Tag: 2023

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 5/14/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles, and happy Mother’s Day!! Eternally grateful for my wonderful mom—who knows what I’d do without her. Love you 🫶🏻

Alas, even though “Cool About It” is still my most listened to song of the year so far, the Boygenius Breakdown™️ has made way for some Palehound Panic™️ (or, alternatively, a Palehound Party™️?) so I can catch up on everything before Eye on the Bat comes out this July (!!!!). Feast your eyes on the spring color scheme.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/14/23

“The Clutch” – Palehound

And just when I thought that I’d already gone through almost all of my most anticipated albums of the year…

Even though I haven’t filled in the sonic gaps between this new sound, Black Friday, and A Place I’ll Always Go, I’m all on board with this new Palehound! There’s power in every note of “The Clutch,” from first notes of Kempner’s voice to the unrelenting chords that follow the rest of the song. El Kempner has such a unique voice—it’s hard to think of any other artist whose voice is simultaneously whispery and rowdy, and she embraces the rough edges on every part of this song. Underneath all of the pounding drums and incredible guitar work is some of Kempner’s sharpest lyricism to date: “I didn’t mean to hurt you/You didn’t mean to show me how,” followed closely by “I’m glad that you know better now/And I’m glad that you found yourself/But you didn’t need my help…” WHEW those are some LINES right there…and what better way to close the song with a shouting outro of “you didn’t need my help”? If this song is any indication, Eye on the Bat is gonna be the perfect summer album—and a fantastic album in general. SO glad I got on this Palehound kick all the way back in September. Haven’t regretted a single minute of it.

“Humdrum” – Peter Gabriel

The only acceptable way to dance to this song is to dance like you’re one of those wooden snakes from the craft store. The ones that make those crack-crack-crack noises when you wiggle them around?? Please tell me somebody knows what I’m talking about, please…

right, THESE ones. Just gotta feel it. Flail. Castanets do that to a gal.

Usually I try to put my album listening in the hands of fate (read: the list randomizer), but after the Palehound Panic/Party subsides, I think it’s shaping up to become Peter Gabriel Summer 2: Electric Boogaloo. Why? It’s only taken 3 songs to convince me to listen to Peter Gabriel 1: Car (because he’s That One Guy who puts out 4 self-titled albums for kicks and giggles and refused to make any title more than one word long after that). I’d already heard this album’s iconic hit “Solsbury Hill,” but after hearing this back to back with the equally wondrously weird “Moribund the Burgermeister,” I just know that Car is gonna be a wild ride.

Fresh off of his split from Genesis, Peter Gabriel’s prog rock action has never quite ceased, but from just this song, it seems to have taken on a life of its own, morphing into something that’s purely him. It’s a song of many faces—starting with quiet synths and weary vocals for the first minute, and then breaking down into some absolutely INSANE castanet/accordion-aided craziness that lasts for all too short of a time. The instrumentals just feel so delightfully kooky (you know it’s gonna go nuts when the accordion comes out) before bursting out into some classically prog sprawl as Gabriel’s voice and lyrics deepen in scale: “from the white star/come the bright car/our amoeba…” And the amoeba, as it happens, was his first daughter, Anna-Marie Gabriel, who had just recently been born. I don’t know about you, but I’d be honored to have a song this weird to commemorate my birth. Just saying.

“Room” – Palehound

I was going to say that this was a left turn from the other Palehound song on this post, but…no, “The Clutch” is probably the one that’s a left turn, really, though I can’t say how much of one it is without having listened to Black Friday…nevermind, this is pointless without context…ignore me

After “The Clutch” came out, I made it my mission to start dipping my toes into more Palehound before Eye on the Bat comes out in July. A Place I’ll Always Go was next chronologically, so I went right in—I’m still torn on whether I like it better or as much as Dry Food, El Kempner’s debut, but it’s packed with songs that have kept me listening long after the first run-through. This one quickly became my favorite track off the album; it’s got a sound that’s so close to being fully-realized—all at once, it sounds purely like Palehound, but still reeks of Wilco influence. Kempner’s wry, meticulously constructed lyricism bursts forth in every measure (“Sun above her/never had a lover in my room”), but the instrumentation, even though it’s all her, just screams Wilco—the neat percussion and soft, restrained guitars have Jeff Tweedy written all over it. I can almost see the guy in a buttoned-up denim jacket and a beanie holding his acoustic guitar in a completely horizontal line somewhere in the background. But Kempner’s whispery rasp of a voice, slowing coming out of its burrow, makes sure that this track is all her own—and it’s an excellent one. I can’t help but nod at the endlessly hooky chorus—”she keeps me up/she keeps me up/she keeps me up/at night,” the last word drawn out intoxicatingly.

