Dissect - 10 Year Anniversary Mailbag

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Dissect is 10! To celebrate, Cole dissects "Dissect" - sharing how and why he started the show ten years ago. Then he answers a ton of questions submitted by Dissect listeners. Purchase limited Anniversary Merch at ⁠dissectmerch.com⁠. Host: Cole Cuchna Editor: Kevin Pooler Producer: Justin Sayles Theme: Birocratic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everyone, as part of Dysect's 10-year anniversary celebration, I'm releasing a limited run of anniversary-themed merchandise, available now at Dysectmerch.com. We've got three great designs for you, including a Daffpunk-inspired piece to honor our most recent season on them. We're also reprinting one of the most popular pieces of Dysect merch in the show's history, the Season 8 Bounty. A ton of people over the years have requested a reprint of this shirt, so now is your chance to get one. I should also note that this will be a very limited run of the show. of merch, essentially I'll be taking pre-orders for the next two weeks and pretty much only printing enough to fulfill those initial orders. So if you want a piece, it's kind of a now or never thing.

So check out dissectmerch.com today. There's a direct link in the show notes. Thank you everyone and enjoy today's episode. Welcome everyone to a very special episode of dissect. I'm your host, Cole Kushna. Yes, today's episode is very special because we are celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Dysect. Dysect was launched on August 23rd, 2016, so by the time you're listening to this, that was a couple days ago. The first thing I want to say is that I genuinely never thought I would be doing this show for 10 years. I'm going to go into kind of the origin story of Dysect in a moment here, but when I first started the show, it was kind of just a passion project I was doing on the side while working full time. And to see where the show has gone since then has been

kind of remarkable and it's hard for me to even put into words just how meaningful the journey has been and the community that's formed around the show and what I feel like the show stands for for a show like this to last 10 years. It's very humbling. So today's episode we're going to celebrate the 10 year anniversary with a mailbag. I think I've only done one other mailbag in the history of the show. But essentially this is a Q&A where you guys submitted questions via email. I'm going to answer them. But I did get a lot of questions about kind of the origin story of dissect and my process and stuff. So I'm going to try to address a lot of that up front with by just telling you the start of the show, how I started it and everything like that. If you heard the story before, you can jump ahead to the questions.

But for those who haven't heard it, I started it, like I said, back in 2016. Let me just give you a brief background about my history, essentially with music in general. I started playing guitar when I was 13. I got a red, cherry red, fender, stratacaster guitar for my birthday. My mom did something really sweet when I came home from whatever grade. I guess I'd be in seventh grade at that point. I opened the door to my house and there was like a string. And the string looped around my entire house.

Basically, I had to follow this string all through different rooms in the house and everything. And then it led to ultimately the laundry room where when I opened the laundry room door, there was this red Fender Stratocaster that I had asked for for months there for me. And I can look at that moment as really. really a moment that changed my life. Ever since I started playing guitar, I fell in love with music, I fell in love with making music, I fell in love with listening to music. My life completely changed by that point. And so I was self-taught for the longest time. I tried doing lessons. I got paired with a flamenco guitarist, which when I was 13, I wanted to be Jimmy Hendrix, not grow my nails out and play flamenco

guitar. So I ended up dropping out pretty quickly. It was self-taught for the longest time. I played in a couple of bands, played a lot of shows, did some tours, things like that, really trying to make it as a career, as a rock star, essentially. That didn't plan out. I kind of hit a dead in there. And so I ended up going to college to formally study music for the first time. But the thing about that was, I had no formal training. And by the time you're in college, most of the people that I ended up being surrounded by had years of training. They had been, you know, playing violin since they're six or whatever the case may be. So I had a huge learning curve. The first semester, I was so underwater that I legitimately almost dropped out. I had a very specific conversation with my now wife about that.

Ended up sticking it out. And one of the things that, that I promise this is going somewhere, one of the things that saved me and the way that I kind of caught up to everyone else in a very short amount of time was I found a suite of education courses called the Great Courses. And these were college level courses taught by world famous professors that you would just download. This is like early, this is like 2010s, I guess. So this is pre-podcasts, basically. I downloaded them illegally. But essentially, you can download and take entire college level courses.

And they had a bunch of great music courses taught by Dr. Robert Greenberg, who I kind of fell in love with as an educator, essentially binged as much of the great courses. He had like 25 classes. So everything from like music 101 theory stuff to like history of like classical music, opera. Beethoven, like he had a bunch of stuff. He's very engaging. Fell in love with these courses, fell in love with learning about music. And in college, I fell in love with writing about music, was one of the surprising things. I would get assigned an essay on, say, Beethoven. I'd have to research his life, the time he was living in, and whatever piece I was kind

of writing about. And fell in love with the process of seeing how the context of a person's individual-specific individual life, the time in which they lived, all kind of influenced and what was going on in society at the time, all kind of influenced the piece that I would be ended up kind of quote unquote dissecting. Really, that really transformed my experience of music. I love that with additional context, I was able to find more in the music, connect more in the music and became more, not only intellectual experience listening to the music, but emotional. I was, I was really amazed by how you could develop an emotional connection with the music through context. And so when I

graduated college, I was really missing that part of my life, writing about music. And this happened to coincide with a couple of events in my life. One was having my first daughter in 2015, and she was born one day before to Pimp a Butterfly came out. And so I have this kind of storybook story of me coming home from the hospital with my wife with our first child and listening to to Pimpa Butterfly for the first time with headphones on this was kind of like very early morning she had woken up early I went into the room and was holding her in my arms the sun was kind of at least how I remember. Is this even true? It sounds like too crazy. Anyways, I remember the sun coming in, the sunrise coming in the window listening to Pimba Butterfly holding my daughter having this really magical

experience. And then just like being obsessed with that album, understanding that that album was saying a lot, had a narrative, had these things that I couldn't quite piece together by casual listening. And so that kind of stuck with me, just the album itself being so dense and something that I wanted to put some time into. Also when you're a new father, new parent, there's a lot of downtime of just kind of sitting with your kid, you know, when they're an infant. And so I would put on podcasts, which were a relatively new thing at that time. The podcast serial had just came out, which was kind of the watershed moment. Back then, you would say, I'm listening to a podcast.

Half the people would not even know what a podcast was. But essentially, I had fell in love with podcasts through this podcast called Serial, which was a true crime podcast that kind of broke the ceiling for podcasts in general. Fell in love with just the idea of podcast, an auditory experience that was long form. So essentially, somewhere along the way, all these events kind of jelled into an idea, which was, what if I did what I used to do? in college with people like Beethoven, but with someone like Kendrick Lamar. What if I modeled it after the great courses that I fell in love with in college? And what if I published it as a podcast?

That was the idea. It was kind of just all these things coinciding to where that was just the aha moment, although in the moment you never know if it's an aha moment. This was just, you know, dissect was something I was doing essentially at night. I had a daytime job and I would come home, spend time with the family and then when they went to sleep i would uh work on writing the scripts and so that's the origin story in a nutshell what you hear on episode one season one of to pimple butterfly is the very thing very first thing i ever wrote for the show there was no lead up to it there was no brainstorming it was like this is what it is one song per episode serialized music analysis podcast and it was just go and i say that because one of the things i get asked a lot as a creative is i feel like there's

A lot of people that get stuck in the brainstorming phase, they have an idea they want to pursue, but there's some trepidation and actually getting your hands dirty and actually starting the work. And I've always been an advocate for just do the work. Just jump in, figure it out on the way. The most important part is just get started. Doesn't matter if it's good. You don't have to show to anyone. Just start doing the work.

