This isn’t a competition. It’s a collaboration.
This isn’t a competition. It’s a collaboration.
A couple of years ago, I took part in this Twitter thing called #MWE—which I believe stands for either Music Writing Experience or Music Writing Experiment, but I'm still waiting for the intern to come back with the research to confirm (Siri? SIRI?!). In a nutshell, it was this thing where you were supposed to listen to an album you had never got around to listening to before—a front to back, full listen—and then you were to craft a one tweet review. And you were supposed to do that once a day, for the entire month of February.
I quite enjoyed the brevity.
“My favourite thing about the internet is that stuff like someone taking audio from a 2011 Charlie Kaufman lecture (and then setting it to beautifully shot imagery and a minimalist heartbeat backbeat) is something I'm able to just find and watch again & again, whenever I need a punch in the heart gut.”
“Adam Curtis attempts to make inconclusive sense of our non-sensical modern world with a hypnotizing documentary filled with haunting old footage, amazing soundtrack selections, and a ‘David Attenborough who has seen too much’ narration style. Hits different than your usual docuseries, and will leave you wondering about what you're supposed to think long after.”
“Be a good human and watch this enlightening & sobering talk from 2018 that Jeremy Rifkin gave about where the world is going no matter how much we keep stubbornly trying to delay the change by continuing to prop up our corrupt & inefficient pre-internet systems / masters. For real, find 1.5 hours somewhere for this & then let's get to collective work before another 5 years goes by.”
“Dan Reeder has such a soothing voice… sometimes you don't even realize that he's singing about how his lady won't give him a bj on his birthday or the flaws of a beach ball.”
“Back in 1967, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, & Allen Cohen joined Alan Watts on his houseboat to chat about society. And they taped it. And now we can tune in to the conversation up here in the 2020s (where we could all do with some 'turning on' and 'dropping out'). Yay internet.”
“Skyway Man has the kind of grooves that will have you unironically reintroducing words like ‘groovy’ back into your regular vocabulary. For example, you may find yourself telling others “this record is really groovy, man” quite often.”
“We're halfway through season 6 of Golden Girls & we've yet to consider hitting the 'Skip Intro' button — so if it's not best theme song ever, it's at least on Mt. Rushmore. Also… show holds up great & the cast is perfect (and deserves Mt. Rushmore more than those other old white folks).”
“After taking a beat to go from 'wow I can't believe that Will Smith thing happened' to 'ok but nothing to do with me', now all I can think is how I've been working on a 90s mix & listening to 'I'm All That' all weekend *LITERALLY* saying to myself "dang this song slaps".”
“I sent my nieces Over The Garden Wall as a "sorry covid prevented us from bringing bday presents, but we're not mailing all these books" gesture—not sure if they watched it yet, but I did, and it's fun and charming & now I can't stop saying "ain't that just the way" all the time.”
“The thing about Norm for me—besides growing up in the 90s tv run that's become so rightfully beloved on Youtube—it's the small town Canada-ness of him. The Good & The Bad. Growing up rural & now living in a small mountown, you end up with a lot of different Norms in your life.”
“Tiger King is Making A Murderer + Wild Wild Country + The Jerry Springer Show + Siegfried & Roy + We Bought A Zoo. And unless you’re a completely different person than I, then that sounds like something worth watching.”
“A classic from (a small corner of) the diy Myspace-era gets dusted off & touched up and my nostalgic heart/ears are very much here for this.”
Well, HI:54 LO:5 is basically me co-opting the bones of that #MWE idea so I can do it for longer than one month a year. I went with the review rule of ‘no more than 54 words, no less than 5’ because I’m a little bit of a word play fanatic, so a mild obsession with "five" and "for" has now become a problem for me. Also, upping the max to 54 words gave reviews the little extra bit of head room that was missing when trying to fit an #MWE review in 140 characters or less (which was the fashion at the time).
“Imagine a Sun Kil Moon record pressing pause on 'Inherent Vice' to grab another sixer out of the fridge and roll a joint on the back cover of a Bukowski novel.”
“Two of my favourite deep thinkers/teachers got together for a chat over coffee in Prague in 1992, with an eccentric waiter making comedic interruptions throughout — AND — now, 30 years later, I/you can eavesdrop on it, for free. A good reminder that the internet isn't all doom-scrolling-distractions, it's also wonderful stuff like this.”
“Can't believe I just found out about Close Enough — it's all the best parts of Regular Show, except now the characters are actual old human millennials and not talking blue jays or raccoons or gumball machines that act like old human millennials. Extra relatable, highly recommend.”
“September 30th, 2021, was Canada's first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. October 1st, 2021, is another Bandcamp Friday. This seems like a sign to go buy/listen to some Indigenous music, eh? For example, do you have this great Willie Dunn collection in your collection?”
“A great 'Side A to Side B' listen in general, but I can specifically vouch for this tape going really well with sorting thru boxes of old stuff and figuring out which stuff to keep & which stuff to donate to the charity store.”
“A massive collaboration compilation featuring a whole bunch of my favourite hip hop artists? Ok, just let me go grab my samurai sword and then I'm all in.”
“Some classic singer-songer vibes radiating throughout — pairs so nicely with a Sunday afternoon mood that there is even a song called 'Sundae Afternoon' on it.”
“Kicks off differently than previous WRF releases, more upbeat & jazzy, and really caught my headphones off guard (in a good way). Amazing front-to-back listen as always, but really dug the unexpected smokey jazz club vibes which *spoiler alert* eventually transform into something dark & haunted. A 'letdown' this record most definitely is not.”
“Jojo Rabbit is one of the most charming & heartwarming movies I’ve seen in maybe forever. Brilliant concept, wonderful cast & executed perfectly. Couldn’t recommend more.”
“This album sounds like how it feels to still be wide awake at 5am, even though you went to bed at 11pm.”
“Mick Jenkins has been behind some of my fave rap tracks these last few years (‘Jazz’, ‘Understood’ to be specific) so I thought I'd come see if there's anything on Bandcamp &… jazzed to find some smooth early stuff not available on the you know who's.”
Of course, Twitter is now 280 characters, so maybe expect future HI:54 LO:5 reviews directly out on the socials. Heck, feel free to use #HI54LO5 on the socials to do your own '54 words or less’ reviews of things if you fancy. I might even share some of them back here on the blahg, or at least do some retweeting on the HIGH FIVE FOR socials. Or not, I don’t know, us bloggers have a tendency to throw out all kinds of ideas we never follow thru on.
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