The producer of Bohemian Rhapsody, Roy Thomas Baker, has just passed away. Reading an article by the New York Times about the song:

Mr. Mercury, who died in 1991, always refused to explain his composition other than saying it was about relationships. (…) Mr. Baker said, with a hearty laugh, “If I tell you, I would have to kill you.”

Just this Monday, we listened to the song on our way home from a family trip, and I wondered what the lyrics meant. I wondered if the lyrics were appropriate for the kids and recalled that I had written an essay about the song when I was 12.

RIP Roy Thomas Baker.

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TIL un des chants de supporters les plus chantés au stade Francis Le Blé lors des matchs du Stade Brestois 29 est adapté d’un classique du folklore américain : Oh My Darling, Clementine. 🎵 × ⚽️

Avec mon ami Joe Gantdelaine, nous faisons des compiles trimestrielles et on a un peu de backlog. Ce soir, nous sortons Un Été 2023 (sic). Allez l’écouter, elle est cool et a une jolie photo de Sinéad O’Connor en cover. 🎵

Super vidéo : un mashup des lives du SNL, qui sert de teaser pour un documentaire intitulé 50 Years of SNL Music. On y retrouve Franz Ferdinand, Run DMC, Hanson, Queen, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, et bien d’autres encore (liste non exhaustive d’ordre d’apparition pendant que je tape ceci). Côté introductions et invités, il y a des acteurs, des sportifs…

Plusieurs tentatives ont été faites pour créer une version française du SNL — Les Nuls, l’émission, Samedi soir en direct —, mais aucune n’a duré plus de quelques saisons. À quoi cette vidéo ressemblerait-elle si nous avions eu un SNL à la française pendant 50 ans ?

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My friend Who Are You Lutra Lutra ?? just released a new single, Dreaming Again. Go listen to it. 🎵

Spotify drives me crazy with its song shuffle functionality. For example, the Apple TV app does not include a shuffle option. Instead, it applies the shuffle setting from other versions of the app you may be using. This is quite maddening.

My ideal shuffle behavior would be the following:

1. Never defaulting to shuffle tracks for albums. I prefer to listen to complete albums in their intended order. Who doesn’t?
2. Implementing a per-playlist shuffle setting. Some of my shorter playlists have a specific order, while I only use shuffle for the longer ones.

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Here is a one-hour playlist of my favorite current French songs. I hope you enjoy it. 🎵

I am surprised by how excited i am about a possible Oasis reunion next year. I hope they will make it to France. 🎵

I might develop this soon but here were my favorite discoveries from this year’s La Route du Rock:

• METZ
• Astral Bakers
• Meatbodies

And la chenille

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Je retombe sur cette belle lettre d’amour aux Acid House Kings écrite par mon compère Joe Gantdelaine sur notre site Dead Rooster. Contrairement à ce que son nom indique, le groupe fait de la pop très douce. 🎵

Watching Blur’s Radio 2 concert on BBC from last July. Graham Coxon’s GC-3 guitar looks amazing. 🎵

I sometimes work from Hibou Grand Duc and today was a treat. They played old school 70s and 80s rock’n’roll including Supertramp, Dire Straits and Creedence Clearwater Revival. 🎵

Every announcement of a new album by Nada Surf is joy.

Moon Mirror is out September 13th. Watch In Front of Me Now

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Je suis retombé sur cette critique de Steve McQueen, de Prefab Sprout, par mon compère Joe Gantdelaine. J’ai bien ri, et j’en ai profité pour réécouter l’album… que j’aime plutôt bien. 🤣🎵

Fun intro (making fun of late night shows) and outro (making fun of videos from the tech scene) for DIIV’s new video for the shoegazing track Brown Paper Bag 🎵

A train of thought just helped me remember the article I wrote about hidden tracks. Having a laugh re-discovering the Hidden-Tracks Nightmares playlist I created on Spotify for the occasion. It might be the worst playlist ever. As intended. 🎵

They get it from TikTok and the algorithm.

— Alexis Petridis, Guardian’s rock and pop critic, when asked how his teenage kids discover new music

This is why my friend Joe Gantdelaine and I make playlists.

