A Day in the Life
Hello all,
It’s a random Friday in November, that must mean… it’s newsletter time.
Strong Merch, Now Available!
At long last, the Strong Songs Store is now up and running! I’ve never had an online store before, and I’m very excited about it. The whole thing has been in the works for a while, and I’m happy with how it came together.
T-shirts? Oh, we’ve got t-shirts. Tote bags? Heck yeah, we’ve got those too. Mugs? We’ve got some of the hottest dang mugs you’ve ever sipped from. Well I mean, the mug itself is not hot; it remains cool even with a hot beverage inside it. But you get what I’m saying.
A HUGE thank-you to Strong Songs listener L.B. Morse, whose fabulous headphone design graces some of the items in the store. He is the man, and his design rules.
Go check the store out, and help support the show by buying something!
Strong Notes: HBO, Microtones, The Beatles
Strong Songs Year Two is wrapping up, and the most recent few episodes were fun to make. October’s HBO-centric TV music episode was eye- and ear-opening, and gave me an excuse to revisit some of my favorite shows. Who rewatches the Watchmen? This guy.
The most fun piece of music of the bunch to analyze was probably Nicholas Britell’s Succession theme, which I’d easily rank up there with my favorite TV themes of all time. It so perfectly encapsulates the show in so many different ways, from the metaphorical to the literal. It was also a joy to listen back to Angela’s suiting up montage from the first episode of Watchmen, and to marvel at how that show’s audio design intersects with Reznor and Ross’s music.
On the subsequent Q&A episode, I got to spend some time talking about microtones, thanks to a question about a recent album from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Flying Microtonal Banana. My fluency in microtonal music isn’t what it could be, but I’m really into it both conceptually (hooray music that goes outside the musty European harmonic style!) and aesthetically (it sounds really cool!). I also answered a good question from a listener about the depressing gender imbalance in film and television composing, as documented in this 2017 Refinery29 article.
After that episode went up, a few people wrote in mention that HBO’s excellent 2019 Chernobyl miniseries was scored by Hildur Guðnadóttir, a fabulous Icelandic composer who also recently scored Joker. I didn’t see the movie but I did love her Chernobyl score, so here’s to more women doing more work scoring more things.
This week’s episode focused on The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” the epic closing track from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. My appreciation for that album has increased significantly over the past few years, and these days I’d call it my favorite Beatles record. That’s not because it has all of my favorite songs or anything, but because it holds together so well as an album.
On that episode I mentioned the Yoko Ono episode of the excellent recent-history podcast You’re Wrong About, which I more broadly recommended in my last newsletter. I’ve been working through that show’s backlog and I found it to be a grounding presence for me amid the stress and uncertainty of the past month. Maybe you will, too.
Thanks as always to everyone who supports Strong Songs on Patreon. It remains incredible to be able to generate income making something that I own, knowing that I’ll never have to cede control to anyone else or worry about VC vultures buying and then slowly degrading my work. That’s happened to a depressing amount of my online writing from the past decade, but it will never happen to Strong Songs. That makes me very happy.
Music Recommendations
I’ve been listening to a lot of good music over the past month. Here are some recommendations, so you can listen along:
Front Country - Impossible World - This album (and in particular the first few tracks), was what got me through most of election week. Holding out for a miracle, indeed.
Quincy Jones - Talkin’ Verve - A collection of Quincy large ensemble pieces that I wound up listening to thanks to the inclusion of “Comin’ Home Baby” on the soundtrack of Netflix’s splendid new chess drama, The Queen’s Gambit.
Native Dancer - Tides - My buddy Russ hipped me to this band (he usually hips me to cool bands), and they are good.
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats - Self Titled - This one came to me thanks to a Strong Songs listener question, and I’ve really been digging the record. I bet these guys are fun live.
Jukio Kallio - Kuvankaunis - My friend Matthew told me about this singer, and his album is just extremely pleasing to listen to. Soft, soaring pop with some lovely harmonies.
King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana - What a band! I already mentioned the Q&A episode where I talked about these guys, but they’ve got a hell of a discography for me to discover. This album was played on modified microtonal instruments, and it shows. Listen for a while, and you’ll just start to feel a little bit dizzy.
Mos Def & Talib Kweli - Black Star - A classic, and one that I hadn’t spent enough time listening to. Talib crushes so hard on this album, good lord. Also, this record is a good reference for a ton of the quotes Lin-Manuel Miranda worked into both Hamilton and In The Heights.
Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher - Probably one of the hottest albums of the year, so it doesn’t exactly require my endorsement, but it’s really good. A useful reminder that mixes don’t need a lot of high frequencies to sound good.
Fleet Foxes - Shore - It’s so cool to see a band like the Foxes still making interesting, fresh-sounding music after so many years. I hadn’t really listened to anything of theirs since their self-titled debut, but they’ve definitely still that magic sound.
Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson - I keep getting requests to talk about Nilsson on Strong Songs, and after listening to this album all the way through… yeah, I really gotta make that happen. The challenge will be picking a song, since Nilsson was such a chameleon. Maybe I’ll just go with “Gotta Get Up,” since we all so recently lived through the great Russian Doll election week.
Moses Sumney - Aromanticism - I learned about Moses when his song “Lonely World” popped up on Lovecraft Country. This album is a whole mood - it can get a bit overwhelming if you listen to it all at once, but man, what a sound. “Lonely World” remains the standout for me, but I like the whole album.
Onward
That’ll do it for now. As always, you can find me on Twitter or Instagram.
And hey, go buy something from the Strong Songs store! I can think of no better holiday gift than a coffee mug emblazoned with an inside-joke from your favorite music podcast.
I hope you’re all staying safe and wearing a mask (do it!!!!!) when you go outside. Appa agrees, and says she would wear a mask if she could:
Take care, pet your dogs (or cats (or stuffed animals)), and put on some good music.
~KH
(11/13/2020)