Honestly they should’ve cancelled all the sketches and just let Charli Caroline and Christine perform for 2 hours instead. Give us a gift this holiday season ok.

Hey, sorry, this is charles but just in answer, roughly in order, the people in my life were sick of hearing about things long before this record started (ha).
With the notion of cagey comments, well, a big part of it is that there is a lot of dirty laundry that I still, for some reason, feel I shouldn’t be putting out there although at this point, I don’t know why. So it does become difficult to talk about any of this, which is incredibly complicated and incredibly boring to begin with, while still stepping around a lot of that. But that is how this & the previous record were made (w/ a couple big qualifiers), hence I had that added to contract, which now seems funny.
I also am honestly continually surprised that anyone is talking a next wrens record after Kevin put his out – I assumed that everyone else assumed that that meant it was kaput.
And I guess lastly, I should clarify that I didn’t reach out, Stereogum (nicely) reached out to me. I’ve been hiding from this stuff and haven’t read almost any of it, save the NYT piece some weeks after it ran. Still, thanks, all.

Non Visible Token

Fuck Ye. Let the downvoting begin.

I mean, if you’re buying a Clapton album, you’re already buying an inferior product.

Rather than, you know, actually try to win the votes of Black and brown citizens, the GOP has long committed themselves to make it harder for said citizens to vote, or for their vote to count. We knew that already.

But this Ye bullshit really was a new low. They actually thought this transparently cynical, obviously GOP-engineered ploy would convince any black voters to throw their vote away? For…Kanye?

I think it was a conservative who coined the term “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” but man, this is a prime evidence of just outright disdain.

I imagine that the women in these guys lives are sick of hearing about The Wrens.

Wow! This is definitely something none of us saw coming the entire time!

I assure you this said something when I submitted it.

I can’t say he’s wrong.

I love Brian Eno but dear god artists aren’t making money selling albums anymore. People need to realize this isn’t as simple as just being “capitalist assholes,” it’s also about finding any sort of new income stream you can find. Especially now that touring is probably getting disrupted again.

At least Eno could make some sort of money selling albums when he was younger. Not that David Byrne needs the money but if some artist on a lower tier can make some money off an NFT then go for it.

If you’re really so into zero-effort vocalists talk singing over zero-effort beats man I know all about that. go back and listen to Tracy + The Plastics or any of 1000 fucking other bands from that era that whip this dudes ass around the block

meanwhile Michael Stipe in the top 20…..

…seriously can’t wait till the boomers die out

There’s only so many times you can listen to “Daft punk is playing at my house”

and its like

half the song

if every LCD soundsystem fan in the world died would anybody notice?

For the third time in four years, I tabulated everyone’s Best Songs of 2021 lists from the comments of Stereogum’s 70 Favorite Songs post and came up with a top 50. I used the same tabulation system that albumoftheyear.org uses, in case you’re curious, along with my own detailed method of breaking ties, which I won’t get into here.

Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0cWZTvBezjqK7VsDiogVn7?si=8638351829b54b09

Results (including the total points for each song and the number of appearances that song made across all the lists):

01. Cassandra Jenkins: “Hard Drive” (87, 14)
02. Japanese Breakfast: “Be Sweet” (83, 14)
03. Low: “Days Like These” (63, 10)
04. Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen: “Like I Used To” (53, 11)
05. Japanese Breakfast: “Paprika” (53, 8)
06. The War On Drugs: “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” (49, 8)
07. Lucy Dacus: “Thumbs” (49, 6)
08. Wet Leg: “Chaise Longue” (43, 6)
09. Nation Of Language: “This Fractured Mind” (41, 8)
10. Home is Where: “Assisted Harakiri” (41, 6)

11. Big Red Machine: “Phoenix (ft. Fleet Foxes & Anaïs Mitchell)” (38, 6)
12. Olivia Rodrigo: “good 4 u” (35, 5)
13. The Armed: “ALL FUTURES” (35, 5)
14. Squid: “Narrator” (34, 7)
15. Beach House: “Superstar” (34, 6)
16. Yves Tumor: “Jackie” (33, 6)
17. Snail Mail: “Valentine” (27, 6)
18. Turnstile: “MYSTERY” (25, 5)
19. Remember Sports: “Out Loud” (25, 5)
20. Home is Where: “Long Distance Conjoined Twins” (25, 4)

21. Turnstile: “BLACKOUT” (24, 5)
22. Turnstile: “HOLIDAY” (24, 4)
23. Parquet Courts: “Walking at a Downtown Pace” (23, 5)
24. Japanese Breakfast: “Posing in Bondage” (23, 4)
25. Nation Of Language: “Across That Fine Line” (23, 3)
26. Julien Baker: “Hardline” (21, 4)
27. black midi: “John L” (20, 4)
28. Hovvdy: “True Love” (20, 4)
29. Iceage: “Vendetta” (20, 4)
30. Lucy Dacus: “Brando” (19, 4)

31. Jessie Ware: “Please” (19, 4)
32. The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die: “Infinite Josh” (19, 4)
33. For Those I Love: “The Shape of You” (19, 3)
34. Fred again..: “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)” (18, 4)
35. Dry Cleaning: “Scratchcard Lanyard” (18, 4)
36. The War On Drugs: “Harmonia’s Dream” (18, 3)
37. Lucy Dacus: “Triple Dog Dare” (18, 3)
38. Caroline Polachek: “Bunny is a Rider” (18, 3)
39. Angel Du$t: “Never Ending Game (Panda Bear Remix)” (18, 2)
40. Big Thief: “Little Things” (17, 4)

41. Beach House: “Once Twice Melody” (17, 3)
42. Charli XCX: “Good Ones” (16, 4)
43. Spoon: “The Hardest Cut” (16, 4)
44. Strand Of Oaks: “Galacticana” (16, 3)
45. Lana Del Rey: “White Dress” (16, 3)
46. Ada Lea: “Hurt” (16, 3)
47. Low: “White Horses” (16, 3)
48. Low: “More” (16, 3)
49. James Blake: “Life is Not the Same” (16, 3)
50. CHVRCHES: “How Not to Drown” (16, 3)

Some other interesting things I noticed:

– I added up all of the points for each artist across all of their songs, and here’s how the top 10 shook out: 1. Japanese Breakfast, 2. Low, 3. Turnstile, 4. The War on Drugs, 5. Beach House, 6. Cassandra Jenkins, 7. Lucy Dacus, 8. Nation of Language, 9. Home is Where, 10. Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen.
– There were 7 artists who made the top 30 artists list but did not have any one song place in the top 50 (too many disparate song choices): Tyler the Creator, Magdalena Bay, Lightning Bug, Deafheaven, Indigo De Souza, Lil Nas X, and Origami Angel.
– The artist with the most distinct song choices across everyone’s lists: Turnstile, with 9 different songs making at least one appearance. They also, notably, were the third-highest ranking artist, but their highest ranking song was “MYSTERY” at #17, followed by “BLACKOUT” and “HOLIDAY” at #21 and 22, respectively.
– 49 of the top 50 songs made at least three appearances across everyone’s lists. The only song that only made two appearances is the 39th-ranked “Never Ending Game (Panda Bear Remix)” by Angel Du$t.
– Personal note: I listened to Fred again..’s “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)” for the first time because of this list, and it is awesome!