Trance is one of the cheesiest genres in the world, which makes it one of the very best. Contrary to the name, it is not conventionally relaxing, though I find strange comfort when awash in it. It usually starts with a kick drum, then a tide of synthesizers, then arpeggios that dart and echo like a bee trapped in a concert hall.

My little brother died just after midnight on January 20, 2023. We buried a handful of his ashes in the Smoky Mountains on his 28th birthday that May. I know we weren’t supposed to. What choice did we have? It was one of his wishes; I’d fulfill them all if I could.

Feeling stressed? Overwhelmed? Press play and step into my garden. Breathe deep and put your hands in the dirt. These songs will hydrate you, warm you up, root you into place.

Steve Albini—perhaps the greatest audio engineer of my lifetime, the first producer I knew by name—is dead at 61 this week. He produced thousands of records, dozens of masterpieces, and shaped the sound of the 90s through his work with Nirvana, PJ Harvey, and the Pixies.

These cursed wanderers have built a rich musical tradition over centuries. So sink your teeth into the gothic country of the cowboys of vampire valley. But best you get inside before the sun sets—strange things tend to happen here after dark.

A 2012 profile in the New Yorker put it best: “People seldom forget their first encounters with Nine Inch Nails.” I certainly didn’t—I was trying to find someone to cut my hair to look like Ewan McGregor’s. My stepmom took me to her friend’s house, a former hairdresser who looked a little like John Cameron Mitchell. In his kitchen, in fading light, he perfect a Kenobi-cut while The Downward Spiral played.

Earwyrms turns six years old tomorrow, and now that my baby’s old enough for the first grade, I’m going to have to change some things around the house. As a birthday present, I’ll be making two major changes to the newsletter in next few days: 1) the weekly release day of Earwyrms is moving from Fridays over to Tuesdays; and 2) I’ll slowly be transferring this enterprise over to Substack. The first Tuesday issue will be released on April 30th, with Substack coming shortly after.

When Vampire Weekend was getting dunked on hard in the Obama era, it was just because they were clearly the best of their class—they had much more of a thing than your Two Door Cinema Clubs or your Passion Pits. Love them or hate them, Vampire Weekend was good enough to be in the crosshairs.

Up here—no, up here! In the saucer. I've been up here all day—these guys know how to party. They gave me the AUX, I'm spinning 80s astro pop. Come up and hear this sub, dude.

Now, lamb songs don’t have to be low energy to be soothing. They simply need a sunny disposition, a 74-degree mid-cycle feel. They shrink you down and plop you into a flute of champagne—plus you can breathe water now, easily as air. The bubbles give you quick little kisses as they pass. You only get drunk if you wish.

Philip Glass is one of those names—the name of perhaps the most famous living composer, of course—that you’ve either heard but never investigated or have read about so many times that your eyes are rolling already. His reputation lies halfway between never needing to be written about again and still needing everybody with a pen to do so.

Something preposterous happened in 1964: On the week of April 4, one artist had the top five songs on the Billboard Hot 100. It’d never happened before and it hasn’t been matched since. Mere weeks before, in the warming days of March, America found that no fewer than 60% of all records sold were songs by the Beatles.

We're back in time for the Oscar's this weekend, and I am once again highlighting the best use of music in film over the year—because the Best Original Song award just doesn't cut it anymore. We're talking best needle drops here, the best collective soundtracks, a celebration of the lost art of curating a vibe.

That first song you hear? That’s my #1 song of the year. That’s right—for the first time in Earwyrms history, I have made a best-of playlist from one to ten. Grief demands you do something different, and—like Soderbergh producing the 93rd Academy Awards—only time will tell if we fell for seductive folly or landed on love’s new paradigm.

Safe to say three of the most consequential albums of my life came out in 2013, and that list doesn’t even touch the dozen other nearly perfect albums from this year—Trouble Will Find Me, Modern Vampires of the City, Cupid Deluxe, Yeezus… 2013 changed music as we know it, and a lot of the biggest artists today cemented their status or debuted this year, from The 1975 to Beyoncé.

I do remember that this is the year I got a Nintendo Power subscription though. And I do remember one day, flipping through said Nintendo Power in the back seat of the family van, my parents slid a revolution into the CD player. That was the day I first heard Now!That’s What I Call Music! 14.

So for me, ‘93 was the first year of the 90s, and its evidence lies in several places: in the birth of the Riot Grrrl movement and third wave feminism with Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl”; in Nirvana’s dyspeptic final album before Cobain’s untimely death; and in Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the harbinger for the soon-to-be golden age of hip hop.

Some stories of note in 1983: the invention of Detroit techno, as embodied by the single “Clear” by Cybotron; the birth of English indie rock as we know it with The Smiths debut and follow up singles (“Hand in Glove” and “This Charming Man,” respectively); and the birth of American indie rock as we know it with R.E.M.’s Murmur.

If you want a little taste of what 1973 was like, go watch Licorice Pizza, the title of which refers to the old LP, a.k.a. the vinyl record—and boy, was this year firmly the middle of the Album Empire.

It’s time for the first of our Annivyrsaries, my favorite history class, and we’re starting with the sounds of 1963. So naturally, I want to focus on something that hasn’t been touched as much by scholars—the rise of the Surf Song.