Breakfast At Spotify’s

Well — surprise, surprise …

This, really, is a tale of two roommates. Apple Music comes in from work one day, throws all her stuff on the floor, collapses onto the living room sofa, and says I’m sick of all this. I play dumb for an entire minute. I’m sick of the way you stall, she says, on rent ‘til the very last minute. I have to kiss up to the landlord every few weeks just cause you want to see how far we can push the limit, before you pay your end of what’s a pretty sweet deal.

By rent she means the subscription fee, and by landlord I think she means Tim Cook. By ‘pretty sweet deal’, she means the millions, maybe billions of jams that I can access in a heartbeat. I can have, and have had, the entire Rolling Stones discography in my pocket within an hour tops. I can surf along the underground waves for obscure hip-hop, certain Fridays, and download dozens more albums without paying any of those artistes a dime. And yet, and yet, I keep testing my luck on how and when Apple Music will finally lock me out of the house.

I wave a white flag when Spotify finally announces she’s moving into the neighbourhood (Africa). No more researching what VPN I can use without confusing my Amazon login or my personal banking app. No more snide remarks from dudes at the office that like to remind me Spotify’s got the biggest music library. (It does, but that isn’t quite all it’s cracked out to be …) I tell Apple Music it’s been fun, I’m going to miss you and everything, we should brunch sometime — but maybe it’s best for everybody if I move in with Spotify.

(She only wants five bucks for my end of rent!)

The first few days are kind of magical. I can sync Spotify to the Xbox, drift between my phone and my laptop and my gaming console. Apple Music’s gone and packed all my stuff in boxes, but won’t let me leave with even screenshots of my playlists (those are technically hers); so I have to start from scratch. It works out anyways. Spotify’s got this mantra — I think she’s Buddhist — about how really the best way to trip across the universe is to try and discover something new everyday. She’s built that way. She has ‘Radio’ playlists where she’ll stick a bunch of recommends next to my favourite artistes, based on the listening habits of my favourite artistes’ die-hard fans. Out loud I’m like that’s pretty cool, Spotify; but inside I’m a little like, You’re trying way too hard, my pal. 

We start to exasperate each other within a few weeks. Not in a bad way; just in a roommatey, I-know-exactly-what-your-farts-smell-like kind of way. She hates the way I cling to the same couple hundred songs; my melancholic go-to’s when I go on solitary walks, my early morning hype jams when I’m feeling capitalistic, my ‘real’ hip-hop when I offer to go replace the eggs. I hate the way she’s always unloading stuff, taking forever practically to complete my downloads, then recycling them if I don’t touch the playlist(s) for a few days. “How am I supposed to discover anything,” I yell one time, “if you’re always ‘downloading’?”

I properly hurt Spotify’s feelings in July. I couldn’t find a very specific Stones album, and an uncensored version of a beloved rap song, so I told her so. I told her Apple Music may not have the deepest library in the world; but, this was the difference between them, Apple Music had taste.

We didn’t speak for days, weeks. Just sort of learned to exist around one another. Slowly, quietly, we started to establish a rhythm. She continued to make outlandish recommends, sure, but I learnt to appreciate the effort. Then one day I got home from work — a little beat-up from being a damned writer — and found she’d decorated the house in all my favourite tunes. 

“It’s beautiful,” I said, screen-grabbing it and sharing it with the homies.

*

Here are some highlights from my #SpotifyWrapped for 2021. 12 of them, to be precise, in no particular order.

Funky Girl — Emily Yacina.

A lot of the time, because I’m a classicist, I’ll get a recommendation from Pitchfork, bookmark it, randomly play a song or two, and then fuck with it or not. Yacina’s most recent record, Remember the Silver, had some optimistic moments, even some urgent ones. This voiceless, dreamy jangle was there for me, though, when I just needed to dip my wounds in some warm water; and I needed to dip quite a few quite a bunch, in 2021.

Cosmic. 4a (The Alchemist Version) — feat. Denzel Curry, Kenny Beats, Joey Bada$$, & The Alchemist.

I think just for once a producer should be declared the reigning king of hip-hop, and that producer’s name is The Alchemist. He’s behind all my favourite rappers’ jazzy ass tunes — from the Griselda collective, which now includes Mach-Hommy and the exceptional Boldy James, to Earl “That New Album Finna Be Some Fire” Sweatshirt. On this re-tread of a Kenny Beats, um, beat, he adds a piano key that manages to be both subtle and menacing at the same time.

When Denzel Curry ups the temperature, with BARS? I go to war with this song.

