Drum and bass revival that really moves — and is just a great tune. It rocks, which is pretty rare these days. And the video is one of the best I’ve ever seen.
Big Thief in Vancouver this year was one of my favourite shows ever. This late-in-the-year release by the lead singer is another bullseye. The piano late in the track is simple and effective in a way that reminded me rhythmically of Radiohead’s “Videotape” and emotionally of the haunting chord at 1:59 of Bruce Springsteen’s “Reason to Believe“. One of the most consistently excellent musicians (both Lenker herself and the full band) of the current era.
A few of my favourite albums from the year. My listening habits have changed over the years: working at home, focusing more on individual tracks in terms of popular music as Apple Music goes off on infinite play and well, yeah, maybe getting older — all have contributed to my album-oriented choices being more subdued.
A long-time hero of my girlfriend’s, from Yellow Magic Orchestra to the wondrous Playing the Piano 2022. Sakamoto died in March; this album had already become regular listening for me. I look forward to seeing OPUS, directed by his son.
An album of consistent pleasures; I found myself coming back to it often. Choice lyric: “You paid for lies to be made truth / Does that fuck with you?” You know who you are.
The Smile: Thin Thing (Live at Montreaux Jazz Festival)
Radiohead is one of my all-time favourite bands, but for some reason The Smile’s A Light for Attracting Attention never quite grabbed me. After I saw them live (Seattle, December), I wondered if a reason might have been that, while Radiohead works (worked?) out songs live, often over the course of many years, A Light was a “pandemic album.” The track “Skrting on the Surface” was a candidate for this list, being perhaps the closest thing to a Radiohead track we’re ever again likely to get; but in performance everything came alive and “Thin Thing” was one of the highlights. The interplay of Yorke’s bass and Greenwood’s guitar at 3:12 is just so great.
“And then, she’ll steal the photos / From your phone.”
Long ago, I had a copy of Orton’s Trailer Park; but I lost track of her over the years. The Pitchfork review of her new album prompted me to have another listen, and the album one of my favourites of the year; the title track is a standout. She and her band were great live in Vancouver in November.
“Almost makes me wanna cry / The weather’s so beautiful outside.”
How many years has it been now that most of the best rock tracks are by women? Well, in this case a female vocalist. Anyway, a simple but grand pleasure.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information available on how to access CBC content using Siri on HomePod and HomePod mini, so I decided to put together a guide based on my experience and research. Last updated November 2024.
All results below are from tests on my 2018 HomePod stereo pair running HomePod Software Version 18.1 with the new Home architecture on November 2, 2024. October saw a number of regressions; one or two more this month.
I bought my first HomePod in June 2018. I listen mostly to Apple Music, along with some podcasts — and CBC news and radio. More than half of my interaction with HomePod is via voice.
Someone, somewhere — CBC, TuneIn, and/or Apple — seems regularly to be tweaking many of these commands, as there are changes every month. But there tend to be as many regressions as improvements.
Here’s a review of the commands provided on those pages, and their current status.
Page (above)
“Hey Siri …”
Result
1
“… play CBC Radio.”
Failure: “Okay, The World This Hour now playing. Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Podcasts.”
1
“… play the latest news from CBC.”
Failure: “Here’s the latest news. Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Podcasts.”
2, 3
“… play CBC Radio news.”
Failure: Plays “News” by Dire Straits.
2, 3
“… play CBC Radio 1.”
Success, starting in May 2024, for the first time in a while. Plays CBC Radio One Vancouver for me (my location).
2
“… play CBC Radio Music.”
Failure: Plays CBC Radio One Vancouver.
On the 2018 page (3), there is a video with Piya Chattopadhyay demonstrating the “play CBC Radio One” command. The video ends by promoting a url, cbc.ca/smart, which as of this writing only has instructions for Amazon Alexa.
Page (2) states “We will continue to work on our Apple implementation of the voice experience and will announce late in 2019 when it’s ready to go. Stay tuned!” Page (3) says “New experiences are coming in 2019.”
Communications with CBC
I wrote to CBC in June 2019, and received the following from CBC Audience Services:
“CBC Radio One is limited to the Ottawa feed on HomePod. CBC Music is not officially supported on HomePod either. All a work in progress and changing constantly. We are continually working on improvements and upgrades on all digital platforms.”
There is a lot more CBC content Siri on HomePod can access besides Ottawa Radio One (see below). But since that message, CBC had stopped responding to emails or tweets on the subject until, quite unexpectedly, an email arrived July 11, 2022, which stated in part:
“This is a known issue which we are currently investigating. Please read the following CBC Help Centre article referring to this issue: NEW Issues connection to CBC Radio networks on internet devices [apparently updated in early 2023, though it doesn’t appear there were changes]. We do apologize for any inconvenience.”
