2021 Soundtrack

I do this every year. You may have noticed that this weblog is pretty bare, and that my previous post was last year's soundtrack. You may have been here every day, wondering when I would drop more hot content. Perhaps you clicked the refresh button, thinking the problem belonged to your browser. Friends, it was my problem all along.

These songs are what I loved this year, or what reminds me of this year, and are arranged in an order that sounds good. You are not allowed to listen to this on shuffle until you have first listened to it sequentially every day for one month.

My yearly soundtrack used to fit on an 80-minute CD, which was burned and mailed to friends. I now post it to Spotify, a service I do not use or approve of.

This playlist is on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Pn91MHocuOYPicNtNToVE?si=8550949d76e342fb  

Previous soundtracks can be found at Spotify here.

1. Erasure - A Little Respect 

In January 2021, the 2005 Hyundai Elantra was broken, was fixed, and then immediately the catalytic converter broke. I bought the last new 2020 Toyota Camry the dealership had in stock, as they were currently selling the 2021 model. (I was fortunate to get this car just before the great global chip shortage made buying both used and new cars more expensive or impossible.) 

The 2020 Camry has a CD player; it's the final model where they included one. The Hyundai had a CD player as well, but the Camry has a fancier audio system. I decided I'd listen to every CD I own, excluding burned CDs, in order, without skipping any songs. I'm made it from Fiona Apple to The Jayhawks so far. 

I thought I would rediscover some hidden gems while listening to these compacts discs, but I have not. It turns out that back when you purchased CDs, you would listen to each one a lot, and accurately determine which songs you liked and which were duds. The great deep cuts I thought I'd find are not there. They were never there. 

But it has been fun! There haven't been revelations but there have been a few noticeable things. The 4th Foo Fighters album, One by One, is pretty solid. Latter day Neko Case is probably better than Fox Confessor. 

I would have gotten further through my CD collection were it not for the complimentary Sirius/XM subscription that came with the car purchase. The New Wave channel, 1st Wave, rules.

2. Dayglow - Can I Call You Tonight 

XMU is another good Sirius/XM channel. They played this song a lot, but not as much as they played the 2020 Fleet Foxes songs. 

3. Cherry Glazerr - Big Bang

My workplace officially adopted a hybrid schedule, where we would work from home some days and be in the office others, and all try to be in the office together on Wednesdays. It all fell apart during the Delta wave, but during one of those office days, the coworker who humors me by talking about what we're listening to mentioned some new Cherry Glazerr songs. Big Bang and Rabbit Hole are both pretty good!

4. Japanese Breakfast - Posing in Bondage

You remember Japanese Breakfast from the 2019 Soundtrack? I was the first person to discover them when I watched their live festival performance on YouTube. Their 2021 album was on many best-of lists. Their Liberty Hall concert was the first show I attended since Covid began. Great show. Lots of clapping after very mild guitar and saxophone solos though, which was odd, perhaps people were just happy to be in a live venue again. Posing in Bondage was my favorite performance at the show, it had a strobe light thing going for the second half of the song, pretty cool. So, with all my respect to this Paprika performance on Kimmel, I'm going with this song for my soundtrack.

 

5. Simple Minds - Alive and Kicking 

Man, that 1st Wave channel, so good. You get out of Paul's Tae Kwan Do tournament and press the engine start button and wait for the entertainment system to boot up and then you hear Simple Minds? So nice.

6. Chvrches - Lullabies

I liked this Chvrches album better than their last one.

7. Hospitality - Eighth Avenue

I listened to this burned CD on the way to a Kentucky Derby party. It felt so right that I listened to it again on the way home, and listened to their second album several times in the following days. I miss them.

8. Kiwi Jr - Cooler Returns 

XMU played this song a lot. Since it was released early in the year, this might be the song I listened to most in 2021.

9. Better Than Ezra - In the Blood 

The soundtrack to our long Fourth of July celebration (drinking beers to stay hydrated while the children played in an inflatable pool) was the radio. 90.9 The Bridge was playing the top 909 songs of the 90s, according to... a listener poll? I have no idea. It seemed more like a shuffle than a countdown. But it was better this way, getting to hear Better Than Ezra's fourth most popular song instead of the usual.