Born in Luton — Shame.

God bless The Guardian, even though that’s not where I normally go to discover rowdy, anti-establishment, post-punk rockers. The first six seconds alone of this pandemic anthem could instigate waves of civil disobedience, and then the drums kick in. What I’d do, Lord, for just a little more honest-to-God, synth-free, riotous rock ‘n’ roll.

Trophy — Crumb.

Lots of my indie rock in 2021 skewed towards the dreamy, the surreal, especially before I got the vaccine in my body; maybe even after. Nothing seems to make sense anymore — nothing really can, when everybody’s got their own news, their own truth, their own sense of time, their very own, very unique grasp of reality. Which I don’t begrudge anyone; I’m just saying I sought music that let me hold onto my few comforts, here and there, for as long as possible.

Harvey — Alex G.

I walked a lot this past year. I made a new friend that got me time-travelling for a spell, in Zambia’s wintry season; and there was a genuine comfort in being reminded how simple things used to be, how corny, how seemingly innocent, say, in the 90s.

Alex G, who can do literally anything, channels the sounds of my childhood perfectly: live-action Nickelodeon, college rock, Freddie Prinze Jr. begging some promising actress to give him another chance. I melt, on Harvey, when Alex G sings of and to a sleepless little boy, “Run my hands through his short black hairrr/I love you, Harvey, I don’t carrre.”

Speed Trap — Boldy James, The Alchemist.

Bo Jackson, a collaborative effort between Detroit rapper Boldy James and gangster rap maestro The Alchemist, isn’t just a phenomenal rap album: it’s a statement of intent, by a lyricist with super-human control of his form and a beat-maker looking to transcend genre. ‘Speed Trap’ is the album’s standout track; for Boldy’s precise and poetic description of running hot from the law, and the careful, sinister heartbeat the Alchemist lays the verse on. King these men!

Days — Television.

Real Estate aren’t a worse band for losing a lead guitarist as crazy stupid talented as Matt Mondanile is; just, you know, different. But I heard the old twinkles, I really did, when I heard them cover this classic by Television, a band destiny says my loyalty to the Strokes is meant to naturally transition into. I honestly don’t quite know which version of ‘Days’ I adore more; which version best captures the not-quite-sadness-not quite-happiness of watching the sunset turn pink. Television’s, I guess, but so very narrowly.

Wit Da Team — Genesis Owusu.

There’s a piece pending in my head, and I promise I’ll get round to it, about how the current generation of musical New Yorkers is oblivious of distinctions based on genre, race and sexuality, and how it’s consistently producing a bold and brilliant wave of artistes whose only remit is to manufacture delightful sounds. Owusu may or may not be New Yorkish; but he represents exactly what I’m talking about. This song is a marshmallow, a mushroom, a fumble in the park, and it’s catchy as hell.

Find My Way — Paul McCartney feat. Beck.

Say what you want about Sir Paul trying too hard to be relevant, to be cool — but on this tune he bloody well is. Beck hits him with the good stuff, with a beat that demands the shaking of arse, and Sir Paul (in the video) chases himself through doors like Scooby and the gang running from ghouls. I fucking loved this.

Jara — Fleet Foxes.

I once got all my friends into Fleet Foxes, one wild week in our 20s, by describing the band’s folk rock aesthetic as the sound of the earth crying itself to sleep at night. When I play ‘Jara’, off Shore, I hear heavenly instrumentals escorting Robin Pecknold’s mythic voice into the new country, across seas, through millennia. Come for the high praise; stay for the angelic chorus.

Celine Dion — Westside Gunn, Heem, Chase Fetti, Flee Lord.

Anthony Fantano, the Internet’s (self-proclaimed) Busiest Music Nerd and a YouTuber you absolutely must subscribe to, described Westside Gunn’s role on his last record perfectly: as a “curator of vibes.” I love when a celebrated rapper invites a bunch of less celebrated rappers to wax lyrical on discs the whole community is listening to. I love when the beats are this timeless, potentially — this syrupy, this mobbin’.

No More Tearstained Makeup — Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.

Just when I think I’ve played every Martha and the Vandellas song ever recorded, another one pops up out of nowhere and blows my mind. They’re one of my favourite musical acts of all time, partly because I like to imagine my mom in her youth just straight-up funking around to their sound, with a big Afro and even bigger bell-bottoms.

This song defeats me for the concession in Ms. Reeves’ voice as she vows never again to be disappointed by failed love. The harmonies are diverse, sublime; the finger-snaps are flawless; the vow, “Never Again,” is pure, honest, awfully familiar.