“Dawncolored Horse” – Fenne Lily

I haven’t made a habit of consulting any of Apple Music’s auto-generated playlists like I used to when I first started using the platform. But sometimes, when I’m in a musical drought, or if I’m just bored, I’ll have a look. Usually, I only ever find one or two interesting songs, but sometimes there are ones worth keeping.

All I knew about Fenne Lily beforehand was that she’d toured with Lucy Dacus somewhere along the line. But this song is so calming; sometimes, songs linger on the precipice of exploding into sound without ever getting there, but this song never feels the need to stretch itself to places it can’t go. It’s subdued, but subdued in the exact way that it should be. Lily’s voice is smooth like mercury, whispery at the edges but moving along like frigid water in a creek—the perfect indie-folk kind of voice. The song’s title was what originally grabbed me, but from what I’ve heard of her newest album, Big Picture, I love its thesis—trying to write songs about the small things and forgettable days that we let fly by. There’s a comforting coziness to everything about “Dawncolored Horse”—the soft, sparkly guitar riffs scattered throughout, Lily’s voice, and the gentle percussion. It almost feels like I’m in the tiny, model house on the album cover, looking through the glass. And just like the album cover, it really does feel like a tiny memory under a glass case.

“Times to Die” – Car Seat Headrest

And now, let’s end with a relic from my “not-like-other-girls” period in 8th grade trawled up by the enigmatic deep-sea fishermen of my iTunes library on shuffle, shall we?

I got swept up by Car Seat Headrest right in the middle of middle school (and not because of my early teenage crush on Will Toledo…yeah), and if I had to put a soundtrack to 8th grade, they would dominate the glut of it. Every bus ride, vacation, and absentminded hum were probably along to them—probably kind of concerning, given their lyrics, but we all do weird stuff in middle school. I’m almost positive that I bought this one off of an iTunes gift card that I’d gotten for…graduation? Maybe? It’s a distinctly April-May 2018 song for me—I can’t place a specific memory to it, but the feeling is so distinct that it’s become its own little time capsule.

And now, having not listened to it in years, some of these lyrics remind me of what endeared me to Car Seat Headrest all that time ago. Even though I didn’t quite understand it at the time, I still smile at a particular line near the end of the song—”most of the time, I’m just getting older/but I’ll get to heaven standing on your shoulders.” Despite most of this song’s complex grappling with religion (with the many references to both Judeo-Christian religion and Hinduism scattered throughout—he really just loaded this one up, no wonder it’s almost 7 minutes long) and life itself, there’s a darkly humorous element to it; “God” isn’t always God, but Chris Lombardi, the founder of Matador Records (“got to believe that Lombardi loves me”), and the strained chanting of “hey man, we listened to your demos” throughout. This one’s definitely a little contrarian as far as lyricism goes—early on, Toledo claimed that he was attempting to let the lyrics flow naturally and let the words speak for themselves without putting symbolism in beforehand. And yet…after that first verse, he just stuffed it with enough references and idiosyncrasies to fill a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s a rich song, from the callbacks to so much of his earlier catalogue to the thick web of lo-fi instrumentation surrounding his muffled, honeylike voice.

Or maybe that’s all for naught. Maybe it’s just as he claims:

“Bees?”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Books

The Bookish Mutant’s Books for AAPI Heritage Month (2023 Edition)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Wednesday, bibliophiles! I wrote most of this post in advance, but as of now, I’m about to move out of my dorm!! I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY FINISHED MY FIRST YEAR OF COLLEGE!!

Here in the U.S., May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and I’ve compiled another list of book recommendations for the occasion! Diverse reading shouldn’t be restricted to a single month, but it’s so important to amplify marginalized—in this case, AAPI—voices during this month. My lists serve as guides to read during not just their respective months, but any time you’d like.

However, this year is a little different. Even though I’m too lazy to change the header image (sometimes you’ve gotta be a bit stingy with your media space), I’ve decided to put both YA and adult books on this list. I’ve started to read more adult books in the past few years, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t include some of these books on this list. So it’s a slightly wider pool to choose from this year—read at your leisure!

