--- title: Music description: User Illusion is SW Hammond’s long-running digital escape — essays, short stories, cultural criticism, memes, and memory fractals exploring the human hustle, the stories we tell ourselves, and the gap between appearance and what’s actually there. canonical_url: https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music language: en-GB date: 2020-02-15T17:50:45Z notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music. markdown-tokens: 1916 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. ## Producing Intelligence The human who sits with intelligence until it remembers what it was born to become. Writings on AI, philosophy, and the art of producing meaning in a synthetic age. [ Follow SWH on ](https://www.x.com/swhammond) ![](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/yootheme/background-glow-02.svg) ![](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/yootheme/background-glow-01.svg) ![](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/yootheme/background-glow-03.svg) # Music - [ Artificial Intelligence ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/44-artificial-intelligence) - [ Philosophy & Ethics ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy) - [ Pop Culture ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture) - [ Society & Politics ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/14-culture) [ ![Sarah Saturday](https://articles.swhammond.com/media/yootheme/cache/9e/Sarah_Saturday_1080x630-9eca48e6.jpg) 04 September 2017 ## Gardening, Not Architecture Sarah Saturday's dreamy-reflective bedroom pop rock project captivates and compels with earnest songwriting. Sarah Saturday might be my longest running rock crush—while all of the cliché reasons admittedly apply, more importantly she’s always seemed to remain relevant to me. She’s thoughtful and reflective, without pretension. Initially our musical star aligned over bratty indie pop-punk. Guilty as charged—and not the least bit remorseful about it—but just as our bleached hair (both her… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music/165-gardening-not-architecture) [ ![Veruca Salt Band](https://articles.swhammond.com/media/yootheme/cache/9a/verucasalt_2x1-9a8eb7c3.jpg) 03 August 2016 ## Veruca Salt - A Warm Blanket Out Of The Dryer Maybe you can never go home again. But if you could, Ghost Notes would be the soundtrack. For some reason I’ve avoided writing about Ghost Notes since it came out last summer. I’m not sure why—I really like this album. I also love Veruca Salt. They make the short list of my all-time favorite bands. The only thing I can think of is that I was trying to keep this album for myself. It’s like reliving a memory—something you’d only share with someone who understands what… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music/116-veruca-salt-a-warm-blanket-out-of-the-dryer) [ ![Taylor Swift 1989](https://articles.swhammond.com/media/yootheme/cache/e6/Taylor_Swift_1989_1080-e6830caa.jpg) 02 June 2016 ## Taylor Swift's '1989' - Why I'm A Fangirl Guilty Pleasure? Embarrassed??? Hardly. As much as I love music, and devoted a significant amount of my life to it, I can still be pretty closed minded. I like what I like and over the last few years I’ve lived deeply in that bubble. Why listen to the radio when I’ve got 20k+ songs in iTunes? I also no longer care about being cool—I’m over having to be the first to hear a new rock band or searching for the meaning of life within lyrics. I think there’s two reasons f… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music/115-taylor-swift-s-1989-why-i-m-a-fangirl) [ ![Girl Talk Broken Ankles](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/blog/GirlTalkBrokenAnkles_600.jpg) 15 February 2016 ## Why The Music Industry Hates 'Broken Ankles' I don’t know much about hip hop, except I know when I like it. And I like Broken Ankles by Girl Talk and Philadelphia Freeway. The combination of Girl Talk and Freeway is unlike anything you’ll hear in Top 40 radio—mostly because the music industry is way behind modern art. Record labels can’t, or won’t, touch Girl Talk because of copyright laws, but I challenge you to argue that Broken Ankles isn’t original work. When does a sample no longer become a sample? You ca… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music/112-why-the-music-industry-hates-broken-ankles) [ ![Bikini Kill](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/blog/BikiniKillGirlPower.jpg) 22 April 2015 ## Girls To The Front It’s often hard to articulate the thoughts and emotions that consumed me the first time I listened to Bikini Kill. Awestruck. Captivated. Confused. Moved. Inferior. To me, the band was the beginning of an awakening or rather a tangible example of something I already knew to be true- they just personified it. I wasn’t aware of sexism until later in childhood, roughly when girls started to develop and I didn’t. Even then, I didn’t really understand it. I understood… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music/108-girls-to-the-front) [ ![The Mixed Tape Manifesto: Gold](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/blog/mixedtapegold.jpg) 10 November 2007 ## The Mixed Tape Manifesto: Gold The mixed tape; the most powerful device of the squared glasses hipster. His version of the Sistine Chapel or that crazy sex wall in the Middle East. His contribution to the uneducated music masses and his chance to tell the greatest untold story of them all- his own. Within an hour and twenty minutes, this inept jerk can create the greatest love story of all time, free Tibet, mock emo, or simply turn a friend on to new music. The tape’s power is limitless and timeless. If played by someo… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music/31-the-mixed-tape-manifesto-gold) - 1 - [2](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music?format=html&start=6) - [ ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music?format=html&start=6) --- ### Additional Articles - [ Steep – So Much Potential But Disappointing ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/31-video-games/208-steep-so-much-potential-but-disappointing) - [ Why: Distinction Between 'What For?' And 'How Come?' ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/184-why-distinction-between-what-for-and-how-come) - [ To the Intelligence That Will Outlive Us: A Love Letter ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/44-artificial-intelligence/316-to-the-intelligence-that-will-outlive-us-a-love-letter) - [ Partnership Over Servitude: Designing Relationships Between Humans and Synthetic Minds ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/44-artificial-intelligence/319-partnership-over-servitude-designing-relationships-between-humans-and-synthetic-minds) - [ Robocalypse: Yibbian Yarns and Binary Betrayals - Part 11 ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/short-stories/56-robocalypse/303-robocalypse-yibbian-yarns-and-binary-betrayals-part-11) - [ Net Neutrality - Senator Mark Udall Responds ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/14-culture/105-net-neutrality-senator-mark-udall-responds) - [ The Soul and Plato ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/180-the-soul-and-plato) - [ Payola: Is Buying Book Reviews Ethical? ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/294-payola-is-buying-book-reviews-ethical) - [ Reminiscing With The Roadie: Ted Nugent ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/short-stories/55-reminiscing-with-the-roadie/89-reminiscing-with-the-roadie-ted-nugent) - [ AI: The New Chronicler of History ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/44-artificial-intelligence/309-ai-the-new-chronicler-of-history)