Violent Femmes – Add It Up
I don’t think I’m going to have nearly as much to say this time around as I did in last year’s Simple Math. I once again fell short on plans to expand my writing venues (though, as usual, there is stuff brewing which may or may not come to fruition), but that said, I compensated by greatly expanding the sorts of pieces I wrote this year over at PropertyOfZack. (As always, links to everything I’ve written here). It’s been comforting to see the site grow along with me, to see our staff grow and mature and, along with that, allow me to range further afield from the bread-and-butter reviews writing. I actually see myself doing more reviews this year – I rather miss digging into a piece of work in detail like that – but all the actual listening involved is terrible time-consuming, time I find myself less and less willing to dedicate. Domesticity is really underrated, isn’t it?* I greatly enjoy having the freedom to spend time outside the review rubric, and I plan to continue taking advantage of that.
*There is one bit I need to work on for myself – when I’m hanging out w my fiancee (feels great to type that, btw!) I need to get more OK with ignoring her to work on writing. It’s not any pressure that she’s ever put on me, it’s merely that I feel neglectful when I’m ignoring her in favor of my own work. It’s silly and I need to get over it.
I would like, this year, to start writing more for other outlets, just as I said I would last year and the year before; it’s the stuff that comes before the writing that keeps holding me up. Perhaps I really need to commit to exploring my options more, and to knocking on doors – they ain’t gonna open themselves. One Week One Band was a blast, and I want to keep pushing myself on that sort of thing as well – I’ve had a couple ideas in the past for true deep dives – either a) writing my way through a band’s catalog (see either my friend Will Stegemann’s A Year Of Billy Joel or the great Matthew Perpetua’s REM blog Pop Songs 07-08 for some ideas), or else b) working on a book / extensive series of articles similar to Steven Hyden’s marvelous Whatever Happened To Alternative Nation (though, as is typical of me, probably regarding subject matter about which I’d prove not just the author but also the majority of the audience). Perhaps by actually announcing it here I’ll motivate myself to do more than think about it and begin at least putting some preliminary content down.
I also totally failed on last year’s pledge to listen to fewer podcasts; indeed, it only got worse this year. There’s such a glut of content out there, good content, that it’s literally impossible for me to keep up on it all, and the truth is a lot of times I enjoy listening to music discussion (or some of the other stuff I keep up on via podcast, like sports and tech) even more than I enjoy listening to the music being discussed. I do want to listen to more music in 2014, but I think what I really need to do is to just listen to what I enjoy and resolve to not give myself unnecessary agita over it. I started listening to music because I enjoyed it; if I’m listening to podcasts because I enjoy them, I shouldn’t feel any sort of angst over that. If someone wants to pay me for my listening time, I’ll listen to what I need to; outside of that, my plan is to simply take pleasure in listening to whatever pleases me.
So how did I spend my listening time this year? As of December 31st, 2013:
- By my count, over the course of the year I listened to 139 LPs, EPs, 7″s, splits or comps released in 2013.
- There were 1,588 songs released in 2013 added to my iTunes this year.
- In total, songs from 2013 added to my iTunes library this year received 2,293 plays. I had an additional 544 streams on Spotify. In total**, I had 2,837 plays this year.**I also had a number of plays via YouTube and Bandcamp, unfortunately I don’t really have a way to tally them.
- My albums with the most track plays were***:
- Kanye West – Yeezus (136)
- Fall Out Boy – Save Rock And Roll (90)
- The Summer Set – Legendary (71)
- Transit – Young New England (67)
- Little Bombs – New Album Demos (49)***as always, this skews toward albums I reviewed / was planning to review. Excluding Legendary and Young New England, Sparks The Rescue – Truth Inside The Fiction (35) would have been next up
- My most played songs were****
- Cassadee Pope – Good Times (17)
- Fall Out Boy – My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (15)
- Kanye West – New Slaves (14)
- Kanye West – On Sight (14)
- Kanye West – I’m In It (14)****I honestly have no explanation for that Cassadee Pope track – I can’t even remember what it sounds like. It might be a scrobbling error. Moving past tracks where the whole album received a great deal of play and on to true® singles, The Reign Of Kindo – Feeling In The Night and Francis & the Lights – Etc. both clock in at (11).
- I attended 58 individual shows this year, along with 2 days of Skate & Surf, 34 shows over 6 days of SXSW, 1 day of Governor’s Ball, 1 day of Warped Tour, 3 days of Riot Fest Chicago, 14 shows over 3 days of CMJ, and 5 shows during a Las Vegas trip, for a total of 118 shows.
- At these shows/festivals, I saw (by my inexact count) 309 different sets played.
- While I only wrote 3 album/single reviews this year (along with 7 lighthearted Christmas reviews), I refocused much of my writing time to other music-related writing. I wrote 1 live performance review, took part in 28 interviews, wholly authored 2 feature pieces and contributed to 29 others, filed 8 pieces from SXSW and 1 from Riot Fest, contributed entries/blurbs to 23 POZ Staff Playlists, and wrote 17 pieces on The Maine for One Week One Band. It’s easily the most writing I’ve done in a year yet.
The full list of albums and EPs from 2013***** that I’ve listened to this year, alphabetical by artist, is after the cut.
