Two great tastes that taste great together: Over at BuzzFeed Music, I wrote about the ways in which the music and career of the great Scottish eletronic-music duo Boards of Canada, whose excellent first album in eight years Tomorrow’s Harvest came out this week, mirrors the A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones phenomenon.

David Bowie’s been looking back at himself in his music for at least 16 years, but this is the first time he’s doing it as an artist who’s actually, legitimately, honest-to-god old. At a dashing-looking 66, he’s hardly ready for the record books as World’s Most Decrepit Rocker, but in the past you’d get the impression that to Bowie, being “old” simply meant wrestling with the reality of no longer being the sexual provocateur he was in the early ’70s, the art-rock innovator he was in the late ’70s, or the world-bestriding megastar he became in the early ’80s with Let’s Dance. Now, on his new album, The Next Day, it sounds like “old” means “Jesus, I could have died on an operating table.”

I reviewed David Bowie’s new album for BuzzFeed.

My David Bowie sketchbook has been showcased at BuzzFeed Music. (The drawing above is by Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio.)

My piece on musical chills and ASMR made editor-in-chief Ben Smith’s list of the best BuzzFeed posts of the year. It made the editors’ list of BuzzFeed’s best longreads of the year, too. Plus there’s the best music writing list I mentioned earlier. I’m chuffed.

My pieces on musical chills/ASMR and Godspeed You! Black Emperor are featured in this list of the editors’ picks for BuzzFeed’s best music writing of the year. But besides that there’s rock-solid writing on Passion Pit, Bruce Springsteen, Kendrick Lamar, Ke$ha, Frank Ocean, Bat for Lashes, Taylor Swift, the Replacements, PJ Harvey, Nicki Minaj, Ben Folds Five, Rihanna, EDM and more.

I’m depressed. I’ve also been obsessively listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s album ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! These two phenomena are not unrelated. I wrote a piece for BuzzFeed Music explaining why.

My friend and editor Matthew Perpetua put it this way in the hed/dek he crafted for it:

How 2012’s Most Miserable Album Helped Me Through Depression
Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! was the only record that made sense to me when it felt like my world was falling apart.

It’s something I was building toward writing for months and I hope you like it.

Hottest Chick in the Game, the comic about Drake that I made with Andrew White, made BuzzFeed Music’s list of 44 Wonderful Things About Music in 2012. We beat Animal Collective. Thank you to everyone for reading it.

I wrote a piece on Muse as legacy superheroes and Matt Bellamy’s voice as their superpower for BuzzFeed Music. The piece was pitched to me as “What is the essence of Muse? What is it people like about them beyond sounding like Queen and Radiohead?” This is what I came up with. Big thanks to my pal Matthew Perpetua for whipping it into shape.

I wrote an essay on growing up on Long Island and my resulting love-hate relationship with Billy Joel for BuzzFeed Music. I kind of can’t believe it either.

I wrote a list of 23 things John Bonham did during the quiet part of “Stairway to Heaven” for BuzzFeed Music. It is ridiculous, and yet I believe an accurate portrait of the John Bonham gestalt. It does not include this astonishing performance of “Kashmir” but you get it here anyway.

Led Zeppelin – Kashmir by bobjd78

I also wrote about “Teenage Kicks” by the Undertones for Cool Practice, my tumblr about music and coolness. Blueballs in music form.

I wrote an article on the chill-inducing phenomena of ASMR and musical frisson for Buzzfeed Music. I’ve gotten chills from certain musical passages for as long as I can remember but never thought about why until very recently. Sourced reporting from evolutionary psychologists and choral composer Eric Whitacre, the works, baby.

I’m honored to be a part of the site’s launch day!