David Emery Online
Weightless by Arlo Parks
Phoebe Bridgers has been busy.
I can only assume that three separate music marketing teams independently came to the conclusion that the third Wednesday in January was the optimal time to announce a new album, because yesterday was slammed with new music. A new record by The National. A new record by Arlo Parks. And a new record by boygenius.
You would, of course, expect Bridgers to appear on that last one, as it’s an in-air-quotes supergroup of her, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. All stalwarts of the American indie scene—and all great—and now all, such are the whims of the music industry, signed to Interscope, home of Lady Gaga and Sting.
She also appears on The National album, which makes sense, alongside Sufjan Stevans, which also makes sense, and Taylor Swift. Her appearance does, also, make sense—in fact it would have been almost surprising for her to have not been on it, such is where we’re at in The National Extended Universe in 2023—but if you told me that ten years ago I wouldn’t have even thought you were joking, just very confused. Phoebe is on the album twice though, so her work-rate still comes out on top.
Finally, Phoebe also makes an appearance on the new Arlo Parks album. The three separate labels did at least have the communication skills to avoid Bridgers appearing on multiple different songs on the same day, so we’ll have to wait until later to find out her contributions, but—and I stress that music is not a competition, we are all winners—the Arlo track is clearly the best, at least on first listen.
If you only have the chance to listen to one of these, make it that one. And then proceed, like I have just done, to wonder just how Phoebe Bridgers handles time management.
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Be On Your Way by Daughter
I must confess that Ex:Re, the solo record by Daughter’s singer and main songwriter Elena Tonra, is a once-a-week listen for me, despite it coming out over 4 years ago now. That also accounts for the 7 year gap since their last album proper.
It’s beautiful, of course.
Listen ➔2022 in Music
Writing about music is like singing about grammar. Rarely done well, but sometimes someone manages it.
Let’s start with Kendrick. An artist who has gone beyond the traditional confines of genre to create something bold and distinctive. Mr Morale and the Big Steppers is not a perfect record—there are a couple of stumbles, like the eminently skippable ‘We Cry Together’—but it certainly comes close, and bristles with artistry. For me, the standout is ‘Mother I Sober’ featuring Beth Gibbons from Portishead, whose presence underlines the fragility shown across the rest of the track. His performance at Glastonbury was, too, a standout. It seems wild to think that it wasn’t that long ago that the thought of hip-hop on the main stage caused an uproar when Jay Z headlined in 2008. Fast forward to 2022 and Kendrick is head and shoulders above.
Staying with live music, a personal highlight was catching one of LCD Soundsystem’s residency shows in Brooklyn. They still know how to make people dance. They also managed to release a very good standalone song—attached to the new Noah Baumbach film White Noise—in ‘New Body Rumba’, which hardly breaks new ground...
Read more ➔What Can We Learn from Barnes & Noble's Surprising Turnaround?
Publishers give discounts and thousands of dollars in marketing support, but the store must buy a boatload of copies—even if the book sucks and demand is weak—and push them as aggressively as possible.
Publishers do this in order to force-feed a book on to the bestseller list, using the brute force of marketing money to drive sales. If you flog that bad boy ruthlessly enough, it might compensate for the inferiority of the book itself. Booksellers, for their part, sweep up the promo cash, and maybe even get a discount that allows them to under-price Amazon.
Everybody wins. Except maybe the reader.
Daunt refused to play this game. He wanted to put the best books in the window. He wanted to display the most exciting books by the front door. Even more amazing, he let the people working in the stores make these decisions.
—Ted Gioia
There’s a lot of interesting points in this piece, but the overriding theme for me is trust. Trust in the staff to make the right local decisions for their unique market and local conditions, and trust in the audience that they might want something different.
There’s also trust in the very concept of being a bookshop, and a focus on the answer to the question “why might someone go to a bookshop?” The answer, which seems obvious but clearly isn’t, is to buy books. Not to drink coffee, or to buy assorted trinkets, or to chase after a completely unrelated business line in the hope that it might magically bring more customers in.
Focus and trust.
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NO THANK YOU by Little Simz
A few listens in, and this sounds like a worthy follow up to her Mercury Prize winning last album, ‘Sometimes I Might Be Introvert’.
Also a timely reminder not to collate your “Best of the Year” lists until the year is actually done.
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Active Scenes: Mix 001 (DJ Mix) by Confidence Man
Talking of DJ Mixes, this new mix by Confidence Man—whose song Holiday was The Guardian’s #19 best song of the year—is a blast.
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2manydjs present As Produced by Soulwax 2020-2022 (DJ Mix)
2manydjs—also known as Soulwax—have released a series of DJ Mixes on Apple Music. This one is a mix of some of their recent recent remixes and songs they’ve produced, and—unsurprisingly—it’s very good.
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Replay ‘22
A good spread this year.
One of the things I like about Apple Music Replay is that it updates every week, all year round. Strongly suspect the latest Arctic Monkeys album might sneak in there before we hit December 31st.
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Actual Life 3 (January 1 - September 9 2022) by Fred again..
It took a minute—and sometimes sounds a bit like Moby?—but I have got truly engrossed in this record. It’s the only thing holding back Taylor Swift from dominating my Replay 2022 mix…
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