My reading in 2024
2025-01-19
In 2024, I kept track of my reading in my Hobonichi A5 HON (overview of how is linked here). For most of the year, I did great with tracking, however there was a dip in the middle of year, both in reading and in accurate tracking. It was fun trying to compile of these stats, flipping back and forth and reading my entries!
Reading plan for 2025
This year I'm just aiming to read 100 books. I'm only a week into my school semester and I barely have enough time to read more than ten pages a day. I usually read during my commute to and from work, but now I'm doing homework or reading assigned texts during my train rides. However, I still want to try to read as much as I can! I'm trying to figure out when it's possible.
Some books I plan on reading:
- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (in progress)
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (in progress)
- Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie (in progress)
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (in progress)
- Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein
- A Room Of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
- Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- Notes from Underground by Fyodor Doestoyevsky
- The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
- Fangirl by Rainbow Powell
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Morena-Garcia
The Cold, Hard Stats
- 246 books were read. Before you get too amazed.
- 181 of them were volumes of manga
- 26 of them were graphic novels
- 39 of them are what people usually think of as books
On average, it took me 1.48 days to read a book.
Breaking it down into a different kind of format category:
- 214 fictional books ( 20 graphic novels, 180 manga, and 14 other)
- 14 non-fiction books (1 graphic novel, 0 manga, 13 other)
- 10 memoirs (5 graphic novels, 1 manga, and 4 other)
- 7 poetry chapbooks (all regular books)
- 1 play (a regular book)
On a per month basis (average of ~20 books per month):
- 32 books were read in January
- 17 books were read in February
- 22 books were read in March
- 29 books were read in April
- 26 books were read in May
- 20 books were read in July
- 39 books were read in July
- 2 books were read in August
- 13 books were read in September
- 2 books were read in October
- 3 books were read in November
- 41 books were read in December
My Favourite Books
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
I decided to re-read The Secret History by Donna Tartt while I was on a plane to Toronto. It's one of my favourite books, and it still held up on a second read. It's actually so funny. I love it so much that I'm already reading it again for a third time.
All Darkness Down Wide by Seรกn Hewitt
A touching memoir that I read in ebook form. I put it on my wishlist to physically own. It's that good. Very raw and honest. Hewitt is a very good writer.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
I'm a big Woolf fan. This book, to me, is the blueprint. I love how Woolf flits from character to character. How the dynamics between them are so crystal clear, messy, and affectionate all at the same. How the characters interactions with each other and their immediate surroundings says so much. A beautiful book.
Hoshitabi Shounen/Star Tripper (Volume 1) by Sakatsuki Sakana
I think I saw someone on the Fediverse recommend this book, but I forgot who. This is not your typical sci-fi manga. In fact, I forgot I was reading a manga at all, because the art had very Western sensibilities. The universe that Sakatsuki creates here is carefully put together. A lot of mystery is unveiled a bit at a time. The characters met on the way, all have a little spark in them that touches you. I really quite liked this, and I look forward to more.
Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down
I read this book for the Misery May challenge. Boy, was this miserable. But I couldn't tear my eyes from the page. There is a lot, a lot, of trauma in this book. When it was over, I felt a little empty. I wished that there was more to it. It felt that it ended too abruptly, with little resolution. But it's going down as a favourite.
Week Note #28 - Jan 09 to Jan 15
2025-01-15
- ๐ Truly, how is it already the second week of the year? It doesn't feel like it at all.
- ๐ฒ I've been trying to rebuild my schedule again. After considering everything that I have going on, I've realized that I don't have the 6 hours to spare to go to the gym. Instead, I'll be using my stationary bike that I bought in the middle of the lockdown years ago. So far I've been hopping on it to watch 30 minutes of Arcane (to keep me normal), and then 30 minutes of a lecture video (so I can feel productive, but I end up having to listen again later so I can take notes however it's nice having an idea of what the lecture is about).
๐ School
I started the semester yesterday. I'm freaking out. I have soooo much reading to do this semester. A lot of it is dense history texts. Some of it is poetry (a lot of Whitman, thankfully I'm partial to Whitman). I estimated how much time it would take me to do each week of the course depending on my reading and note taking speed. Let's just say it's nigh impossible. My focus this semester is efficiency. Frankly, I'm sweating just writing this blog post. It feels like a waste of time, but I need something to keep me anchored as the weeks go by. Some hobby to make it feel like life isn't all school and work.
