My MP3s A-Z

Amba by 51717

This is my friend Lili. 51517 is Lili S. upside down. That’s her name. She’s about to go on tour with the Beastie Boys as a babysitter. Then I think she might move to Japan. She’s from Silver Spring and used to live in an apartment with a guy who had so many Cds there were Cds in the sink. The first or second time I met her we went to the zoo in DC, a long walk up Connecticut Avenue from my dorm. This song sounds like Lili, mysterious and vague. Whispered, too. It’s hard to understand her when she talks on the phone. She knows it, but it’s not going to change. I listened to this over and over one day last week, text messaged Lili how much I liked it while I crossed traffic on Flatbush. Some teenage girl stopped me and I pulled the headphone out of my ear. “Your glasses are cool,” she said. I thanked her, kept walking. Lili texted me back, told me she appreciated it.

Bathysphere by Smog

This is the first mp3 I ever bought. It sucks. I saw him play this live and it was better. This sounds like an indie rock Octoberfest. And Cat Power did it better. Still, I’m glad Bill Callahan will pocket his thirty-five cents from the sale. I like mp3s because they’re an empty medium. It must be disappointing to be a musician and have a CD be your final art product. CDs are ugly and tiny, plastic cases and leftover glue from topspines. An mp3 is just a conduit, infinitely reproducible and always exactly the same. I like that. It’s how I dress; interchangeably identical, nice, but forgettably plain. I like to think Bill Callahan feels the same way. We don't look dissimilar, either, maybe except that he's a little taller, more western. He’s such a vague looking person until he opens his mouth and then he sounds like a singing sloth. In one video he plays an anchorman announcing fire and brimstone while Chloe Sevingy cleans hotel rooms with an eye patch. He couldn’t care less about either. I don’t remember for sure, but I think he scratches his head, uninterested in everything but the sound of his own voice.