It’s also unclear who has responsibility for ensuring that Siri can be used to access CBC content. The page sent to me above says to “reach out to the software support team for your device or service and ask them to contact CBC directly.” But is this TuneIn (the service that provides radio to Apple Music and hence via HomePod)? Apple? I replied with all of these questions, but in a response sent July 19, 2022, only got back “As the article link from our help centre says:” with the first and third paragraphs of the above page quoted, and “That’s all I can give you for the moment.”
It’s not clear whether by “this” they were referring to issues with HomePod in general — every time I email or tweet CBC I include a link to this page, but have no way of knowing whether they’ve looked at it — or some specific issue, perhaps the recent problem with CBC Music Vancouver.
I followed up with an email on July 2, 2024, but as of August 2 had not received a reply.
Siri Command Reference
Particularly with the introduction of the HomePod mini, not to mention the second-generation full-size HomePod, these issues would seem to be a significant oversight on the part of CBC. But in the meantime, I’ve discovered through trial and error that there are other commands that work, over and above the few documented on the original web pages from 2018-20. I also looked at the TuneIn pages for CBC stations and music. The following is my analysis of what plays based on various commands. It’s worth noting that some results may be affected by my location, Vancouver; thanks to ThiefClashRoyale for doing some tests from Ottawa in March 2023. (I have omitted podcasts, since they can be asked for directly; some generic commands like “play the CBC news” happen to redirect to podcasts.)
“Siri…” or “Hey Siri…”
Result
Notes
“… switch to CBC news.”
Failure
“Sorry, I can’t play that right now.” Worked when tested in both September and November 2023, but not in October. September 2023 was the first time it had worked in months or years of being broken, but this is a new error as of February 2024.
Making this request i supposed to play The World This Hour when you ask “…what’s my update?”
“… play the CBC news.”
Failure
“Here’s the latest news. Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Podcasts.” Had been fixed as of September 2023 — played The World This Hour. It had played The World at Six podcast for a couple of months until the November 2022 update, when it started playing Quirks and Quarks, then switched to Front Burner in June 2023.
“… play CBC Music.”
Failure
Plays “Front Burner” podcast.
“… play CBC Music Vancouver.”
Failure
Tries playing The World This Hour podcast, then says “Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Podcasts.”
“… play CBC Music Halifax.”
Success
Had failed in August 2024 for the first time in a couple of years: “Okay. Here’s CBC Radio” which plays random tracks of podcasts. Once got back “Okay. Sorry, something’s up. Please try again in a little while.” But working again as of September 2024.
This is no longer listed on TuneIn’s Stream CBC page.
“… play CBC Music Edmonton.”
Failure
Tries playing The World This Hour podcast, then says “Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Podcasts.”
This is only one of three CBC Music stations, along with Vancouver and Toronto, remaining on TuneIn’s Stream CBC as of August 2024.
“… play CBC Music Winnipeg.”
Failure
Tries playing The World This Hour podcast, then says “Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Podcasts.”
This is no longer listed on TuneIn’s Stream CBC page.
“… play CBC Music Toronto.”
Failure
Tries playing The World This Hour podcast, then says “Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Podcasts.”
“… play CBC Radio One.”
Success
Working in May 2024 for the first time in a while. Plays CBC Radio One Vancouver, my location.
“… play CBC Radio One Vancouver.”
Success
“… play CBC Radio One St. John’s.”
Success
St. John’s, Newfoundland.
“… play CBC Radio One Saint John.”
Success
“… play CBC Radio One Kelowna.”
Success
“… play CBC Radio One Toronto.”
Success
Station artwork is, for some reason, the 1974–1992 CBC logo rather than the CBC Radio One logo that all the other stations use.
“… play CBC Radio One London.”
Success
Had stopped working in August 2024: “Now playing [indistinguishable] station.” Some kind of EDM. But working again in September.
“… play CBC Radio One Kitchener-Waterloo.”
Success
“… play CBC Radio One Halifax.”
Success
Had stopped working as of August 2024: “Okay, here’s CBC Radio.” Plays random stuff. Back in September 2024.
“… play CBC Radio One Moncton.”
Success
“… play CBC Radio One Edmonton.”
Success
Had working as of August 2024: played random stuff. Working again as of September.
Stopped working as of November 2024; tried playing “The Word This Hour” (“Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Podcasts”) or The Debaters.