๐ฅ๏ธ Work
I'm supposed to transition into both a new role and a new team. I got switched to a team whose tech stack is entirely React. I have dabbled with React before, but nothing substantial. So I will essentially have to learn React in a professional context. I'm nervous, but I'm excited. I've always wanted to modernize my tech stack (Java an be quite uninspiring), but never have the will to do so in my own time. You know what they say, use your job to get paid to learn new things.
๐ Books
I've been slowly cracking away at both Rebecca and Anna Karenina. I also decided to start reading The Secret History all over again?? I really love the book, I think it's my all time favourite. I just love injecting myself into this group of oddball students who are too obsessed with aesthetic.
Along the way I've been reading a smattering of manga.
๐ต Music
Most listened to albums:
Help me I'm starting to listen to the same albums again and again. It's really hard to find albums on my phone, so I just end up listening to what I know I like. I do listen on Spotify desktop (cracked) in order to listen to new music, but that's about it.
- SOS (Deluxe) by SZA - I just had to take a listen to the deluxe version. Honestly, I'm kinda over deluxe versions. Just release the whole thing at once. Or put it on a separate release! Gripe aside, I found that most of the songs I liked, were ones that were already from the original album. It was a good listen, but no new favourite songs were made.
- Lush by Snail Mail
- The Unheavenly Creatures by Coheed and Cambria
- American Idiot (20th Anniversary Deluxe) by Green Day
- The Human Fear by Franz Ferdinand - The latest single from Franz Ferdinand, Hooked was so good, that I needed to listen to the rest of the album. It was decidedly okay in my books. I initially hated the Audacious single , but I think it grew on me because I started singing along to it.
- BB/ANG3L by Tinashe
- KAI - The 1st Mini Album by KAI
- Joy as an Act of Resistance by IDLES - Okay, I've listened to TANGK on repeat enough. I finally took a careful listen to a different album of theirs. I really like it! Someone once told me that IDLES is a lot more dynamic than what TANGK had to offer. I totally agree. This album was loud, brash, and high energy. I don't think one is better than the other, just different. I appreciated how raw the lyrics were. I came out with a few more favourites, namely June.
Comparing 2024 "Wrapped" music summaries
2025-01-11
Music tracking
I like music stats. I have three accounts on different music tracking services: Last.fm, ListenBrainz, and Libre.fm. Last.fm is the one I use the most, and it's the one that I've had the longest. ListenBrainz is by the same people behind MusicBrainz, so their database is really comprehensive. However, there are (last time I checked), no social aspects, which is what I really like about Last.fm. Lastly, there is Libre.fm. It has always been extremely barebones. Very little in terms of features, but I like what they stand for, keeping things free in the FOSS sense. Of course, Spotify has their own stats that can be accessed through different services. However, I (used to) really like their year end summary. I'll be comparing the four of these (mainly just 3)!
There are a lot of images here, so I'll put the TL;DR here.
I really liked the cute, intimate feel that ListenBrainz has with their stats. A lot more creative and full of personality. Last.fm reigns above all in terms of the different stats they provide, and also providing me a psychological analysis that neither ListenBrainz or Spotify did. Spotify was a disappointment. AI generated genre names, uninspired images, and boring stats with little personalization. Overall, everyone except for Spotify was a winner.
The main summary image
Last.fm
Last.fm packs a lot of information into their summary image, which is much appreciated. A downside is that the font is quite small because of it (how else will they put all of that info in there). The design is a little sterile, but still pleasing to my eye. I'm happy that they didn't include my username, sometimes I sensitive about sharing my username places.
