#365songs (135 / 365)

Most of what I listen to is from the 21st century because I want to hear what people are doing in music these days, but I picked up Big Science (originally released the year before I was born) probably on the strength of unlikely hit single "O Superman" and found it to be remarkably fresh-sounding even 40 years later.

"O Superman" took on added resonance after 9/11, but Big Science's opening track "From The Air" is the one with the most timeless appeal to me. "This is the time," Anderson repeats, "and this is the record of the time." And the plane crash depicted in the lyric feels like a record of the time, now as much as ever in my life: the traditional safety instructions disintegrating into a meaningless game of Simon Says; the feeling we've seen all this before; the weird reassurance that we are all going down, together.

#365songs (134 / 365)

A girl I met on OKCupid, with whom I went on a single chemistry-free date and then for a while maintained a tenuous balance between a casual friendship and a sizable one-way crush, introduced me to Fleet Foxes before their first full-length album was even released. I don't usually like "get in on the ground floor" with bands, since a lot of what I listen to comes from websites and so by definition has already gotten some press by the time I hear about it, and so Fleet Foxes were a rare exception. We went to see them at the 7th Street Entry of the famous Minneapolis venue First Avenue, a tiny venue of the kind that they wouldn't be playing for much longer. I think we both realized that they were something special but I at least didn't think the kind of gentle, pastoral folk they made would blow up like it did.

Anyway, that all is what I think of when I think of "Mykonos," the best song on the Sun Giant EP that was the only release Fleet Foxes had under their belt when I went to that concert with that girl. But I don't really think of it when I'm listening to the song, because it doesn't need a backstory to hold my attention.

#365songs (133 / 365)

From the first second you know you're in for a ride with "u," but even Kendrick's anguished screams can't prepare you for the scouring he inflicts on himself here. This man does not deal in half measures, so when he puts himself in his own crosshairs it's not surprising that he shows no mercy, but this is still a shocking and distressing listen with more—and more distinctive—vocal styles than some rappers employ across their entire careers. The first half is relentless and unsparing enough a catalog of Kendrick's self-perceived flaws to be uncomfortable, but when he pulls out the "crying flow" and gets really personal with it in the faux-drunken second half, it starts to feel like something you should maybe not be eavesdropping on... but by that point you also kind of feel like Kendrick shouldn't be left alone in his current state.

Many of my #365songs are "I'd never heard anything like this before," but "u," upsetting as it is, is really one of a kind: I'd never heard anything like it before and I haven't heard anything like it since. Amazing work of art, uncompromising tour de force. No superlatives about this song feel excessive.

#365songs (132 / 365)

Have I already said I have a hard time with instrumental music? I like a lot of it, but I think what grabs me is so often a lyric, or a vocal performance, that it's not very often that I can point at a single instrumental track and say "Oh yeah, I really love this one."

Elaenia is a really great combination of jazz and electronic music and I heartily recommend it as a whole, but the only single track that sticks in my brain mostly does so because of its last three or so seconds. Turns out it's the last track on the album, but I had to sample almost every track to recall that. Turns out those three seconds stick in my brain because "Peroration Six" is basically one big five minute long build up to them. The through lines are the jazzy, funky drums and what sounds like a heavily processed guitar jamming irregularly on two notes a half step apart, but there's plenty of other ambience and subtle glitchy electronica that layers up as the track goes on. It's a boiling-frog effect, such that you barely even notice how intense it's gotten until maybe four minutes in, at which point the cymbals start going crazy and it's like, oh boy, here it comes. And then... well, I don't want to give it away. I just think that what happens at the very end of this track is perfect in a very specific, fairly brutal way. And since the whole track is really just a big lead up to that, yeah, I guess I'd say: I really love this one.

#365songs (131 / 365)

This is a weird Radiohead song to shout out: one of their most divisive, for sure, and some people can't stand it. Though I've since cooled on it a bit, I was obsessed with it for a while when Hail to the Thief came out. It's an absolute dirge and nearly unique in Radiohead's catalog: a bit like Amnesiac's closer "Life in a Glasshouse" but like 50% slower (barring the tantalizingly brief freakout in the bridge) and lacking the horns that give "Glasshouse" its je ne sais quoi.

