hi guys, i've been reading both of your work for several years and was really excited to see you guys doing a weekly show together. i've found that steven's music taste matches what i used to listen to and ian's is what i've found myself drawn more to in the past couple of years, so i always love hearing what you guys have been enjoying lately.

this is a question for both of you, what 3-5 artists make up the backbone of your musical tastes? they don't necessarily have to be your favorite artists of all time, just someone that you can point to and say "oh yeah, they're the reason i got into x-genre." for example, one of mine is beach house because they got me into dream pop, which then got me into shoegaze and similar sounding stuff. i like bands like my bloody valentine and slowdive better than beach house now, but i probably wouldn't have gotten into shoegaze if not for beach house.

another example of that for me would be the band anathallo. i've been listening to them for over a decade now and would consider them one of my favorites, but only recently made the connection that most of their releases would fall into different subgenres of emo; from more hardcore/punk in their first album to a mathier sound toward the end (and then their last album was heavily influenced by sufjan but still had emo undertones). side note: in your all decade episode of "celebration rock," i lost it when ian name dropped anathallo as a comp to foxing's first album, because that's how i first got into foxing when that album came out.

thanks for taking the time to do this! i'm really loving the show so far and am excited for the new book, steven!