Liner Notes (August 14th, 2020)
I hope everyone had a good week. This week’s newsletter shares early impressions of The Menzingers’ acoustic album, thoughts on other music I enjoyed this week, some thoughts on movies, tv and books I consumed this week, and all kinds of other cool stuff. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.
Five Things
This week’s article was heading back to the final year of AbsolutePunk, 2015, and looking at the state of the website, the music scene, and the albums out that year. I tried to add some context to how I felt in 2015 and then look at the records on my best-of list. Next week we’re going to be heading even further back to fill in the gaps between when I fell in love with music up to where I started the ‘re-ranking’ articles in 2005.
I’ve continued my AbsolutePunk content resurrection project this week by adding a whole bunch of old album reviews back into our database. I still have quite a few more to go, but the process continues. One side benefit of this project is that I finally get to see my vision of all of this content being easy to find and searchable and also contained on each artist’s tag page/profile. That was something back in the AbsolutePunk days I always wanted to achieve, and now, with these reviews/interviews being added back, it sort of has.
I was the guest on the Podioslave podcast this week. We talked about everything from selling AbsolutePunk to repurchasing it, to what bands we grew up loving and the best shows we saw, to what it’s like getting older with streaming music and having a different connection to the songs you’re into. I thought the whole thing turned out well; it was a lot of fun, lots of good discussion and topics to cover. Plus, it led me to the realization that I very rarely know the names of songs anymore. I used to be able to tell you the entire track listing of albums I loved, but gun to head right now I couldn’t give you half the song titles, let alone in order of Phoebe Bridgers Punisher and I adore that album. I blame streaming.
Speaking of podcasts, Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World made one specifically for me. The episodes with Mark Hoppus and Nate Ruess are fantastic. It’s a great look at how artists write music, find inspiration, and I found both to be extremely interesting and entertaining—definitely recommended.
When the weather gets warm, I find myself drinking much more iced coffee. Still made with an AeroPress, but iced. We have these reusable straws from GIR that I like. They’re flexible, so I don’t fear tripping and stabbing my eye out, and they come in a bunch of colors and sizes. We just ordered more because we were running out by the end of the week.
Sponsor
La Roma have released their new song “So Long, Adieu” at Spotify and Apple Music. The band hails from Newcastle, Australia and have a sound that calls to mind a mixture of Jimmy Eat World, Anberlin, and Manchester Orchestra. Keep your eyes peeled for their debut EP coming in early 2021, but for now, check out the new single.
In Case You Missed It
Music Thoughts
I spent a lot of time this week listening to The Menzingers’ new acoustic album, From Exile. Acoustic albums are a tricky deal. If you don’t change things up enough, it just sounds like a simple rendition of the album everyone already knows, often not enough to elevate it into regular rotation. If you change things up too much, it becomes almost jarring to hear. I think this finds the sweet spot well enough, it feels mostly like acoustic renditions of the songs, but some clever little tweaks make them work better in this setting. I think this version helped me get into the lyrics a whole lot more than the original version did. The songs I loved on Hello Exile I love just as much here. “Anna” is a standout. However, the songs I wasn’t as into on the original release, like “Portland,” never did much for me, I find as engaging as everything else. To me, this release feels like something you’d put on when you want to sing around the campfire with your buds in the band. Or, in this case, sing to your computer screen while in quarantine and not allowed to go anywhere. It has a very group sing-a-long feel to it. I like it.
The Japanese House is making some of my favorite music out there these days. The new EP, Chewing Cotton Wool, continues the trend. The highlights are the incredible “Something Has to Change” and the Justin Vernon collaboration. Give me all the glitchy fuzzy goodness.
Stand Atlantic’s Pink Elephant is still getting a lot of love from me. Definitely one of the better pop-punk albums released in a while.
All Time Low’s Wake Up, Sunshine found its way back into my rotation this week. Still great.
Give Me a Reason have a new EP coming out soon called Vice Versa. It kind of reminds me of a Cartel meets Grayscale sort of thing, but maybe a tad more on the pop end of the spectrum. Worth a look.
The new Young Jesus album is out today and I plan to give that spin when I’m done here.
Entertainment Thoughts
Greyhound was precisely what I expected it to be. It’s mid-tier Tom Hanks, but entertaining and the exact right length for a film like this. We watched it last Friday in remembrance of Hannah’s grandfather, who passed away. He was a commander of submarines and loved the history of World War I. This is World War II, but it felt appropriate. Some good intense ship sequences, and who doesn’t love Tom Hanks?
We wanted something creepy on Saturday, and so we decided to watch the first The Purge movie. It was stupid. What a colossal waste of time. Between being beaten over the head with “do you get our commentary?” — the premise, the acting, everything was terrible. That’s going to be a hard no from me.
We finished season four of The Good Place. Well done everyone. Just a delightful, heartwarming, fun, show. It probably won’t ever get to the same place for me as something like Park and Recreation, where I watch it repeatedly, but it finished right and did it well.
Now we’re working our way through the latest season of Superstore, which does have a high degree of re-watchability. It’s still top-notch so far with quite a few laugh out loud moments.
We also finished See, and as it ended my brain was doing whatever the mental version of the hand jerk-off motion is. Middle rung version of everything it was trying to be. It was fine, I guess. Not sure what our next watch will be.
It sucks to finish a great book and then not know what to read next. I didn’t have a whole lot available from the library, so I gave the first Jack Reacher novel a try. After the previous two books I read, this was like reading a high-schooler’s prose. It took me a while to get into these short, to the point with no extra words, sentences. The story itself was fine; it felt like the equivalent of an Arnold Schwarzenegger mid–90’s movie. The kind of thing where I’ll maybe reach for the other ones if/when I don’t have anything else currently available or need something to read on the beach/plane/vacation — if we’re ever allowed to do anything like that again. Now I’m reading The Hunting Party, which is a very Agatha Christie meets Knives Out kinda thing. It’s enjoyable so far.
Random and Personal Stuff
After all the stress since March, I have been slacking on health stuff. I’ve still been working out (as best I can) each day, but making sure to eat healthy has been a challenge. I’m trying to recommit to that the next few weeks to try and turn that train around. My lower back’s been bugging me lately, and putting on my ’ol dress pants last weekend was a chaaaaaaallenge. Muttering swear words at buttons is a decent wakeup call.
That’s not going to keep me from getting a pizza tonight, of course, but I’m thinking two slices max instead of my usual two for dinner, two throughout the rest of the evening whenever I feel like it.
On the positive, I’ve been averaging over 60oz of water per day over the last year. Making that a goal, and tracking it, has been a success.
All the shit going onwith the USPS is very bad.
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.
Cold Years - Life With a View
Stand Atlantic - Hate Me (Sometimes)
Ruston Kelly - Under the Sun
The Menzingers - High School Friend
The Dirty Nil - Doom Boy
Glass Animals - Space Ghost Coast to Coast
LANY - You!
The Front Bottoms - Fairbanks, Alaska
Neon Trees - Skeleton Boy
The Japanese House - Dionne
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 Donnie Ruth in the “Q&A and Chat With Jason Tate” thread.
Ahh, what a nice wholesome most liked post this week. I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of their Friday and a great weekend. I’m going to do some more work around the website, bring some more reviews back from the dead, and then watch some baseball while helping Hannah put together her resume. On that note: If anyone knows of anyone looking to hire someone who is exceptionally educated, incredibly intelligent, hyper-organized, and capable of learning practically anything extremely fast (that can work from home with a high-speed internet connection), please reach out.
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Previous editions of Liner Notes can be found here.