A different voice that you want to meet

Sometimes I forget why I do You, Me and An Album. I worry that it doesn't serve a purpose for anyone other than me. I can't remember what the point of doing interviews is. I think back to when I started the show in 2020 and recall that I decided to start a music podcast for the simple reason of wanting to do it. Now, at times I find myself questioning my motives for wanting to make the podcast.

Then I remember “Windmill." During the early months of the pandemic, I spent a lot of time listening to Invitation, the first of two albums released by the Portland-based supergroup Filthy Friends. "Windmill" is the second track on Invitation, and it quickly became one of my favorite songs on the album.

I'm pretty sure I first learned about Filthy Friends from listening to an episode of Brian Koppelman's podcast The Moment, in which he interviewed Peter Buck and Corin Tucker. As a longtime R.E.M. fan, I was immediately interested in anything Buck was involved in, and while I was only minimally aware of Tucker's work in Sleater-Kinney, it was a band I had wanted to know more about. Their involvement in Filthy Friends was what initially led me to explore their albums. Even as my interest in the band has faded in subsequent years, a line from "Windmill" keeps popping up in my thoughts.

Every band has their own beat, different voice that you want to meet

I am guessing what Tucker means with this line is that going to see a band live is like getting to know someone better—you get to experience their unique personality through their music. I take the line slightly differently and a little more literally. When I listen to an artist, I hear their music as an extension of them. If I am moved by what I hear in the music, then I want to know more about the people who made it. I want to meet the person behind the voice, whether it's a voice in the literal sense or the sound being expressed by a non-vocal instrument.

On many past episodes of YMAAA, I have had the privilege of interviewing some of my favorite artists. I've been lucky enough to "meet the voices" from music I feel connected to. While it is gratifying to have had these conversations, if this were the only reason why I did the podcast, I could legitimately wonder if the whole thing was just a self-serving exercise.

But "Windmill" reminds me that my guests have voices they want to meet, too. Maybe they don't want to meet them in person (or maybe they do), but they commune with those voices through the repeated listening of an album.

On the surface, each episode of YMAAA is an exploration of an album that my guest loves. That gives us an opportunity to learn more about that particular album, but that only scratches the surface of what the episodes are about. The conversations are ultimately about the relationship between the listener and the music. How do my guests come to "meet" the "voices" they have fallen in love with? And why did they want to meet them? What are they looking for? What did they wind up finding through that relationship?

What I love about many of the interviews I've done is that my guest's answers to these questions will surprise me. In the case of my most recent episode, in which Marshall Crenshaw talks about a compilation of songs released on Fortune Records in the '50s and '60s, I should not have been surprised that he would have picked an album including songs from a largely forgotten label. Marshall is a walking encyclopedia of rock history, but I was still surprised by his reason for being enamored of the compilation. (No spoilers, but you can check out the interview here!)

As for this week's guest, Mac McCaughan, I never would have predicted that he would have chosen to talk about New Order's Power, Corruption & Lies. Mac himself acknowledges that New Order's sound bears little resemblance to that of Superchunk. Yet after having talked to Mac, it's easy to understand why he is fond of the album and the band, as he was so open and eloquent in discussing his relationship to both. That episode will be out this Thursday.

How do you think about your relationships with your favorite artists and their music? Does the metaphor of "voices you want to meet" ring true for you? What does that phrase mean to you? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments just below!