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Camera Obscura will release a new album this year. Great band and the new single, Big Love, sounds very promising. 🎵

Melanie died a week ago. No mention of it in France. I found out reading Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s (excellent) newsletter. Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma is one of my all-time favorites, as mentioned on Dead Rooster. 🎵

C’est cette chanson [To The End (La Comédie)] et pas une autre qui m’a convaincu du talent particulier de Damon Albarn, alors que Blur, jusque-là je le confesse, me laissait assez froid peut-être parce que je connaissais et aimais trop les groupes anglais dont Blur s’inspirait. C’est un peu le problème quand on commence à devenir vieux, ce qui était déjà mon cas dans les années 90, on commence à comparer la musique du moment à celle d’avant et c’est une position dont il n’est pas facile de sortir si on veut continuer à découvrir et à aimer de nouvelles choses.

— Michka Assayas

Pas mieux. 🎵

I have been listening to Just Another Rainbow a couple of times. Solid song. Nothing very original: it sounds like Oasis covering The Stone Roses but… What’s wrong with that? Curious to here more. Good job Liam Gallagher and John Squire. 🎵

I revisited my 2010 playlist showcasing my favorite tracks from that year. It still stands the test of time, with the exception of that prevalent fuzzy production style you can hear on Dum Dum Girls, Crocodiles or Women tracks. 🎵

Mark Oliver Everett, from the band eels, shares many excellent playlists on this Mr. E’s Beautiful Playlists page. Recommended. 🎵

🎂🥳🎉 Keith Richards celebrated his 80th birthday this week. Made it to Daring Fireball. 🎵

I got to see The Silver Lines playing live at Les Transmusicales de Rennes 10 days ago. A lot of fun. they also have a bunch of singles on Spotify. Highly recommended for some mid-2000s indie-rock revival vibes. 🎵

Je viens de participer à la précommande du hors-série Magic des 100 meilleurs albums de 2023. 🎵

Following up on Manton Reece’s default apps post, here’s my list for 2023:

• 📨 Mail Client: Fastmail
• 📮 Mail Server: Fastmail
• 📝 Notes: Craft
• ✅ To-Do: Things and GitHub
• 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Apple Camera
• 🌅 Photo Management: Apple Photos
• 📆 Calendar: Apple Calendar
• 📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud
• 📖 RSS: NetNewsWire and Feedbin
• 🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Apple Contacts
• 🌐 Browser: Firefox Developer Edition (development) and Arc (everything else)
• 💬 Chat: Messages and Slack
• 🔖 Bookmarks: Crafts and my own Raycast plugin
• 📑 Read It Later: Things and Craft
• 📜 Word Processing: none
• 📈 Spreadsheets: Google Sheets
• 📊 Presentations: Keynote
• 🛒 Shopping Lists: none
• 🍴 Meal Planning: just started using Paprika
• 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: YNAB
• 📰 News: My RSS feeds, newsletters (mostly NYT and The Athletic) and some podcasts. This would deserve its own post.
• 🎵 Music: Spotify
• 🎙️ Podcasts: Overcast
• 🔐 Password Management: 1Password
• 🤖 Code Editing: Xcode and Visual Studio Code
• 📚 Books: none
• 🌎 Blogging: Micro.blog
• 🗒️ Scratchpad: Drafts and Boop

I added the Scratchpad category at the end. 💻

Les épisodes sur les Stones dans Very Good Trip, de Michka Assayas, me rappellent le Rock Press Club qui leur avait été consacré sur Canal Jimmy : ce devait être en 1999 ou 2000. Et la présence de quelques épisodes du Rock Press Club sur YouTube me réjouit. 🎵

The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, by Mitski. Such a good album. 🎵

TIL Je viens de découvrir que le sketch des Nuls, Omelette, a son inspiration dans une chanson de Paul Simon et Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Homeless. 🤦‍♂️ 🎵

After listening to a podcast about the science of getting psyched up, I made myself a Getting Psyched Up playlist on Spotify. Working well so far. 🎵

🎧 RIP Tom Verlaine. Every time I listen to Television I realize I should listen to them way more often than I do. Inevitably I then shift to Feelies, Gang of Four and finish with Pixies.