If you’d like to see my past lists, click below:

Enjoy these recommendations!

THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR AAPI HERITAGE MONTH

YA:

ADULT:

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and what did you think of them? What are some of your favorite books by AAPI authors? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s song:

I FEEL LIKE I’VE ASCENDED TO ANOTHER PLANE OF EXISTENCE HELP

That’s it for this list of recommendations! HAve a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Uncategorized

Sunday Songs: 5/7/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Here we are in May, and I’m very nearly done with finals (and my first year of college? how 😀), and now I’ve got a fresh batch of songs, brought to you by a wikipedia rabbit hole, a beautifully cursed mashup, and what happens when you absorb too many Twilight memes by osmosis without actually watching or reading it. The internet is a lawless wasteland.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/7/23

“Ain’t Got No – I Got Life” – Nina Simone

does anybody know if this extended version is anywhere on streaming? I’ve only been able to find the shortened version…honestly a crime if you ask me

Like a lot of songs that end up on these posts, I stumbled upon this one fairly randomly—a Stereogum post on Instagram from a few weeks back commemorating 20 years since Nina Simone passed away. I just heard a snippet, and immediately went hunting for it on Apple Music—there was something so deeply captivating about it. And judging from the wikipedia rabbit hole I went on yesterday evening instead of writing this part of the post, it won’t be the last time. (“Sinnerman?” OKAY I DIDN’T EXPECT TO JUST…ASCEND THERE FOR A MINUTE HOOOOWHEE I’m gonna talk about that one in a few weeks at least, mark my words) But this one’s been on my mind a lot recently. From what I can tell, much of Nina Simone’s legacy is built from her more famous protest songs (see “Mississippi Goddam”), which damaged her career in the sixties but solidified her as one of the most important musical figures of the civil rights movement. This one slightly fits into that category—it’s a cover of sorts, mashing up two songs from the musical Hair (“I’m Black/Ain’t Go No” and “I Got Life” respectively). But even beyond the way Simone made these songs mesh together so effortlessly, there’s something more that she breathed into this song. Given the context of her life and her continued fight to help civil rights efforts in the U.S. and how much that affected her musical career, there’s something that she put into this song that nobody else could’ve. Even as her songs were banned from airplay and her career took a hit, she kept on producing this music, a commanding declaration of “I’m here, and there’s nothing you can do about it—You may have beaten my spirit, but here I stand.” Can’t get much more beautiful than that.

“Can I Go On” – Sleater-Kinney

There’s really no feeling quite like when shuffle digs up an old favorite from the depths of your music library. Unparalleled euphoria of remembering what it was like listening to a song for the first time…

That being said, I feel like I’ve lost Pretentious Gay Hipster™️ points since…this is only one of about three (tops) Sleater-Kinney songs that I actually like. Carrie Brownstein is great, don’t get me wrong—I love her work on what I’ve seen of Portlandia and in The Nowhere Inn, but Sleater-Kinney just rarely does it for me. I saw them live with Wilco a few years back, and…okay, I spent most of their set waiting for Wilco and hoping I’d like something, and I did like a few things. (There was also the secondhand embarrassment of them telling everybody to sing along during “Modern Girl” and very few people singing…oopsie) But I’ve never been a fan of either Brownstein’s or Corin Tucker’s voices—they work together, to a certain point, but they verge on grating for me. And other than this and “Modern Girl,” there’s nothing that’s really pulled me about most of their songs.

And admittedly, the minute that I found out that The Center Won’t Hold, which includes “Can I Go On,” was produced by none other than the woman, the myth, the legend, St. Vincent, it all made sense. I like this song because I like St. Vincent, not necessarily because I like Sleater-Kinney. There’s St. Vincent all over this song, from the plethora of effects on the guitars, which scream and shimmer in equal measure, to the chrome-like polish that doesn’t discredit the indie-ness of the band, but still makes it sound as smooth as ever. And even though I’m not a fan of their voices, the commanding harmonies of the chorus scream in perfect tandem, making for a rallying cry of a song that makes exhausted lyrics sound triumphant. A sprinkle of Annie Clark magic makes everything better.

“Supermassive Black Hole” – Muse

We know it. We love it. What is there to say about this song that hasn’t already been said? So I won’t bore you. I’ll narrow it down to it’s two biggest contributions to pop culture (I think):

  1. The Twilight baseball scene (I have never seen Twilight) (I intend to keep my exposure to scattered memes)
  2. This:

bask in the eternal glory of the supermassive bottom jeans. BASK.

