Gloorp – Gloorp ‘Em Up: I’ve listened to Gloorp ‘Em Up three times now. If I’d heard it in 1992, I would have gone bananas over it, but I don’t have that reaction in 2025. What I like, though, is that Garrett Burke physically played pretty much everything here. Is it novel? No. Is it cool? Yes. And that leads me to a different but highly relevant point.
I found Gloorp ‘Em Up through a Pitchfork review. Getting a review in Pitchfork is a big deal, and I figured it would generate a ton of streams. I checked Spotify this morning and the combined streams for all songs on the album are about 25,000. Optimistically assuming a half-cent per stream, that means Burke crossed the threshold to get paid by Spotify (something most artists never accomplish) and has earned about $125. That’s crap. While I love that I can listen to the record without running to my local shop, the fact that Burke gets a whopping twelve cents (rounded up, of course) from my listening is just wrong. At least when I was on tour, we could sell our CDs and earn enough money to get us to the next show. Twelve cents is insulting. I’ve listened to, and thought about, the record a lot over the past few weeks, so I bought the record on Bandcamp. Thanks for creating music for me to listen to and think about, Garrett. I appreciate it.
PinkPantheress – Fancy That: Her voice is not particularly good, but something about it is compelling. I can’t put my finger on it yet, but the record warrants more listens.
Gracie Abrams – Good Riddance: I’ve spent enough time with the first disc that I can play it in the background and not stop every 30 seconds to focus on the sound of Abrams’ voice. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but it means it’s time for me to move onto the second disc.
Grateful Dead – 10/19/72 (St. Louis, MO): I’m ready to move on from the 10/18/72 show, so after spending some time with Barton Hall ’77 last week, I’m on to this show. On my first listen, a lot of small moments caught my ear. For example, Garcia’s solo on “The Other One” is a great example of taking a song’s melody into uncharted but still recognizable territory.
Record store finds this week: I’ve been looking for Paul Simon Graceland and U2 The Unforgettable Fire on vinyl and finally found affordable copies in reasonable condition. I also picked up Minor by Gracie Abrams, and I’m excited to have a backlog of her music to work through.