10. Wet Leg - Chaise Lounge

I think I heard this first from Stereogum? These ladies seem fun.

11. Mike Adams at His Honest Weight - Seven Year Ache (Roseanne Cash cover)

I bought his EP of country covers a few years back, and was listening to it when I was driving Paul to and from practice. I guess it was the first time I paid attention to the lyrics, and my mind punished me for my attempt to decipher them by repeating the song in my head for many days. Mike Adams' version isn't on Spotify, but the original is. Adams' version is available at Bandcamp:

12. Linda Ronstadt - Silver Threads and Golden Needles

I learned a lot from the really great Linda Ronstadt documentary that I watched this year for free on YouTube, check it out!

13. Halsey - I am not a woman, I’m a god

Nine Inch Nails producing Halsey? Uhh, I didn't have that on my 2021 bingo card!!!

14. The B-52's - Private Idaho 

If you listen to the 1st Wave channel on Sirius/XM for more than an hour without hearing a song by The Pretenders or the B-52's, brother, you aren't listening to the 1st Wave channel on Sirius/XM.

15. Silverbacks - Klub Silberrucken

When I read about a band on Stereogum or elsewhere, I'm checking if there's a dude singing and if it's more or less straightforward rock. I love the ladies, but it seems like I have no problem finding new bands that are fronted by females. And I like some synths or laid back vibes, but those are also plentiful. I tested out many dude rock bands this year, and nothing really stuck. Silverbacks were one of those bands. HOW IRONIC that I picked the one song of theirs where the female vocalist is featured. 

If you want to hear the dude sing, listen to their song Dunkirk 

16. We Were Promised Jetpacks - Nothing Ever Changes

Dudes singing straightforward rock, hell yeah, the Jetpacks are back!

17. Ratboys - Collected

Ratboys were on last year's soundtrack. This year they re-recorded songs from their first EP. I have liked all of their releases - I really like how she sings or the sound of her voice or both, but if you can't stand how she sings I would nod and say, "Yeah, I can see how it would irritate a person."

18. Julien Baker - Relative Fiction

I bought this when it came out. I thought her switch to a full band would be right up my alley. I’ve listened to it plenty of times, but I’m still not connecting with it as much as I hoped.

19. Matthew Sweet - Sick of Myself

This song would pop into my head often this fall, and I don’t know why, but I’m not complaining. I picked up this CD many times on visits to Best Buy in 1995, but never did best buy it.

20. Torres - Thirstier

Let's check and see what I wrote about Torres the last time she appeared on a soundtrack, back in 2015. "I have nothing to say about this except that I like it." Okay, how about this time I'll say... "This rocks!" Should I have changed this selection to her song Don't Go Putting Wishes in my Head because it came on while I was at The Bourgeois Pig having TWO drinks with TWO friends? According to the old rules of this soundtrack, yes!

21. Clairo - Zinnias 

22. Lorde - Fallen Fruit 

I grouped these two together; they’re both decent songs on disappointing albums. They both write great uptempo songs, I didn’t want them to go Beck’s Sea Change on us. 

23. REO Speedwagon - Don’t Let Him Go

Carl Newman had a couple of tweets about REO Speedwagon one day this summer, and that was enough to get me to listen to a full album of theirs. This is a great opening track.

24. Snail Mail - Madonna

This album made a lot of year-end top ten lists. I like her stuff but she's one of those artists that I like hearing one song from instead of the whole album.

25. The Beatles - I’ve Got a Feeling (Naked version)

I watched Get Back on Disney Plus! I enjoyed it. I didn't not enjoy all 7.5 hours equally, but I enjoyed it. And I very much enjoyed seeing all the tweets afterward, and the goofing on the director who wanted The Beatles to play in an ancient amphitheater lit by torches with 200 Arabs cheering them on. I even enjoyed having multiple Let It Be songs in my head for two weeks afterward.

