2017 Favorite Albums

2017 was a good music year. Here are some of my favorite records from the year, quasi-ordered by how much I liked them:


The Menzingers, After the Party

Confession: I once left The Menzingers/mewithoutyou coheadlining tour after mewithoutyou played and missed The Menzingers. Prior to this album, I never “got” The Menzingers. I thought they were over rated. Boy, was I wrong. This has everything I love in an album – its fun, its punk, its heavy, its emotional, its catchy, its clever. The album starts with “Tellin’ Lies” and an awesome little guitar lick into a killer lyric: “Everything is terrible when buying marijuana makes you feel like a criminal”, and “Lookers” is an all-time top 10 song for me. “Like a wedding ring that never fit right” absolutely kills me every times I listen to it. This one is not leaving the rotation soon.


Manchester Orchestra, A Black Mile to the Surface

My relationship with this band goes back pretty far – I once saw Manchester Orchestra for free in Atlanta’s Virginia Highlands at about 2 in the afternoon, and I’ve loved everything they’ve put out over the years. Consequently, I knew I had to lower my expectations about this album pretty hard. I didn’t need to – this might be their best effort to date, and oh boy, is this album emotionally heavy. I had to turn it off for the first few months it was out because it was affecting me a bit too much. I can’t even bother to list off some of my favorite songs or lyrics off this album – its all good. It’s a well thought out and balanced album, and highlights Andy’s songwriting skills. I’m glad these guys are getting some radio attention for this record – I’ve heard “The Gold” on the radio and the gym several times now. They’ve been at it for well over a decade and deserve all the success in the world.


The Maine, Lovely, Little Lonely

About three years ago, someone deep inside The Maine’s headquarters must have flipped the switch to turn the band from a good pop band to an incredible pop band. That is particularly highlighted in their latest tour, “Modern Nostalgia”, where the band played their latest two albums in full each night, American Candy and Lovely, Little, Lonely. The Maine must know those two records stand a head above their previous works. If American Candy is the sugar high, Lovely, Little, Lonely is the crash. Songs like “Black Butterflied and Deja Vu”, and “Taxi” are emotionally devastating, but those catchy chorus’s almost make you forget that: “I lose my voice when I look at you / can’t make a noise though I’m trying to / tell you all the right words / waiting for the right words” and “In the back seat, when you ask me ‘Is the sadness everlasting?, I pulled you closer, looked at you, and said ‘Love, I think it is’”. In contrast, songs like “The Sound of Reverie” put the eternal optimism of pop music to the forefront. The interspersed short tracks “Lovely”, “Little”, and “Lonely” really bring the entire album together and contribute to how coherent the record is. Let’s hope they don’t flip that switch again.


Circa Survive, The Amulet

I don’t think this album is going to win over any non-believers for Circa Survive. I do think that if you’re a Circa Survive fan, you’re going to love this album. This band still has everything I love about them – they’re a weird sort of ambient punk you just want to dance to and The Amulet shows all of it off. It’s a very consistent album, yet not repetitive. I always find albums that straddle that fence to be particularly impressive. The guitars are just as spacious as ever, and this may be Anthony Greens best vocal performance to date – he sounds just incredible. “At Night It Gets Worse” is the highlight of this album for me, although the whole thing it great.


Paramore, After Laughter

This record is much darker than the upbeat music and artwork would leave you believe. Hayley feels confused and disillusioned throughout the record, and that really comes through in songs like “Fake Happy”. In 20 years from now, we’ll be looking back on Paramore like people look back on Bowie – every album cycle has its own aesthetic. They’re true artists and really care about what they’re doing.


Knuckle Puck, Shapeshifter

Knuckle Puck took me by surprise with their previous album “Copacetic”. This album took me a little while to love the way I instantly loved Copacetic, but proves to be a worthy successor. Shapeshifter is deceptively accessible the first time or two around, but will really grow on you over time, despite some thinly veiled metaphors (i.e. “Double Helix”). Everyone can relate and sing along to songs like “Want Me Around” or “Nervous Passenger”. The former is a standout for this album and the bands career: “Afraid to call and see what’s good, or is it simply understood that there’s a reason you don’t want me around”, and “They say that time heals everything, but what if time is everything?” I’m looking forward to spinning this album again in the spring.