***** I think these are all 2013 releases; I did my best to cull out stuff released prior, but no promises.
- Against Me! – True Trans
- Alkaline Trio – My Shame Is True
- All There – All There
- Allison Weiss – Say What You Mean
- Andrew McMahon – The Pop Underground
- Balance & Composure – The Things We Think We’re Missing
- The Band Perry – Pioneer
- Betty Who – The Movement
- Beyonce – Beyonce
- Big Sean – Hall Of Fame
- Boys – Demo 2013
- Brett Detar – Too Free To Live
- Bring Me The Horizon – Sempiternal
- Butch Walker – Peachtree Battle
- Cartel – Collider
- Cassadee Pope – Frame By Frame
- Chance the Rapper – Acid Rap
- Chvrches – The Bones Of What You Believe
- Citizen – Youth
- Conditions – Full Of War
- Dads – Pretty Good
- Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
- David Bowie – The Next Day
- Daylight – Jar
- Deafheaven – Sunbather
- The Dear Hunter – Migrant
- Defeater – Letters Home
- Depeche Mode – Delta Machine
- Desaparecidos – Anonymous / The Left Is Right
- Drake – Nothing Was The Same
- Edelweiss – Honduras
- Fall Out Boy – PAX AM Days
- Fall Out Boy – Save Rock And Roll
- Follakzoid – II
- Francis & The Lights – Like A Dream
- Frank Turner – Tape Deck Heart
- The Front Bottoms – Talon of the Hawk
- Gin Wigmore – Gravel & Wine
- A Great Big Pile of Leaves – You’re Always On My Mind
- Haim – Days Are Gone
- Have Mercy – The Earth Pushed Back
- The Here And Now – Born to Make Believe Part 1
- The History of Apple Pie – Out Of View
- I Is Another – I Is Another
- Icona Pop – This Is… Icona Pop
- Into It. Over It. – Intersections
- Jay Z – Magna Carta… Holy Grail
- Jimmie Deeghan – Cheap Therapy
- Jonny Craig – Find What You Love and Let It Kill You
- The Joy Formidable – Wolf’s Law
- Justin Bieber – Believe (Acoustic)
- Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience
- Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience – Part 2 of 2
- K. Flay – West Ghost
- Kanye West – Yeezus
- Katy Perry – Prism
- Kitten – Like a Stranger
- Kitty – D.A.I.S.Y. Rage
- Lacey Caroline – Songbird
- Lady Gaga – Artpop
- The Limousines – Hush
- Little Bombs – Strange / My Oxygen
- Little Bombs – Subway Rat Bite
- Little Bombs – New Album Mixes
- Lorde – Pure Heroine
- Lydia – Devil
- The Maine – Forever Halloween
- The Maine – Live at Flying Blanket Studios
- The Maine – Live in Sao Paolo
- Man Overboard – Acoustic Covers Vol 1
- Mansions – Doom Loop
- Mayday Parade – Monsters in the Closet
- Miley Cyrus – Bangerz
- Moving Mountains – Moving Mountains
- Murder By Death – As You Wish: Kickstarter Covers
- My Bloody Valentine – mbv
- My Chemical Romance – Conventional Weapons
- The Neighborhood – I Love You.
- Nine Inch Nails – Hesitation Marks
- Olafur Arnalds – For Now I Am Winter
- OMD – English Electric
- Panic! at the Disco – Too Weird To Live, Too Rare to Die
- Paramore – Paramore
- Parquet Courts – Light Up Gold
- Paul McCartney – New
- Pearl Jam – Lightning Bolt
- Pentimento – Inside The Sea
- Polyenso – One Big Particular Loop
- Puig Destroyer – Puig Destroyer
- Pusha T – My Name Is My Name
- Raine Maida – We All Get Lighter
- The Ready Set – I’ll Be Waiting
- Real Friends – Put Yourself Back Together
- The Reign Of Kindo – Play With Fire
- Rhye – Woman
- Robin Thicke – Blurred Lines
- roboteyes – roboteyes
- A Rocket to the Moon – Wild & Free
- Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels
- Sainthood Reps – Headswell
- Savages – Silence Yourself
- Shone – Heat Thing
- Sleigh Bells – Bitter Rivals
- Smallpools – Smallpools
- Sombear – Love You In The Dark
- Some Stranger – Some Stranger
- Sparks The Rescue – Truth Inside the Fiction
- Squid the Whale – Four More
- The Story So Far – What You Don’t See
- The Strokes – Comedown Machine
- Suede – Bloodsports
- The Summer Set – Legendary
- Tancred – Tancred
- Tegan & Sara – Heartthrob
- Their / They’re / There – Their / They’re / There
- Tilian – Material Me
- Title Fight – Spring Songs
- Tommy & The High Pilots – Only Human
- Touche Amore – Is Survived By
- Transit – Young New England
- Twenty One Pilots – Vessel
- Twin Forks – EP
- Twin Forks – Tour EP Vol 1
- Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City
- The Venetia Fair – Every Sick, Disgusting Thought We Have In Our Brain
- Vinnie Caruana – City By The Sea
- Washed Out – Paracosm
- Waxahatchee – Cerulean Salt
- Whitewaits – An Elegant Exit
- William Backett – Genuine & Counterfeit
- William Beckett – The Pioneer Sessions
- William Control – Live In London Town
- William Control – Skeleton Strings
- The Wonder Years – The Greatest Generation
- The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die – Whenever, If Ever
- Young Statues – Age Isn’t Ours
- 2 Chainz – B.O.A.T.S. II: Metime
- The 1975 – The 1975
- VA – See A Little Light: Bob Mould & Friends In Concert
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