It’s been more than a year since I last did a State of the Blog sort of post; since these things seem to precede a deviation from 12,700 Songs’ original intent, now seemed like a perfectly odd time to throw another one into the digital ether.

This blog turns two years old in June. While it definitely seems more like an old friend than a new venture these days, I still can’t believe I’ve managed to keep this going for that long. Or managed to reach some honestly kind of neat milestones since 2022 began, namely its 200^th post and 5,000^th view.

As established of a habit as it’s become, I’m increasingly receptive to any shifts this blog can accommodate to make it less of a rigidly guarded time capsule and more reflective of how I’m trying to keep my musical world from getting too inflexibly rooted in the past. Incorporating the new releases from old favorites that send me joyously careening off my path of planned alphabetical listening and straight into fresher offerings has been a solid way of accomplishing that, but that’s just one way new music lands delightfully on my radar.

I’ve stumbled upon so many of my favorites at all points in their arcs, between albums or well after their catalog became a finite retrospective, all because one random song led me to untold riches I’d previously missed. Or on the recommendation of someone whose taste rarely steers me wrong in following its lead. Or, you know, because three months of learning Swedish inspired me to give language immersion a try with some foreign-language tunes but the first musician I tried is actually a Swede who slings English lyrics and I’m just too enamored to care to the extent that I, a month later, have still left that original goal abandoned in pursuit of voraciously devouring an entire available catalog like there’s an expiration date on it (which, uh, there actually kind of was, but that’s a story better suited for where this is all going).

Such was the case with Jens Lekman, who I stumbled upon on somewhere around the later side of mid-March and whose songs I still have to forcibly stop myself from playing on obsessive repeat so I don’t suck all the dopamine out of them in one accelerated, heady rush.

Having been blessed with Lekman’s music a walloping almost-four months ago, the six albums I purchased within five days of falling recklessly in love with all of them have missed the 12,700 Songs mark by, like, a year and nine months; with his last album being a 2019 release, I can’t even pretend like there’s something new to anyone other than me to gush about.

I know myself well enough to know that the way of discarded blogs is born of too-rigid guidelines, so hell yeah, I’m going to find a reason to gush here anytime anything brings my earballs joy. I don’t know how often I’ll make these late-to-the-party discoveries of wholly perfect discographies (or, to be totally honest, if I have the energy to love new things like this more often than every couple years) but this one is so good and I need so badly to itemize all the ways that Lekman’s music hits all the right notes for me that having so much to gush about alone merits another thematic detour.

But it’s also kind of crystallized the ‘why’ of 12,700 Songs for me, a thing that’s remained elusive for almost two years: After years of crafting my identity around being an insufferable indie-rock snob, I can honestly say it’s a lot more fun to find something new to love and want to bring everyone else along for the ride, too. And I think that scope of personal discovery warrants writing for miles about the music that inspired it.

So. Brace yourselves: Paragraph-long sentences dripping with the enchantment of a new musical find are coming, and I am not at all sorry for how thoroughly I enjoyed listening to and writing about it in equal measures.