I've been favoring the slow and smooth jams over the uptempo and electro bops on this particular poll--more a commentary on the current state of my mind than the state of this music. "Taxi" has is going on, though.

I'm way behind on these polls because life, but Mama Lenvo perked my ears up! It's pretty rare these days for me to hear a song and think I've never quite heard anything like it before.

Gary Numan on stage

At the Gary Numan concert.

Because I think she's going to get walloped in this group I tossed a vote in Joan Armatrading's direction. Not sure how many times in this poll we're going to get to vote for a woman fronting a pop-rock song that they authored.

Getting so much spam lately- texts, calls, emails. Are these companies short on their quotas or something?

Not better albums, but better divorce albums, yes.

As with a lot of people, "Electric Ave" was one of my bonuses. It's one of my all-time favorite pop singles, and never gets old. I once saw a band play a faithful cover in a 8500-capacity venue and was awed that all 8500 people, way up to the rafters, were all losing their minds the whole time.

I made the mistake of listening to this group with my headphones too loud, so they all win. (In reality, the Imagination song was my favorite heading into this group, and remained so after listening to them all, it sounds like a velvety, pillowy dream).

Because I'm a sicko, now that I'm going through a divorce (would not recommend), I'm revisiting divorce albums to check for accuracy. Some are too heavy, too on-the-nose, too literary, but Summerteeth hits the target exactly and kills me dead (even though Tweedy & his wife reconciled).

New 64 Quartets!

My favorite modern writer, I am constantly flipping through books of his that I’ve read for inspiration. 🙏

The Blue Mask is the first one that springs to my mind.

As someone who worked at the Portland Museum of Art for almost a decade, it's about time! Let the Portland Art Museum in Oregon deal with the shared acronym annoyances now.

Obviously one thing has nothing to do with another but he's not even a likeable actor or box office draw. What does the cost/benefit analysis of casting him even look like?

At some point I tried listening to every show to follow along with the newsletter and I was quickly like, "ugh, forget it." And that was on a much better tour than this one.

I've always heard "Delirious" as Prince's attempt to write an Elvis song. Prince traditionally doesn't need my help in these polls but it's a group of death and one of my favorite singles of his, so.

I have to admit I'm not sure if going with the extended mix on every other song is going to work in the song's favor or not.

It feels appropriate in a Black Pop History poll to vote for the song that draws an explicit throughline from Dizzy Gillespie to hip-hop. Either instance might not make a top ten list of best moments in the song too.

How my 2025 is going: I just cried listening to a Ben Kweller song.

I never got it until I had my second kid and found that I liked it!

Genuinely did not realize Love Actually had reached the “I can’t believe you haven’t seen it“ level of cultural ubiquity. Maybe it’s a British thing.

The ass-medievaling comes from Ving Rhames.

In the past they have but this album cycle just kind of came and went. Maybe with him and Carti these 30 song albums are becoming the “ain’t reading all that“ meme of music discourse.

For the 25th straight year the answer to this is “what is poptimism, actually?”

I think I’d take Wallen out and maybe replace him with Springsteen vs Trmp.

My 2nd single “Chandelier” is out on all streaming services now! Music video snippet below.

Incredible talent on this one:
Jeff Curtin on 🥁
Henry Solomon on 🎷
Aaron Janik on 🎺
Andrew Conrad on clarinet
Brendan Eder mixed and co-arranged horns
Alex Tebeleff mastered
Cover art by Chris Gregori

I've been pretty disappointed in the quality of those external CD drives.

Dang that sounds promising. It’s not the cheapest show but I’ll have to consider it.

Never seen MMJ. Never been sold on their albums but heard they rip live and I love seeing great singers. Tweedy is on my birthday and I think some kind of party is in the works instead.

Gary Numan, Autechre, Jonathan Richman. Might sneak in MMJ and/or Tweedy but undecided on those.