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TRANSA by Red Hot Org
If you haven’t heard of Red Hot, they are a charity that have been putting out sublime music complications for many years, and the latest one, Transa — spotlighting trans and non-binary artists — is no exception.
It is a formidable undertaking, weighing in at almost 4 hours long and featuring over 100 artists — including Sharon Van Etten, Perfume Genius, a twenty six minute long André 3000 track, and a stunning Arthur Baker and Pharoah Sanders song that also features Peter Hook from New Order on bass, Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai on guitar, and Four Tet on guitar and percussion.
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The Invisible Man
I begin parking at Walmart in November. The masses flood the lot to shop for the holidays. People drive fast in the lot, as aggressively as they do on the roads, whipping in and out of empty spaces while pedestrians walk in the low fluorescent glow. They make me nervous. People are economically squeezed, the stress of everyday survival and the fear of uncertain futures turning into hostility. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and many have no emergency savings—they are one crisis from homelessness. A job loss or an unexpected illness and they are where I am. They are on edge, driving bigger and faster and louder cars—a society speeding along as it disintegrates.
A stunning piece of writing.
Uniquely American, at least in the details, if not the overall situation. A perfect read for the Thanksgiving holiday.
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Reincarnated by Kendrick Lamar
I didn’t get as hyped as everyone else over the Drake back and forth, but this is a great victory lap from Kendrick.
Also — a good reminder, as ever, not to write your end of year lists too soon.
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On Bluesky
Did I need another social app to check? No not really.
But yet, here we are. For now I like it just fine, but let’s see how it all plays out. It would be great if we could get past the “replicating Twitter but less evil” phase that the competing networks are stuck on, and get on with figuring out what might come next.
Visit ➔LCD Soundsystem x Miles Davis
I couldn’t not post this. The music! The DJ-ing using YouTube! The fact it’s been on the internet for thirteen years I’ve only just seen it!
Via Kottke.
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Writ Small: "Today" by Julie Morstad
“How was your day?” was the first story I ever asked my kid to tell me.
This line hit me as remarkably profound.
And true — you can see the cogs of storytelling slowly start to mesh together as they grow up, narrative and plot appearing out of a steam of consciousness.
Well, when they don’t just say “it was ok”, which is remarkably often.
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Collaborative Playlists in Apple Music
The latest version of iOS—17.3—just dropped*, and with it comes a great and long overdue update to Apple Music: Collaborative Playlists.
There’s delightful touches throughout, including emoji reactions per song, which strikes me as just the right amount of social in a Music app.
If you want to test it out, update to 17.3 and add something good (no pressure) to my shared playlist (link below).
* Can operating systems “drop”, or is that reserved for sneakers and hipster brewery collabs? Needs research.
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Apple Music Replay ‘23
Apple Music Replay ‘23 just launched—I say ‘launched’, but you can actually get your stats all year round, so it’s just the final year recap that’s fresh.
Either way, this just makes me wonder what a Taylor x Four Tet remix would sound like…
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