The National, Sleep Well Beast

I was asked to describe The National to someone recently, and I responded half-jokingly by saying “they’re probably Radiohead’s favorite pop band”. The National aren’t exactly a pop band, but they are catchy and are just tinged with some interesting timing and mixing Radiohead are famous for – just not as weird as Radiohead can be. The guitar riff in “The System Sleeps in Total Darkness” stands out not for its technical prowess, but rather the hours they clearly put into getting that sound. “Sleep Well Beast” is a worthwhile follow up to the monumental “Trouble Will Find Me”, and has satisfied my itch for some grown-man Dad rock.


Foo Fighters, Concrete and Gold

This album’s name is awful, but the album itself is fantastic. The albums opening track “T-Shirt” is juvenile and anthemic, calling back to Queen both during the name drop, and when the harmonies come in, “I don’t want to be Queen, I just want to keep my T-Shirt clean.” “Run” feels like another attempt at a song like “Rope” from Wasting Light. “The Sky is a Neighborhood” and “Sunday Rain” stand out as unique songs within the bands catalogue, with drummer Taylor Hawkins singing the latter. This album has moments like that reveal how Dave Grohl and company are just playing with us – they’re wielding Rock and Roll itself like a master swordsman wields his weapon.


John Mayer, The Search for Everything

Along the lines of how bad of an album title Concrete and gold is, The Search for Everything may be worse. The album cover for this record may be worse still. The roll of for this album was awful – I feel like no one noticed the “Waves” of songs John released. All in all, I don’t know that I’ve been more disappointed in the release of some really fantastic songs. “Still Feel Like Your Man”, “Moving On and Getting Over”, and “You’re Gonna Live Forever in Me” should be staples at future Mayer concerts, and highlight how he continues to be a master songwriter.


Brand New, Science Fiction

Okay, there’s no reason to beat around this bush: Jesse Lacey did some fucked up stuff. What he did is indefensible, and those he victimized deserve to be heard. I am doing my best to separate the art from the artist with Brand New. Brand New is my favorite band and Jesse Lacey is not Brand New. Although, to be honest, I’m not finding it as hard to separate him from this album as I am with Deja Entendu – your mileage may vary. That said:

If the Foo Fighters are wielding Rock and Roll, Brand New are wielding their own legacy on this album (albeit that has been blindsided by the Lacey accusations, but I digress). I don’t think I’ve ever anticipated an album more or for longer than I have for this. It had been over seven years since they had released Daisy when Science Fiction was mailed on CDs to a few hundred un-expecting fans as a single track – the most “Brand New” way to release their final album. This album really is a return to form for the band. It hits the sweet spot between the sing-song’ed-ness of Deja with the tenor and timbre of The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. The album has some classic verbose Brand New lines, like “It lit me up like a rag soaked in gasoline in the neck of a bottle breaking right at my feet” on “Lit Me Up” and some great simple lines like “Well, I guess that thats just depression, no sense in fighting it now” on “Can’t Get It Out”. Every song on this album is important, and each has its place on the album and in Brand New’s legacy – its almost impossible to think that they achieved the expectations everyone had for this album.

Other honorable mentions:

New Found Glory, Makes Me Sick – I love this band. I always will. They’re fun.

The Wonder Years, Burst and Decay – I wrote about this release a few months back. Its still great. They’re great, and teasing for a 2018 release. Hooray!

AFI, AFI (The Blood Album) – This is the best AFI record since Winter Underground.

Finally, my 2017 Spotify Wrap up:

Thoughts on Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi

*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

Now that I’ve had some time to let the latest installment in the Star Wars saga to sink in, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the movie. Overall, I loved this movie. I think most of the criticism of the movie places the bar unattainably high. The two criteria for a good Star Wars movie are:

1) Making it fun for the general audience, while not abandoning the overall feel of the previous movies.

2) Ensuring the movie will captivate children, like the original trilogy did for my generation of fans, while not burdening the movie with vapid slapstick characters to get a cheap laugh (e.g. Jar-jar Binks, and to a lesser extent, Ewoks).