2016 Recap: Podcasts

Fine 2016 podcasts:

I am sad that I waited until this year to get on the Hollywood Handbook train, but now I am on that train and I like being on that train very much, so much so that I do not want to get off the train, I want to stay in my seat on that choo choo and keep chugging along its track forever.

There are two ways to approach its greatness. You can listen to one of their fun episodes, like:

Hollywood Handbook #145, Whitmer Thomas And Clay Tatum, Our Friends From School

Or, you can get to know the men behind the boys, by listening to them talk about Red Lobster and the time Sean proposed to his girlfriend by putting a ring in a tub of popcorn during a showing of Sex Tape:


Doughboys -  Rocklobsterfest: Red Lobster 4 with Sean Clements and Hayes Davenport

Hollywood Handbook #128, Adam Sachs, Our Cool Bossfriend

Do you remember that movie called Hardcore Henry? Like a first-person video game shooter? They talk about it at the beginning of this episode and it's funny.

Song Exploder, Episode 70, Weezer, “Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori”

This is the best thing you can listen to if you want to question everything you ever liked about Weezer.

Uhh Yeah Dude #495, March 10 2016

There's a great Red Hot Chili Peppers discussion around the 45:00 mark

2015 Recap - Podcasts

Podcasts! They're not just for iPods anymore!

This past year, I continued to listen to and enjoy podcasts. Whether driving to or from work or shooting villians while playing Uncharted 3 online multiplayer, podcasts were there, in a very real, very aural way.

Here were my favorites:

With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus - James Adomian: The Tom Leykis Radio Program

If you know who Tom Leykis is, this is TBS Very Funny. If not, maybe it's still pretty funny!

Comedy Bang Bang - Be My Guest, Literally!

This one features the aforementioned Lapkus as her greatest voice, Ho Ho The Naughty Elf! Ho Ho is mixed in with other great fake guests like Werner Herzog. If you like this and you want more Ho Ho in your life, check out her North Pod episodes with Santa!

The Dead Authors Podcast - L. Ron Hubbard Featuring Andy Daly
(Part 1)
(Part 2)

In the wake of HBO's "Going Clear", Andy Daly performs as Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, as Paul F. Tompkins hosts as H.G. Wells. We had the pleasure of watching Mr. Daly as L. Ron during his stage show in Portland, and that was cool.

The Goddamn Dave Hill Show - Bobcat Goldthwait and Diane Neal

Bobcat and one of the assistant DA ladies from one of the "Law & Order" franchises hang out with Dave, tell some funny showbiz stories, and it's a delight.

2014 Recap - Podcasts

The best podcast episodes of the year, according to me, who listens to a lot of podcasts.Like, a lot! Sometimes I listen to one while we're getting the children awake and ready to go, then one on my commute, one on my way home, and one or two during an evening (if I am playing PlayStation during that evening).

The Andy Daly Podcast Pilot Project

The Wit and Wisdom of the West with Dalton Wilcox

The Travel Bug with August Lindt

Hail Satan with Chip Gardner

“Hail Satan” is a very distant third place among the ADPPP episodes, but I loved the “Chip’s Tips / Tip’s Chips” segment very much. The other two episodes are modern classics and likely the finest two podcast episodes of any year.

You Made It Weird

Dave Hill

Harris Wittels Returns

I usually find Pete Holmes’ podcast to be too self-centered and repetitive, but these two episodes were special. Harris Wittels’ story of breaking up with a Scientologist that leads to buying heroin in an LA park is crazy, and Dave Hill’s tale of performing stand-up comedy at Sing Sing prison is crazy good. While Dave Hill’s “The Goddamn Dave Hill Show” podcast is not on this list, I do look forward to it every week.

Mike and Tom Eat Snacks

Gingersnaps

This is just good advice about who should be baking Nabisco’s gingersnaps.

U Talkin U2 to Me?

