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kevinalexander.bsky.social
Kevin Alexander
@kevinalexander.bsky.social
940 followers 650 following 2.4K posts
Indie music reporter | Mixtape maker | Playlist dealer. | EIC of The Riff on Medium.com | I write the On Repeat Records newsletter.
#music #avgeek

Hot takes on cool records:

https://thekevinalexander.substack.com
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Kevin Alexander @kevinalexander.bsky.social · Nov 19
Hello new friends! 👋

As an intro, here is my newsletter On Repeat Records.

Looking for a place to share the music you love w/like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.

Please consider subscribing (free/paid). Give me 2 weeks; I'll give you a new favorite song.

thekevinalexander.substack.com
On Repeat Records | Kevin Alexander | Substack
A music newsletter & community for people tired of algorithms. Record reviews, interviews, and more. Click to read On Repeat Records, by Kevin Alexander, a Substack publication with thousands of subsc...
thekevinalexander.substack.com
kevinalexander.bsky.social
Ahead of Album of the Year season, 4 of us decided to look back at the best of the decade so far.

Did we get it right? Faceplant? Come laud our good taste or yell at us in the comments. Dealer’s choice!
#music

thekevinalexander.substack.com/p/top-albums...
The Best Albums of the 2020s (So Far): Our No-Homework Guide to the Decade’s Essential Records
Four writers. Forty albums that defined indie, soul, and every genre in between—ranked and ready for your queue.
thekevinalexander.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 11:09 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
Work photo

(📸 Jason Lano)
November 26, 2025 at 3:51 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
Enjoying the time honored Thanksgiving tradition of trying to rush through my Annual Recurrent Training before the end of the month.
November 26, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Kevin Alexander
miamidsa.org
Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷
November 26, 2025 at 1:04 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
November 25, 2025 at 7:47 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
I am, once again, in my Wire era:
Ahead by Wire on Apple Music
Song · 1987 · Duration 4:59
music.apple.com
November 25, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Kevin Alexander
kelly-knox.com
narrator: 50 years ago...

me: [nods] in 1945

narrator: in 1975...

me: what
November 25, 2025 at 2:11 AM
Reposted by Kevin Alexander
mrsbettybowers.bsky.social
Marjorie Taylor Greene's resigning in time to get a pension is a lesson to everyone.

Most Americans don't get *any* pension anymore, but Congress gave itself a pension after only five years of work.

Our "representatives" aren't working for us, they are [barely] working for themselves.
November 24, 2025 at 2:16 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
Wordle 1,620 2/6

⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Not a bad way to start the day!
November 25, 2025 at 9:17 AM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
you’ll be visited by three spirits”

the three spirits:
November 24, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Reposted by Kevin Alexander
kenwhite.bsky.social
There's no such thing as an emergency podcast
November 24, 2025 at 5:41 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
Mondays might suck, but yours doesn't have to!

New playlist is up ft. killer tracks from @thebeths.bsky.social #FOAMBOY @nationoflanguage.bsky.social and more! Come share your latest faves, and come away w/a couple of new ones.
#musuc #playlists
Discussion: What're You Listening To?
Good morning!
open.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 5:46 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
I’m in my Heaven 17 era:
Let Me Go by Heaven 17 on Apple Music
Song · 1982 · Duration 4:22
music.apple.com
November 24, 2025 at 2:20 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
You love to see it
victinibcn.bsky.social Luca Migo ❌👑 @victinibcn.bsky.social · 4d
In Monrovia, California, protesters are purchasing 17¢ ICE scrapers from Home Depot and immediately returning them to create long lines and slow down the entire store. Their aim is to disrupt sales and convey a message opposing ICE raids occurring in their neighborhood.
November 23, 2025 at 10:27 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
Write some words on making new traditions, New Radicals, and why it’s (sometimes) okay to show up to the function w/a bag of Fritos.

If you’re dreading T-day this year, this might give you some hope.
For The Record- 22. November. 2025
Some thoughts on family, breaking with tradition, and the New Radicals.
thekevinalexander.substack.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:52 AM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
#ScoDucks
November 23, 2025 at 12:24 AM
Reposted by Kevin Alexander
abstracttruth.bsky.social
Happy anniversary to the Max Headroom incident, the greatest example of signal hijacking.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Hea...
screen grab from video of the incident. Dude dressed up like Max Headroom wearing sunglass is laughing.
November 22, 2025 at 1:17 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
DJ Muggs was ahead of his time
November 22, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Reposted by Kevin Alexander
briantylercohen.bsky.social
BREAKING: Marjorie Taylor Greene announces that she is resigning from office effective January 5, 2026.
November 22, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Reposted by Kevin Alexander
bigstirrecords.bsky.social
Out Today: "Greedy," the new single from UK postpunk veterans The Jack Rubies! From their forthcoming new album out in early 2026 from Big Stir Records. Stream or purchase "Greedy" now at:👇
orcd.co/jackrubies-g...

#TheJackRubies #NewSingle #IndieRock #PostPunk #IndiePop #NoirWave #BigStirRecords 🎸
November 22, 2025 at 1:11 AM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
We’re *this* close to 300 votes!
November 21, 2025 at 11:48 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
Sure thing, Sean.

Right after we:

Return civility to labor relations in aviation.