- Scrobbles: 45,844
- Artists: 6,172
- Albums: 9,462
- Tracks: 15,163
- Top artists:
- IDLES
- Mitski
- Green Day
- NewJeans
- Tinashe
- Top albums:
- TANGK by IDLES
- The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
- BB/ANG3L by Tinashe
- Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens
- People Who Aren't There Anymore by Future Islands
- Top tracks:
- Ditto by NewJeans
- Do or Die by DPR ARTIC ft. DPR IAN
- The Deal by Mitski
- Gravity by Tinashe
- I'm Your Man by Mitski
- Top tags: (Last.fm speak for genres)
- Rock
- Indie
- Japanese
- K-pop
- Post-hardcore
ListenBrainz
They don't allow customizing the colours for their images, but that's alright. I think it would be a lot of work, especially since they have little art mascots throughout their summary. Not a lot of information here: just some stats, genre percentages, and your two most played albums. Some of the text overlaps onto the most played album, and becomes unreadable if the album is as dark or darker than the text. My username is on here, which feels violating. Thankfully, it can be pretty easy to edit it out.
This summary made me realize just how much rock I listen to. I'm a rocker at heart.
- Artists: 4,995
- Albums: 6,430
- Songs: 10,377
- Top two albums:
- TANGK by IDLES
- The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
- Genre breakdown:
- 5% pop punk
- 5% indie rock
- 6% pop rock
- 11% alternative rock
- 13% pop
- 15% rock
Spotify
Classic format. Sweet and short. I wasn't happy with their colour choices, unfortunately.
- Top Artists:
- IDLES
- Mitski
- Tinashe
- Green Day
- Future Islands
- Top Songs:
- Ditto
- Do or Die (ft. DPR IAN)
- The Deal
- Gravity
- I'm Your Man
- Minutes Listened: 142,791
Libre.fm
Despite being so feature bare, Libre.fm at the very least has some year end stats! Of course, it's nothing fancy. Just a literal webpage, nothing downloadable. I don't think this is a priority for the developers, which is more than fair. They have no other stats, this is it.
The numbers here are quite low because I only have Libre.fm hooked up to my YouTube scrobbler. However, close to the end of 2024, I ended up switching away from Spotify and am using other music clients instead. Some of them allow for Libre.fm scrobbling, which is really cool!
- Listened to 1179 songs (approximately 69 hours of music)
- Favourite song: The Ghost of You by My Chemical Rromance
- *Top artists:
- My Chemical Romance (68 plays)
- NewJeans (64 plays)
- Joanna Newsom (54 plays)
- KAI (24 plays)
- MARINA (15 plays)
- L'Arc~en~Ciel (15 plays)
- Utada Hikaru (14 plays)
- Frank Sinatra (14 plays)
- Petrol Girls (13 plays)
- TAEYEON (13 plays)
- IV of Spades (12 plays)
- SHINee (12 plays)
- L'Arc-en-ciel (11 plays)
- Lucy Dacus (11 plays)
- The Gazette (11 plays)
- Alexisonfire (10 plays)
- TAEMIN (10 plays)
- Julia Jacklin (10 plays)
- Juan Karlos (9 plays)
- ONEW (9 plays)
- Crystal Castles (9 plays)
- The Strokes (9 plays)
- XG (8 plays)
- Plastic Tree (8 plays)
- The Weeknd (6 plays)
Personality
Last.fm
Last.fm was the only one who did this, not even Spotify, which was such a bummer. I like being categorized into boxes because it's fun. They use a radar or spider web chart to show how you rank in certain characteristics, which lead them to
- We'd describe you as a pioneering, versatile, adventurer
- 100% consistency: You scrobbled on more days throughout the year
- 67% replay rate: How often you returned to your favourite songs
- 19% concentration: How much time you spent with your favourites
- 39% variance: How many genres/tags explored
- 63% discovery rate: How much new music you listened to this year
Time of Day Listening
Last.fm
I love this Joy Division inspired graphic. I'm not entirely sure how it works. I think each white line represents the average listening times per week. The line peaks and dips per hour depending on how much you tend to listen at that hour. It ends up looking like a series of mountain ranges. Very pretty and super smart. Apparently my favourite time to listen to music was 8am.
Daily Listening
Last.fm
This graphic makes me laugh. Last.fm decided to layout the daily listens on a snake-like line, winding left to right. Each day is represented with a circle. The bigger the circle, the more listens. The pepto-bismal pink and the shape of the line reminds me of intestines. But I appreciate having this heatmap. I listened to all 366 days of the year (I forgot that 2024 was a leap year).
