Last month’s newsletter with my year-end lists was a little overwhelming to write. An absurd amount of music came out this year that I didn’t get to and I considered making a list of the things that I hadn’t listened to yet but wanted to. Instead, I remind myself that a) who cares, I’m not a music journalist and b) finally getting to something that doesn’t have the gloss of novelty on it can be amazing.
Beach House became really popular when I was in college. Teen Dream came out when I was 18 (ha!) and overwhelmed by music and culture; I had just found out about Pitchfork and Hipster Runoff, and the only stuff I’d been listening to consistently in high school was Sufjan Stevens (because of the homage to my home state), Death Cab for Cutie (because of The O.C.), and Regina Spektor (because I played the piano and liked writing weird poems). I saw Girl Talk on the UChicago campus with my housemates and danced in someone's room to what I found out later was Kid A. Who was Radiohead? I did not know. To most of my peers, I was an old-timey farmer who didn't know French, and I got asked about cow-tipping more than once. I knew about irony but sarcasm was killing my ass, earnest weirdo that I was, and I just took in what I could and let the rest of the things and sounds around me soften into an incomprehensible marathon of Roland keyboard samples and boat shoes.
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