Rian Johnson, Kathaleen Kennedy, and company nailed these.

Regarding point (1): if your heart didn’t drop when (a) Poe Dameron turns on a time to get behind those tie fighters in the first scene, (b) when Vice Admiral Holdo sends her cruiser through Snoke’s ship, and (c) when it’s revealed that Luke is only an apparition in the final fight scene against Kylo Ren, you are truly lost. I accidentally said “cool” out loud in the theater during that moment with Poe.

Regarding point (2): They put a lot into this movie to sell the franchise to the next generation. That can be further bifurcated into things to captivate children today, and things to build the Star Wars universe for more films (thanks Disney!).

Clearly, all the cute and funny animals are there to sell plush toys to children. Disney is going to make bank on Porg merchandise in perpetuity, and things like that are going to make kids lifelong fans of the franchise. With the exception of the Vulptex (the Crystal Foxes), none of them really drive the plot forward, but none of them have enough screen time to really affect how I feel about the movie either (unlike Jar-jar). Thats a fine line, and I think the movie did a great job with it.

The other thing that I love seeing in these movies is the diverse cast. Disney is obviously pushing this to provide everyone (kids especially) with their own surrogate in these movies to empathize and relate to. This is true both in the main cast (e.g. Ray, Poe, Finn, and Rose) as well as with all the kids in the Fathier stables on Canto Bight. I love to think about how this is going to build lifelong Star Wars fans.

Disney and Kathaleen Kennedy also did a great job fitting this Episode within their larger Star Wars cinematic universe, and creating new forks for future movies. For instance, the first scene with the MG–100 StarFortress bombers where Paige Tico (Rose’s sister) falls down the ladder to build suspense to her eventual death, felt very much related to Rogue One. Further, even one of the lesser plots of the movie, Rose and Finn’s adventure on Canto Bight, felt like a clear fork into an eventual arms-dealing Star Wars film, as the franchise begins to explore parts of the star war unrelated to the Jedi and Skywalkers.

Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.

I loved how this film back-handed Episode VII and the (rightful) criticism it was too similar to Episode IV. From the first moment when Luke threw Ray’s lightsaber over the cliff, I should have known the ominous “This will not go like you think” line from Luke in the trailer was to be taken seriously. Rian was masterfully toying with us – I thought for sure Rey was going to have to lift his X-Wing out of the ocean like Yoda did on Dagobah. Further, I think most of the media speculation surrounding this movie focused on Supreme Leader Snoke’s origin, and the identity of Rey’s parents. Clearly, Rian Johnson did not agree. Snokes death really sealed that as if Rian was saying “It doesn’t matter who Snoke is, focus on Kylo and Rey”.

One of my favorite moments in the film was the “mirror scene” with Rey in the cave on Ahch-to. This was obviously meant to mirror (pun intended, clearly – good job Rian) the scene in Episode 5 when Luke goes down into the cave on Dagobah. There, Luke fights then decapitates an apparition of Darth Vader, revealing his face is behind Vader’s mask. In Episode 5, this foreshadows Lukes relationship to Vader and is a metaphor for the classic Father-Son struggle – wanting to fight the transformation of a son into his father. Here, it is so strikingly similar that Rey finds herself in the mirror in the dark side cave, but instead plays off of Rian’s message that the identity of Reys parents don’t matter. Rey matters. Brilliant.

My one criticism of the movie is that basically none of the jokes landed for me. I didn’t care for the “Do you talk or do I?” bit from Poe in Episode VII, and I didn’t care for the prank phone call to General Hux in this movie either. Jokes like that feel too contemporary. The ship-is-actually-an-iron gag falls into this category too. That felt like it should have been in Spaceballs. I don’t think they’re going to affect how most people will feel about the movie in 20 years, but I don’t think they’re going to get any funnier in time and that they’re going to date the movie a little too much instead.

Some other general thoughts:

1) The fight scene in Snoke’s throne room rivals the Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan/Darth Maul for the best fight scene in the franchise.