ListenBrainz
ListenBrainz has a more traditional grid heatmap. The darker the colour, the more listens. The green colour reminds me of GitHub's commit heatmap.
Top Listeners
Last.fm
This was something that only Last.fm did. They showed me just exactly what rank I was for certain albums, tracks, and listeners. It's interesting but I didn't make it very high on any one thing.
- #73 listener for ใใฎใๅธๅฝ (275 scrobbles)
- #37 listener for Singles by Future Islands (319 scrobbles)
- #79 listener for The Deal by Mitski (362 scrobbles)
World Listening
Last.fm
The artist heatmap is quite straightforward. It's really hard to tell which countries had more listens. I think if it wasn't a blue monochromatic colour scheme, it would be clearer.
ListenBrainz
I much prefer this world map. I think most of it is due to the light scheme, whereas Last.fm had a dark theme. It's obvious where most of my listens lie: U.S., Japan, South Korea, England, and Australia.
When music was made
Last.fm
Last.fm outs me as someone who is firmly in the 2020s when it comes to music. I'm glad that I managed to have at least some listening from each decade. It's really hard for me to listen to older music if it doesn't sound "timeless." Once it starts to feel a little dated, I can't take it seriously. This is mostly a complaint aimed at the 80s, hah.
The graphic is a little uninspired. A simple horizontal bar chart. The Y-axis is all the decades from 1960. From pre-1960 to 1980, there is a small section. The 1990s is a little bit more. The 2000s is about 20% of the way across the screen. The 2010s about 40%. And the 2020's, like 80%.
ListenBrainz
ListenBrainz is a little more incriminating. The X-axis is a time scale from 1945 to 2025. Each year gets its own bar. I listen to a sad smattering of things from 1953 to 2003. Things increase a little from 2004 to 2022. And there's a huuuge spike in 2023 and 2024. So yeah, listened to a lot of stuff in 2024.
Mainstream score
Last.fm
This is only something available to pro Last.fm users, unfortunately. The mainstream score is not too accurate, anyhow. Really, it measures mainstream-ability among Last.fm users, which is not a big population to begin with. Still, it's an interesting stat to see!
I was more mainstream this year, which is a blow to my special snowflake ego, but oh well.
- This year: 61%
- Last year: 58%
Genres
Last.fm
Strangely, there was no genre slide from Last.fm's official playback for the year. However, they still had the yearly stats on their Last.year page.
- K-pop: January to May, September to December
- Japanese: January to August
- Indie rock: January to August
- Rock: Every month except for April
- Pop: January to September
- Post-punk: January to May
- Indie: February to the end of the year
- Post hardcore: February to April, July to December
- Folk: February to June
- Punk: June to December
- Classical/Piano: August to November
- Alternative: September to November
- Emo: September to December
- Christmas: December
ListenBrainz
The main summary image is the only downloadable image they had for genre, however on their summary page, they had an interesting graphic for the summaries. I'm not quite sure what to call it, a tree map but not quite a tree map.
It seems to have split my listening into a few main groups:
- Pop
- Electronic
- Hip hop
- Rock
- Punk
- R&B
- Soul
- Blues Rock
- Pop rock
Spotify
Spotify's genre analysis this year was... Disappointing, to say the least. They identified three major genres for the year but they just had to use their weird AI genre titles. To make matters worse, it was just text against abstract backgrounds. Not even a genre hamburger. I wish they did a month by month breakdown. And, of course, Spotify basically stops tracking in October/November and they missed my big Emo/Screamo phase. I'm pretty salty over that.
- January: Hallyu Vogue K-pop (like NewJeans, KEY, and aespa)
- February: Indie Sleaze Synthesizer Dance-Punk (like IDLES, LCD Soundsystem, and The Rapture)
- September: Royalcore Ballroom Classical (like Camille Saint-Saens, Frederic Chopin, and Ludovico Elinaudi)
Technical Stats
Last.fm
Last.fm kind of scattered the stats through their playback. They provided a lot more numbers than expected. It was often just text on a plain coloured background as a lead up to the next stat. Nothing special but I like the numbers.
- You hit 45,844 total scrobbles, putting you in the top 3% of listeners worldwide.
