About

Streaming got stuck. The same songs, the same playlists, the algorithm feeding you more of what you already know.

Liner Notes started as a personal fix. I'm James Fitzsimmons, and I got tired of my own library gathering dust while Spotify decided what I should hear. So I built a simple thing: every night, one album. Picked from the collection, listened to properly, written up like it deserves.

No shuffle. No skip. Just the record, start to finish — the way it was meant to be heard.

Every note comes with a gear pairing too — a turntable, a pair of headphones, a DAC worth knowing about. Because the right gear isn't just equipment. It's the difference between hearing a record and feeling it.

Which brings us to the other problem. The gear. And the wife.

Your desire for the perfect turntable and her desire for more plants means there's a constant negotiation for space — and probably money too. She's the boss. There's always conflict. But the only question that matters is: will she say yes?

So every gear post on Liner Notes comes with a Wife Acceptance Factor rating. The case made, the pushback delivered, the ruling handed down. Green means you're sleeping in your own bed. Yellow means it depends. Red means you're shopping for bachelor apartments.

The album format isn't dead. It's just buried under an infinite scroll of the familiar. This is one small attempt to dig it back out.

Put the kid to bed. Put the record on.