Well holy crap, Cokemachineglow is turning eight this year. We're starting to drop our first baby teeth; we're pretending to lose interest in the sandbox at recess; when we poop our pants at school accidentally it makes us cry. In shame, not discomfort. Did you know that when Cokemachineglow started, Colin was, like, twelve? That most of us still liked Destroyer? That hatemail still hurt our feelings? Back then: just Scott and a dream—a dream to be the best tragically underrated music criticism webzine of the past ten years or so, ever.
It's now clear, as we gather up our thoughts on the years 2000 through 2009, we have succeeded in bringing that dream to fruition. In the days to come we'll (give us a month) unleash into your gaping maws our top albums of the 2000s list, complete with staggeringly erudite and long-winded blurbs—as you've come to expect, respect, and love—touting our greatness by being as CMG-y as possible.
Bookending that magnificent achievement in journalism will be our first decennial Fantasy Covers podcast, part one of which is now staring you in the face, waiting impatiently to be downloaded. Like previous Fantasy Covers podcasts, here is a plump playlist of covers by our favorite artists of our favorite artists, this time throwing a big wooly blanket over the whole decade and twice as long, a smooth mix of contributions from both artists we solicited and readers we didn't. Consider it our real celebration of the only full decade in which the majority of us cared this much about writing about music.
What you are, we hope, already listening to as you finish this lengthy introduction is, we hope again, making you as excited as we are to be sharing it. "Decalogue" alone is worth the hard drive space, and that's only the beginning. End-of-March-ish, part two will feature a whole buncha more songs from (to name a few) Max Tundra, Main Drag, Azeda Booth, Roommate, Marches, Animal Hospital, Memoryhouse, and David Thomas Broughton. Plus some more reader submissions and some thickly stacked advertising dollars.
We can barely even express the gratitude pouring from the bottom of our limp, measly hearts; every artist here has been able to craft something amazing from something they love that isn't theirs, a feat that, despite our many shenanigans, has been our only goal from the beginning. A goal, happy to say, sometimes achieved.
So thank you for coming this far with us. And thank you to all the inimitable artists that contributed their time and talent without much more than an e-mail and a promise of a CMG tee-shirt whenever we get around to printing them. Please, enjoy.