I don't think anyone is wrong for hating the kind of thing that "We Suck Young Blood" is. But for what it is, I think it's perfectly done, and the little details are all on point: the nauseous wobbly woozy bassline, the uncomfortably sibilant cymbal on the second beat and the sarcastically anemic claps on the fourth, Thom Yorke sounding like he's on the verge of death. All those chromatic lines in the shambling piano that anchors the whole thing. I like to talk about music that sounds bad on purpose. Some of that is because it's noise, which is cool, but "We Suck Young Blood" sounds bad on purpose while still being reasonably musical. It's just yucky, but intentionally, and I do kind of love it for that.

#365songs (130 / 365)

Another case of "sometimes popular things are popular because they're good." Disintegration is probably the best-known Cure album, and it so happens it's the best one I've heard too. "Pictures of You" is one of the singles and surely, with "Lovesong" and "Just Like Heaven," one of their best songs. This whole album is great, and mostly in the same kind of floaty long-song way "Pictures of You" is, but "Pictures" is popular because the lyric so perfectly matches Robert Smith's inescapably mournful timbre: some of these lines feel cliché if I listen to them with a critical ear, maybe, but why would I want to do that? This is heart-on-sleeve shit and Smith completely sells it.

#365songs (129 / 365)

A paradox: Z is the only My Morning Jacket album I've ever really gotten into, because the other stuff of theirs I've heard all seemed kind of too rock-throwbacky to me, but "Anytime" is probably the throwbackiest thing on here, but it's maybe the song on the album I'm fondest of. It's certainly the most straightforward, too, and I suspect that once again it's the beneficiary of album sequencing. Had it been in the first half I don't think it would have stood out to me. On side B, coming right after the somewhat plodding and circus-y "Into the Woods," it's a breath of fresh air: sweet melodies in the verse, bridge and chorus, and I may have been charmed by Jim James's voice cracking on that very first high note.

#365songs (128 / 365)

Have I mentioned I spent like a whole year listening to almost nothing but the Mountain Goats? Sometimes I am such a caricature of a person. They literally have a piece of merchandise that just says "I Only Listen To The Mountain Goats" and I was literally that guy for pretty much a calendar year.

Anyway this is all to say I have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Mountain Goats' back catalog, and I haven't leaned into it as part of this project... until now. "Waving at You" is song 15 of 18 on one of the Mountain Goats' probably least-celebrated albums, Nothing for Juice, and it's an understated but devastating little divorce song: unlike in a lot of early tMG songs it's pretty clear what's going on in it, but like in a lot of early tMG songs the singer is not doing great. In two and a half short minutes he cycles through combativeness, resignation, disorientation and possibly self-deceptive determination as he refers to a marriage the loss of which is clearly fucking him up pretty badly as an "old habit." Sure, bud. Whatever you gotta tell yourself.

#365songs (127 / 365)

I like doing this project because revisiting songs that I've found interesting sometimes makes me say "Wow, I should really check out some of this artist's other stuff." So it is with the Books: I don't remember if I heard The Way Out first, or if it was one of Nick Zammuto's post-Books solo albums (one of which will certainly get mentioned at some point this year), but it's all pretty fascinating stuff: the sample-heavy cut-up vibes of hip hop but with a twisted pop music sensibility and incredibly distinctive and compelling sound design. The blurb for their oddities collection on Bandcamp says they "essentially created their own genre (often reluctantly described as 'collage-pop')." I don't know why the reluctance. The shoe fits. "A Cold Freezin' Night" is a perfect example. The lyrics are clips of kids engaging in what seem to me like kid-typical goofiness, playful abuse and threats of incredible violence; the chaotic instrumental suits it pretty perfectly, and in the context of the album it stands out for its aggressiveness amidst a lot of peculiar new-age philosophy and self-help stuff. The whole package is strange as hell but compelling, and I really ought to be digging into the Books' back catalog.

#365songs (126 / 365)

I mentioned this song in a previous entry for a harsh, abrasive track inspired (?) by asthma, but I had to come back to it.

I'm such a devoted album listener that I'm not much of a "skip song" person. But "Ventolin," ear-splittingly plonked as it is right in the middle of the generally chill ...I Care Because You Do, I just couldn't hang with when I was originally getting into Aphex Twin. Now that I've acquainted myself with a wider variety of Music That Sounds Bad On Purpose, "Ventolin" doesn't seem quite so extreme, but that high-pitched ringing sound sustained through the whole damn track does really just drill into your skull like almost nothing else.

Wait, is this a noise track? I think it might be a noise track, though still identifiably Aphex Twin in the unsettling melody burbling underneath the carnage. So too, appropriately, the first track I ever encountered that had me consistently nope out due to its sheer sonic unpleasantness.