If you can't get to that point, then you got to figure out what the blockage is. And usually it's insecurity and that's totally understandable. Don't let the pursuit of the idea get so large that it becomes this daunting task that you can never overcome in your head. Just get started as quickly as possible is like the only piece of advice that I'm going to give anyone probably on this episode. Because I've had that experience not only with podcasts but with other things in my life. And I see too many talented creatives get stuck in that limbo stage and you just got to go for it. This episode is presented by Sierra Nevada. Life's about embracing the haze.

What does that mean? in the moment, seeing where the night takes you, being up for the adventure. And there's no better way to embrace it than with Hazy Little Thing by Sierra Nevada. Hazy, citrusy, smooth. Juicy but not sweet, hoppy, but not bitter. America's best-selling Hazy IPA for good reason. Hazy little thing. Enjoy responsibly. Okay, so flash forward a little bit. The first two seasons of Dysect were independent. I was publishing them by myself, had no ad reads. I started a Patreon sometime during season two that ended up being pretty good. So season one was relatively successful. I mean, I didn't have a huge audience by any means because you know, you're kind of just a one fish in a huge pond

or huge ocean in terms of trying to compete with other podcasts and, you know, break through like anything else. I did get named Best New Podcast on Apple Podcasts and so they featured it on their homepage, which was a big deal at the time. That kind of gave me an initial audience. And then season two, Kanye West, my beautiful dark twisted fantasy was the right place, right time. Podcasts were becoming more popular. Kanye being at arguably his climax as a cultural influencer,

that album being so beloved and standing the test of time by, you know, when I get to it, 2007 or 2017, I've been out for seven years. It's kind of like proved itself as one of the greats. And so it was just kind of everything kind of coincided. The podcast really. took off with season two. I started to get featured in a bunch of places like complex and other

places and the audience kind of just grew. I started getting phone calls from essentially every podcast company you can imagine. Ended up going with Spotify. I was the, I believe I was the first acquisition that Spotify made into podcasting, which is kind of crazy. This is pre Joe Budden even getting acquired or like a partnership with Spotify for that brief period. So it's all very crazy. I got to quit my job and Dissect has been my full-time job. since season three and on, which is, again, pretty crazy. The thing I always say about dissect is that had I thought to start a successful podcast, it would not have been this premise. I still think to this day it is ridiculous that dissect a podcast that dissects one album over,

say, 15 episodes on average. One song per episode ends up being like 10, 15, sometimes 20 hours of analysis on a single album. I mean, it's just, it's like a ridiculous. premise. If you're pitching that in a room, you would get rejected pretty, I think, pretty quickly if you're just doing like a formal pitch to a boardroom. And I'm really proud of that fact. I am really the thing that I think I will always hold dear about this show and its legacy, no matter what happens in the future, is that a podcast like this at this moment in time when we are asked, when thousands of things are competing for our attention, it's hard to keep up with listening to music, no less like analyzing music. And I'm really proud of the fact that a show

with this premise found an audience. There are people as passionate and geeky about music as me to sustain an audience that has, you know, lasted 10 years. And I think a lot of that has to do with just me trying to be as honest and enthusiastic and positive about music as possible because that's the way that I view music genuinely. I love to celebrate music. I don't really like critiquing music. There's enough great music to talk about I don't need, I don't feel the need to really ever critique anything that I don't care for because there's just so much great stuff that I could be talking about instead. And I love, I'm really proud of the fact that it's a show that talks about music. And there's a couple of questions I'll answer later about the state of music

to, or music kind of media today. And one of the reasons why, I guess in retrospect that I started the show was that in even like music reviews, sometimes journalistic pieces, I was just always so shocked about how little the people actually talked about the music itself, like the music, not the things around the music, not the person that made the music, the lyrics, the chords, the instrumentation. Even if you're not a music theory person, you could still talk about the actual music. And I just, you know, it's such a drought in music media. And I just always found that so ironic, especially coming from college where like,

you're not really allowed to talk about anything but the music. And so I found that to be a pretty gaping hole in music media. and criticism. That's, you know, another thing I guess in terms of like retrospective legacy about the show I'm really proud about. I'm really passionate about the idea that great art, be it music or film or whatever else, can change your life, is an education. But the thing is you have to give it your time. You know, I always say great art gives you what you give it. And what I mean by that is that these pieces of art are resources and they will keep giving as long as you keep giving it to it.

And by that, I mean, listen or watch if it's a film or whatever it is. Follow the rabbit holes, you know, do the research. Let it take you on the journey that I think is inherent in these great works. Timba Butterfly is the one example that I always use. And when I talk about an education, I mean, I learned so much about cultures that were not my own, upbringing that were not my own through the artwork, just by people being honest about their individual stories and then under how their individual stories reflect a larger story or theme or historical phenomenon.

You know, these things have so much to offer, but we have to give it our attention. And, you know, a slogan that I used to do in the early days of dissect was great art deserves more than a swipe. Because at that time, it's still something I compete with all the time. But it was like, that was really when social media was popping off for the first time. And I found just myself scrolling and scrolling and just ingesting just like short little, you tweet or at that time picture on Instagram. And it was like you would just consume a million things over the course of an hour where I'm like, well, isn't that time better spent, that one hour better spent with one thing

and really getting into the weeds of that one thing and allowing it to like actually develop a relationship with the thing in a meaningful way that can really educate you or at least having a more, you know, emotional experience or connection with it, let it teach you something about feeling or emotion or change or whatever the case may be. great art is such a resource, but we have to give it our attention. And I think Dysect hopefully stands for that kind of philosophy. So I guess that's kind of my spiel about Dysect how it started and some of my thoughts about its kind of legacy at this point.

The other thing I want to just do quickly off the top is just thank everyone for listening. If you're listening to this episode especially, I know you're kind of a super fan and not just here to dip in it out of your favorite artist or album, which is totally fine. But if you're listening to this, I understand you're like, you know, a hardcore fan or whatever. And so, you know, just sincere thank you. Obviously, I couldn't be doing this for as long as I have without people tuning in. So I genuinely appreciate all the support. And I genuinely appreciate it.

I mean, I got a ton of questions for this mailback more than I was thinking. And obviously, I can't get to them all. And the thing that I'm going to say at the top is that if I don't get to your question, respond to the email that you originally sent me. I'll answer your question via email. I promise I'll get to everyone that responds that I don't get to here today because I want to honor your time that you took to answer the question. So how I went about the Q&A here is that I separated the questions into the broad categories. I think I have five or six broad categories because they all kind of fell under a certain theme. I also looked for questions that I got a lot of overlapping questions that people were all curious about one specific thing

and kind of group those together. And so how I plan to address these questions is I'm going to kind of move through the different categories and kind of circle back around to them so that, you know, if you're not interested in a particular category, I won't be stuck on it for too long and kind of just keep things dynamic and moving. I'm going to try to thread the needle about, you know, I don't want to just try to get to as many questions that I can and give you kind of half-assed responses that aren't really meaningful, but I also do want to, you know, answer as many as I can. So I'm going to try to thread that needle a little bit here. Again, this is kind of my first time doing it. I've definitely solo.

