A Sunday Review, lighter fare for what could be a lazy day. We read a lot of material, and the more information we can go through, the more opportunities to find the best writers and stories to highlight for you. A new wrinkle in this information-gathering exercise is how many Chat/A.I. stories we have to read and catalog in order not to become an A.I. reviews newsletter, although that could be a thing, add that to notes for later research 😉

Today, a great review on a new TV series, and the review might be better than the show. Speaking of A.I., Spotify takes what it is known for, its algorithm, and adds a weird voice. Then a funny story about email from ten years ago, as relevant today as it was. Today's newsletter is the old coming together with the new and plenty of interesting angles from different perspectives.

Roxana Hadadi writes for Vulture and brings us a piece about a new TV series, Daisy Jones & The Six, and her opening paragraph to the story is to us a story itself. Hadadi compares the series to buying a Fleetwood Mac T-shirt at a pricey retail chain to represent a past time and the current time you hope to express who you wish you could have been.

Past Hadadi’s setup for her review of the show, she details the story and what it does well. As the story goes, it is a more personal relationship with the background of a 70s rock band. For music heads like us, we like music documentaries or fictional stories heavy on the music and process. If you want your show to appeal to a broader audience, use relationships and characters before music. Or you could go both ways and create an Almost Famous – Cameron Crowe’s best of both.

Hadadi finishes the review as strongly as she starts it, wanting more out of the show that it gave. 

We have added Daisy Jones & The Six to our watchlist; our early indications suggest the show won't beat a line like All cocaine – no mirror. We plan to continue following Hadadi for her writing too.

Spotify released its version of an A.I. DJ; as listeners of streaming services that go all the way back to pirate Napster and then to paid Napster, we have been fans of how easy it is to tell the algorithm what you like what it puts together based on the input. XM Radio was one of our first, it's not an algorithm, but with 200 music stations, it gave us ideas of what to put into the other streaming programs. Pandora was the first streaming service with algorithms; we still use it the most. Spotify is the newest streaming service we've added to our list, and it has the least amount of likes, but its popularity is undeniable. 

Spotify mashed up its world-famous algorithm with more A.I. and gave it a weird voice. We jumped in and gave it a chance; after an hour of listening to DJ Weird, we didn't see this taking off for many of us. All the annoying things old DJs used to do were added to an algorithm; why? Wired Magazine does a similar review of this new service with a few more insights than our original test provided. 

In a new story to us, initially written in 2013, our new friends at WBW (Wait But Why) gave us an email story. The boys walk through several critical email facts and features in this informative and often hilarious write-up. For example, here is an image of the puzzle that is "Figuring out how to address a minor friend in an email greeting.”

Anyone who has been a part of any organization, school, or job in the last 20 years has run into all the Awkward Email Things. We've talked about tone in communications in the past; email is another form of communication that takes more work to convey tone.

Some of us have been using email since the 90s, and the early promise of the email was increased productivity. If you really want an office hot-take, email might be the beginning of the work from anywhere at any time revolution. Before, email correspondence was sent to and from a physical office. After email correspondence was sent to a computer terminal, accessible at multiple locations, now it's on our phones and watches. Soon we are sure it will be answered by our personal A.I.'s. 

Once again, similar to the tone of the conversation, most of the awkward and unproductive parts of email can be solved by having a conversation. In our office, we limit the number of email replies to 3 or fewer before picking up a phone. 

Relationships.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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