Comments

This was very cool and fun, though I was hoping there would be a call-in segment so I can finally tell Ryan I met him once in my dorm room at UMass 11 years ago. Also Ryley was my #1 album this year and Patrick was my #1 gig. A joy all around to hear, long live the CD revival!

I’ll watch anything Steven Wright is associated with.

I look forward to these every year and every year he somehow manages to top the last year. God bless Demi.

Theater kids love him.

So* far

Hell I have no expectations heading into this record; the two tracks they put out I far are fine, but just fine in my opinion. Glad to hear they’re tapping into something more with the rest of the album.

I was gonna make a snarky comment about her being Canadian then I googled and found out I was wrong. I have no idea why I thought she was Canadian.

Nah

I hate this man more than anything else, but dammit if that wasn’t a pretty good meme. Who’s the unnamed fourth dude?

The catalogue of perfectly bizarre politically-adjacent headlines on S’gum is truly something to behold. Someone oughta do a top 10 list of them, this one absolutely cracks it.

Conspicuously held*, that is

Thank you. I don’t know from Post Malone videos but I know product placement, and I was honestly flabbergasted by how perfectly well-lit and conspicuously that Light Beer was. Felt seriously out of place. Song was okay.

I’m with you, this song is so cheesy but it hits all my pleasure spots. Tight arrangement but it feels somehow rickety and loose because of that honkey-tonk piano, those brass hits and glockenspiel on the chorus, the way the vocal melody intensifies at the end of the chorus, I love this song. I’ve never seen My Girl, though.

Holy shit I haven’t listened to Field of Reeds in a while, thank you! When I was in college I made a “double disc” Valentine’s Day mix with the Herb Alpert and TNP versions of “This Guy’s...” bookending them. I should hit up my old college crush and see if they still have it. Probably not a good idea.

Was just thinking the same thing, the fact that “Green Typewriters” popped up first when I was searching for this on Spotify added to that sense.

Fool on the Hill, yo.

I’m very much not picking a side, but the fact that anyone deserves $130 mil for “the idea for celebrity-endorsed headphones” is why I tend to lean communist. By the way—and this is wholly unrelated—anyone interested in British Royalty-endorsed patio furniture?

Oy vey

This is fun! Barenaked Ladies are often an easy punchline, but I think they're pretty self-aware without being ironic about it. I was a big fan when I was a kid and maybe twice a year I'll get drunk and revisit their early- to mid-period records and damnit if they don't write a bunch of quality pop songs and fun genre experiment album cuts. The run of records from Maybe You Should Drive to Maroon are low-key rewarding listens. Saw them in Amherst in 2004 and it still stands as one of the better stadium shows I've seen. Nothing too serious, just good old fashioned fun. A little bummed out that Steven Page left, he has a great voice, but happy they're carrying on having a good time. Dan Deacon's more straight-up sugar-high party records share a worldview that's probably just a few steps removed from BNL's. So yeah, this is a fun low-stakes prank and I'm chuffed to see that 2/3 of all involved enjoyed themselves. Love Dan Deacon, love BNL... I can take or leave Hoobastank.

Oh man, Geggy Tah and I have a very strange history. In 2002-ish, my now-erstwhile, emotionally abusive step-father gave me their second album as a shallow attempt to curry some favor with me. It didn't really work and my adolescent stepparent-induced angst was sorta vindicated years later almost a decade later after my mother's long-overdue divorce from him. All that being said, I find myself listening to Sacred Cow once a year and really enjoying it. It's pretty fun. My ex-step-dad's still really shitty towards whole family, but his decidedly weird gift choice is probably the least shitty thing he did.