Staind Glass

Todd Glass was invited onto this sort-of U2-centered podcast to discuss the nu-metal band Staind. Why Glass? Because his surname combined with Staind made a funny title. Why Staind? Because Scott (Scott A., not A. Scott) likes to sing the titular opening lyrics to Staind’s “It’s Been Awhile” after people say “It’s been awhile” in casual conversation.

Comedy Bang Bang

2014 Holiday Spectacular

Exorcism of Cake Boss

These two episodes stand out as the top of the crop from another great year of CBB. Every guest and character in both episodes are consistently hilarious, from the priest to H.R. Geiger to the elf to Aimee Mann. The holiday episode also features a great dissection of why “The Little Drummer Boy” has terrible lyrics.

Uhh Yeah Dude

Episode 405

About 36 hours into his life, it was decided that my son needed to be transferred to another hospital for some CPAP therapy. It was late at night when I got in my car to drive over to that hospital, and I had to decide what to listen to on the trip. You aren’t in the mood to crank some classic Beatles tunes when you are concerned for the welfare of your newborn, and you don’t want to cry along to Elliott Smith while you’re trying to keep your car on the road. I mean, they don’t really have any Spotify playlist for those kinds of emotions. I decided to listen to Uhh Yeah Dude. It wasn’t a favorite episode, just the one from the week prior that I hadn’t heard yet. It was definitely the right move. I’ve been down with UYD for 200-some episodes by now, and my two old friends talked me through it.

Let's Talk About Sexting

You may have been out of the country. You may be blissfully unaware of current events (like Alipete). Otherwise, you're aware that Americans have only spoken three words in the past month: "Pirate", "Twitter", and "Sexting". This concerns the latter.

1.

You should already be listening Uhh Yeah Dude. Relax about the show's name. Hear me out. Aside from "30 Rock", Uhh Yeah Dude is the weekly program that I most look forward to experiencing. Matt loves it. Camille loves it. Gavin loves it. Join the winning team.

The most recent Uhh Yeah Dude episode discusses the recent study stating 44% of teenage boys have seen a naked cellphone photo of a classmate. (That specific exchange begins at 20:30 in the show, if you'd like to dive in. I recommend AT LEAST dipping your toe with the energy drink discussion at 12:35.)

2.

The most recent Savage Love article expounds on the topic and makes many good points:

America’s current teen-sex panic—it’s always something—is about “sexting,” teenagers sending each other pictures of their sometimes-underage junk, their frequently underage racks, or their young and dimpled/pimpled rear ends. (Oh, if only we could return to the comparatively innocent and entirely fictional days of “rainbow parties”!) Shortly after the kids went crazy for sexting, the authorities went crazy for prosecuting kids for sexting. Take Phillip Alpert, an 18-year-old in Florida who got mad at his girlfriend and forwarded a digital photo of her naked to dozens of her friends and family members.

This Alpert kid (he had only just turned 18) pulled an asshole move—the gaping asshole of moves—and he owes his girlfriend, her friends, and her family an apology, restitution, and a pound of flesh. (And I mean that pound.) A just, proportionate punishment might involve, say, nude pictures of Alpert being displayed on a billboard in Times Square. For a year. Instead, Alpert was convicted of distributing child porn and “sentenced to five years probation and required by Florida law to register as a sex offender,” CNN reports. “You will find me on the registered sex offender list next to people who have raped children, molested kids, things like that,” Alpert told CNN.

A message for concerned parents, outraged school officials, and teen-sex-obsessed prosecutors: We’re gonna have to either make it illegal for teenagers to own camsphonescomputers, or we’re gonna have to give them drugs to delay the onset of puberty until after they’re 18. If we’re unable or unwilling to do those things—technology is hard to contain, and delaying puberty could have unwelcome health consequences (although it would have spared Levi Johnston’s DNA from the ignominy of mixing with the Palins’)—then the intersection of horny teens and newer technologies is going to require us to rethink the simplistic application of laws that criminalize the possession and distribution of sexty (ugh) pictures, particularly in cases where they were created by teenagers, for teenagers.

