David Emery Online
Frame of preference
Turns out, the Mac settings have lived a far more fascinating life than I imagined, have been redesigned many times, and can tell us a lot about the early history and the troubled upbringing of this interesting machine.
Join me on a journey through the first twenty years of Mac’s control panels.
This would be a wonderful trip down memory lane just by itself — and I say this as someone who remembers well everything from about 1991 onwards, which is far too long a go to consider.
But! You realise after a moment that the computer screens throughout aren’t static images, they’re fully working emulators of the damn Macs. The whole thing, Finder, ancient versions of iTunes, Control Strip — history in a bottle, through the narrative of system settings.
Sometimes I struggle a little with everything that the internet has become, but then every once in a while something like this comes along, a piece of art that could only be born on the web, like a pearl in a river of sludge. It’s not all bad.
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What Was That by Lorde
It would be unfair to say — like many others already have — that ‘What Was That’, the new single by Lorde from her upcoming fourth album ‘Virgin’, is a return to form. That would perpetuate the prevalent narrative that 2021’s ‘Solar Power’ was a dud. The internet has decided so, therefore it is so.
Which is tiresome, isn’t it?
Not only am I a ‘Solar Power’ apologist (both record and power source), but it speaks to the exhausting nature of online music criticism. Which has, for the most part, shifted from the professional to the amateur, with a million comment sections, every social post allowing for a snipe, gripe, and reinforcement of the aggregate cultural opinion. ‘Solar Power’ is a good record, a subtle record, that for me fits a slightly different space than a lot of Lorde’s other work. I suspect that, in a decade or so’s time, it will get a reevaluation once there’s a better perspective on her breadth of catalogue.
None of this is to say that ‘What Was That’ isn’t a banger, though, because it is. But interestingly, it still carries through some of the previous records’ lightness of touch, like how the chorus never quite lives up to the build-up, replacing the drop you think you might be getting with a squelchy synth line. Subtlety doesn’t often carry well in the ‘discourse’, but for me Lorde is wielding it on this track with great power (no pun intended).
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Spike Island by Pulp
A long time ago I had lunch in a pub with Jarvis Cocker. Working in music has given the odd opportunity for such escapades, others which include “having a pint with Pet Shop Boys” and “hanging out at 5am in a hotel bar with Adele” — more on those another time.
I think he had a glass of red wine and the steak and chips, if I recall correctly, and his company was just as entertainingly articulate as you would hope and expect. It was around the time of his second solo record “Further Complications”, which was a very good record but shares an unfortunate truth with all such spinoff projects from the singer of a popular band: it was not a record from the aforementioned popular band, but something else not quite as good.
That record came out in 2009, which was not even half way between when the last Pulp record was released — 2001’s “We Love Life” — and when we now know the next Pulp record will, in modern parlance, drop, which is this year.
If this first single is anything to go by, it may share a kinship with Blur’s latest from 2023, which is to say that it sounds very clearly like the band you know and love, but weathered slightly with the passage of time — a patina of experience adding something new to something old.
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Shadows by Goddess & Ex:Re
I have two playlists that I update regularly and listen to almost every day. The first — #20 — is my favourite twenty songs right now, no more no less, and roughly corresponds to the tracks I post on here. If it makes it to #20, it makes it to the blog.
The other — imaginatively titled “New Music” — is a seventy seven hour long dumping ground of any new music that comes out that I might want to listen to. Every week I trawl through the new releases — songs and albums — and if there’s anything interesting I’ll add it to the playlist. Then I’ll listen to all of it on shuffle. Every once in a while I’ll sweep through and clean out anything that I’ve been skipping too much.
The one and only album by Ex:Re — the solo moniker for Elena from Daughter — has been in my New Music playlist, in full, ever since it came out in 2018. It’s a no skips record. But, being a solo project, and Daughter still very much being a going concern, it always felt like a one off.
