🐦‍🔥Burn your wrapped.

We’re listening to music all wrong.

When I got my Apple Replay (no, I don’t have Spotify), I’ll be honest I was excited.

Remember that month when all I listened to was Hiroshi Sato¹, even in the shower? Or when I couldn’t stop singing the catchy earworm “Mona Lisa” by Serginho Meriti?

I made a list of some of my favorite albums from my life, ones that always bring me back to specific times and places. They’re at the very bottom. And I’d love to hear about yours too in the comments! 🇧🇷 Especialmente os ouvintes brasileiros 🇧🇷

The past few years have changed my music habits drastically. I used to listen to those algorithmically chosen playlists and save the songs I liked best. But it’s hard to say these songs became a piece of my life. They were just… there.

The thing is there are infinite choices now. Millions of possibilities packed into thousands of playlists, hundreds of new artists, dozens of “now trending”, all at the tips of our fingers everywhere all the time.

And since everything is available, nothing is special.

Music apps become a place to visit when you’re bored doing the dishes, or working out. It’s elevator music for life. Something to fill the silence.²🇧🇷

Brandon Shaw – from Digging The Greats – made me newly realize something that we, as a society, realized a long time ago and I guess completely forgot. That music is precious.

An album is a complete work of art to be appreciated, repeated, and loved. Instead of elevator music to your life, it could become the soundtrack. As essential to your life as the smell of your wet grass after soccer practice, your favorite birthday cake.

Instead of listening to all the music that’s out there, a select few albums can change the way you exist in the world.

Brandon figured this out because for one month, he decided to go back in time 20 years and use an iPod as his exclusive music device for a month.

He called it “A journey through my relationship with music, my phone, and what I want from technology in general.”

It seems like a straightforward premise: only use an iPod for all music consumption. No spotify! No apple music!

But the experience made him rethink the way he engaged with technology in general, for cameras, writing, even making videos. Once I watched it, the same was true for me. And maybe for you? (17 minutes)

After a few days of only being able to beatbox in his car, I love his ecstasy at finding out his car has a 30-pin iPod adapter, his smile as he bops his head along to his downloaded tunes. When was the last time you got so excited about music like that?

He starts to ask his friends for music recommendations. They tell him about Smino, Peabo Bryson, Lizzy McAlpine, Channel Tres. He downloads them on iTunes, and spends weeks jamming out to them, exploring the universes their albums create. They become the soundtrack to this experiment, to his life.

I loved seeing his friends’ faces as they made these recommendations too. It’s so much more personal, more real to give someone your favorite song or album face-to-face, and to know that he’s going to go home and buy that album. It makes you think long and hard about what you want to recommend, gives weight, value, to the choice you are both making and ultimately strengthens your friendships.

Brandon makes 3 more videos about his journey. You can watch each episode separately, or the whole thing here.

The series has some brilliant thoughts about what it means to exist in the modern age with overwhelmingly more AI, how to raise his kids with screens, and how technology affects his life experience. I can’t recommend watching the whole series enough. I got to watch it again with my girlfriend on our couch, laughing as he sat with his typewriter and headphones. “Uh oh he went full Austin Kleon ,” she said. True.

It’s right about here though that I feel a little guilty about recommending things that can lead you directly back into the dark algorithmic world of Youtube and the internet. It’s a dangerous place if you’re not careful and I’d hate to send you down the wrong rabbit hole.

But Brandon makes a great point that all this technology is a tool which, if used correctly, can open up your world. Even the algorithm, which we’re so used to sh*t-talking, might have brought this to you. I hope that, also used correctly, this newsletter continues to open up your world in unexpected ways. To show you interesting sides of the internet you might not find on your own.

In the spirit of Christmas giving, I made a list below of some albums I’ve listened to dozens and dozens of times that always bring me back to a specific place and period of my life. Soundtracks, not elevator music.

And I would especially love to get some end-of-year music recommendations from you. Especialmente os leitores brasileiros. 🇧🇷 Eu quero tentar sair um pouquinho mais dos 10 álbuns de bossa nova – Chico, João Gilberto, Ellis Regina – que ouço desde criança. São ótimos, mas também, sei que existe muito mais por aí.

If you want, send your recommendations my way or, comment below an album or two that has been part of your life soundtrack, one that was important to you. Maybe the first one you ever bought? The one that played on your honeymoon? Your parents’ favorite artist? I hope we can built up a sweet new library for the new year.

Until next time 🌀

Francisco

Someone had a pink spiral at a party recently

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A few of the albums that are soundtracks to my life

Son of Spergy - Daniel Caesar

• The beach in Bahia: driving carefully over sand-covered streets, watching the sun set behind palm trees, looking for birds in the bushes.

Digital Meadow - Dora Jar

• Summer on the east coast: insane greens, blaring cicadas, and screaming / singing out of the sunroof.

Bons Momentos - Serginho Meriti

• Paraty Vacation: walking cobblestone streets, swimming in the bay, hearing rain in the courtyard

Time - Hiroshi Sato // Mil Coisas Invisíveis - Tim Bernardes // Marquês, 256 – Zé Ibarra

• Summer in São Paulo: taking showers to cool down, exploring the grocery store, wandering urban forests. *** Hiroshi Sato I got from the video! I just remembered after rewatching ***

High on Tulsa Heat - John Moreland

• Evenings in Wyoming: lying in a giant tractor tire under uncountable stars, kicking up dust on a long dirt road, tears… lots of tears

Mother - Cleo Sol

• Winter in New York City: subway silence, isolating with COVID, endless walks to nowhere, empty cafeteria

Tripping - Nils Frahm

• Traveling by plane: staring out the window over the ocean, wondering where we’re going, thinking about where we came from

Manga - Mayra Andrade // The Bigger Picture - Blue Wednesday

• Spring in California: Green rolling hills, misty redwood forests, winding rivers to the frigid sea, sea lions on the beach

A-sides and b-sides Adrianne Lenker & Buck Meek // The Party - Andy Shauf

• Winter in California: walking back home at night in the rain, glossy streets, splashing puddles, Peet’s coffee

Sour Widows - Sour Widows

• 2020: my last live show before lockdown, wondering what will happen, long walks through green meadows, waking up to the sound of birds

Twice as tall - Burna Boy

• Ranch life: DeWalt speakers, dancing on the roof, digging trenches for irrigation

Masterpiece - Big Thief

• Chill college nights: talking about class on the couch, dancing in the kitchen, reading and lying in the hammock in the living room

Cardinal - Pinegrove

• Roadtrip across the country: passing Gary, Indiana; looking at Lincoln Park from above, South Dakota badlands

Let me know what you think 💿🎶

1. Turns out Hiroshi Sato was recommended to me by the Digging the Greats video! talk about full circle.

2. One clear example of this is when I visit restaurants or hotels in Brazil that are clearly for foreigners and they can’t stop playing this one playlist of bossa nova covers of american pop songs and it makes me want to crawl into a dingy and row off into the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Brazil has tons of incredible music!! Why not play some of the top 10 albums from Gilberto Gil, Maria Bethania, Seu Jorge and literally hundreds of others? Because it’s easier to just go with the playlist that’ll probably be nice for the most amount of people. It’s maddening.