Hanif Abdurraqib is one of my favorite writers — he’s a poet and essayist who brings his passion for music into his work and loves to talk about the subject. He recently started a music podcast and spoke at length with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco about covers! In their conversation, they had this inherent reverence for the cover format — a way for an artist to show their own fandom and appreciation for the work of another artist.

When I think about the swathes of time that I’ve had over the last year of quarantine, I wonder where I spent my leisure time. Sure, I watched a good deal of anime, TV shows, TikToks, and movies, but where did the rest of the time go? Or in general, where have I spent most of my time on the internet in my life. I don’t have any statistics to back it up, but I’d guess that I’ve spent a good deal of time watching people play video games.

I’ve gotten increasingly into classical music, especially for piano. It started out with a mini-obsession with Franz Liszt, as I started jamming out to some of his Rhapsodies. For the unfamiliar, Hungarian composer had a moment in the 1840s, where his fans went CRAZY. Imagine a BTS concert, but instead of having a complicated production, you had a dude with a piano and the fans were cheering with the same amount of fervor.