And yet, here we are in 2025 with a new Ex:Re track. Well, sort of. This track is from a project called “Goddess”, which is created and curated by ex Savages drummer Fay Milton, and it brings some of that Savages energy to the depth of Elena’s vocal, and it all works exceptionally well.
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How to tell when your art is bad
Good (print) art has to pass these three tests;
The across the room test.
The 2-meters away test.
The up-close test.
If the art is interesting and engaging at all three distances then it has potential to be good art.
I love this, in the most part because trying to apply objective rules to judge “art” is inherently amusing, but also because it’s not, you know, wrong.
Via Russell Davies
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The hardest working font in Manhattan
In 2007, on my first trip to New York City, I grabbed a brand-new DSLR camera and photographed all the fonts I was supposed to love. I admired American Typewriter in all of the I <3 NYC logos, watched Akzidenz Grotesk and Helvetica fighting over the subway signs, and even caught an occasional appearance of the flawlessly-named Gotham, still a year before it skyrocketed in popularity via Barack Obama’s first campaign.
But there was one font I didn’t even notice, even though it was everywhere around me.
Last year in New York, I walked over 100 miles and took thousands of photos of one and one font only.
The font’s name is Gorton.
A beautiful deep dive into a font you have definitely seen, but likely never noticed.
The sheer craft that has gone into this article is remarkable. A reminder of the best that the web can be, and a timely palate cleanser in amongst everything else that is going on right now.
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Guericke's Unicorn by Beirut
Beirut is an artist that I have slowly found indispensable — a soothing balm for the soul whenever I most need it. His last album “Hadsel” wormed it’s way in to my listening habits to such a great extent that it was #5 in my most played albums last year, despite it coming out the year before.
The press release for this new song reports that the album that it comes from, “A Study Of Losses”, was commissioned by a Swedish circus. Judging by “Guericke’s Unicorn”, which is beautiful, circuses may be an A&R source that has been, up until this point, sorely overlooked.
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Besties by Black Country, New Road
Black Country, New Road’s recent live album is one I frequently go back to — in fact, I’m going to put it on right now, wait a minute — and while it’s increasingly clear that we are unlikely to get studio versions of those songs, if what we do get are as good as this first track from new album “Forever Howlong”, we’ll be doing ok.
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Everything is romantic by Charli xcx & Caroline Polachek
I realise that I have failed to properly post about Brat, apologies. It feels almost inappropriate to mention it in 2025, such is its foundational position in the 2024 zeitgeist, but yet here we are, in a post-Brat hellscape.
The original Brat is a masterpiece, of course, building on everything that Charli has been assembling piece by piece for years. But, somehow, the remix album “brat and it’s completely different but also still brat” is, to my mind, even better. It is not a remix album in a traditional sense, but a meta-reworking of the whole thing, capturing in audio form not just an interesting new take on the songs, but also a commentary on the cultural impact of the original album itself. While also, somehow, simultaneously deepening the aforementioned cultural impact, with the addition of Billie Eilish on ‘Guess’, and the version of ‘Girl, so confusing’ — a song, originally sub-tweeting Lorde, which, now, features Lorde.
However, with all of that to the side, the highlight of both Brat and the Brat remix is this version of Everything is Romnatic featuring Caroline Polachek, which is far deeper than it has any right to be.
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Wanna Start A Band? by Sleigh Bells
I had an unfortunate nu-metal phase in my teenage years — we all do things we regret, it could have been worse — but that primed me to be a fan of Sleigh Bells from the start. Not that they are nu-metal in any discernible way, I’m not here to slander them, but there’s a certain aggression that I think connects them both.
Interestingly, you could also draw a through line from Sleigh Bells to Brat — pop at it’s core, but revelling in an attempt to corrupt and break it.
This new song is great and weird. It’s good to have them back.
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There are no trains in Texas
Trains.FYI is a real-time map of passenger trains in North America.