- You listened to 15,163 tracks, with an average of 3 scrobbles per track.
- You listened to 9,462 albums which is over 25 per day.
- You listened to 6,172 artists this year, 64% of which were new discoveries.
ListenBrainz
This is so cute! I love their little watercolour characters. Two green peppers (?) wearing headphones. And a tree stump just sitting there, chilling. I also like the inclusion of what year the music I listened to came from (I am too trendy for my own good).
- I chilled with music on Tuesday
- Listened to 35,849 songs
- Mainly played music from 2024
- Listened to 4,955 artists
- Discovered 3,513 new artists
Spotify
I like this slide, especially since it compares me to global stats. A little boring but the numbers nerd in me smiles in delight.
- Minutes listened: 142,791
- Biggest listening day: January 20 with 1,055 minutes
- Top 0.5% of listeners worldwide
Top Artist
Last.fm
What I liked the most was that Last.fm kept my preferred artist picture (on Last.fm, you can control what picture is displayed across the site for you for any artist). I am your typical black and white user. It went well with simple colour schemes they had.
- Your favourite artist this year was IDLES
- You scrobbled them 1,616 times
- Top 0.05% of fans worldwide
They also included a fairly useless graph, unless you listen to really popular artists. Seems that maybe there is an average of IDLES 100 scrobbles per user, and I was very above average.
Spotify
I really hated the Spotify backgrounds this year. But I think I've always hated them. At least they managed to include the bare minimum stats.
- My top artist: IDLES
- Minutes listened: 5,133
- Top 0.05% of listeners worldwide
Top Artists
Last.fm
Last.fm included a little bubble collage of my top ten artists. It's a little small, but what can you do. It would be cool if it filled the entire page with more artists, and somehow highlighted the top ten instead. It's also difficult to tell the from the smaller sizes, who ranks where.
- Top 10 artists
- IDLES
- Mitski
- Green Day
- Tinashe
- Future Islands
- NewJeans
- My Chemical Romance
- Coheed and Cambria
- Sufjan Stevens
- FKA twigs
ListenBrainz
I love the art on ListenBrainz's images. This one includes okra? And a piece of lettuce? I wish I knew. I don't really eat vegetables. Unlike Last.fm, this is an actual list with no artist images. However, it's easier to see the artist rankings.
Top artists:
- IDLES
- Mitski
- NewJeans
- Tinashe
- Green Day
- Future Islands
- Sufjan Stevens
- My Chemical Romance
- DPR IAN
- FKA twigs
Spotify
Spotify only includes 5 top artists, but also shows both the ranking and artist images. I think I like this format the most, but would like to include the top 10, not just the top 5.
My top artists:
- IDLES
- Mitski
- Tinashe
- Green Day
- Future Islands
Top Album
Last.fm
It kind annoys me that the entire album doesn't fit in the screen. But at least it shows it?
- Your favourite album this year was TANGK by IDLES
- You scrobbled it 1,355 times (as in, listened to the songs from it 1,355 times)
- Top 0.01% of fans worldwide
Of course, it also includes the weird graph that doesn't really show any useful (imo) information! Global average is around 100 scrobbles.
Top Albums
Last.fm
Last.fm provides a carousel of the albums that you can swipe through. Sadly, it wasn't information display all on one page. Thankfully, they included the top 25 (!) albums.
I'll save you from all 25 albums but here are the first and last.
- #1 TANGK by IDLES (1,355 times)
- #25 Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness by Coheed and Cambria (196 times)
ListenBrainz
This is really cute! This is a 3x3 collage that is framed by the vegertable themed characters. Super cute idea. Lots of personality.
- Top albums
- TANGK by IDLES
- Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens
- KINEMA by DPR ARTIC
- The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
- Ditto by NewJeans
- Saviors by Green Day
- BB/ANG3L by Tinashe
- People Who Aren't There Anymore by Future Islands
- Singles by Future Islands
Top Track
Last.fm
No surprise here. Takes the same format as both the top artist and the top album.
- Your favourite track was Ditto by NewJeans
- Scrobbled 425 times
- Top 0.16% of fans worldwide
Spotify
This yellow is awful. That is all.