So try and try my best here. Okay, so let's start with the category I called, what did I call it? Hypotheticals, Favorites, or Ranking. So essentially these are kind of more fun questions about, you know, for instance, Robbie W. He asked, or he noted that my top three albums I had said before were Kid A to Pimp a Butterfly and Yeezus. And that recently, Blonde overtook Yeezus and my top three.

albums of all time. He asked, has this changed? I thought about it. There is one contender that I think maybe, maybe has a chance to sneak into my top three. Kid A, I think, will always be there to Pimp a butterfly because it's so attached to the story I told you about my daughter, it kind of spawning, even the idea of dissect, which then just changed my life dramatically, and the way in which that album changed my life in terms of like social and cultural understanding. Like I don't think it's ever getting out of my top three. Blonde. I mean, I've got, I mean, I'm actually recording this on the 10 year anniversary of blonde too,

which is, I mean, talking about getting old, Jesus Christ. But if there is an album that that is challenging the top three, I guess there's two. Number one, Discovery by Daft Punk. As you guys know, I fell in love with this album over this past year, especially after dissecting it, but it was also partly Charles gets credit for this from Last Song Standing, who's the one that entered it into our previous season of Last Song Standing. And ever since I returned to that album, I was just like so amazed. I geeked out so hard on it. And it's just definitely in my top five, I guess, easily top 10. But that's one. And then Rosalia Lux, or

Luke's, I think it's really technically called Luke's. That album came out last year. If you listen to my episodes on it or or any of the recaps that I did for the best, best music of the year. You know how much I love that album. I recently saw her live in the the Lux tour, which was literally the best tour I've ever seen in person, which I'll talk a little bit more about later. And Lux, I think has a, I honestly think it has a chance to get into my top three, which is, you know, saying a lot. So if you haven't listened to that album or gave it a second chance or really tried to live with it, I know it's like classically inspired, I know it's like an album that feels like it was made specifically for my tastes,

which are lush strings and all these things that I love and themes and movements and everything. Man, it's a masterpiece, a true masterpiece. So return to Lux if you haven't in a while, given another chance. And actually, a related question I'll just knock out here. Mel asked, when, not if, is the Lux season coming? And then a bunch of question marks, exclamation marks. I say, I'll say if the show pursues long enough, Lux is something I am. definitely going to do. Just got to figure out the right timing, but that is like, that is the one

I want to do the most, to be honest. I've just got to wait for the right time. And oh, yeah, and Ryan W. asked me, what is your favorite concept album of the 2020 so far? It's Lux. That's, that's overriding Mr. Morrell. Mr. Morale would be my second pick. This is the 2020s. So anything in the last six years, I think those would be my two easy choices. All right, so we're staying in the same category. Jordan W. asked, what is the single, best year for music. Obviously, that's a big question. I didn't have time to like do a full historical thing. So I limited myself to the 21st century. So anything 2000 and on, what is the single best year for music in the 21st century? I think there's three contenders

with one pretty obvious winner. I might be biased. Who knows? I'm going to start from three and go to one. The third best year in music in the 21st century, I think is the year 2000, which I know technically belongs in the 20th century, but everyone thinks of 2000 as, I think, 21st century. So I'm counting it. 2000 had Radiohead Kid A, outcast stankonia, DiAngelo, Voodoo, M&M, the Marshall Mathers L.P. Ghostface Killer Supreme Clientel comes out that same year. That top three alone, Voodoo, Stankonia, Kid A, I think, and Marshall Mathers LP, top

four alone. Such a strong year. You got other things like water for chocolate from common. Figure 8 by Elliot Smith, White Pony by Deaf Tones. So a ton of great music came out that year. Number two, slot is 2001, the following year. We had Jay-Z's The Blueprint. We had Daft Punk's Discovery.

We had The Strokes Is This It? We have the white stripes, white blood cells. Bjork Vespartine, one of my favorite albums of all time. If you're not familiar with that album, Bjork Vespartine is a masterpiece. Check that album out if you have not listened to it. You got the Toul, Ladaris. or ladder. How do you say that? I don't know. You guys know what I'm talking about. You've also got

Radiohead Amnesiac. You've got what else? Gorillas. You have a ton of stuff. Those are I think the headlines system of the down, toxicity. Oh, Missy Elliott. Missy so addictive. Also, Alicia Keys debut. So historic year, but I don't think it could top 2016. 2016 is a special year. I wish to I wish to Pimp a brother if I was in here, but that was a year before. But 2016 has Beyonce's Lemonade. It has Frank Ocean's Blonde. David Bowie's Black Star, one of my favorite albums of all time. Another one, if you haven't heard that album, it's a masterpiece recorded right before

his death. Phenomenalph. We got Salange, a seat at the table, one of my favorite albums. We got a tribe called Quest. We got it from here. Thank you. Rihanna's Antai. Kanye West, Life of Pablo.

Chance the rapper. coloring book, Danny Brown, Atrocity Exhibition, Boni Vair, my favorite Boni Vair album, 22, a million. Really, the list kind of goes on and on. We even get a Kendrick Lamar, untitled on Master there. Awaken My Love by Childish Gambino. I mean, a Mitzki album.

I mean, there's, oh, and Radiohead, a moon-shaped pool. Jesus. I mean, this is, I think, the obvious choice, 2016, in the 21st century, at least. Phenomenal year. All right, moving on. Let's go to the next category. This is what I called, I guess, more socially-minded question.

I didn't spend any time on these titles. These are terrible. But more like what's going on socially and how music kind of interacts with, the cultural moment going on. I got a few handful of questions about AI, AI and music. It's a proper question for this time. I mean, not to be bland, like, it sucks. I mean, for the most part, it kind of sucks when we're talking specifically about the creative field, which is already having a hard enough time in the digital era,

harder than ever for musicians to make a living doing music. I mean, it's always been hard, of course, but the financial aspect has gotten worse. And then here comes this bigger threat almost in AI. And not so much from the creatives. I mean, I'm not too worried because creatives are just going to be creative, no matter what it is. Even if it is,

I'll talk about some of the non-issue AI tools that I think could be useful going forward. And I think in the right hands, creative people will find creative uses for a new tool. But in general, it's just, yeah, it's a huge threat. I think the concern and fear around it is, is really valid in terms of like, again, I'm not, I'm not concerned about the creatives. I'm concerned about the people that use music essentially don't care about the music. They just need music for XYZ. So, you know, sinks, like commercials, movie scores or anything like that where, you know, that's a, that's like a really valid place for income for a lot of artists

is these kind of residual sinks that they get when their music is licensed to be used by something and that could be just totally replaced by AI because usually that's you know there's budget concerns around stuff like that music is always thought of as this secondary element that

just kind of needs to be there but you know the quality doesn't really matter and so I see like I just see it in that way it taking a lot of opportunities away I think bad actors who end up learning how to use the AI to make music 100% or even like in the majority and people accept it and it's not labeled correctly like that could be taking away listens from valid artists. So I get

all the concerns. I mean, I'm not telling you guys anything new here. If I'm trying to be somewhat positive about some aspects of AI specifically when it comes to music creation, I do think it will be able to generate new plug-in type tools like for your digital workstations that could make sounds that we can't even really like imagine yet. I get almost excited in the same way, like when the synthesizer was introduced or something where it's like you couldn't imagine what the synthesizer sounded like until you heard it. And I'm hoping AI was a, just as a blanket new technology will be able to produce something brand new that we can't think about or think of.

I don't even know how that even works. I don't even know if this is a valid point, but that's kind of the optimist in me. like, okay, well, which each, like, technology revolution, whether it was recorded music, digital music being made on laptops and, like, you know, there's pluses and minuses that come with all this stuff. But, you know, we wouldn't have hip hop without certain technology. So there's a part of me that's like, well, let's, let's see, maybe, maybe there's something there. And then there's also, like tools like, uh, the one that Charlie Puth, um, backs, which is, um, Moises. this is by no means like a sponsored thing or anything. But this is more like a creative work

studio for someone not necessarily like publishing what they make with AI, but it's like, you know, stem separation where you want to hear the individual tracks of a song or if you want to practice or like jam along to a certain genre of music instead of just going on YouTube and finding some instrumental that someone just uploaded maybe probably illegally. You can just make your own. You know, it'll generate like a blue song. I want to jam to a blue song in a minor. and it'll generate something like that and you can customize it. Like those things to me, and specifically with Moises, they didn't train their AI generation on copyrighted music.

Everything that they've trained their models on has been licensed and paid for, which I think is a huge difference. Obviously, a big part of Suno and all these other companies is that they're just scraping YouTube and all these free available sources, but copyrighted material and training. There's stuff on it, which is obviously should be illegal. So that's my thoughts in a nutshell. I don't know. I mean, it's a big question, obviously.