“Wherever You Go” – Beach House

Beach House has been one of those bands that I really should be super into, given my somewhat shoegaze-leaning tendencies. The only reason is that I haven’t gotten around to listening to everything—I’ve loved the handful of isolated songs that I do know (“Space Song,” “Levitation,” “Woo,” etc.), and Bloom is on my insurmountable album list thanks to a recommendation from, of all people, my 9th grade honors English teacher. (I really shouldn’t be surprised about that. I bumped into him at a Spiritualized concert not long before I graduated last year. Shoegaze recognizes shoegaze.) The Beach House awakening, or something along those lines, is bound to happen soon, but for now, I’ll stick to random songs found in random places.

Like this one. Of course the song that I happened to randomly find in the background of a video was on their B-Sides and Rarities album. Again: I don’t have the Beach House experience to necessarily back this up, but with their other songs, I’ve noticed a slight degree of intentional production polish to make their songs sound as spacey as possible—which they absolutely do. But this song has all the lo-fi feel of a demo without losing any of that enchantingly drifting quality, with every instrument cranked up to sound as starry as possible. Victoria Legrand’s vocals always make me want to close my eyes and levitate (no pun intended), as the best shoegaze does—taking its sweet time to sweep you off your feet and into the clouds.

“Rubberband Girl” – Kate Bush

Unlike something like The Kick Inside, I’m not sure, even though scattered Kate Bush songs like these have grown on me a ton, that I’ll go all in on The Red Shoes. The only other song I’ve heard is “Big Stripey Lie,” and…okay, to the disappointment of Kate Bush’s #1 fan (my brother), I really haven’t been able to get into it, now matter how hard I try (sorry 😭). I appreciate the weirdness, but…it doesn’t do anything for me personally. And I’ve heard that the rest of The Red Shoes isn’t the best of her work, but I’m not about to diss everything about her. This queen just got inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, after all, I’ll put some respect on her name. Why wouldn’t I be, since this song stands before you? IT’S SO WEIRDLY CATCHY. I LOVE IT.

This seems like it leans more on the radio-friendly side of Kate Bush, but even she can make radio-friendly as oddball as she can. Her voice transforms from her ordinary singing tone to a velvety hiss to something as springy as the rubber bands she sings of. It’s a delightful trickster of a song—it still sounds firmly 80’s, even though it was released in 1993, but then it devolves into Bush saying “here I go :)” all innocently, and then dropping into the most wondrously weird and distorted “uhh-UHH-uhh-UHH” chorus I’ve ever heard at around the 3:40 mark. There’s a full horns section. You’ve got some Van Halen-y guitar solos sprinkled in. Under the reverb-y, 80’s polish, her weirdness has never ceased. Regardless of how you view the merits of the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, you can see how much of a shoo-in she was.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Monthly Wrap-Ups

April Wrap-Up 💻

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This monthly wrap-up was brought to you by the letter ‘S.’

Let’s begin, shall we?

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Well, here we are. It’s nice and warm outside, I’m only about a week and a half away from finishing my first year of college, and “Cool About It” is my most-listened-to song of the year so far, according to Apple Music. Yeah, I’m fine.

Somehow, I’m finally at the stage in the school year where everything is starting to wind down. My really stressful finals finals moment ended up happening…a good two weeks before I really should’ve been doing all that, but there’s something to be said for starting projects early and finishing them before everything is supposed to get stressful. (My secret? Overthinking and overestimating how close due dates are. Works like a charm.) Now that finals are right around the corner, I really don’t have a whole lot to do, blissfully. All is quiet. No stats tests to bomb at 7 am in a building I’ve never even set foot in before. I have achieved inner peace (becoming a humanities major).

That being said, working on all of these projects did eat up a good amount of time that I’d normally be reading, or blogging, and all of my other silly little activities, so my reading did take a relative hit. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t find some great books—I got to some anticipated releases, and I have another 5-star read to tick off the list! There were several non-review/Sunday Songs posts that I was eager to get to (see below), and I managed to get them all written, so I’m glad about that. Also, finally finished the Broken Earth trilogy…[incoherent, muffled screams intensify]

Other than that, I finished Dark (CORRECTION: IT FINISHED ME. GO WATCH DARK), watched Beau Is Afraid (forget Beau, dude, I’m afraid…also very overwhelmed…), had some fun on Easter, got a nasty cough (just now getting over it 😭), and started packing up my dorm. Time…time is a thing, huh?

