maxonemillion

I got tired of pretending I had a blog on an ad supported social media platform, so I’m posting photos and sounds and words to my own site.

www.maxsidman.com

I’ll still be lurking and liking around here but now I pay money for something that I have more control over to ignore for long stretches of time.

Fuck yeah.

I had written a couple of paragraphs about how my approach to end-of-year music cataloging changed this year from the previous forever, waxing philosophical on theories about my growth as a music enthusiast and my existential situation in 2016…but then I reread it and it just felt like horseshit. Annual album lists are a dime a dozen these days (thanks internet), and the how and why of it all strikes me as pretty pointless at this stage of the game. So I decided to dispense with the pomp and circumstance and get right to it…

Here are two lists: music released in 2016 that I really enjoyed, and every book I read over the last 12 months. There are Spotify artist links (as well as couple of BandCamp links, which I encourage you to dig into, because Spotify doesn’t have everything), and a Spotify playlist for music (which includes songs from artists who aren’t listed below, because sometimes songs are dope but albums are bunk). There are also Amazon links in the books list, should you want more info on those. I lucked out this year and pretty much enjoyed everything I read (especially The Professor & The Madman — it’s excellent).

A final note with regard to music: I’m sure there are a few things I enjoyed and forgot to list here, and probably (more than) a few 2016 releases I’ve yet to discover. But that’s life, and so it’s likely that I’ll update that Spotify playlist a few times in the near future.

2016 Playlist:

• Isaiah Rashad 
  
• The Du-Rites
  
• The Blind Shake
  
• Russian Circles
  
• E-40
  
• Heron Oblivion
  
• Badbadnotgood
  
• Vince Staples
  
• True Widow
  
• Neurosis
  
• Kevin Gates
  
• Yussef Kamaal
  
• Mike & The Melvins
  
• Third Sight

2016 Reading List:

• Six Days of the Condor, James Grady
  
• Dark Times in the City, Gene Kerrigan
  
• How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery, Kevin Ashton
  
• The Onion Eaters, J.P. Donleavy
  
• Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire, MattTaibbi
  
• The Far Empty, J. Todd Scott
  
• Dr. Knox, Peter Spiegelman
  
• The Professor & the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity & the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, Simon Winchester
  

(If you like books too, you could find me and add me on GoodReads, and we could trade nerdy book recommendations.)