Hopefully I did that justice. But yeah, basically overwhelmingly bad for creatives. All right. So let's go to a new category. This is what I'm calling Film Corner. I surprisingly and welcomely, welcomeingly got a couple questions or a handful of questions about my love of film.

So I love film. I was almost a film major in college, actually, before I just decided to do music. The thing about having kids, I think as you get less and less time, one of the things I've had to sacrifice after that is I don't have a lot of time to watch movies. You know, I love going to the theater. I love watching movies at home. And I think when I look at myself, when I get older and retired, like I'm going to be watching a ton of movies. I love it. I love the art form.

And so excited by these questions. So Jason C. asked if I were doing a last song standing for P.T. Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, the director. most recently did one battle after another. You might know him from There Will Be Blood. Boogie Knights are I think probably his most popular films. He said, what three films would you take into the finale, which I think is just asking essentially what are my three favorite Paul Thomas Anderson films,

which he's probably my favorite working director today. Surprise, surprise, being a wannabe intellectual white guy in his 40s, checking that cliche box, but I think his movies are incredible. number one would be there will be blood number two would be one battle after another and the third spot is definitely tough um i have three written down boogie nights and phantom thread probably the most realistic ones that would be competing for that spot i love phantom thread the music especially is so beautiful in that movie scored by johnny greenwood but boogie nights is such a classic um and has that kind of young p t andersen flash that i really

like. And then Magnolia, I know that's kind of maybe a more controversial pick. The movie is kind of a mess, but in the best way, it's like three hours long and some, there's plot holes. But I mean, that was a movie that really got me into movies, was that movie. I just had never seen anything like it from the pacing to the cuts and everything about it. That was my favorite move for a long time until I kind of matured out of that take. But those would probably be my top three. I'd probably go with boogie nights just because of the kind of cultural and historical. legacy of that film being so large, but those are my favorites. If you haven't checked out P.T.

Anderson's work, what do you do? And start with Darylough Blood or one battle after another, both of them, masterpieces. All right, let's stay with film for a second because Jatin K. asked what my top five favorite films of all time are. I'm going number one, eyes wide shut. That has been my favorite movie for a long time. I think it has incredible depth. It's a very powerful story about love and marriage and what it means to be your truest self with the one person that you should be able to be your truest self with, which is your life partner, and the ways in which even in a relationship like that, we are still wearing a mask. And to me, I've always wanted to do a parallel analysis of Mr. Morrell and Eyes Wide Shut

because I see so many of the same themes. Eyes White Shuck gets a kind of bad reputation or infamous reputation because of the orgy scene and the secret society stuff. But it's much more than that. If you haven't watched that movie at all or in a long time, watch it and really just pay attention to the love story, I guess, or the, what is trying to say about, like, being your truest self. Because it's so powerful. Number two would be Lady Bird. This is directed by Greta Gerwig. Came out.

I can't remember now. Maybe eight years ago. Maybe longer. But it's a classic movie. I think it's an instant classic. It's critically acclaimed and all that. And Greta Gerwig has now become a top tier film director. But it's also a love letter to Sacramento, Lady Bird.

Greta Gerwig was in the same high school class as my wife. They went to the same Catholic school together and they were, you know, tangential friends. And Lady Bird takes place in Sacramento. It's about Sacramento. And I live in, so I should say, I live in Sacramento. I've grown up in Sacramento. So the way she is able, what it means to live and be from Sacramento in that film is just like such a special.

To have a movie that represents your hometown in the way that it does in this critically acclaimed film is so special to me. That is one of the things I cannot wait to show my daughters when they're of age is to show them Lady Bird because it's just so special. So I got that number two. I got There Will Be Blood. Number three. I have Mujall and Drive, Dailvin Lynch. at number four and no country for old men at number five. Corming McCarthy book adapted by the Cohen brothers.

I don't know. This could be like a basic list. Like I said, I'm not a cinephile. I wish I was. I wish I had time to go back to some of the classics like more than I do. So I don't have like the most diverse. This might be like basic bitch picks for for some of you centipiles that it might be

listening. But those are my five for now. Let's move on. So okay, I got a really good question about aging. And this was a voice memo. I'm not going to be able to play like a ton of voice memos, I think it's just going to go quicker if I kind of just read the questions or summarize

them myself. But this one I did want to play because I thought it was a really great question. So let's hear it now. My question is, how have you coped with and thought about changing as you grow older? One thing that's always struck me about you is that you're simultaneously able to reflect your age and your wisdom whilst also feeling current, feeling engaged with contemporaneous, pop culture, but not in a way that feels forced or as if you're trying to act younger than you are. And so I'm always curious about the thought of how do you stay who you are as you age? Is it similar to the themes of Tylos Gromocopia? What parts do you keep? What parts have you changed? And how have you sort of approach that thought process as you've gotten older?

I've recently turned 25 and something that's been on my mind. So I appreciate an answer. Hope you're taking care. All right. So thank you for that question. And I only bring it, I wanted to share it with everyone because I think I'm pretty much older than most of my audience at this point. One of the things about having a podcast for 10 years, you kind of age, your audience age, average age stays the same unless you've been listening as long as I've been making it. But then you grow older, which is kind of weird. And so I didn't want to just generally share my thoughts about aging because I think as I've

gotten older, I've learned one, I would say for me, at least valuable lesson about aging and I want to plant it in your mind, especially if you're like in your 20s or something, even younger. For all my life, I have always imagined the ages ahead of me, I've always put expectations on the ages ahead of me. So when I was 20, I was like, oh, 30. When you get to 30, you're so old. Like you're washed. You're, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when I got to 30, I was looking around like, saying so bad. Actually, I'm like the smartest I've ever been. I feel like I finally found who I am. I've had enough life experience where I have a little bit of wisdom that you kind of make better choices of my life. Hopefully if you're in your 30s,

you know, somewhat have a decent job at that point, although there's always a ton of time after that. Anyway, so like I got to 30. I'm like, this ain't so bad, but 40, man. Oh, 40. That's old. Oh, man. You're so washed when you're 40. And then I get to 40 and I'm like, huh, it ain't so bad. Actually, I'm way smarter than I was at 30. I'm way more accomplished. I've built my life, you know, and X, Y, Z, like, establish this and this. And I feel young. I feel like I don't feel old. And I guess that's like what I'm trying to get at is like, don't put yourself in a position where you're fearing these hypothetical things about aging. Like, I'm in my young 40s now, and I feel like I am the most authentic version of who I am ever. I'm the most comfortable with who I

am ever and as much as like there are aspects of youth that I do miss what you get in return you know there's responsibility and everything that comes with that comes with it but like what you're able to access with your mind for me at least like my kind of overarching like life philosophy kind of like settling into that more and like just really understanding who I am and like not having much as an ego being able to like take criticism or like just not even really concern myself with what people think of me of me really like that's a huge burden that I think a lot of people like when they get older realize or kind of shed is like the greatest thing about understanding that no one really cares about you is that no one really cares about you and like there's a freedom in that

as depressing as that might sound like there's only a handful of people in your life to actually care about you and once you understand that like it's liberating because you can just be who you are and there's just like, yeah, you're not, you're not like chasing other people's goals or expectations for you. So hopefully I answered the question. I think he was also talking about like, how do I stay kind of young while becoming older? And that's another thing maybe I'll just quickly share here is like as I've gotten older, I would definitely say I'm like in a rare case in terms of my job in some respects keeps me quote unquote kind of young. I'm listening to music that most people in their 20s and 30s are listening to, but mostly like 20s.