Yes, Alpert was a douchebag; yes, it was wrong for him to forward that picture to embarrass and humiliate his girlfriend. But if Alpert is a child pornographer and a sex offender, so are millions of today’s teenagers. They’re all e-mailing each other pictures of their junk. Making an example of one unlucky asshole who got caught isn’t going to stop teenagers from sexting each other any more than making an example of hundreds of thousands of unlucky pot smokers stopped people from smoking pot.

3.

I'd normally just link to this stuff at my Google Shared Items page (see also the sidebar at the right under the "Browsing" heading), but I'm pretty sure no one reads that except Nick.

I think I've mentioned every single friend I have now, so it's time to this bird to fly.

Poddy Time!

I jumped into 2004 last month, purchasing a moderately priced digital media player through Amazon.

It's only 4 gigs, but it gets the job done -- that job being podcast playback. Talk radio entertained me through long hours farming, audiobooks have passed many a road trip, and now this sort-of cheap device can bring that fun anywhere I roam.

If you're similarly pleased by podcast, please persue:

You Look Nice Today
Matt recommended this, and I'm glad he did. If you enjoy the live episode, "Live!: Baby on a Dog", you should subscribe to the feed.

(The format and tone of this show is imagined Phil and I would be creating when, a few years back, he suggested we record conversations via Skype for our own podcast. I went to Best Buy over my lunch break to buy a USB headphone/microphone combo, set up Skype, jotted down some ideas, and was ready to claim spot atop the podcasting world. Phil's interest waned. Gav claimed ownership of the headset; then, since it was made by Logitech, it broke. Goddamn Logitech. You buy a magical, life-changing universal remote from them for a premium price, and less than 2 years later it's wonky, and their customer service suggests you do a safe mode reboot even though they know that won't improve the response of the failing buttons, and they say, "Oops! It's only got a one-year warranty! Suck it!" Anyways, what I'm trying to say is: I should have a podcast, but I don't.)


The Adam Carolla Show
More hits than misses. The news segments are often daily highlights, spawning humorous tangents and prolonged commentary.


The Sound of Young America
Recommended only if you've heard of the person being interviewed. Shows featuring comedians are the best. Try it out by listening to the interview of Paul F. Tompkins, which includes some good stand-up clips.


This American Life
You already know this, because you're white and middle-class, but it's consistently great. RELEVANCY ALERT: if you want to know what the fuck prompted the U.S. economy to turn to shit overnight, listen to "The Giant Pool of Money".


If YOU have any additions to this small list of good podcasts, please post them in the comments.

But Then Again, He Has To Be

All Things Considered just described New York's new, legally-blind governor as "a good listener".

NPR is hilarious sometimes. Well, back to my latte.

All Feldmans Are Douchebags

Saturday morning's revelations:

• Snapple's cold, sweetened Earl Grey is delicious.

• I would like to murder the host of NPR's "Whad'Ya Know?". Fact: this show airs for every moment of the goddamned morning. I spend so much time avoiding it that I usually miss the good NPR programs. Michael Feldman is about as funny as his name. As overcooked rice. As palsy. Fuck that guy.

Things I learned from NPR recently

1.> Che Guevara did not bathe often - he did not believe in it.

2.> 3% of the human genome is devoted to our sense of smell.

3.> "Satire" comedy pieces should contain either good satire or good comedy.

I mean, seriously, I expect this kind of shoddy attempt at humor from a paleozoic beefcake like Daniel Schorr, but what kind of "satirists" spend this kind of energy for an All Things Considered piece? What the hell do these two do with their time when they're not writing/producing awful sketches? AHHHHHHHH DAMN DAMN DAMN I'm so angry I've got to google them...

...and there you have it. Per their one-line bios following a Salon piece (also not funny), David Slavin is an actor and voice-over artist; Bruce Kluger is a columnist for Us Weekly magazine...

But MY GOD! That Salon bit was written in 2001! These two assholes have been "writing" "satire" for at least 3 years and they can't create anything worthwhile? Even with all of Bruce's experience at Us Weekly? Sad.