Liner Notes (June 15th, 2024)

Another week, another newsletter. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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A Few Things

• I know there are a lot of media tracking apps, and Sequel gets a lot of justified praise, but for my needs, I’ve grown to like the stock Trakt app. I recently realized how customizable the app was. Being able to customize the bottom tab bar and put all the common places I visit in the app is a nice feature. And it’s got a nice widget that I use on my “Days Over” focus mode. But, the killer feature for me is still the “check-in” feature, which is used when you start watching something and it puts it on the lock screen as a live activity. Then, when, predictably, I need to see who is in the show/movie we’re watching, I can tap it and quickly check the cast section. It’s also updated pretty frequently with new features. Letterboxd has a (much) better community and reviews section, but I think Trakt’s the better app.
• Quick note: Blue Sky now lets me auto-post to it, so I’ve set up the Chorus account to pull in our news posts. Hopefully, Threads will follow suit soon.

Sponsor

Laika Songs has released the new song “Field of Vision” featuring Onelinedrawing. The song comes from the new album Slowly Spiraling Towards the Light available for digital download and vinyl pre-order at Bandcamp.

Follow the band on Instagram, Spotify, and Bandcamp.

In Case You Missed It

• Interview: The Early November
• Review: Underoath – They’re Only Chasing Safety
• Adam Lewis of Fenix TX Passes Away
• Riot Fest 2024 Announced
• Something Corporate Tease New Music
• Hopeless Records Announces New Compilation
• The Used Announce New Tour
• Alkaline Trio Announce New Tour
• Spotify to Launch New Premium Plan
• Albums in Stores – Jun 14th, 2024

Music Thoughts

• It’s a pretty fun week for new music. The Early November’s new album is out, and it comes highly recommended. I know this may be blasphemy to some, but I actually think this might be their best album. Exceptional front to back. Just a damn solid alternative rock album that we don’t see much of these days. Great vocals, excellent songwriting, and an awesome entry into the band’s catalog. It’s right up there with In Currents for me now.
• Florrie’s new album, The Lost Ones, also came out yesterday. It’s one of the best pop releases of the year so far, and so exactly in my wheelhouse, it’s comical. For fans of Sigrid, Carly Rae Jensen, or just summer’s here let’s dance pop music. I’m over here begging the world to take notice.
• The new Said the Sky single featuring Boys Like Girls is a lot of fun. Their last album flew a little under the radar but had a lot of known collaborators on it.
• The rest of my week was spent with a whole bunch of old favorites. The news of Adam Lewis’s passing had me returning to FenixTX’s discography. RIP. (Lechuza holds up so well all these years later.) It was also a big week for Allister’s Last Stop Suburbia. That’s one of those albums that screams “summer” to me. A quintessential pop-punk classic. They’re one of those bands where I could never really get into the rest of their discography. While they all had some good songs scattered throughout, I always thought they lacked the same fun vibes as this one. And I also had a fun time re-visiting Unwritten Law’s Elva this week. This one brings me right back to my freshman year of college and blaring this in the dorm with my college roommate.
• Other albums that caught my eye this week included Talker’s 2022 release, In Awe of Insignificance, and Carly Cosgrove’s latest. I need to listen to the new Decemberists album, but I haven’t had time yet.

The Stats: Over the past week, I listened to 37 different artists, 54 different albums, and 543 different tracks (634 scrobbles). Here is my Top 9 from last week, and you can follow me on Apple Music and/or Last.fm.

Entertainment Thoughts

• I started reading IT. I figured it was time. I’m about 30% of the way through so far, and it’s fucking good. An obvious classic for a reason, but I wasn’t prepared to get sucked into the breadth of the story. It turns out the book that inspired a bunch of things I like is right in my wheelhouse. Weird! I should have read this years ago.
• Godzilla: Minus One surpassed the hype. Incredible film.
• A while back, someone posted in the forum that they couldn’t wait for me to see Hit Man because it seemed like something I would like. Verdict? CORRECT! It’s very much my kind of movie. Linklater? Glen Powell charming the pants off the camera? We need more of these kinds of movies in the world.
• Season two of Cruel Summer was fine.

Random and Personal Stuff

• June is the month of family birthdays. Both Hannah and my sister have birthdays within weeks of each other, so there’s been a lot of family time lately. We’re heading over to my sister’s in a few weeks for some cake and presents, and then I’m taking the back half of next week off work. So far, the plan is to relax, check out an exhibit at the art museum, and be the very cool and hip adults that we are.

Ten Songs

Here are ten songs that I listened to and loved this week. Some may be new, some may be old, but they all found their way into my life during the past seven days.

1. The Early November – The Dirtiest Things
2. Florrie – If it’s Been a Hard Night
3. Said the Sky – Hold My Breath
4. Allister – Overrated
5. Fenix TX – Katie W
6. The Offspring – Million Miles Away
7. Unwritten Law – Blame it On Me
8. Sum 41 – Bad Mistake
9. KC Rae – Birthday
10. Slick Shoes – Don’t Mess With Texas

This playlist is available on Spotify and Apple Music.

Community Watch

The trending and popular threads in our community this week include:

• Nails – Every Bridge Burning (August 30, 2024)
• Spirit of the Beehive – You’ll Have to Lose Something (August 23, 2024)
• Nxworries – Why Lawd? (7th June, 2024)
• Something Corporate
• Jurassic Park VII (Gareth Edwards, July 2, 2025)
• Nintendo
• 2024-2025 NFL Season Thread
• blink-182
• Netflix/Hulu/HBOMax/Prime (All Streaming Services)
• Hip-Hop Thread

The most liked post in our forums last week was this one by mescalineeyes in the “Video Games” thread.

Previous editions of Liner Notes can be found here.