Two colleagues were talking about CDs the other day. I haven’t bought one of those in many years.
After years of illegal downloading in the Napster/LimeWire era, I transitioned back to paying for my music on iTunes and then to streaming in the last couple years.
In that time, I’ve fallen hard for Apple Music. My account informs me there are now more than 32,000 songs in my library.
In December, I started a new routine with the day of the month and the alphabet – on the first of the month, I listen to artists starting with A, the second is B and so on. The letters P, R, S and T all get two days while the final six letters of the alphabet share one day.
Most importantly, I’ve decided to reserve two days at the end of the month for exclusively Prince George music.
So on the last day of the year, I listened to Britt A.M.’s fine 2019 release, Psychic Knots, streaming it through my phone onto a Bluetooth speaker. Before her, it was the haunting I’ll Be Alright by William Kuklis, another fine 2019 release.
Later, I put on the power pop of the Statistics.
The day before, I went further back, listening to Black Spruce Bog and Raghu Lokanathan.
During Christmas weekend, I put on both of former Prince George resident Maureen Washington’s lovely holiday recordings.
And since Apple Music lists artists alphabetically by first name, I had Amy Blanding’s wonderful 2019 release Down The Line cut in on New Year’s Day.
The best part of streaming music is discovery, whether it’s local music, new music, excellent music from the past that you somehow missed or songs and artists that you had forgotten about over the years, to joyfully rediscover again.
Mentions from family, friends and folks on social media led to some nice finds that I likely wouldn’t have uncovered on my own in the past year, as well.
Here’s my short list:
New music – Aliocha (local Twitter friend Alia), Beach Slang, Midland and Dua Lipa (Shawn Cornell), BLACKSTARKIDS (Andrew Kurjata), Drive-By Truckers and Jason Isbell (music author Steven Hyden via Twitter), Everything Everything, Pure Reason Revolution and Max Richter (my favourite British artist, Steven Wilson, via Twitter), Haken and Devin Townsend (The Prog Report podcast), H.E.R. (Grammy tribute show to Prince), Thundercat (The Album Years podcast), Tame Impala and Tycho (can’t remember), Low Roar (Claire Godbout), Tom Odell (Karen Godbout), Taylor Swift and Lizzo (everybody).
Excellent past music – Chevelle, Deftones and Jay-Z (Claire Godbout), Sigur Ros (Karen Godbout), Talk Talk, Japan, Momus Ride and Red House Painters (The Album Years podcast), The Beautiful South and The Decemberists (Shawn Cornell), My Morning Jacket and Leon Russell (Derek Springall), Golden Earring (Ted Clarke), ICEHOUSE (Neil Peart via his last book Far and Wide) and My Chemical Romance (Andrew Kurjata).
Joyful rediscoveries – World Party, Chic, Roxy Music, New Order, Moby, King Crimson, Jill Scott, Emmylou Harris, Caribou.
Have some music recommendations (local or otherwise) for me? I’d love to hear them. Drop me a line at ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca.