So I think part of what I do keeps me quote unquote young in that way. But it's also like, dude, growing up and seeing other people around me, growing older and just kind of like giving up is so sad. I mean, just to be frank about it. And I've been paranoid about doing exactly that, getting lazy or complacent about, especially like the things that I love like music obviously film obviously those kind of like just like what I've been passionate about my whole life you know you see people that used to have hobbies and they just kind of drop away or they used to have ambitions they kind of just fall away and like you really got to

make a even like the way people dress which again like maybe not you don't care about dressing a certain way and that's fine and that's just not your thing but like there's a part of like just kind of giving up I think is reflected in the some some way some people dress. or even just like how they take care of their bodies. And so I don't know, I've made a conscious effort to like push against that. And like, like, why would I ever stop like loving music? I mean, I'm going to love music till the day I die. I'm going to be going to concerts, you know, maybe sitting like, I mean, I like to sit now.

When I can, I like to get a seat. But I mean, I'm going to like, I remember going to like the Dochi concert and seeing a couple in their like, at least in their 50s, if not in their 60s. Like they were like, they were, you know, on the older side. but they're like standing up on the balcony with me just like having a great time watching dochi this is before doji blew up so they're like tapped in still going to concerts that like that venue was like 80 people max and so i don't know i saw something like that i'm like that's going to be me i'm going to make it a point i'm going to be that guy i don't care if i look old like i'm you know i love this thing i'm never going to stop loving this thing and so whatever that is for you you got to hold on to it you know

as you age so that hopefully that answered the question and gave you a so Some, again, I don't like giving advice, but that's my experience, my observations about my experience that hopefully is useful for you. Okay, let's go to the next category. I got a lot of questions about like how I listen to music. So that could be like either on physical media, headphones, et cetera, et cetera. I'll say one thing about this is that I don't listen to music the way that I would probably ideally like to as much as I would like to. which means I'm very busy. I have kids. I have this job that I have to listen to a specific artist for, you know, most of the time. And then I'm trying to sneak in new releases and everything else on the side. So mostly I'm listening to music either in my car, which is actually my preferred preferably at night, but in my car driving at night preferably is actually one of the best ways for me personally to experience music. When a new major album comes out, like a Kendrick or whoever, I go for a night drive in the car. put it on when I hit the freeway or whatever and just listen. I love that's my ideal experience.

Or I've been trying to take more walks this past year. So I do a lot of my listening with headphones on while walking. So I guess I like to move as I'm listening to music. I rarely get the chance to just sit down and listen unless I'm studying it for dissect. If I'm analyzing it, I do a lot of that. I'm just at my laptop listening to the music and then whatever doing my thoughts on it. And I'm not really like an audio file, surprisingly, you know. I've never been that much about like music technology. Even when I was making music, I was never like the technical, like knew all the plug-ins and I knew like all the technical aspects of the, you know, making music.

I was always about core progressions, like the creative part of it and not really like the fine-tuning part of it. And that's kind of how I am. As long as the sound system's decent, you know, I'm not like super concerned. about having like the best speakers ever. So next question, I got a lot of the same kind of question and the same general theme. And so essentially, you know, Angel, Colin E, Gavin, Joaquin, they all asked somewhat similar question, which is my research process and my philosophy on interpretation, specifically when it comes to

knowing when things are a stretch versus the intention behind the artist's music and trying to stay true to the intention versus my interpretation. I'll answer the first part about research first. So every season of Dysect, I do like a broad general research like week or two basically, just trying to like watch every interview about the album or the artist that I'm doing, digging into whatever I can find about the album or the artist. And I kind of just have a document that I'm keeping track of all the cool facts that I find or stuff that I feel like. like it will be useful or direct quotes. It's something that I try to prioritize the most is what did the artist say specifically about this song or album is the thing that I've kind of like gold highlighting in my document. These are like top these are the most important things.

What did the artists actually say? Because beyond that, it is just interpretation. It can be well researched, well considered interpretation. But at the end of the day is just me and my experiences and my research putting the puzzle pieces together, right? And so I try to have justifiable interpretations where I have evidence that at least if it doesn't point to the actual meaning, like true meaning and tension that the artist said themselves, I at least can make a valid case for it. And that even goes with something like, you know, let's say the Kendrick Nostalgia number scheme breakdown. That's probably my most famous breakdown, at least on the internet.

you know, did Kendrick actually write all those numbers to add up to that whole crazy equation, right? It's like, well, without asking him directly, I don't know. I don't know for sure. But is there a historical evidence of Kendrick being the type of guy that does that type of thing throughout his entire career? Yes. Is he one of the smartest working artists that we have today? Yes. Has he shown that he likes to do Easter egg symbolic stuff. Yes. And so it's like, okay, all that being quote unquote evidence for this one interpretation, maybe it's still is coincidence that all those numbers added up to this crazy thing. And I'm using that example that could stand in for a bunch of things, right? Any interpretation or any like Easter egg or whatever. It's like no, it's not fact,

but it's hopefully well researched, well considered. And, with enough evidence backing it that I can make that claim with some not certainty, but with some kind of justification behind it. But again, at the end of the day, I'm just one guy analyzing music. And I could be wrong about a lot of stuff. But also, a lot of artists like the fact that their art is being consumed and experienced and interpreted differently. Some artists actually encourage that.

And so, you know, I always try to think about that as well. And at the end of the day, you know, all these things, it's like, even though there's like cool grand reveals or Easter eggs that are discovered and it's like these mind-blowing moments, like I love those also. But it can't just be that. And what I try to do on dissect is like, yeah, what is, okay, that's cool. But how does it, how does it advance the theme or the story or whatever? How does that make it, how does it make the art even more meaningful? Because that's the thing that I feel like is missing from other analysis sometimes that I've see that, that do a similar thing to dissect where it's like,

They're really concerned with uncovering the conspiracy theory and less concerned about what it means or how it contributes to the art. That's where I always try to push back to the art, back to the music, back to the story. And so it can't just be hollow Easter eggs. Like, those are fun and everything, but I couldn't do just that. You know, always has to tie back into deepening your relationship with the art is always my number one goal with the show. Everything points towards that same goal. Angel asked, has researching an album ever made you appreciate it less or does it always make it better? I would say it always makes it better, always makes it better.

Every season of dissect, I'm so surprised how deep and personal my relationship becomes to that album and artist by doing the research. If I don't think an album has enough dissectable stuff, then I just don't research it. And it still can be great. It just doesn't make a good, you know, my show specifically has a format that not every, I would say probably most albums can't really undergo the kind of scrutiny that I put it to to make, or I mean, I guess it could, but like does it make it the most interesting show? No. So I have to, I, you know, kind of pigeon my whole of myself into like really having to choose

from like the lemonade's of the world or the dependable butterflies of the world. But most, most albums aren't that. But I think if it's something. that you love more often than not, spending more time with it, be it listening, research, or whatever, like, you're always going to, it's always, it goes back to the premise. Great art gives you what you give it. If it's truly great, it's going to sustain it. It's going to sustain your scrutiny.

It's going to only deepen your relationship the more time you spend with it. And then a similar question from Joel S. Asked if breaking down music for so long has changed the way that I experienced music. can I turn my analytical part of my brain off and just kind of experience music, almost like viscerally? And answer to that question is yes. I've made a very conscious effort to do that. When I first listen to an album, even if it's a Kendrick album or whatever, I'm not trying

to solve the puzzle first. I'm always want to honor the visceral experience of music first because that is still, that's, you know, analysis is secondary to feeling. and I always want to honor that part of the music. And then the analysis comes later. But yeah, I could still do that. And I think live concerts is like actually where I really feel that the most now. Just being around people, hearing the music performed live in real life from real human beings.

I think that's going to be so valuable as we're talking about things like AI becoming more prominent. The live music experience is so special. increasingly so as I get older. Okay, so next category we can jump to, this has to do with like dissect history or people asking about past seasons of the show. So Connor G. asked, what was your favorite dissect Eureka moment?

