The price that Azealia Bank's Broke With Expensive Taste is going for on Discogs makes it irrational for me not to sell... And yet I can't bring myself to do it because that album is integral to my life in the mid-10's and probably the most "golden ticket" purchase experience of my life.
As somebody who makes what constitues a lower middle class living in the year 2021- and has seen them press a # of my all-time favorite album over the past year- I absolutely loathe that charging $40 a record seems to be a sustainable business model for Vinyl Me Please.
I used to drop $80 a month on 3 or 4 records via them. But apparently they only want to cater to the rich. Assholes.
Everyone talks about the West Coast v East Coast hip-hop divide that permeated the sounds of both scenes until very recently.
But nobody really mentions the fact that the East Coast is OBSESSED with Springsteen where as you can go an entire childhood (or three) without hearing more than a song or two of his while growing up in the West.
Not sure what the West Coast equivalent is though.
Ghetts: Conflict of Interest is my favorite hip-hop album in a LONG while. Between him and Little Simz, the UK is pumping out some really interesting stuff.
The 17 year old me would be absolutely appalled by the amount of pop music I consumed this year... and blown away by how free from bubble gum the genre has become.
The only difference between electing somebody who denies the severity of climate change and electing someone who thinks Covid is a hoax is that the consequences of the former are further down the line (and more drastic).
This is coming out way later than I wanted because I had to learn some coding... but here is my Grantland-inspired, hyperlink rabbit-hole of a blog piece on my 50 favorite albums of last year. There is a Spotify playlist and drinking game within: https://www.iamcaseyiedit.com/music-reviews. Please share it if you enjoy it.