If a future historian (of unrealised geniuses perhaps) were to break my life into eras, I would suggest that they start a new one last Thursday, when I bought a new speaker. It’s decidedly not fancy — just the cheap Sonos-compatible one made by Ikea — but it sounds incredible. One of the first songs I played was Pavement’s Gold Soundz and I’m blown away by how rich it sounds.
For the last decade or so at least I have primarily listened to music through headphones or earbuds of one type or other — some of them junk, but some of them pretty pricey and well regarded. However good they are, they make it feel like the music is a thing that I’m putting into myself. With this speaker it feels like I’m putting myself into the music.
A nice un-feature is that it is not hooked up to Siri or Alexa or whatever. I feel watched enough already.
Man, Apple Music should have a setting where you can disable lyric display for certain artists. I have no interest in seeing some dude’s completely wrong idea of what Malkmus is singing. I happened to catch a glimpse of the Strings of Nashville lyrics and they were just so wrong.
And even if they are “right”, they are wrong. True lyrics aren’t what’s sung; they’re what you hear.