QuantumBamboo

I always have a little chuckle at 13:37. It’s one of those times that I irrationally feel I see more often than any other time, but it’s just that I notice that specific set of numbers more than any other… or maybe I check the time at exactly the same point each day because my body clock is 1337!

Snowball throwing was banned because a nephew of a friend of a friend of a teacher was supposedly blinded by one. Same school had an assembly that informed us that listening to heavy metal would make us want to kill our friends.

*Ubend Oranges

Ah Morcheba! Now that’s a band I’ve not heard in a while!

Another album feature I enjoy is the “bonus” track at the end after an absurd length of silence. 1977 by Ash comes to mind. Nothing like going to sleep with an album on to be suddenly woken up by drunk people puking.

As well as transitional tracks, I love it when tracks genuinely feel like they exist as part of something larger. Whether through transitions within the tracks (Nonegon Infinity by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard takes this to the extreme) or by essentially turning the album into one long almost operatic piece (like Colours by Between the Buried and Me).

Yeah I almost exclusively listen to full albums. Definitely helps give context to the music and understand the artist better. I also agree that you should give it a few listens. Some great albums need you to dial in before you really fall in love with them. It’s a more active process than just listening to an unending algorithmic recommendation stream, but the effort is rewarded!

I’m more concerned that streaming platform algorithms prioritise passive listening (maybe not more concerned… I’m not sure how concern is quantified). It goes against their business model to risk serving users music that might actually push, and thus potentially expand, their taste. Music that is challenging may cause a user to stop listening. Better for the auto play algorithm to serve up safe bets, homogenising the general popular music gene pool. Like serving endless Big Macs in case tom yum is too spicy or lamb shoulder is too rich. As a result, the way to find success in the era of streaming platforms is to play G-D-Em-C and sing about the boy/girl you like/liked. This causes a feedback loop where bland music leads to bland tastes, which leads to bland music…

Not my wife

When I was about 16 I was walking past a nightclub as some guys were packing up a van outside. One of them called out to me and started telling me a story about how they were fitting out the club with a new sound system and had some surplus speakers. They asked if I wanted to take them off their hands. Really, I wanted to go and research them first, but this was in the olden days before the entire internet was in your pocket. They showed me the brochure and manual, I gave them £200 cash, and they drove me home in the van with the speakers. On the journey I started to get suspicious and got them to drop me a few roads over from my actual house. Lugged the speakers home by hand, started researching them and found it was a common scam. The units themselves were totally fake and from what others had said were a fire hazard. Police weren’t interested as I had given the money freely. I had a buddy take them to the dump in his van. I spent quite a while researching who was behind it and ended up with the details of the “company” manufacturing the units in a workshop in London. I then spent a few weeks having fun prank calling them with various soundboards (Arnie was the best!). I made my peace with the whole scenario by framing it as an overpriced, but entertaining subscription to a guilt-free prank call experience.