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 16 books this month! I wasn’t able to read as much because of finals season, but it’s been a decent, if slightly more on the “miss” side of hit or miss, bunch. I did get a 5-star read, but said book was Thom Yorke’s lyrics and poetry combined with Stanley Donwood’s older Radiohead art, so that was bound to happen.

Also, I unintentionally read an abnormal amount of books that start with the letter ‘S’…do with that what you will.

2 – 2.75 stars:

Unseelie

3 – 3.75 stars:

Star Splitter

4 – 4.75 stars:

The Stone Sky

5 stars:

Fear Stalks the Land!

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: Fear Stalks the Land! – 5 stars

POSTS I’M PROUD OF:

POSTS FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAT I ENJOYED:

SONGS/ALBUMS THAT I’VE BEEN ENJOYING:

this song has taken up far too much space in my brain but I’m not complaining at all
this song sounds so sparkly I love it
we love First Band on the Moon in this house
another favorite of mine from this album
I wish you could still make custom ringtones out of songs bc this would absolutely be my pick
what is April if not Dark and boygenius taking up all my brain space
no thoughts only the one happy Radiohead song in existence

Today’s song:

in which Peter Gabriel gets into those Danny Elfman shenanigans

That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 4/30/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

Here we are at the end of April, and my cough finally seems to be letting up. The weather’s consistently warm again, the trees are starting to bloom, and I’m doing my best to ignore the fact that the latter will definitely trigger some allergies in a few weeks, because hey, the trees are starting to look beautiful. All is green and new!

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 4/30/23

“Ride a White Swan” – T. Rex

there has never been a better visual descriptor for how this song makes me feel

PACK YOUR BAGS, FELLAS, WE’RE GONNA GO WEAR EXCESSIVELY LONG DRESSES AND DANCE IN THE WOODS

T. Rex, Marc Bolan’s self-titled debut, was the last hurrah of his hippie roots (you really can’t go back from album titles like My People were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair…But Now They’re Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows, huh) before going full-on glam rock, as well as the first album under his newly shortened name (no longer the full Tyrannosaurus Rex). But even as he’d gotten a crisper, cleaner name to call himself, he hadn’t fully abandoned the original, psychedelic fantasy that was Tyrannosaurus Rex, and this song—and, judging from most of the song titles on the rest of the album, everything else—is proof. It’s got everything—druids, spell casting, black cats, tall hats. What else does one really need in life? It’s whimsical. It’s lovely. It’s light. It’s a classic. Revel in the joyous whimsy!

And it seems like it was the perfect storm—for a short time, anyway. Arriving in 1970, right at the end of the sixties when the world was still clinging to the flower-child mentality, this was the perfect piece of escapist hippie music. It was Bolan’s first hit as T. Rex, and it was what launched him into stardom in the early seventies. From what I can tell, most of his career after his (excellent) third album, The Slider, was an attempt to rekindle some sort of hit, both in the U.K. and in the U.S., and despite his efforts and his complicated relationship with fame, never ended up being fruitful. Especially knowing that he died so prematurely and that most of his efforts were in vain, it always makes me sad to think about that stage of his life. Bolan was obviously such a creative soul at heart, a skilled frontman and a master of oddball wordplay, and thinking about he wasted so much of that talent by trying to please other audiences really seems to me like one of the great tragedies of rock music history. It doesn’t feel right to reduce Marc Bolan to a lesson to all of us creatives intending to make a living, but I think his story speaks more to the music (and any creative) industry as a whole; he’d gotten a taste of fame, and this fame pressured him to try and crank out hit after hit. It’s not so much an issue of Bolan as a person, as flawed as some of his fame-induced decisions were, but the way that the music industry has shaped people to behave in that way. Art should be art for art’s sake, not a pursuit of money or stardom. The music industry did Marc Bolan an unforgivable disservice, and I’ll die on that hill.

Anyways, listen to The Slider. God-tier album.

“A Love of Some Kind” – Adrianne Lenker

Alright, I’ll step off my Marc Bolan soapbox for a moment. Let’s cool down a little.