Like when you found something that you hadn't caught before that recontextualized the music. So I've had a number of these, almost every season I have these, some more than others, but the first one I always think about because it was somewhat early when I was doing dissect was the Igor loop. So I think Igor dropped, what season would I would have been on?

I can't remember what season I was on when it dropped in 2019. I guess that would have been like season five or something. So somewhat early on in the show, pretty shortly after Igor came out, I figured out that the last synth note connects not only tonally to the beginning of the album, but also works harmonically. So it's like a proper resolution from the end of the album to the beginning of the album. And that, you know, again, to my earlier point, It wasn't just a cool Easter egg or like, oh, it connects.

No, the connection was what you run from, you end up chasing. The main premise of the album was that Tyler had feelings for this person, tried to be just friends, resolved it to, yeah, let's just be friends. But then that also starts to loop over. Can that person be in your life without it, without you feeling something more? So it's this ongoing loop. And then you have a musical device that is reflecting that cycle that he's going. caught in. So that one is so cool to me. And then when I proposed that theory on Twitter, when I found it, Tyler liked the tweet. So that was also a cool moment of like, I think that was

like the first time. An artist in my mind directly, you know, confirmed something that I analyze like that. So that one sticks out. I'll say in a similar case, the swimming in circles connection. Again, another actually ironically, another loop, how the album circles does the same thing. Open and in chord at the bit at the end that connects to the the opening chord of the starting starting song so another harmonic loop about in an album called circles you know uh kind of cool a more recent one daft punk season harder better faster stronger if you listen to that episode the way in which that song evolves to um reflect the way technology has evolved over time blew my fucking mind so cool go listen to that episode it's one of my favorite episodes i've ever done

harder, better, faster, stronger. Another thing from that season was face to face, the samples saying we are face to face now. And then the fact that one of the, if not the greatest live performance in history, the Coachella Daft Punk Pyramid show, also was a narrative, blew my mind. How do you do both? How do you make a historic set with a historic visual and also tell a story of technology to humanity or robots to humanity over an hour long set. Totally incredible.

If you haven't listened to a live 2007 episode, it is another one of my favorite discoveries of all time on dissect. Knight's Beat Switch, of course. I learned about that on the internet. I didn't come up with how the beat switch in Knights splits the album perfectly in half. I want to say I was one of the first, or at least my season on Blonde,

contributed a lot to how that division, perfect division in half was reflected of the central theme of the album, which was duality. And so again, you have a musical Easter egg or device that is symbolically relevant to the actual theme of the story and advances that theme. That's the shit I love, not just the Easter egg, but it contributes to the theme. And then the nostalgia number scheme thing was a cool moment too. when I that was like a first viral video I ever had on social media and I remember like even like LeBron James shared it on Twitter which like I'm a huge LeBron James fan so that was a cool moment. That's another one that calls to mine. All right. So Aligen asked hopefully I'm saying that name right, but they asked if you could go back and redisect any album or season, which one would it be? This one is so easy for me. It's to Pima Butterfly. As much as that season is special to me, it's the first one, all that. I didn't know what I was doing. Like I said, like the first thing that you hear in episode one is the very first thing I ever wrote. And so like I was just figuring out even my own process in real time.

So if you go back to look, I don't listen to past episodes once they're published. But if you just even look at like the track, the running time of some of those episodes, it's like some of the episodes were like 15 minutes long on like a song like for free. I think Kinkunta recently pulled up was like, I don't know, 20 minutes. I'm just like, okay, I missed so much. I just didn't have my process. I didn't even know, like, the level that Kendrick was working on, even doing an entire season.

Like, there's just so much that I missed in that season that I would, actually, I would love to just redo the whole thing. I don't know if that people would listen to it, but like, personally, I just, I want to do it because I know I could do it so much better now. Someone else asked, Evo asked, if I'd ever do a dissect season on Good KidMed City. So I've done a lot of Kendrick, but yes, good Kidmat City, I really want to do. only because like I've done every other album aside from GNX, but I also see GNX as its own new Kendrick kind of whatever's going to happen after this.

But Good Kid Mad City to Mr. Morale is a story. And part of me just like feels incomplete that I haven't done a full season on Good Kid Mad City. So I love to get to it. It's just a timing thing because I just did Mr. Morale last year. All right. Let's jump to future season questions. I got a lot of like, will you ever do this artist? I got a lot of.

Will you ever do more rock like Radiohead? Will you ever do other genres? Will you ever go back in time? You know, do an older album like the Beatles or something from the 80s or even 90s. And I'm going to answer all those questions, hopefully with a broader statement about the future of Dissect. And I've already kind of started doing this a little bit if you've noticed. But I think going forward, the show being as seasonal focused as it. has been traditionally is going to change.

Not to say I'm not going to stop doing full seasons, but I'm going to do more mini seasons. I'm going to do more individual episodes. I'm going to do more themed individual episodes where it's like maybe I do a month all on this same theme, like, you know, the best features of hip hop or the best featured,

featured artists of hip hop. And it's like every, every week I'm doing an episode on J-Cole. Then it's, you know, an episode on Andre 3, thousand dissecting his best features. You know, something like that, you know, like where I can mix up and cover more artists

and albums than what I traditionally do, which is one season per episode, which then I'm spending six months on one artist and one album. And then the downside with that, as much as I love it, is that if you don't like the artist or album, unless you're a diehard dissect fan, you're just kind of out. And I would like to cover more artists that can't necessarily hold up, you know, to a full season, like I said, like there's only a handful of artists who make music that can make a 12, 15 episode season entertaining. And so I would like to start mixing up the content types more so that I can cover more artists, more genres, more eras. And so that's kind of answering all those questions,

hopefully in one, because I do hope to be more diverse in my artist selection, in my eras and all of that. And I think switching up the format and being less reliant on full seasons, all the time will help me do that. So let me know your thoughts about that. All this stuff, you know, feel free to email me or leave a comment on the Spotify episode about any of this stuff. I always like to hear, here, especially about like content that you guys want to hear. So feel free to hit me up about that.

I got a lot of questions about Keynotes. So Keynotes was a music and talk show that I did, like, I don't know, five years ago maybe. But it was essentially Spotify was doing this thing where, they're combining podcasts with full songs. You could essentially make a podcast episode, but then enter like program full songs in the middle. So I did a show called Keynotes around that technology where I would pick a musical theme.

Say it's like a certain chord that I love. And then I like would dissect songs that use that same chord and then play those songs in full. Every episode I had a kind of theme to it. And then I would pick and choose different artists and songs that fell under that theme. And then you'd hear the full songs. after I analyzed it.

It was a really cool show. I actually, really was proud of it, but they got rid of that technology. So I literally can't make that show anymore. And the format was based on hearing full songs. But this is part of my broader content thing where I would like to do more themed keynote-like episodes on dissect.

Just do it on dissect and not call it keynotes because I, I mean, I essentially can't do that. So that's for those that were asking about keynotes. I do get questions about that show from time to time. And if you haven't listened to it, it's still on Spotify. I think it's a great show. It's only one season, like eight episodes, but I'm really proud of the work. All right, so let's take a quick break, and we'll come back with the rest of the questions. This episode is brought to you by Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing.

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are going to make my best album of the year list. So first is Larisi. He's a New Orleans young, 21-year-old rapper. He just released his debut album called Skiddle Bandana. It is fantastic. He is like, see, early Kanye mixed with, if you know, like classic No Limit Cash Money era, because he's from New Orleans. He kind of has that throwback vibe to him, mixed with like an Andre 3000. I know there's like big names to throw out, but he's going for it. He wants to be a huge

artist. His music is the messaging is very strong. Lyricism for 21 is very strong. He produces a lot of his own beats. Has that just kind of classic soul sample vibe to the production, but also mixing in

like, you know, modern flavor. So check out Larisi's Skiddle Bandana. And then the other one I would say is Deontae Hitchcock, who just released an album called Junkie and the Sun. And he's another Southern rapper, young Southern rapper. I would probably compare mostly to like classic outcast sound. Again, I know it's a big name, but that's kind of a lot of his music evokes, that kind of fusion of, you know, it's mostly hip-hop, but, you know, has some of that stankonia fusion mix to it. incredible lyricism, great messaging, Deonte Hitchcock, Junkie and the Sun,

Larisi, Skittal Bandana, add him to your Spotify or wherever. Check them out. They're both really exceptional. Let's go to Vincent M next. He asked about my five artists supergroup, basically any era, any genre, the five artists I'd put together in a band.