- My top song: Ditto by NewJeans
- Total streams: 424
- Top 0.001% of listeners worldwide
Top Tracks
Last.fm
I'm surprised they only included 5 tracks. It takes the form of a horizontal bar chart, and the saturation fades as you go down the list.
- Ditto by NewJeans (425 scrobbles)
- Do or Die by DPR ARTIC ft. DPR IAN (365 scrobbles)
- The Deal by Mitski (362 scrobbles)
- Gravity by Tinashe (289 scrobbles)
- I'm Your man by Mitski (282 scrobbles)
ListenBrainz
A simple list, no album covers. Some of the same pepper and lettuce characters (literally copied and pasted from previous images).
Top Songs
- Ditto by NewJeans
- The Deal by Mistki
- Do or Die by DPR ARTIC ft. DPR IAN
- Gravity by Tinashe
- I'm Your Man by Mitski
- Say Goodbye by Future Islands
- Slip, Fall, Sleep by No Buses
- Kill Bill by SZA
- Gift Horse by IDLES
- Better Things by aespa
Spotify
More awful yellow.
My top songs
- Ditto by NewJeans
- Do or Die by DPR ARTIC ft. DPR IAN
- The Deal by Mitski
- Gravity by Tinashe
- I'm Your Man by Mitski
Week #27 - Jan 01 to Jan 08
2025-01-09
- ๐ท I got sick yesterday and I'm already late for the first week note of the year. I've been spending a lot of time lying in my bed, reading. Trying hard not to feel bad about already not being productive. But I finally have energy to be writing blog posts.
- ๐ I got promoted yesterday, and it came totally out of the blue. I learned about this while still sick so I was very much confused. I'm a very anxious person and prone to pessimism and I saw a lot of weird signs leading up to it, but I took it in the opposite direction. I thought that maybe I was getting fired. First, my manager suddenly added me on LinkedIn. Then he said that we had to go into the office very early yesterday (I luckily became sick hah). Then he sent out invites to everyone on my team except for me. And then, in the call where I was told that I was promoted, someone very high up started calling me. I panicked. Last time I heard that happening was during the layoffs. Turns out, I got promoted instead. All that worry for nothing.
- ๐ข Getting back into the work routine has proved to be very difficult. Especially adding the fact that I'm sick. Also, because of the partying from last year, my sleep schedule is rightly messed up. I'm blaming the Mars retrograde.
- ๐๏ธ I haven't made a post about my 2025 bingo yet, but I already knocked out an item off of my 2025 bingo: go to the library, not take out any books, and just read. Thinking about it now, maybe that was the thing that got me sick. On Monday, I had to return some library books after some books. There is a coffee shop attached to the downtown library and I grabbed a hazelnut latte, went in, and sat and read a bit. It was a nice little pause in the day.
Speaking of reading...
๐ Reading
- The first book I finished reading for the year was Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Like for many people, the first book I finished was a book that I started last year. I go into it in my linked review, but the book was quite interesting, but I came out of it thinking that there is a lot more that I don't know than I initially thought. It's a good read if you don't know anything about philosophy and want a single taste, a grain's worth of rice, of it.
- I started reading Murder on the Links with Joel! Agatha Christie novels are just sooo easy to read. You realize after reading for a bit that you've actually read a quite of few chapters. I originally listened to this on the Pheobe Reads a Mystery podcast, so this is technically a re-read? I'm sure there are people who contest that listening to a book counts as reading a book, but ah, I count it.
- Also started reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and oh my goodness. I had to force myself a little to get past the first two chapters but after that it was smooth sailing. Wow. It is a great read so far. At first it felt very contemporary, but quickly started to show its 1930s sensibilities.
- I am still reading Anna Karenina. I finally (hopefully) finished the farming subplot (I hope that's not too spoilery) and getting back into the drama so I'm full speed ahead now! I joke, the farming subplot did reveal quite a lot about certain characters, but man, I could care less about Russian farming techniques.
- As for the manga front, I started, finished, and am currently reading a few series. Notably, I started reading Nodame Cantanible. I always wanted to read it and I've a couple of times but this time it's sticking! One that I've seen around quite a bit is The Guy She was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All so I've finally started reading that. It's like it was written for me. A lesbian love story for rock lovers.
