The point of having so many Gremmy Awards categories to something that most people just think of as "surf" is to best compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. And so what we have here is the wildberries at the bottom of the basket. Unidentifiable, unique, possibly poisonous. Some of them play with our idea of surf music, some of them ultimately are just recommendations to surf fans.

It's funny how things have changed over the course of doing the Gremmys. I once had a small band called Khruangbin win this category, now I feel like bands that sound like Khruangbin are kind of their own genre, and I'm hesitant to include them here. Bands like Chicha Libre and Sonido Gallo Negro that pushed cumbia and chicha felt like cousins to surf music, and while sometimes that still feels like the case, cumbia has experienced such a vibrant revival in a manner that often feels very separate from surf. And I think that's amazing. Even if it doesn't seem to have paid dividends for surf music, I love that we're living in a world that seems more open to instrumentals in general. Maybe this will mean fewer people yelling "SING SOMETHING" at shows.

But the most important thing that I'm saying here is that if you took any of my Gremmy categories seriously, please take this one less seriously. Think of this only as things that I, a fan of surf music, might think other fans of surf music would find enjoyable.

It's another Bandcamp Friday! I was hoping that instead of a round-up I'd have a slurry of reviews to stand in its place. Instead I have three. Since I'm starting this at 1pm on Bandcamp Friday itself I'm going to limit myself to two sentences per entry.

Every year there's some things that feel like they're off on their own orbit, but that orbit spends a decent amount of time in our surf galaxy. Awful astronomy aside, some things just don't fit neatly into my stupid Gremmy categories, and though it's hard to judge them as there's little to compare them to, a great record is a great record and should be recognized for it.