Chef Jams No. 21
How Apple Music made me fall back in love with albums, and my favorites I'm listening to right now
Hey friends,
Happy Friday, it’s Chef here—so happy to be back.
Most of you probably know the drill, but since this is my first time doing one of these since we brought our operation over to Substack, here’s a quick primer for those of you that don’t:
I’ve been lucky to be a part of the TF extended universe since 2018, when Lawrence and James interviewed me at Kinfolk 90 (RIP) and decided to bring me on as their producer. Since then, I’ve engineered, edited, and distributed nearly every episode of this show (as well as its previous iteration that shall not be named) and have loved every minute of it.
In 2020, when we joined P*treon, I started throwing together a semi-regular series of playlists for our paid subscribers. Each one was made up of about 20 songs, selected and sequenced based on a loose theme inspired by whatever was going on in the world or in my life at the time. If you’re new here and wanna check out the older playlists, you should be able to find the archive by searching “Chef Jams” on the Throwing Fits Substack.
It’s been a minute since the last Chef Jams and I figured now would be a great time to revisit the format of this whole thing—partly because of the evolution TF has gone through, but mostly because I’ve been in a pretty long and miserable musical rut.
Like most of you likely are, I’ve been a pretty serious Spotify user for over 10 years now. When I joined, there was a lot I loved about the platform: the unlimited access, the infographics, and most of all, being able to see what my friends were listening to. Over time, however, that’s all faded away. I found myself choosing silence—sitting alone with my wack, dreadful, boring thoughts—over navigating Spotify to find something to listen to. I was tired of being pushed songs by like, Okay Kaya (no shade) or having to scroll past scammy thought-leader podcasts (there’s only one Podcast That Matters™) and dorky audiobooks (I’m not a nerd).
So recently, when I was bedridden with COVID (embarrassing), I decided to switch things up. I used the time to manually rebuild my library on Apple Music. In doing so, I realized that I didn’t even have a library anymore—it was all just Spotify playlists and the ~tHe AlGo~ that guided my listening.
It’s been a few months since I made the transition and I feel like my love for music has been completely reinvigorated. I like to compare the experience of using Apple Music to having an iPod with an infinite library, rather than subjecting to a service dictated by some overpaid Swedish mfs.
On Apple Music, it feels like the whole service has been designed around the album. Users are encouraged to build libraries. Singles are shown within the context of the bodies of work they’re part of. And, best of all, most albums have their own bios, complete with fun context around when it was made, who was involved while making it, and why it fits into an artist’s catalogue.
Say what you want about the UX. Ultimately, Apple Music is doing its part in bringing love and attention back to the music. Imo, the service, the marketing, and even the $450 Assouline book are all signs that having a library—your own library—is going to be a rare luxury. If you’re feeling tired of your music, or just fuck with premium experiences, maybe give Apple Music a shot and see if it sticks.
In the spirit of all this, for this Chef Jams, I’ve decided I’m going to share a handful of albums I’ve been rocking with since this transition. Don’t worry, I’ll throw in YouTube and Spotify links too. Here we go.