Ayyy TWIP back! With Rachel! This edition was a lot of fun. Also kudos to putting some shine on the Cudi-assisted "transparent soul," I'm a fan of that track.
"the photograph’s presence in the homes of millions of Americans who, on Elden’s theory, are guilty of felony possession of child pornography"
Lowkey a fan of when lawyers get trolls-y in cases they find kinda garbage.
Aww man, the end of an era. Thanks for all the writing throughout the years, Chris, I also remember when this column's existence was enough to have people throwing elbows.
Fuck it, 10 more because I kept thinking of songs like "wait, fuck"
11. Home Is Where - "Long Distance Conjoined Twins"
12. Origami Angel - "Noah Fence"
13. CHVRCHES - "How Not to Drown"
14. St. Vincent - "My Baby Wants a Baby"
15. Lana Del Rey - "White Dress"
16. Beach House - "Superstar"
17. Japanese Breakfast - "Kokomo, IN"
18. Lil Nas X - "Lost in the Citadel"
19. Red Velvet - "Hello, Sunset"
20. Willow - "naive"
1. Halsey - "You Asked For This"
2. Parannoul - "White Ceiling"
3. The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - "Infinite Josh"
4. Tyler, the Creator - "RUN IT UP"
5. Doja Cat - "Need To Know"
6. The Armed - "All Futures"
7. Lightning Bug - "I Lie Awake"
8. Kacey Musgraves - "breadwinner"
9. Yves Tumor - "Jackie"
10. Foxing - "If I Believed In Love"
Yeah, pop just wasn't doing much for me this year. I got to the Kacey album late, and that's been a treat, but a lot of it (Adele, Olivia, Billie) struck me as kind of inert. I've probably hit play more on Silk Sonic, and I'll concede that's unapologetic comfort food. I think there may be something to hearing less in communal spaces, although it also seemed like less music was being made for those spaces.
Hard co-sign on the Taylor Vault tracks, lot of great pop nuggets in there.
Also, while we're here: what happened to Illuminati Hotties? It felt like they got a lot of promo/coverage this year and last year, and then this last album disappeared on impact. Did the hype cool off?
Ah, the Stereogum Best Albums list, my annual "that was today??" for putting my own list together.
1. Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
2. The Armed - ULTRAPOP
3. In the Heights soundtrack
4. The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Illusory Walls
5. Parannoul - To See The Next Part of the Dream
6. Harmony Woods - Graceful Rage
7. Passive Refraction - What We've Been Through
8. Willow - lately i feel EVERYTHING
9. Lightning Bug - A Color of the Sky
10. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
Best of the rest:
Tyler
Gami Gang
Turnstile
Foxing
Red Velvet
Lil Nas X
TWOD
Porter Robinson
The vibes were weird this year! Not bad, but definitely odd! Normally for met at least, there's at least one mainstream pop album that wriggles its way in, and this year I think Lil Nas X was as close as it got.
Kind of a lightning in a bottle mix of go-for-the-juggular rock and swirly psychedelia texture to keep it from being too knuckle-dragging. Probably the best use of Danger Mouse, Non-Gorillaz Category, and vying with AM for the best singles album within big tent rock bands of the '10s.
Damn, yeah I threw this comment up cuz of No Skips on Thursdays and Indiecast on Fridays and (maybe naively) didn't know that Ian was such a hot-button topic on the show. I really like him and Steven together.
Sweet! Can't wait to dig into this.
Thrilled too because it seems like this way all of my music-related podcasts drop late in the week so I have them going into the weekend if I don't get to something day-of.
Oh definitely! And I don't want to take anything away from the effort and research here, I'm mostly just cracking wise with Tom's opening paragraph of "Look, there's a bunch of stuff I could do, but I'm not able to get into that, so here's this."
Shoutout Tom for doing the column equivalent of when the teacher wheeled in the TV on the lil roll-y cart because they didn't feel like teaching that day.
(Idk, ten minute "All Too Well" feels like Taylor Swift's version of The Snyder Cut, where the real triumph is that the artist got to will this into existence/acceptance on a mass scale while the creation itself is Fine.)
I took music theory 101 way back when and played some guitar.
You can kinda tell the difference between like, Noel Gallagher throwing in a suspended chord here or there because he knows it or found it and it's an interesting add-on, versus Bruno Mars, whose ballads are composed like a motherfucker.
Regarding this album and its length, I'm reminded of this Bruno Mars quote I read around the time he did 24K Magic where he says like, if he can't win you over in 9 songs, then he can't win you over in 19.
I like this a lot though, great lowstakes, fun pop music that pairs well with being at the gym.
For as distasteful Drake would get as a person and musical presence, yeah, this one still holds up. It's an album where I can blow through the first like, 12 songs without realizing I've done so, and the whole thing sounds great.
Also, Drake getting quality features in 2011 from Kendrick, The Weeknd, post-"We Found Love" Rihanna, Rick Ross, and Nicki Minaj is some real KD, Westbrook, Harden-era Thunder shit.
Based on some digging, it seems like this might be a way to get out ahead of something maybe a little thornier than what the statement indicates. It seems like yeah, Alex had a history of shitty boyfriend behavior, but the most egregious thing is that his roommate/the dude who did a lot on Dogleg's music videos is an abuser that he's still willing to work with. Deets here, but CW/TW for SA, natch. https://twitter.com/leahdixoff/status/1458984237504385035?s=21
Passage of time and all that, but hearing the "cooler indie music" sneers on Red this weekend was fucking hysterical, given that Swift's chief collaborators on her last album were Bon Iver, The National, and HAIM.
A great and fair writeup. Glover's musical output is kinda fascinating in that Because the Internet is half brilliant (those singles still go) and then there's Awaken, My Love! but unless you first heard and connected with it as a college student or younger, everything from here and before is borderline unlistenable.
The 10-minute "All Too Well" has been the real anchor for this project, and as a listen, it's...fine. I'm mostly grateful to have "All Too Well" without the affected twang and with a much better vocal, but my main reaction to the 10-minute version was that yep, that was "All Too Well" and it was 10 minutes.
Redone "State of Grace" and "Red" really make me want to have Taylor reject the ho-hum mid-tempo of the ore duology and make arena rock.
Sweet, this super dupe rules! I ended up going through a fairly acrimonious breakup in that sweet spot between the fundraiser for the site and when the shirts actually got sent, so I never got my REO Stereowagon tee, so now I can get SG merch!
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