“… play CBC Radio One Charlottetown.”
Success
Had stopped working in August 2024; played “Gospel Station.” Back in August.
“… play CBC Radio One Regina.”
Success
“… play CBC Radio One Fredericton.”
Success
“… play CBC Radio One Thunder Bay.”
Success
“… play CBC Radio One Goose Bay”
Success
In September 2022, I checked TuneIn’s Stream CBC page for the first time in a few months, and discovered this station had been added. Bonus! As of October 2023 it’s no longer listed, but still works.
“… play CBC Radio One Barrie”
Success
Added to TuneIn circa September 2022, but Siri wasn’t able to find it until the February 2023 update. As of October 2023 it’s no longer listed, but still works.
“… play CBC Radio One Kingston”
Failure
November 2024, played “The Lazy Song” by Bruna Mars. October 2024, played “The Zane Lowe Show.” September 2024, a track by Bruno Mars. August 2024, a track by Sean Paul. July 2024, “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins. As of May 2024, was playing Apple Music One. As of October 2023 it was no longer listed on TuneIn’s Stream CBC page.
“… play CBC Radio One Peterborough”
Success
In October 2022, I checked TuneIn’s Stream CBC page, and discovered this station had been added — it resulted in an error until the November 2022 update. As of October 2023 it’s no longer listed, but still works.
“… play CBC Radio One Saskatoon”
Success
Added some time in September 2022. As of October 2023 it was no longer listed, but was added back by May 2024. It worked the whole time. Odd.
“… play CBC Radio One Sydney.”
Success
In April 2023, I checked TuneIn’s Stream CBC page, and discovered this station had been added.
“… play CBC Radio One Windsor.”
Success
In April 2023, I checked TuneIn’s Stream CBC page, and discovered this station had been added. As of October 2023 it’s no longer listed, but still works.
“… play CBC Radio One Calgary.”
Success
In April 2023, I checked TuneIn’s Stream CBC page, and discovered this station had been added. Interestingly, in June 2023 I was testing all the channels and my HomePods were playing Windsor above; I asked for Calgary and on the first try it said it couldn’t find CBC Radio One Windsor-Calgary. Same happened in March 2024.
“… play CBC North Iqaluit”
Success
In July 2023, I checked TuneIn’s Stream CBC page, and discovered this station had been added. But as of December of that year it had been removed, even though the command still worked.
Interestingly, “… play CBC Radio One North Iqaluit” doesn’t seem to work.
There’s clearly some room for improvement here. CBC should at least fix the incorrect mappings. It’s unclear to me what the relationship is between an entity like CBC and Apple, but there’s a blurb and link on Apple’s Siri for Developers page for integration of a streaming service with HomePod (I don’t currently have an Apple Developer account, so I can’t view the page).
Please let me know if you have any updates or other information, and I will try to keep this page current.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross said “the current [pandemic] crisis was the reason they completed the two records in the first place, ‘as a means of staying somewhat sane'” (Pitchfork). While my neighbourhood was boarded up in the spring, this track in particular seemed the pitch-perfect soundtrack; but both albums — Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts — helped get me through that initial strange, disconnected time.
A Hopkins– like perfect balance of melody and electronics; her second appearance on these lists of mine (see 2017). The outtro, hinted at through the verses, is crowning. “And so / Let go of the hope / That it could / That it could be.”
No real honourable mentions this year; I am starting an equivalent “Three Albums” list that mostly takes care of that. My Jazz list also moves there this year.
I’ve posted a “Three Tracks” list for a number of years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020), but have always run into a bit of a problem: single cuts versus album tracks. A lot of the listening I’ve done has always been album-oriented; this has only increased for me in the era of Apple Music and HomePod (“Hey Siri, play the latest album by …”). So this list represents full-length works from which I have found it difficult to pull a single song — though I’ve done so for the videos below, largely randomly.
True. “Don’t look down, my dear, don’t be surprised […] Don’t look back, my dear, just say you tried.” Bonus points for striking perhaps the most musically interesting note of the year: the second note of the second “love” in each chorus’s “No one’s easy to love.”
Pathos for a difficult year. “Well Mary kept sewing / Holding on to her TV / Even if the water was rising past her knees.” I believe this is the only one of my yearly “Fall” playlists (all songs I’ve gathered in the last few years are here on Apple Music) to make it to this list so far.
I listen to a lot of jazz, but I’m not knowledgeable enough and my listening is not sufficiently comprehensive to produce any kind of narrowed best-of list. I put some of my favourite albums into a Recent Jazz playlist on Apple Music.