Absolutely remarkable to me that when I opened this up, there were no trains at all in Texas. Or New Mexico. Or Nevada. Or Alabama. Or many, many vast stretches of land covering millions upon millions of people.
(Via Kottke)
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2024 in Music
If you checked my Apple Music Replay it would tell you that for the 3rd year in a row Taylor Swift was my post listened to artist, and who am I to argue with a data story like that? That stat was bolstered by her latest album — The Tortured Poets Department — which I thought was one of her best, especially the second disc (i.e. the one with all the songs produced by Aaron from The National).
Two other albums got heavy repeat listening: Charli xcx’s Brat (and the superb remixed version “Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat”), and latecomer GNX by Kendrick Lamar, proving why you should always wait until January 1st to do an end of year wrap up.
Other highlights include Vampire Weekend, Four Tet, Fontaines D.C., Fabiana Palladino, The Smile (who released two albums, the first one being better, slightly), Nilüfer Yanya, Sault and many, many others.
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TRANSA by Red Hot Org
If you haven’t heard of Red Hot, they are a charity that have been putting out sublime music complications for many years, and the latest one, Transa — spotlighting trans and non-binary artists — is no exception.
It is a formidable undertaking, weighing in at almost 4 hours long and featuring over 100 artists — including Sharon Van Etten, Perfume Genius, a twenty six minute long André 3000 track, and a stunning Arthur Baker and Pharoah Sanders song that also features Peter Hook from New Order on bass, Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai on guitar, and Four Tet on guitar and percussion.
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The Invisible Man
I begin parking at Walmart in November. The masses flood the lot to shop for the holidays. People drive fast in the lot, as aggressively as they do on the roads, whipping in and out of empty spaces while pedestrians walk in the low fluorescent glow. They make me nervous. People are economically squeezed, the stress of everyday survival and the fear of uncertain futures turning into hostility. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and many have no emergency savings—they are one crisis from homelessness. A job loss or an unexpected illness and they are where I am. They are on edge, driving bigger and faster and louder cars—a society speeding along as it disintegrates.
A stunning piece of writing.
Uniquely American, at least in the details, if not the overall situation. A perfect read for the Thanksgiving holiday.
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Reincarnated by Kendrick Lamar
I didn’t get as hyped as everyone else over the Drake back and forth, but this is a great victory lap from Kendrick.
Also — a good reminder, as ever, not to write your end of year lists too soon.
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On Bluesky
Did I need another social app to check? No not really.
But yet, here we are. For now I like it just fine, but let’s see how it all plays out. It would be great if we could get past the “replicating Twitter but less evil” phase that the competing networks are stuck on, and get on with figuring out what might come next.
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I couldn’t not post this. The music! The DJ-ing using YouTube! The fact it’s been on the internet for thirteen years I’ve only just seen it!
Via Kottke.
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Writ Small: "Today" by Julie Morstad
“How was your day?” was the first story I ever asked my kid to tell me.
This line hit me as remarkably profound.
And true — you can see the cogs of storytelling slowly start to mesh together as they grow up, narrative and plot appearing out of a steam of consciousness.
Well, when they don’t just say “it was ok”, which is remarkably often.
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Collaborative Playlists in Apple Music
The latest version of iOS—17.3—just dropped*, and with it comes a great and long overdue update to Apple Music: Collaborative Playlists.
There’s delightful touches throughout, including emoji reactions per song, which strikes me as just the right amount of social in a Music app.
If you want to test it out, update to 17.3 and add something good (no pressure) to my shared playlist (link below).
* Can operating systems “drop”, or is that reserved for sneakers and hipster brewery collabs? Needs research.
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Apple Music Replay ‘23
Apple Music Replay ‘23 just launched—I say ‘launched’, but you can actually get your stats all year round, so it’s just the final year recap that’s fresh.
Either way, this just makes me wonder what a Taylor x Four Tet remix would sound like…
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