This lovely spring weather has made me feel the same way that this song does. Even if the album cover for Hours Were the Birds wasn’t set against a backdrop of dewy pine branches, I have no doubt that it would still sound the same. Adrianne Lenker seems to have captured the art of making an unrelated smell like petrichor and gently rock about like a wooden boat on a lake. There’s a slight melancholy to it (nothing quite compared to “Disappear,” another track I love from this album—I need to listen to the whole thing), but it’s undeniably hopeful; it’s a plea for reciprocation and love after a rocky period, a star-staring hope and yearning: “I know we’re strangers, so it’s okay/ You don’t have to say it/Strange is better anyway/And I think that we can make it.” There’s a certain talent that the best singer-songwriter artists, in my experience, have: the ability to hinge an entire song with a single instrument and their voice. Most of the time, it’s an acoustic guitar, and Lenker hits the nail right on the head. With just her gentle, misty voice, and the strums of her guitar, she evokes all of those sensations I mentioned earlier with such relatively little material. Even her birdlike whistles bring to mind the feeling of plants stretching their feelers after the snow melts away. I really need to listen to more Adrianne Lenker.

“House of Jealous Lovers” – The Rapture

The beginning of “House of Jealous Lovers” functions to me like the sound engineering of the screams in Jordan Peele’s Nope: are they screams of ecstasy? Are they screams of fear? Who knows. They’re all shrouded in a deliberately-placed layer of fuzz that makes it impossible to tell. And by the time you’ve started to contemplate if it’s one or the other, it’s too late: it’s Uptight White Boy Music Time.

And even without knowing much about said Uptight White Boys, it’s clear how “House of Jealous Lovers” took its place in the early 2000’s post-punk-revival movement in New York City, sliding right next to the likes of The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and others. There’s not much going on lyrically, but there’s a frantic urgency to the hoarse scream that Luke Jenner (no relation to…any other infamous Jenners, luckily) delivers every line in that makes every word feel like a command. Cloaked in endlessly delayed guitars, it feels like it’s hiding something the whole time, even if part of the bridge just consists of the band counting to eight in unpredictable, wavering tones. Throw in some cowbell (as one does), and you’ve got such a strangely suspended moment in time: shaky and uptight, but somehow still self-assured in a way that makes this song hold up after almost 20 years. It feels like the world’s most neurotic club jam. I love it.

“The Cradle” – Colour Revolt

I stole this one from the great Julien Baker, who named it on boygenius’ episode of Pitchfork’s Pass the Aux series, as her hype music when she was a senior in high school, right next to…Drake? I can’t forgive the Drake, but…we all did questionable things in high school, I guess.

Drake aside, I’m so glad that Julien Baker introduced me to this song. Just like that, I’ve got another album on the Sisyphean list of albums on my notes app. Just like “House of Jealous Lovers,” we’ve got another hoarse white guy (I’ve got cough drops for everybody, take your pick) who somehow makes it work. Wonderfully. There’s so much that “The Cradle” does in such a short amount of time. It seems to invert the formula of musical buildup. Apart from the first few guitar chords, the first seconds of the song explode into delightfully crunchy guitars, letting the music take center stage, making the quiet, abrasive vocals linger in the background like a sinister afterthought. There’s something sinister about this song that I can’t quite pin down—maybe it’s that inversion, the way that the song explodes in the beginning, and only goes quiet and plodding during the last 30 seconds, as if you’re in a horror movie, waiting for something to drop from the rafters. There’s something compellingly intricate about this song, even more impressive that The Cradle was an album made in the aftermath of Colour Revolt getting dropped by their former label and three of their five original band members jumping ship. Even if this is my only exposure to Colour Revolt right now, I can still say how impressive of a feat that is.

“Sunshine” – The Arcs

Inside of you there are two wolves. One of them wants to listen to “Sunshine” by The Arcs. The other wants to listen to “Sunshine” by Sparklehorse. You are incredibly pretentious, and you also probably need a nap.

When I first heard this song, I seriously thought that the light, tinny piano intro was going to be the start of a sample. To any artists reading this (I doubt there are, but still): THIS HERE. SAMPLE THIS. WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

I’m not up to date on any of my Arcs lore, but the jump from the songs that I heard on heavy rotation on Alt Nation back when I was in middle school to this is nothing short of gutsy. But somehow, it makes complete sense. Just like the animations in the music video, it’s vibrant and polished to a shine, bursting with neon color. From the backing vocals to the smooth piano intro, it’s clearly a song that’s been in the studio for extensive amounts of time, a piece of art being chiseled out of stone. And what came out when the dust settled was an irresistibly pop-sounding indie tune of a perfect length. Every move feels exceedingly deliberate, from when the backing vocals kick in with the “sha-la-la-la-la-la”s in the last third to the quiet explosion of different instruments in the background. The only other song I can think of called “Sunshine” is an exceedingly melancholy one (as with pretty much any Sparklehorse song…sorry, Mark), but if anything, this is a song that more than lives up to its title.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Uncategorized

