“Are you okay?”
I don’t have a good answer to the question. Knowing full well that I’m talking back to an algorithm — even one asking the same question of everyone with a different band mad-libbed in — doesn’t soften the blow. Am I? Are we? Is anyone, really?
In this case, it’s referring to Waxahatchee. I mean, yeah, I totally listened to a lot of Waxahatchee this year. Waxahatchee is good. Saint Cloud was one of my favorite albums of the year. Katie Crutchfield’s music doesn’t exist in the Elliott Smith, Leonard Cohen bin for me. It’s not time to send up the signal flares when you see the band all over my Spotify social feed.
The Spotify roasting AI that’s been making the rounds this week is a fun exercise in music snobbery. It also may be brushing against some larger truth here. Something I think we all considered at least in passing this year when Spotify offered its annual “Wrapped” year in review.
What’s the soundtrack to the worst year,…