Something’s Always Wrong, by Toad the Wet Sprocket. I got this stuck in my head at a rest stop in Pennsylvania on the way home from Ohio. It’s probably the only song by this unfortunately named band that I like; the harmonies in the bridge are beautiful. This was on heavy alternative radio airplay back in the day in a time when “alternative” music was losing steam and leaning towards easy listening. I would have posted the actual music video, but it sucks.
It’s been a minute since I’ve bought digital music online. Here’s the bullshit I had to go through to buy an album this afternoon:
- Apple’s Music app (the replacement for iTunes) in its normal state, does not have a visible link or menu item for the iTunes Store. It can be made visible in the Preferences. Why is this?
- The only visible way to see new music is to sign up for a subscription plan, which I refuse to do. I have enough subscriptions.
- So I went to Amazon, where the only visible link is a subscription shill as well. I refuse to do this too. Surely there must be a better way.
- A couple of searches later, I found a CNET article on how to buy and download new music. CNET still exists?
- This contained a link to a page on Amazon that was not immediately available from my Prime account. Thanks.
- From here I found my album. I purchased and downloaded it in MP3 format.
- Now, to get it on my iPhone. I imported it into Apple Music, figuring it would sync. It did not.
- Another search told me to AirDrop the files to my phone. I did this, and it only put the files in my iCloud Files folder without importing them. I deleted them. The fuck?
- More searching revealed that I needed to connect my phone via a cable to my computer. How very 2005 of them.
- I did this, the first time I’ve connected this phone to my computer ever. I had to tell each machine to trust the other, and wait for the handshake.
- Then I went through Ye Olde Sync screen to manually select the music and load it on my phone. How can this still be the way?
I am aghast at the state of things. I figured surely these days there would be a quicker, easier way that didn’t involve yet another subscription, but this is The State Of Things, I guess.
Light Design, Turnstile. You’re probably tired of me posting stuff about them, but too bad. This cut off the new album is happily stuck in my head, displacing The Unforgiven by Metallica, which was stuck there for a day (and thus not worth posting about). My only beef with it is that it’s only 2 minutes long, and I feel like it builds up to something without releasing. Other than that, no notes. The rest of the album (released yesterday) is excellent.
Pitchfork did a great interview with Turnstile on the eve of their new album release: it’s great to see them repping Baltimore and getting their due. I really hope they are able to keep their feet on the ground and stay connected to their roots—it sounds like it’s working.
I’ve had Turnstile on heavy repeat in my head this past week. The end of this set from the Hurricane Festival in 2024 covers the highlights; they look like they would be awesome to see live.
Update: They played a show yesterday at Wyman Park here in Baltimore.
There’s nothing like straight-ahead stoner rock played with energy and accompanied by a funny video. This is Wires by Red Fang, a Portland band with a history of this kind of thing. Some of their songs hit and some don’t—I tend to gravitate to their earlier stuff—but it’s all good and on the Spotify playlist. And even more appreciated, it knocked Wanna Be Starting Something out of my brain, which had been stuck there like tape to the bottom of a shoe, all day Thursday.
Somehow I got this tune stuck in my head the other day and the guitar riff has been banging between my ears ever since. My sister bought this album when it came out and had it on heavy repeat for a summer; I wasn’t into the other tracks but Blue Light stood out. It’s a very ’80’s song with an even more unfortunate ’80’s music video, which is why I’m posting the reissue instead. At this point in time all of the musicians from the 70’s were releasing AOR-friendly, overproduced solo albums dripping with horns and reverb (see: Pete Townsend, Steve Winwood, that toothy guy from Chicago). This track isn’t bad, although he leans on the horns way too much and it sort of dies out before he starts jamming; the song fades out on the guy who soloed on Comfortably Numb and Time, which is baffling.
Turnstile, the Baltimore-based hardcore band, just announced a new album by releasing a video featuring the title track. As with their last album, they’re veering away from their hardcore roots and doing something…different. I’m glad to see them stretch their legs, and I hope the rest of the album is as good as Glow On was four years ago.
Blind elevated their ethereal sound into a more mature exploration of the imperatives of existence. It’s more subdued, at least from a production standpoint, but finds its niche in luminant melodies and the band’s elegant yet spare musical arrangements.
I’ve written about The Sundays before; they are one of my favorite bands of my college years. This is a thoughtful retrospective of their second album, which came out in 1992 with a different vibe from their first record. Melancholy, yes, but still beautiful and inspiring. I wish they’d continued making music together, but we have three excellent albums to look back on.