Noise has always been electric. Before we held the sky's secret power, we considered thunderheads in the distance. Jellyfish clouds teetered thousands of feet above town-less prairie. Lightning sprang down in yellow bullets, so close we could play cat’s cradle with the trails.

This Valentine's Day, Hulu released a new TV version of High Fidelity. I told myself I wouldn't watch it. Its existence felt like a trick, its timing too convenient. It only took me two nights to cave. I set down the movie to watch the whole thing twice; some will disagree, but I think it's fantastic.

You get to visit the Georgia Aquarium for free on your birthday, so I went yesterday. It was fitting, as one of the first Pisces; I felt like I should climb into the tank myself. The ocean has always been a haven for the cold and lumpy and weird.

Valentine's Day exists to jump-start the economy during the late-winter doldrums. As with most things American, the point is to get you to buy shit. Love is the most abundant resource in the world; naturally, someone found a way to exploit it.

1990 was the year that the Pale Blue Dot photo was beamed back to Earth by Voyager 1—as it left the Solar System, Carl Sagan told NASA to have the craft turn its camera around and take one last photo of the Earth against the black canvas of space. In the shot, our planet is barely bigger than a pixel.

In 1980, a Japanese manufacturer of electronic instruments launched its first line of drum machines. Instead of pre-recorded samples, this machine made its own sounds—particularly, a booming bass drum that sounded like Flubber hitting a trampoline.

Ten years is as far as you can stretch in time while still holding your sense of self. Walk back through each week, however, and it's exhausting to see just how far time's canyon will reach. The decade is the standard unit of change.

In 1960, America was adjusting to being the empire. Our version of love was designed to support structures of power, and myths of supremacy reigned. Threatened by a liberated woman, male culture doubled down and curdled into the mess it is today.

One (inconvenient) symptom is that I can't listen to music anymore. I can no longer take the emotional stimuli. As a music writer, it's distressing; as a lover of irony, it rules. I'm like a sober bartender, but less respectable and more bemusing.

One of the most frequent questions I get is about how I’ve been able to pick up temporary work throughout my travels without falling afoul of the law.

One of the most frequent questions I get is about how I’ve been able to pick up temporary work throughout my travels without falling afoul of the law.

I need a break between the decade list and the year-end list, so here's a utilitarian playlist for the holidays. Put it on to run interference for those pesky memories of defunct relationships that always ring your mental doorbell in the middle of the holiday party and ruin the eggnog.

I can't leave without saying that I lament this had to be on Spotify because it meant I couldn't put Joanna Newsom on the list. Just know that there's a good chance she would've cracked the Top 10, and go listen to Have One on Me if you never have before.

A large chunk of the Top 40 are love songs, a thing I guess I'm just obsessed with. With music being the most directly emotional art, it's natural that this medium best explores these weird heart feelings.

We're getting to the hardest part now—do I really have to choose between two masterpieces, to arbitrarily put one over another? I do. Which is why I must remind you: these opinions are not definitive; they're not even sound. Best songs are as subjective as bagel preferences.

Lots of sad ones this time—sorry!—that's just how the chips fell this round. As I said last week, this project is not meant to be an edict from some supreme musical being, just a catalog of what this idiot kept coming back to over and over since 2010. Ultimately a narrow purview, but maybe you'll hear something you like.

I could say a bunch of sweeping things about the past ten years, but the truth is a decade is hard to package together coherently. I will say that ten years is fun because it's all about what sticks with you.

Happy Halloween, enjoy the final round of shadow songs. If you still don’t know what you're wearing this Thursday, I’ve made a list of costumes you may be able to pull off.

"Cryptid," as you may know, is a term for a creature that exists in folklore and legend but whose existence is not scientifically proven or accepted. Some things that are cryptids: Bigfoot, Nessie, the Jersey Devil.

This week's playlist is the result of a thought experiment: what if I were asked to DJ a new Monster Mash? This led me deep into this early-2010s occult-flavored club genre called witch house. It's vaporwave's goth sister.