Sunday Songs: 4/23/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

I may be slightly sick, but I did not lose my lack of coherence, so today, I give you a very famous banana, Wall-E, and the only band that can make a Black Sabbath song sound dainty. Have fun trying to bring it all together. I certainly did.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 4/23/23

“Heavy Bend” – Big Thief

With full sincerity, I mean this in the absolute nicest way possible: the beginning of this song sounds like an Apple ringtone. An Apple ringtone, but the kind that has no business being as much of a banger as it is. Like the Piano one. Did any of that make any sense? I need a Taskmaster-style choreography to this one now. Would this give Noel Fielding shrew vibes?

My Big Thief/Adrianne Lenker conversion has begun, thanks to my brother and his girlfriend, and every day I’m inching closer to listening to Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You. But this song is unique—everything, from the echo of Adrianne Lenker’s sighing into the microphone to the hypnotic, harp-like strums that feel like the auditory answer to dew-covered spiderwebs in the early morning. That hypnotic quality reminds me a lot of “Bicycle,” another song that I raved about a few months ago, that shares the quality of feeling enchantingly impressionistic, like a painting imbued with motion. And as much of a cliche as this is, “Heavy Bend”‘s biggest crime is being too short. Some songs work as short and snappy (see “We’ve Got a File on You,” “Pam Berry,” “A Little Bit of Soap,” etc.), but this song feels like it’s begging for a key change, a bridge, just something to propel it beyond a minute and 36 seconds. On the other hand, that makes it tantalizingly easy to play on repeat. If you play it enough times on loop, you can just pretend that it’s longer. Denial is the first stage of grief.

“All Tomorrow’s Parties” – The Velvet Underground & Nico

nothing like cackling at niche jokes alone in your dorm, amirite?

I’ve finally got around to listening to another classic album—one that I’d heard about half of beforehand anyway, but still enjoyed, for all of its legend, discomfort, and strange beauty. A classic story of a disaster and a sales flop becoming a tried-and-true classic, every song feels like its own world—a very seedy, eerie, and hazy world, but a world all the same. I doubt anybody will ever describe Nico’s voice better than the journalist Richard Goldstein, who described it as “something like a cello getting up in the morning.” I wouldn’t automatically put it on my top 10, but it’s clear that its lasting legacy isn’t without reason.

“All Tomorrow’s Parties” is one of the songs that was relatively new to me, and it quickly became my favorite of the album. There are so many layers to it, more than the peelable, bruised, Andy Warhol banana on the album cover. It chugs along like a great machine, elephantine in its size, slow in its looming progress. Nico’s distinct voice, thick, resonant and cavernous, plows it along, drawing a long shadow over the music. Each piano chord seems to plod along, even with how rapid each chord is. It almost feels like a dirge in the way it seems to crawl, certainly for the fate of said “poor girl” that the song describes. Unlike “Heavy Bend,” this song is the perfect length—the typical 3 minutes doesn’t give it enough time to loom over the listener, but just over six minutes gives it all the time in the world.

“I/0” – Peter Gabriel

“gay rights” – Peter Gabriel 2023

Oof, another beautiful one…I’m just glad this one is easier to swallow than “Playing for Time,” but it’s just as powerful.

Peter Gabriel’s had his fair share of movie involvement, from writing various film soundtracks to providing the tearjerking end-credits song “Down to Earth” for Pixar’s Wall-E. So it’s not surprising how easily he can slip into that cinematic smoothness with such ease. Certainly helps that the Soweto Gospel Choir, the same choir that performed with him on “Down to Earth,” provided backing vocals for “I/O” as well. Even though every song from the forthcoming i/o (stop trying to capitalize the i STOP TRYING TO CAPITALIZE THE i) has been paired with a visual so far, this one is practically begging for its own Pixar movie, or even just some animated music video. You can feel every bit of nature creeping through this song, from every creature mentioned in the lyrics to running water and green hills.

was this another gateway to sci-fi for baby Madeline? probably.