2) I really hope Captain Phasma isn’t dead. The general consensus is she is, and thats obviously bad because her and Finn’s story arc would be a total dud. I think the blaster bouncing off her revealed how strong her armor is, and that she will survive the fire she fell into. I think we’ll see her without her armor in Episode IX, probably missing an eye.

3) Lukes arc from Episode IV through VIII has some strong echos of Anakin’s arc in the prequels. Starting training several years into life, when they understood love and loss, lead both characters major flaw to be their hubris. In Anakin’s case this leads to him thinking he can save Padme from death in child birth, and ultimately to his life as Darth Vader. In Lukes case, its that he can train a new generation of Jedi, leading to the metaphorical birth of Kylo Ren.

4) Crazy old Luke on that island felt a whole lot like crazy old Yoda on Dagobah.

5) I loved the Yoda in this movie. He looked much more like Episode V Yoda than Episode II Yoda.

Yes, your phone is slower, chemistry is to blame, and lets kill the camera bump.

A11

 

The rumor that Apple throttles old iPhones was somewhat confirmed following some clever Redditers measuring iPhone 6s Geekbench scores. Many tech sites have picked up this story this week, like TechCrunch, The Verge, Daring Fireball, and Vector, so I won’t get too caught up on summarizing this story. Apple, for its part, says this started with iOS 10 and iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SEs, to avoid random shut downs and safety concerns a la the Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 Fiasco. No company wants this kind of advertising on a government website:

 

Clearly, Apple could have handled this better. Users should have input in how their device operates, even if it is just being notified their device is being throttled for safety concerns.

This story ultimately brings me to the following: What can Apple and other device makers do to meet device lifetime expectations? Device makers are not done innovating with phones – every year they perform some new task that requires more power. This problem will not go away any time soon, and is not exclusive to Apple. The solution needs to be broad enough to encompass all lithium-ion powered devices, i.e. phones, tablets, wearables, et cetera.

Hardware and software innovation need be pushed to mitigate lithium-ion battery degradation. This needs to be the priority – no one should count on a breakthrough in battery technology. Let’s be clear about this – it is a good thing that Apple is working on increasing the usability of their devices over many years, and coming up with creative ways to work around current limitations of lithium-ion battery lifetimes. They should just be more transparent about it.

Clever hardware advancements can be used to be lighter on batteries – including low-power antennas, like Bluetooth 4.2, and low-power processors. I’d wager that the inclusion of low-power cores in the A10 and A11 on the iPhone 7 and 8/X families, respectively, was forward-thinking on Apple’s part to prolong the lifetime of these devices relative to the iPhone 6 family. It’s worth noting that Motorola did something similar ~4 years back with the Moto X, too. Designing dual low-power and high-power components that a device can intelligently switch between for specific usages is a good idea. Being a company that designs software, hardware, and the silicon is a huge advantage when trying to tackle this sort of problem.

Replacing built-in batteries in phones needs to be easier, cheaper, and less painful. Sending a phone somewhere for battery replacement and being phoneless for any amount of time is not acceptable for most people, and battery cases are inelegant. With this respect, Apple has an obvious advantage with their network of retail stores – other manufacturers need to innovate a great solution. Similarly, devices need to be transparent with users and communicate to them that there is a problem and replacing the battery is a good solution, e.g. “I’m slow and bad now because my battery is bad – please replace it.” The last sentence in Apples statement regarding adding the throttling feature is particularly worrying:

We’ve now extended [this] feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add.

They need to be clear about what/when devices are added to this list, in addition to individual devices notifying users there is a problem. For instance, is this sort of throttling feature going to happen to Apple Watches or Airpods? iPad? Many users may prefer replacing a dead battery for $50-$100 over replacing the device entirely.

Lastly, and hear me out here, device makers could just make devices larger for larger batteries, especially with phones. This would negatively impact the weight of phones, but I’ve never heard anyone complain about the weight of their phone. Since the industry decided to remove replaceable batteries and toward built-in batteries, phone makers have done a terrible job ensuring phone batteries are large enough for the average 2 year replacement cycle. Part of the argument for building the battery into the phone was that removing the hinges and latches to secure the battery can be used to expand the battery. Over time though, it feels like that gain has been lost by phones becoming increasingly thin, and taxing those smaller batteries more with increasing pixels and computational needs.

