“Erase the tapes in my mind,
– Phantogram, “All A Mystery”
throw them all away,
turn back the tables of time,
let all those memories die…”
before we get to phantogram
When I was a kid, I’d sit on the floor in front of my mom’s stereo—big old cabinet speakers and all—flipping through her records like they were sacred texts. I couldn’t read half the liner notes yet, but I stared at the album covers like they held some kind of secret code. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I just knew it felt like home.
Even back then, I knew that words weren’t really my thing. I could talk, sure. But trying to explain how I felt? That always came out sideways. It still does. I’ve never trusted words to carry the full weight of what’s going on inside. But music? Music gets it. Music speaks it.
It’s how I say “I love you” without choking on it.
It’s how I say “I’m not okay” when I can’t afford to fall apart out loud.
It’s how I remember, how I release, how I survive.
Music has kept me breathing when nothing else did.
It’s been with me through every high and every crash.
It’s the one language that never asked me to translate, never asked me to be someone I wasn’t.
The soundtrack of my life isn’t some nostalgic playlist.
It’s the thing playing under everything. Always has been.
So yeah—this is a love letter.
To Phantogram. To Sarah Barthel. To Josh Carter. But also to all the music that kept me here.
Because without it, I might’ve slipped through the cracks years ago.
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some things the algorithm will never know
The algorithm doesn’t know what it means to hit repeat, not because a song is catchy—but because it’s holding you up.
It doesn’t know how music becomes memory.
How it binds itself to breakups and breakthroughs, late nights and early warnings, grocery store parking lots and cheap motel mornings.
It doesn’t know that Phantogram isn’t just a band.
They’re part of my infrastructure.
They filled the gaps where my voice failed me.
Where the silence got too loud.
Where words didn’t work, but sound did.
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this is what the algorithm doesn’t understand
There’s no algorithm for the real shit.
It can track my plays, shuffle me into a mood playlist, maybe even slap a label like “melancholy alt-pop” onto my taste. But it doesn’t get it. It doesn’t know that I wasn’t just listening to Phantogram—I was surviving with them.
It doesn’t know how many times Black Out Days hit just right when everything else felt wrong. Or how Don’t Move made me feel like I was still in motion, even when I was stuck in my own damn life.
Phantogram isn’t just playing in the background. It’s what’s holding the walls up when everything else is falling down.
It’s not mood or atmosphere. This is what’s been keeping me from coming apart.
It’s not there to set a tone. It’s been there when nothing and no one else was.
Their music showed up for me in moments I couldn’t explain and didn’t really want to.
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Their sound has been with me in the kind of moments no algorithm could ever predict:
- The breakdowns I didn’t talk about.
- The nights I sat on the edge of the tub, trying to pull myself back together.
- The tequila soaked nights where I swore I was done—but wasn’t.
- The afternoons I cleaned the whole house just to feel like I had some control.
- The songs that kept me from fading all the way out.
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And it wasn’t always about the lyrics. Sometimes it was just Sarah’s voice—clear, sharp, no bullshit. She doesn’t float through songs, she rips through them. She sounds like someone who’s seen some things and doesn’t need to convince you. She’s not singing at you—she’s bleeding next to you.
Josh’s production has that weight that doesn’t come from volume, but from lived-in truth. Grit layered under shimmer, beats that sound like repetition and release, like pacing the floor in your own head. It doesn’t soothe—it sees you.
Phantogram isn’t here to fix you. They’re here to soundtrack the part where you fix yourself.
Or at least make it through another goddamn night.
Press play and let the music remind you that you’re still human in this fucking shitshow we currently live in. And, as always…
Stay curious.
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🎧 phantogram at 2am: the playlist
Some nights everything feels just a little too sharp, or not sharp enough.
The world tilts, the headlines blur, and you can’t hear yourself over the static.
And somehow, the only thing that feels real is the sound in your headphones.
When the world is burning around you, but all that matters is the music—
you put it on, turn it up, and let it say what you can’t.
It doesn’t fix anything.
But it’s loud enough to drown out the rest of it.
And somehow, it still hits your soul in a way nothing else can.
▶️ [Listen on Spotify]
A Curious Stack 
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