Speaking of music...
๐ต Music
- Things are kinda slow on the music front. Mainly because I moved away from Spotify and I'm trying to watch less YouTube nowadays. I've been playing it safe and just listening to the tried and true. Makes music discovery a bit difficult. Unless an album is on Bandcamp. I love Bandcamp.
- I find that the artist collage is a little boring and repetitive, so this year we're going with an album collage! My top albums from last week are:
- Born & Raised (Live at St. Catharines, Onatrio, 2022) by Alexisonfire - Alexisonfire is from St. Catharines so it makes sense they made a concert album at a show there. Great album, makes me want to go see Alexisonfire for the fifth time!
- It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This by pulses. - A very fun post-hardcore album! Some people describe it was "swancore" and uh, that is so spot on. If you like Dance Gavin Dance, you'll most likely love this band!
- The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
- The Best of Saint-Saens by Camille Saint-Saens - Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso is my reading song and I played that a lot while reading Anna Karenina and Rebecca last week.
- Stay Golden by Combat - I posted about this on the fediverse, but I really like this band! A gen z take on pop punk, but it kinda has a midwest emo touch. Really fun!
- & by Bastille - One of Jam's most played albums from 2024. I love listening to people's top songs and albums from the year. Unfortunately not my speed but not bad at all.
- Get Up by NewJeans
- TORI. by Tori Kelly - Another album from Jam's top 2024. I liked this one a lot! I never really listened to a lot of Tori Kelly before, but I like her sound.
2024 Concerts
2025-01-02
I went to a ton of shows in 2024. I owe it all to music festivals! I love traveling to attend music fests. I was lucky enough to go to two this year, which is where I saw pretty much all of the shows. I wrote about one of them here. In total, I was able to see 38 shows! I've never seen so many shows in a year before.
The shows in question, in no particular order:
- My Chemical Romance x 2
- Fall Out Boy x 2
- Coheed and Cambria x 2
- L.S. Dunes x 2
- Protest the Hero
- '68
- Underoath
- Silverstein
- Cobra Starship
- The Linda Lindas
- Rancid
- Green Day
- Gouldie Boutilier
- Logic
- Noah Cyrus
- The Grogans
- Billy Talent
- KYLE
- TOBi
- Grandson
- The Lazys
- The Beaches
- Neck Deep
- The Used
- The Maine
- Valley
- Chelsea Cutler
- Jeremy Zucker
- Benson Boone
- Saosin
- Orville Peck
- 3OH!3
- Ocean Alley
- The Smashing Pumpkins
The Good
Silverstein
I felt compelled to go see Silverstein, even though I liked maybe two or three Silverstein songs before seeing them. When I was younger, I was really obsessed with their song, "Discovering the Waterfront" to the point of even buying it from iTunes. I managed to listen to some more just before the festival and found a couple of more favourites, but I still wasn't familiar with their discography. I somehow found myself right at the barrier, which felt a little bit wrong, not being a super fan of theirs.
I don't regret it though, because I ended up beside this really sweet couple. They let me stand in front of the taller of the two (and he was so tall, like at least six feet) at the barrier. Their energy was so great, I think it rubbed off on me. But really, Shane (the lead vocalist), totally went all out. He sounded so good! And he kept saying throughout the set that this crowd was way better than the previous day. Really, I think everyone was bouncing off of each other's energy, which was so cool. People were just in sync. That's part of a reason why I love concerts, when the conditions are right, it's like a mutual exchange of love.
Anyway, every single song Silverstein performed was amazing. I definitely belted out to "Ides of March" and "Discovering the Waterfront." Seriously, one of the best sets I saw that weekend.
My Chemical Romance
To continue the nostalgia trip, I was absolutely floored when I saw My Chemical Romance. I saw them twice and thank goodness I did because their set on the second day was just so much better. I cried both nights. It's probably the nostalgia goggles but I like could not let go of listening to MCR for a solid two months after seeing them.
