Friday Five: January 9, 2026
- kirstimackenzie
- 5 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Side A:
Side B:
Friday Fav:
Zach Bryan (s/t) - Here is a dirty little secret: Zach Bryan's self-titled album was my top album on Spotify Wrapped. For some reason I find this embarrassing (and I'm an EDM fan!) possibly to do with my attitude toward pop country as a whole and deeply conflicted feelings about my blue-collar hometown. But. His self-titled is a perfect, perfect album. And I find myself blaring Bryan's consistently great albums with the windows down in my car. A case study, perhaps, in getting over your judgments and expanding your horizons.
Jan 2, 2026
Friday Five exists as a little challenge to me: five new albums, five new stories per week. They're here for you to enjoy (or not!) No summaries or in-depth criticism. But here are a few notes:
Been bumping Elderbrook's "Talking" and "Woman" loudly and often—in the shower, in the car, under a barbell, before bed. Absolute new favs for me, because I love anything I can move my hips to.
Lyndsay Hall's "Pulse" had me in stitches during my bartending shift. It's a story about a haunted vibrator and I'm mad I didn't write it myself, which is the biggest compliment I can pay a piece.
I kind of wish Casey Jo's "Hurricane" piece had found at home at M7, but a longer wordcount would have prohibited that. Since you're here for music-inspired pieces, this one's as good as they come and I'm glad our friends at Farewell Transmission picked it up.
I listened to TV on the Radio's "Seeds" because I've been spending time with Aaron Burch's TACOMA and he drops the needle on a couple albums during the book. This is one of them.
Gary Barwin is a CanLit vet and I'm so happy I stumbled across "One Heart for Ten". What an inventive story, what flawless execution.
I'm finding the same thing for reading stories as listening to albums: not everything is gonna land. There is a vast majority of things that seem to be just "good" and not amazing, inspiring, stuff that makes you want to shout from rooftops and shove it into the hands of someone else. Special stuff. And that's okay, I think. It makes the discovery that much more exciting, that much more rare. It is making me dwell, again, about signatures in sound, in voice—that unknown, unquantifiable thing that sets an artist apart. I think, as a writer, I want to chase that. To be so relentlessly me on the page that it's unquestionable or unthinkable that piece could come from someone else.
Watching Everything Must Go, and reading Dante, still.
xo,
Kirsti