To put this another way . . . Derek Scott

Champagne Charlie sighting! www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF4r...

And it wasn't even that long of a walk. Happy cornucopia!

Thinking about how conservative songs are -- what Peter Perrett does on margins isn't so different from XCX. Thinking about how sound studies tweak songs differently than jazz musicians playing the changes, like Laurie Anderson's two line "Shiny Dime" or Mount Eerie getting us to listen for whales.

Thinking on my walk about commercial songs as not so much creating new needs as proving we have needs we can't or won't speak. Thinking about how I first heard Charli XCX inside an Icona Pop hit and didn't know it; wondering if some once heard Huey Smith inside a Frankie Ford hit and didn't know.

X, Smoke & Fiction
Arooj Aftab, Night Rein
Mannequin Pussy, I Got Heaven
Geordie Greep, The New Sound
Laurie Anderson, Amelia

Pa Salieu, Afrikan Alien
Sabrina Carpenter, Short n’ Sweet
Tucker Zimmerman, Dance of Love
Cassandra Jenkins, My Light, My Destroyer
Unholy Modal Rounders, Unholier Than Thou: 7/7/77
Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood
Tems, Born in the Wild
Yard Act, Where’s My Utopia?
Jack White, No Name

The Hard Quartet, The Hard Quartet
Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft
Hinds, Viva Hinds
Tierra Whack, World Wide Whack
Vampire Weekend, Only God Was Above Us
Mabe Fratti, Sentir Que No Sabes
Kim Gordon, The Collective
Mount Eerie, Night Palace
Kim Deal, Nobody Loves You More
Wussy, Cincinnati Ohio

Adrianne Lenker, Bright Future
Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
Father John Misty, Mahashmashana
Nala Sinephro, Endlessness
V/A Kampire Presents: A Dancefloor in Ndola
Peter Perrett, The Cleansing
Alan Sparhawk, White Roses, My God
LL Cool J, The Force

Here, I hope, is 90% of a 2024 Top 40 albums list. (Roan, from '23, hit this year.) If your tastes are anything like mine, what else would you suggest?

Charli XCX, Brat (and related)
MJ Lenderman, Manning Fireworks
Doechii, Alligator Bites Never Heal
Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter

If you summarize pop, include all these clusters, including oldies and the shameful lack of indies.

First time in years I listened first on vinyl. Sure as the sun.

Netflix 3 Body is far better made than Chinese TV’s trudge, but more generic, centering a US-UK idea of drama, losing how the novel and first retake conceived multitude, singularity, alienation. That said, if the guard reading Dhalgren indicates Benioff and Weiss's next elephant ride, go for it!

Albums: 1-10
Boygenius, The Record
Wednesday, Rat Saw God
100 gecs, 10,000 gecs
Olivia Rodrigo, Guts
Noname, Sundial
Gina Birch, I Play My Bass Loud
Billy Woods and Kenny Segal, Maps
PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying
Yo La Tengo: This Stupid World
A. Savage, Several Songs About Fire

It's pub day for Hound Dog. My 33 book thought about Axl re Kurt re the decline of rock and rock criticism. This Singles one is about Thornton v. Presley (plus "Doggie in the Window" and "I Wanna Be Your Dog") re how the battle fought to extend rock via punk became a wider debate around inclusion.

Harry as in Smith, bio as in John Szwed’s. Happy 4th to all independent spirits who have washed together in the Bay.