Building larger phones is a tough sell, but I know just where to put the larger battery: get rid of the camera bump by making phones thicker and filling it with a battery. Hell, Apple has nearly already admitted this is a reasonable option by selling battery cases for their iPhone 6 family of phones – just make the phone thicker and be done with it. Case in point: iPhone X Its thin, light, beautiful, covered with pixels, but has an obnoxiously large camera bump. The obvious need for increased battery capacity seems like a good reason to kill the bump by making the body of the phone flush with that bump instead of pushing for thinner phones by measuring at the thinnest part of the phone.

or fuck it, let just have replaceable batteries with hinges and latches again.

—————————————————-
The post above this line was written on 12/23/17, I was delayed posting it due to the holiday. On 12/28/17, Apple announced that for 2018 they would reduce the cost of replacing phone batteries from $79 to $29 and include additional info for users in future releases of iOS following backlash of this scandal. This is a good response. I don’t think they’ll actually get rid of the camera bump until the camera can be as thin as the remainder of the phone, but we can all dream, can’t we?

Thoughts on the MacBook Pro TouchBar


Now that the TouchBar MacBook Pro has been out for a year or so, it seems the consensus has been that power users aren’t wild about this model of MacBook Pro for several reasons: lack of ports, the luke-warm response to the Touch Bar, and the keyboard issues plaguing consumers.

Although, I don’t have an issue with the keyboard on the newest MacBook Pros, I do think the Touch Bar isn’t all Apple thought it was going to be. In truth, I bought the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar over the MacBook Escape due to the better processor – gaining the Touch Bar was just a fun addition. Although it is fun to use, it just isn’t a fast or easy thing to use because it just isn’t that useful. It doesn’t add anything to Mac that it absolutely couldn’t do before. This is why Mac power users just really haven’t embraced it. Alternatively, the Touch Bar really does increase the price on an already expensive computer, which means most casual Mac users will either get the MacBook or MacBook Escape.

I think its also worth stating that I think Apple made a good move not making a touch screen Mac. I never want, or need, to touch the screen on my work PC. I wish I didn’t have to touch my iPad when I’m using it with a keyboard. This image says it all:


Given the timid reception to the Touch Bar, I think its clear that Apple put this thing out because they felt they had to. They thought that since basically every PC now comes with a touch screen, and they knew they didn’t want a touch screen on the Mac, that they should “Think Different”. They shouldn’t have. They should have just made a great MacBook.

However, the Touch Bar did come one big upside – Touch ID. Touch ID on the Mac is great. However, it looks like Touch ID is being phased out on iPhones.

Leading up to the iPhone X announcement in September, rumors were swirling about whether or not Apple was doing away entirely with Touch ID, put it on the back of the phone, or somehow embed the technology under the screen of the phone. I, for one, thought there was no way they were getting rid of Touch ID. This was for three main reasons:

  1. Apple had built Apple Pay on Touch ID as its main way to authenticate payments. Banks and credit card companies are bought into this technology, and more and more companies are starting to support Apply Pay every month. Changing how that authenticates and getting everyone to agree to the change feels like a heavy lift.
  2. Services, like Apply Pay, have been increasing as a percentage of Apple’s revenue over the last several quarters.
  3. Apply just released the MacBook Pros with the Touch Bar. They had finally brought this technology to every major device category they sell – iPhones, iPads, and now the Mac. The line up was unified. I didn’t think they would mess with that.

Boy, was I wrong.

This has got me thinking about the future of Touch ID on all Apple devices. Now that the iPhone has migrated from Touch ID to Face ID, its not a huge jump to see the next iPad (or maybe the one after that) losing Touch ID and gaining Face ID. In fact, people are already making mock-ups

But what of the Mac? If the Touch Bar isn’t the big hit Apple thought it would be, and they’re migrating out Touch ID, is the Touch Bar going to be left behind when the Mac eventually moves to Face ID? After all, even Apple’s latest-and-greatest iMac Pro isn’t shipping with a Touch Bar. I think at a minimum, the Touch Bar will remain for however long apple uses this body type, but I wonder if the internal pressure to transition the Mac to Face ID combined with the keyboard problems plaguing consumers will push Apple to abandon this MacBook Pro style earlier rather than later.