I'm going, you know, I didn't write an essay to get to this point, but just off the top, Here's the names that I came up with. John Bonham on drums, drummer of Led Zeppelin, head of his time drummer, just such like, almost like, I definitely wouldn't compare him to like J. Dilla, but has that same kind of like unique groove to his rhythms that I think would be really interesting in a modern day context. Just, yeah, ahead of his time drummer, love his style, always have. on bass I'm going I'm going to go Thundercat

for obvious reasons if you're not familiar with Thundercat one of the probably the best bass player alive in terms of someone active in making music that a lot of people listen to the other name that came up was jacobosorius which is one of my favorite jazz musicians ever but let's go Thundercat

on guitar slash everything else I'm going Johnny Greenwood of course most of you guys know my love for Radiohead and specifically Johnny Greenwood. I love his guitar playing style, and then he can do orchestration, weird sounds. Literally can do everything.

So I'm adding him to the group on keys and like chord progression, someone who's going to write harmony. I'm going Stevie Wonder. I don't think I need to back that up. And singer, this was interesting. So the obvious choice for me would be Tom York. That would be a great choice.

But you know what? I'm going, I'm going Rosalia. Rosalia, another artist that can do anything she wants. She could sing opera. She could rap. She could do in between. Like, she could do everything. So I'm going Rosalia as my front woman.

I think that would be an interesting group. Okay, next we have Juan C who asked me to make a short list of the best tours or live shows I've ever seen. I talked about this recently, I think on Last Long Standing, but number one, Lux tour. I don't think it's Riscency bias. I thought a lot about it as I was coming home from the Lux tour

just a month or two ago. Rosalia put on a phenomenal show and it's just like every song felt like a music video like the visuals were just so fantastic on top of the choreography she was pulling off doing literal like ballet moves while singing opera style songs.

It was like phenomenal and beautiful and the range she did was like incredible. So I'm going on Lux tour number one. Number two's got to be Yeezus tour, 2014-2013 era. Yeah, I mean, this was when concerts, I mean, concerts we take for granted, like the production of them now. And I remember Yeezus, you know, he was definitely inspired by Daft Punk pyramid show. But the Yeas tour with the mountain and the choreography with like the Jesus coming on stage and all the things that he was doing ahead of his time. I mean, I just remember being blown away by that show. I will also nod to the,

The Life of Pablo show, which I was at the Sacramento, the now very infamous Sacramento Pablo show tour where he played like two songs, one with like maybe three songs, one of which was with Kid Cuddy who he was beefing with and made up with on stage. And then he went on the like, I don't know, 30 minute rant about Jay Z and Beyonce and then left after three songs, dropped the mic. And then just I think a week or so later is when he was put.

into, I don't know if it was an institution or what, that's when a lot of, I don't know, it was a wild time and it was a historic musical event to be at. Definitely wouldn't put it on my top list, but I thought I should just nod to that. Mr. Moralt Tour obviously sticks out here too. And then I'll just shout out the James Blake show that I saw. It was my first show after the pandemic.

And he played at the Greek theater, which is my favorite venue, probably of all time. It's an outdoor theater, but it's like an underground bowl. I usually don't like outdoor theaters, but this one sounds spectacular. And just you can see San Francisco in the distance from it. As you're watching the concert, it's just beautiful and sounds great. And to be around people again and experience live music again with thousands of people after the pandemic, I was in tears.

Like literally, it was such an emotional, like, show for me. I think the episode, I think I did like a, like a off the cuff kind of experiential episode right after that. I think it's probably on the feed, on the dissect feed, sharing my experience. I just wrote a piece about the importance of being around people again. And I don't know, it was a very emotional experience. So that's definitely one that comes to mind too. Okay, Juan Chavez and Jerich, sorry if I'm saying that wrong, Jerich S, both asked about my dream interview.

Who's the top of my list, short list of the people I want to interview? I think everyone knows the number one is Kendrick Amar, obviously. I would love to sit down with Kendrick, although the chances of that are very slim. He doesn't do any interviews, and so the chances of me landing him for the one rare one he would do. Very slim, but, you know, holding out hope. The other one just as high almost is Tyler the Creator. And I know he at least has been active on the DysX Socialists recently since the last long standing we did on him. It seems like he's into the show, which I think makes sense because I talk about the actual music,

and he's always kind of saying that's what people should be doing more of. But anyways, I would love to sit down with him and have a career retrospective of starting with coming up an odd future and specifically kind of tracing his musical evolution and his production and his songwriting. I think it would be a great, great conversation that I don't think he's really had. So Tyler, come on dissect. It'll be great. but, okay, Desert Island song. A bunch of people asked about this,

including Ryan M. Roman. No offense, I don't like this question only because, or the idea of a Desert Island disc, basically like the one, the album or song you would take on a Desert Island if you had to listen to the same song or album over for your entire life. Because I don't think there's any album or song

I would want to listen to over and over. I think that, I just, it would ruin my relationship with that piece of music. But if I'm kind of just playing into the gimmick of it, I don't know. I mean, my go-to answer, I guess, is Kid A. That's my favorite album. To me, it's like, what's your favorite album question? And so I already covered that.

Okay, let's move on to Andrew. Okay, I'm going to combine a couple of questions. Andrew and Ryan Kay. Andrew asked about what my opinion was on the term glaze. and if glazing is a term that is thrown around too much. And Ryan Kay asked what your thoughts on modern music discourse is, particularly online, because he says it has taken a turn for the worst. So I see these like a hand in hand.

So glazing, I get often accused of glazing. I guess not so much anymore. But, you know, I dissect as a celebration of music. It's a celebration of artists. And so for whatever reason, there's a certain sect of people, and I don't know if it's just online trolls or whatever. But if you compliment or praise an artist or their art, it's like glazing, which is just like, what? Like, somehow if you love someone's music or song or album that you're bias and you're glazing them and you're a stand automatically and you can't be objective about the music, which is just, I think, like, ridiculous, obviously. I think if you love it, you love it.

Like, there's really, it doesn't go beyond that. but this ties into me to the modern music discourse thing, which I don't want to like blanket, um, you know, blanket too negatively. I mean, because there are some people doing really great work.

I think of like Justin Hunt and his cultural United series and all the stuff he's doing with his third verse podcast and, uh, really kind of being, uh, on top of like hip hop journalism. He is a legit journalism. Um,

for years and decades. And so what he's doing is great. I think of people like the Rap Latte show with Toray and King Green. I think of people like Professor Sky on YouTube, I'm blanking on others. But there are people doing really great work around music discourse. Unfortunately, the biggest ones, I think, and maybe it's because they have a certain style are big,

which is more of an umbrella state. about media in general is that they don't talk about the music. Music is tangential to essentially what amounts to gossip. And I think, I guess because negative headlines or whatever controversy gets more clicks, like these guys have kind of just algorithm fed into the algorithm of that and just, you know, really just hit on the negative stuff, which I just, you know, unfortunately, that's just like where all discourse seems to be. I mean, there's pockets of good things, but like the broad, there's a broad sense of just like, I don't know.

