Okay yeah, I just finished listening to Saba and I amend my earlier comment. Cate Le Bon and Saba are tied for the best album of the day. I was very impressed.
This isn't any sort of novel idea, but every day, I am more and more convinced that social media (and smart phones in general) are slowly killing us from the inside. I know this is "old man yelling at cloud" behavior, but I think kids and teens being in constant, performative communication and getting a steady drip of expertly, algorithmically selected TikTok content is just not good. I'm glad the extent of my social media experience in high school was a half hour on MySpace after school every day (which also wasn't good, but at least I didn't have constant access to it on my phone). Even as a fully grown adult who mindlessly scrolls Twitter and easily loses track of time on there, I kind of wish I could just throw my smart phone into the ocean.
This is all to say -- making cute videos when you're 8 years old is perfectly fine. But being on TikTok when you're 8 years old is not fine. And also, to be clear, Kanye handled it in the absolute worst way possible.
I went into the "A Whole New World" post just now, since I couldn't believe the coincidence. I know we talk about TNOCS a fair amount, but this was the first time in a while I had checked on the comments there and WOW it is impenetrable. Long, formatted, video-filled comments all posted within a minute of the article's publishing, with hundreds of replies. It's scary out there.
Yeah, come to think about it, I don't have many albums I'm in love with yet, with the exception of Silverbacks which I've been bumping non-stop. But I'm more of a songs guy anyway. Obsessed with:
"Wild" by Spoon
"Gasoline" and "Sacrifice" by the Weeknd
"Simulation Swarm" by Big Thief
"Shadow in the Frame" by Daniel Rossen
A ton of Silverbacks tracks
Fontaines D.C.: "Jackie Down the Line"
Beach House: "Only You Know"
Charli XCX & Rina Sawayama: "Beg For You"
Parquet Courts: "Watching Strangers Smile"
Denzel Curry: "Walkin"
Our own Chris DeVille wrote about this. All I can say is -- good luck.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/01/11/baby-shark-fatherhood-death-my-music-cred/
And congrats!
Somehow I missed that they had released tour dates, and now I'm mad that their only Bay Area show is at the Bottle Rock festival in Napa, which I'm definitely not going to.
I don't know anything about Elvis Costello, but I've been slowly trying to listen to all of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums and keep a few random notes about each one. This is what I noted about Armed Forces when I listened for the first time a while ago, with no context:
""Senior Service" is catchy. Costello probably shouldn't be saying the n-word in "Oliver's Army." Is the end of "Party Girl" riffing off the Beatles' "You Never Give Me Your Money"? I don't love his voice, but these songs are pretty good. Can definitely picture some 2000s indie being influenced by this. "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" sounds like a Bruce Springsteen song."
This made me interested in seeing how many monthly listeners they each have on Spotify.
Sharon Van Etten: 2,101,367
Angel Olsen: 1,586,841
Julien Baker: 1,253,604
The song of the week is the "Venus in Furs" demo that John Cale sings, because I hadn't heard it until finally watching the Velvet Underground doc this week, and I'm obsessed.
"WILSHIRE" is on the list and "More" was given a shoutout, so I'm pretty satisfied. The only other track I know for sure I would have had on here is "Junior Day League" by Hovvdy. Either way, great list, and as always, I appreciate the unique angle.
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