Return a shred of modernity to our ATC infrastructure

Return civility to government
nytimes.com The New York Times @nytimes.com · 5d
As travelers head to the airports this holiday season, the U.S. government wants them to rethink their travel checklists, their behavior — and also, their outfits. It's a part of a new campaign by Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, that he called “The Golden Age of Travel Starts With You.”
Sean Duffy Asks Travelers to ‘Bring Civility Back’ to Airports in New PSA
The secretary of transportation kicked off a new civility campaign on Wednesday called “The Golden Age of Travel Starts With You.”
nyti.ms
November 21, 2025 at 11:44 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
Some words on two records that changed the trajectory of music (and our lives):
bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social The Best Album of 1989 @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social · 5d
We have dueling Designated Cheerleaders today, and because they take up 4 photo slots total, I can post them both in 1 skeet! (This is exciting to me, shut up.) Here’s Head Cheerleader @bsglaser.bsky.social on DOOLITTLE and @kevinalexander.bsky.social on DISINTEGRATION!
I am not here to say DOOLITTLE is a good or great album; that's (technically) subjective stuff, and anyway it got: the #1 seed so plenty of people here are already convinced. What I'm here to get to is the even more important idea that DOOLITTLE is an album that is FUN and EXCITING to listen to. These are big things, and there aren't ! enough records that do both. Really, we could do the whole argument via "Debaser" and be done. That intro bassline? The way the band kicks in at tempo? The wild, unhinged vocals? In just under 3 minutes, we all want to grow, up to be, be a debaser! It sounds like being a debaser will be wild! We'll watch Bunuel films and get groovy together! It's VERY EXCITING! But it's not just "Debaser" that stirs up the excitable boys and girls. For the next half-hour or so, the band sounds both riled up and relaxed--they totally get into the groove and make the needle skip at every opportunity. This rhythm section is built for movement, the guitars never stop spitting out surprises, and the vocals sound like smiles and sneers and gulps and guffaws and kicks and kisses and everything that is right and wrong and in-between. Pray for the man in the middle. They kinda try pop moves ("Monkey Gone to Heaven." "La La Love You." "Here Comes Your Man") and antipop ("Tame," "I Bleed," "Crackity Jones"), and every one of the songs has its own internal logic that makes no sense at all. As it jumps from track to track, the whole record is FUN! It's EXCITING! I listen to a ton of music, and while I can argue that most of it is very good or even great, tbh, a lot of it isn't FUN. This is. It's great to have fun listening to a record! I wish it happened more. So forget the interpersonal dynamics of the band, or the Pixies records that came before or after. For 39 minutes, Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago*, and David Lovering are plugged directly into the socket, pouring blood and silver into every bit of DOOLITTLE. Have FUN! Be EXCITED! Stay all day, if you want to! (*Disclaimer: My wife's cousin's wife's sister used to be married to Joey Santiago, so he is Cousin Joey and we are family.) I'lI save everyone some time: Disintegration is one of my Desert Island Discs. Some Cure fans will swear by a record like 17 Seconds. For others The Head on the Door is a hill they're willing to die on. A chaos agent or two might even throw a vote in for Wild Mood Swings. Me? It's this record, and it's not even close. Last fall, as Sam Colt and I wrapped up or top 100 records of all time, I slotted Disintegration in at #4. Nothing has changed in the ensuing months. I'm resharing that blurb in full below: Do kids these days still go through their "Cure phase?" Growing up, it just seemed like something you were supposed to do, even if you weren't feeling particularly miserable. There was always a bit of irony there. Robert Smith was feeling down when recording this began. He felt pressure to follow up on the success Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me had brought, and he was disillusioned with the band's newfound popularity. He escaped those closing walls by taking a lot of LSD. Disintegration was every bit a group effort, but the result feels like we're on one of Smith's trips. This was Sam's #38 pick, and he wrote that he "...threw on some headphones and was blown away by how big everything sounded..." I'm not sure when Sam first put this record on, but I can tell you my first impression was almost the same. Even when they wandered a bit, the band's previous records felt (relatively) compact. This was much more sprawling. Languid in parts, haunting in others. It was-and is-a sonic kaleidoscope, "Plainsong" especially. "Fascination Street" feels like the most on-brand track on the album, and even that sounds like new ground. The title track's riff is as good as any the band ever recorded. The shattering of a mind never sounded so catchy. For my part, I described the record as "A masterpiece. Gorgeous, lush music from the elder statesmen of the alternative/goth/whatever world. Reach into the bag and pick whatever superlative you want; they all fit. It was a record so good that one of their best tracks from that era ("2 Late") was relegated to being a B-side. Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was one of the first CDs I ever bought. Growing up, I had a poster of Head on the Door in my bedroom. But if the house is on fire, this is the record I'm grabbing." In that same issue, I named Marvin Gaye's What's Going On my #36 pick, which, according to Sam, was an act of war. It became the yardstick against which every one of my future picks would be compared. I feel the same way with Sam "only" rating this #38. Gaye was looking to heal a splintered world. Smith was looking to heal his splintered mind. Both wound up delivering the best work of their careers.
November 21, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Kevin Alexander
uncleduke1969.bsky.social
squirrel: *points gun*
me: what do you want me to do?
squirrel: *gestures at sign*
me: alright, i get it *opens book drop*
squirrel: *makes hurry-up motion*
me: NOT A SQUIRREL!
squirrel: *disappears into book drop*
me: *whispers* forgive me, keith
Sign on a library book drop sign requesting people to yell "NOT A SQUIRREL" to confirm they are human and not a squirrel trying to steal Keith's lunch.
November 19, 2025 at 1:41 PM
kevinalexander.bsky.social
Words hurt like fists!
putnam39.bsky.social Putnam @putnam39.bsky.social · 6d
Fugazi fucked my bracket up, so screw them
bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social The Best Album of 1989 @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social · 6d
The Best Album of 1989 Round 5 Match #124
#3 De La Soul, 3 FEET HIGH AND RISING
vs.
#11 Fugazi, 13 SONGS

forms.gle/R6JGyPyp7DQ8...
November 20, 2025 at 3:14 PM