I just, it's, it's kind of discouraging to think too much about, to be honest. But, you know, it's another reason why I started dissect. It's another reason why I'm proud of the work that I've done on the show because it's a celebration of music and all we talk about is the music and that's it. All right, let's move on to a spiritual question or questions. There's a handful of people that asked about my spirituality, Kai, Lauren C., Andrew J., Abraham, all in their own way kind of asked about my spiritual practices or beliefs. I'll say this up front that what you've heard me talk about on dissect, a lot of the spiritual aspects, like if an artist, say like a Kendrick is talking about God, I usually try to take the artist's point of view because what I'm trying to do is interpret their work and what they're trying to say.

And so what you've heard me say on dissect around these things isn't always what I personally believe, if that makes sense. But there are times that I've talked about some spiritual stuff. And I think, you know, I find this spiritual in music and art. You know, that's why another, that's a reason why I talk so almost grandly about music sometimes. I think Kai specifically asked about how that influences my, my interest. interpretation because there are times on the show, as probably you guys know, that I do almost talk in a metaphysical type of way about music. And that definitely is my personal connection to music. I think I've always processed life, I guess, through art. And when it comes to spirituality, there's really no more spiritual experience to me than a piece of music that I really connect with. And when the circumstances are right, whether it's the time of your life, a specific moment, a specific environment that you're in, or whatever. Sometimes that stars align and you're listening to a song or an album and it just, it's a spiritual experience.

And I think that's, if I'm talking about divinity and things like that, that's, I mean, music has always been a catalyst to that. It is the thing that I personally feel gets the closest to the divine. As far as my own beliefs, I don't know. I'm, I guess the closest thing I could label myself is an agnostic. I don't necessarily. believe in a specific divine entity. I don't necessarily disbelieve one in one. I guess I'm open to the possibility. There are things about existence that are unexplainable. And I'm, I'm kind of okay with that. I guess I'm not really in a, I don't have a need to figure it out. I think the world and people and this existence is for the most part pretty beautiful.

there is, another thing I guess I really believe in is like true dichotomy, true duality, where life is full of suffering and is extremely beautiful at the same time. And I think I try to just stay right in the middle. And that kind of aligns with a lot of, you know, Eastern ideas, which I've always really resonated with, you know, Zen, Buddhism, Taoism, those kind of practices has always been something that I've been drawn to. I don't practice those regularly, but just in terms of ideas and, you know, letting you go of attachment and letting go specifically of ego is a big thing that I've really tried to work on on myself

because so much of our interpersonal problems with other people have to do with ego. And once you can kind of let that fall and disintegrate, life, at least in my experience, becomes just so much easier. But I don't know. Hopefully that answers the question. I just, yeah, I don't know. I'm not particularly spiritual, but I believe wholeheartedly in the beauty of existence.

So, you know, I'm open to, I'm open to everything, I guess, is the thing. I don't, I would feel uncomfortable talking about this with any kind of certainty. I guess that is why it makes me agnostic, because, I don't know. What the fuck do I know? I'm one person in a history of trillions of people to walk to Earth. And I don't think I'm the person that has it all figured out, especially when it comes to what happens after we're dead. I'll find out soon enough. Okay. All right, Alligin asks, which seasons are your favorite and were the most enjoyable that I've done? So Tipimba butterfly always holds a special place in my heart. It was the first season, you know, it's just, even though I, that's the one I'd want to go and do again, you know, it's the first one. It's very special to me. Same with Twisted Fantasy.

That's when the show really took off. That's really when I figured out what the show was. And so that's always a fond one. You know, recency bias maybe, but daf punk was incredibly rewarding. That was one of the funnest, definitely, mostly because I got to talk about production a lot, but then, you know, going through their career and being able to tell the whole story of their career and then really just kind of cherry pick my favorite moments of the discography to dissect. It was a really fun format for me and something I want to do more of is like career retrospective

seasons where I could just cherry pick the best songs or best albums and kind of dip in and out where I need to and kind of tell the story of the artist. Same reason for like Radiohead because I got to talk about music theory a lot in that one. The one, okay, the sneaky, I don't know. this might have been my most self-indulgent season, but the inside miniseries, Beau Burnham inside miniseries. I know it's weird because there's a podcast before video

and I was talking about essentially a musical film, but that one was so fun to me and so rewarding. And I still think inside the masterpiece, it captured what the pandemic was, but more than that it captured what it is to live in an isolated modern society, overwrought with digital technology and a lack of real human connection.

So if you haven't seen Inside, it's on Netflix. It's, I think it's a masterpiece. Don't let the first like 30 minutes fool you. It's super goofy. He's a comedian that writes songs. And it feels like it's just a goofy special. And then as things progress, it takes a huge turn. And it gets really meaningful and serious, I would say.

And then I would say the most rewarding season is definitely, was definitely Mr. Morale is also the hardest season. season, partly because we went to video, but mostly because that was an emotional marathon. By the time I got to Mother I Sober, which I think is one of the best songs ever written, I was just so mentally and physically exhausted that I hope I did that episode and that song Justice, but I just remember those last couple of episodes being really hard. But for good, for good reason, because it was just so much emotional work. every song was so heavy there was so much it was just so loaded and then but the thing about

that season was like yeah there was the Eckhart tolly piece and finding that work at the time that I did in my life was really really impactful um it really kind of refreshed um a mindset maybe kind of just reminded me of things uh about how to live and existence I don't know it was just the timing of it, I guess, was just like right place, right time in terms of like, it really hit me hard. The whole process, the music, writing the seasons, the research, everything hardest, but definitely the most rewarding. And definitely changed.

I'd say that also probably changed. If I had to point to one season that like literally changed my outlook on life, it's probably Mr. Morale, the Mr. Morale season. All right. I think I'm running out of gas. I've been talking for like over an hour at least. probably at this point. But hopefully this is interesting,

especially if you're listening to this point. Thank you very much. You know, I wanted to end just with another big thank you to everyone, especially again if you're listening to this episode. You know, I don't take doing this for a living even if it ends up ending tomorrow. I haven't taken this journey for granted.

I feel very privileged to do this as my job. I feel very privileged to have an audience that has supported me for so long. I just feel really lucky. And so if you're listening, thank you. Genuinely, thank you. Also, I'd like to thank some of the Dysect team, especially over the years. Shout out to Kevin Pooler, who's been my editor for, shoo, I don't know, three, four, five years. I don't know.

Something like that for a while. And he made the transition to video and learned a bunch of shit on the fly, works extremely hard, so thank you, Kevin. Thank you to Justin Sales at the Ringer, who's my manager and producer. You've heard him on Last Song Standing. Very supportive guy. Thank you to everyone that's worked on the show over the years. I'm thinking about Cam.

I'm thinking about Femi, thinking about TT from season five. I'm thinking about Eric Bass, who used to be my other editor before Kevin. So many people that have crossed paths with Dissect, I'm so incredibly grateful for everyone's contributions. and thank you everyone again for the questions. Again, if I didn't answer your question, please respond to the email, and I promise I'll get back to you via email. You know, I could only do this for so long. I didn't want to make this a three-hour podcast.

So no offense if I didn't get to your question. I was just kind of prioritizing ones that were, you know, related to each other. So immediate future for Dissect, we're going to go on a little bit of a break. This was going to be the last episode for, you know, a couple, like a month or two, as I'm preparing for the last quarter of content. But I did just book an interview with Rhapsody, which should be out a week from when this episode comes out. Her new album drops.

When you're listening to this, it'll already be out. It came out last Friday called God God, God, Afro and Gold Hoops. The single God Goda Afro is fantastic. I've been a Rhapsody fan for a long time, and it seems like this is going to be some of our best work. So I'm going to be sitting down with her and dissecting her new album. So you'll hear that a week from today.

hopefully if everything goes through and then after that i'll probably be gone for a little bit but we'll be coming back uh with some some content to close out the year so thank you again everyone uh i love you all peace