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Best of 2019??? (Also hi what's up.)

Memo to self for the future: DO NOT LET DOMAINS EXPIRE DURING PERSONAL CRISES. Get your self TOGETHER and renew that damn domain. Geezus. Not dead, internet, not dead. I got royally screwed by this whole situation, and now my OG domain - theuselesscritic.com - is worth a whole boatload of money. Please learn from my errors, and never do such things. So we have entered the part of my life where this is no longer actually "The Useless Critic" but "Useless Critics." This largely does not matter, but I prefer to be candid.

Just realized apparently I am wearing part of my bath bomb on my face. This is a good look.

As a brief recap, I've been swamped all summer, so I've been putting off bringing back the UC for oh quite a while. Summertimes in Phoenix are uniquely hard due to the unbearable heat, so I did indulge in the "summertime sads" a bit. But September is a good month for me. I'm fresh off from seeing THE NATIONAL and will soon be seeing Phantogram. Then, back to Helsinki for a while. So right now I'm doing great, and really loving all this new music coming out. Bat For Lashes, Lana, Lizzo, Phantogram, hell I loved the new Lil Nas X LP. It's been a banner year for music, once again.

On a sidenote: I didn't really like the new National as much as I hoped? I'm starting to understand that I'm more of an old school National fan. But I like that they continue to evolve (as they should.)

My favorite from "I Am Easy to Find"-

The new Taylor Swift was strong , but I think Lana's album coming out a week later was like a bomb dropping. I totally forgot about "Lover" in its aftermath, if I'm being honest.

This all being said, here's my Best of 2019 so far. I might be converting from Spotify to Apple Music. IDK. Too soon to tell. 


One other thing: I garnered an appreciation for Sharon Van Etten this year. So, there is that. I always felt like she was just outside the orbit of music I would enjoy, and that's not completely true. She gave some good classic rock vibes with "Seventeen" and "Comeback Kid." 

I will be back with some interviews, and some blathering about Lana and BFL, too. 


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