Noah Cyrus
Beforehand, I had never really listened to Noah Cyrus. I did not expect to enjoy her music, but I really did! It mostly sounded like country, and honestly, just good vibes throughout. She also looked amazing. The outfit she was wearing looked like something out of the Dune franchise. And she was a total sweetheart on stage: joking, frequently telling people to drink water, and stopping to point out people who need medics. Overall, she really put on a good show! She's definitely got a great voice.
Grandson
Another unexpected act was Grandson. I have listened to one of his albums before, for an album club some years ago but I didn't revisit it beforehand. That album was one of my favourites from the album club, despite its incredibly dark material. Even with the dark material, Grandson really let loose on stage. His presence was amazing, especially for a one man act, who mostly stayed in one place while playing a guitar. I think a part of this was because he was just an opener and you really gotta go all out for a crowd who may or may not know you. He was also very sweet, he asked us to introduce yourself to the person next to you. Incredibly awkward, but I appreciated the sentiment.
The set was honestly a bit of a rollercoaster, emotion wise. I found myself disassociating a bit midway through (probably the heat and lack of water and also the hard hitting lyrics) and of course, that's when I felt that he made eye contact with me. I wasn't super close but close enough to see his face clearly, and it embarrassed me a bit. But I was brought back to life, and headbanged my way through the rest of the set. At the end, he even started climbing one of the structures and I was low key terrified for him, hah. Still, it was a great show!
Green Day
Green Day changed my life forever. Really. They were the first band I got into, and I started writing mainly because of them. I wrote a ton of Green Day fanfic in my junior high school days. And eventually, the Green Day fansite I posted fanfic on, evolved into a more serious fanfic site that included custom HTML layouts for your stories. I partly began to take web dev seriously because of it. I made my first online friends on those sites. Who knows where would I be now without them?
Honestly, I don't know how I made it to 29 without ever going to any of their shows. When I learned that they were doing an "American Idiot" and and a "Dookie" tour, I just had to buy tickets. And I don't regret it one bit. It's probably one of the best shows I have ever seen. Despite being in their 50s, these guys can still put on a show. And it was like two hours long, at least. I cried a little. I was so happy for the rest of the night and also incredibly sad that it was over. I wanted more!
The not so good
Protest the Hero
I love this band a ton. They were doing a tour of my favourite album, "Volition." And it was great. Rody was funny as always. His voice sounded great. The rest of the guys absolutely killed it. But. I feel like something always goes wrong whenever I go to a Protest the Hero concert. Gross bodily fluids warning incoming, skip to the next paragraph if you get queasy easily, but I managed to get both diarrhea and my period in the middle of the show. I was so miserable. I did manage to catch all the songs I wanted to hear, but ugh. Not great timing. I feel like it's cursed for me to go to their shows.
Logic
While Logic still put an amazing show, I was so disappointed in the length of the show. He stopped twice to admonish the crowd who were throwing stuff at him. To be clear, that's not his fault at all. What kind of fans actually do that? It's such a waste of time to stop and then get scolded by a celebrity. The next thing is kind of his fault, but he kept talking throughout. Which, okay, he hasn't had a concert in a while, I can forgive him for that. But the combo of the two just really ate up his set time. And then he went over time. And then they actually put some random DJ on after him. Who decided that?? Literally 3/4 of the crowd left after Logic. He really should have just been given more time and ended the night.
I shouldn't complain too much. I danced my fucking heart out at the show. I even cried during one of his monologues. It was a ton of fun and he played so many of the hits.
Orville Peck
I am sorry to any Orville Peck fans out there, but I did not enjoy his show. I think I went to his show, hoping to change my mind on his music. That didn't really happen, sadly. I think what bothers me the most about his music, is that his voice feels "put on." I've only really listened to "Stampede" so maybe I need to listen to some more. I really just cannot get past the campiness and theatrics. I like what he stands for, I like his costumes, I've been growing on country as a genre, and he seems like a decent guy, but I just can't get into his music.
2025?
I only have one music festival and one concert planned for this year. I'm seeing My Chemical Romance, again, in Toronto. I'm so excited. I hope it's just as magical as the last time. I also hope to go to see some local bands. For some reason, I am afraid of small, intimate venues. I feel like it's just so much easier to stand out that way, and I do not like to be perceived. But I want to see what my city has to offer in terms of music!