The Headphone Cup is Half Full

Nilay Patel wrote an interesting article for The Verge this week, lamenting the “walled garden” headphones are becoming as more and more phones lose the head phone jack. Companies like Apple and Google have decided to forgo to the tried-and-true 3.5 mm headphone jack in their flagship phones, and insteaded developed a software layer on top of traditional bluetooth connections to market their own proprietary bluetooth headphones. In doing so, both companies enable some extra features mostly for their personal assistants.

Nilay:

To improve Bluetooth, platform vendors like Apple and Google are riffing on top of it, and that means they’re building custom solutions. And building custom solutions means they’re taking the opportunity to prioritize their own products, because that is a fair and rational thing for platform vendors to do.

Unfortunately, what is fair and rational for platform vendors isn’t always great for markets, competition, or consumers. And at the end of this road, we will have taken a simple, universal thing that enabled a vibrant market with tons of options for every consumer, and turned it into yet another limited market defined by ecosystem lock-in.

I think this is a very pessimistic take. I love my Airpods: they are fantastic for phone calls, they sound fine, and their wires never ever get tangled. Importantly, they still work as bluetooth headphones. If I want to pair them with a windows PC or an Android phone, they would behave just as any other typical pair of Bluetooth headphones (albeit for a premium price compared to other traditional bluetooth headphones). Consumers are not losing any bluetooth features by adding these additional software layers, they’re gaining them. That is a good thing.

I think there is a case to be made about how much easier it is to unplug a headphone jack from one device and plug it into another, compared to the tedious task of pairing via bluetooth. Thats been my biggest complaint about my Airpods. Switching devices, even between my iPhone and iPad, is not as seamless as I had hoped. Although it is easier than a traditional pair of bluetooth headphones. Nevermind ever wanting to plug them into something like an elliptical machine at the gym to watch T.V. That is my own personal hell.

Thoughts on iOS 11 Control Center

iOS 11 Control Center on iPad
iOS 11 Control Center on iPad

I’ve been considering writing something regarding how changes to Control Center in iOS 11 have introduced some weird UI decisions. David Spark’s recent post regarding his changes in the iPad homescreen inspired me, particularly because of his suggestion to add Spotlight to the multi-tasking screen. (For what its worth, Apple should add the short swipe from the top for Spotlight in iOS 10 back to iOS 11.)

In general, I like Control Center in iOS 11, although I didn’t have the issues some people had with the iOS 10 Control Center (typically centered around the multiple pages). More than anything, I’m just happy Apple seems to be settling into something. The last several years have each seen a big change to Control Center, and this one seems like its built for the long haul. Its easy to imagine Apple openning this up to developers in iOS 12.

However, lets compare the differences in Control Center between a 3D Touch enabled iOS device, like an iPhone, and a non–3D Touch device, like an iPad, using the “Now Playing” controller. On both devices, the controls are too small as touch targets. If I had a nickle for every time I skipped ahead 60s while listening to a podcast in Overcast when I meant to pause it, I’d have several nickles. As a result, I find myself going into the controller more often than not, and this is where seams between the two devices begin to show. On an both iPhones and iPad, you can’t simply tap on the top half of the controller to enter it. Instead, you can long press. This is a bad UI decision and it makes me feel like I’m swimming through molassas. Luckily on iPhones, you can get through this a bit faster by 3D Touching the controller to enter it. Apple should change this so that a short tap on the top of the controller gets you into it. This is a no-brainer, especially on non–3D Touch enabled devices.

I would also be remiss if I forgot to menion that David Spark’s book Markdown is also what I’m reading as I’m starting this blog.

Milk – The 1975


The 1975 released “Milk” today as a single, which has previously been released as a hidden song at the end of “You” on the Sex EP. This just caught my attention because of how odd it is. I can think of several examples of bands re-recording songs for a new release, but never a band releasing a hidden track a single 5 years later. I wonder what they’re planning.