If we’re keeping with the Pixar theme, that would be two Pixar movies that he would hypothetically contribute to with a deeply environmentalist message. I’ve never been a die-hard Disney or Pixar fan, but Wall-E is special to me in so many ways—it was one of the first movies that I ever saw in theaters as a kid, and 15 years later (Jesus, I feel old), it reflects on humanity’s disconnect from nature, and the dangers of thinking that we’re the masters of everything that we can grab at. The scene where Wall-E reaches up to touch the stars still fills me with incredible awe. But, as with everything, we didn’t listen, and now we’re in the landscape where a handful of corporations are responsible for polluting a large part of our planet. And that is why we’ve become disconnected: as soon as we forget that we’re as much a part of the Earth as every other plant, animal, and other entity, we think that we can get away with all of this. And that’s what Wall-E tried to tell us in 2008, and it’s what “I/O” is telling us now: “So we think we live apart/because we’ve got two legs, a brain and a heart/we all belong to everything/to the octopus suckers and the buzzard’s wing.” Here and now, I’m glad that at least one other old white guy besides David Attenborough recognizes this. Happy belated Earth Day.

“Step On Me” – The Cardigans

I can’t pull the “I LiKEd tHiS sOnG bEFoRe IT wAS a tIKtOk sONG” card because I technically didn’t know this song in particular, but with David Bowie as my witness, I can swear that I did grow up listening to The Cardigans in the car quite a bit. I’ve had the luck of having very few songs I know become “tiktok songs,” but I’ve found that it’s no use griping over it and insisting that “[you] liked it before it was cool.” People are just going to assume that you got a song from some popular place, and that is the case sometimes, as much of a pretentious hipster I am. I vehemently despise tiktok’s obsession with speeding up every song that gets popular (WHY), but either way, it led me back to The Cardigans and to First Band on the Moon, and I’m happy with that—and happy that everybody else seems to be enjoying it.

(Does anybody know if this song was attached to a certain trend? I know that it’s vaguely trending, but I’m not sure how or why—I’ve just seen it with a few unrelated art videos…)

“Step On Me” is one of many lovely bites of pop on First Band on the Moon, and one of the best—certainly my favorite track on the album. Nina Persson casually just created the national anthem for people-pleasers with this one—a song about dodging your own needs, letting people walk (sorry, step) all over you: “go on and step on me,” even as the object of the song stands on her left foot and breaks it. With a crunching, muted intro that continues to punctuate the end of every chorus, everything about this song is proof that The Cardigans. got the recipe for a good pop song down to a science back in the 90’s—Nina Persson’s deceptively delicate, ringing voice, no shortage of hooks and catchy lyrics, and radio friendliness without over-simplicity. Every time the scratchy, muted intro comes on shuffle, I can’t help but drop everything and turn up the volume. Like I said—The Cardigans had pop music down to a science. No wonder they’re trending again. If you can make a Black Sabbath cover sound dainty (MULTIPLE TIMES), you can pretty much do anything.

“New York City Cops” – The Strokes

Like Jack White, Julian Casablancas is just one of those musicians who I really want to hate, but then I hear songs like this that are just so undeniably catchy that I just can’t hate him all the way. That being said, the thought of him still makes me want to roll my eyes all the way back in my head, mainly because of flashbacks of him taking over Sirius XMU and saying something along the lines of “now, this next song is from a 60’s punk band from Peru…oh, you don’t know them?” I really wish I was kidding.

Even though the beginning feels a little manufactured to me (the staged-feeling quality of Casablancas screaming, then going back on it: “ahahaha………didn’t mean that at all 🫦”…oh, please), the rest of the song is a masterfully tight piece of post-punk (oh, post-punk revival…okay, fine). It’s delightfully uptight—it all feels boxed in a cramped room, but it takes the confines of that room runs with it, never once loses momentum after the first drumbeat. The rough edges of Casablancas’ voice contrast perfectly with each scratchy guitar chord, a constant buffet of sound that never loses its sandpapery texture. I mean that as a compliment—it’s not a grating sandpaper, but more of the hard-edge, punk sandpaper that makes The Strokes sound the way they do. And although this song was subject to some abysmally bad timing in the U.S. (the song was initially removed from the U.S. release because the album was released so close to 9/11—the chorus of “New York City cops/but they ain’t too smart” was, understandably, a massive no-no so close to such a tragedy, even if it was completely unintentional), I’m glad “New York City Cops” ended up seeing the light of day a significant amount of time after the fact.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Books

The Bookish Mutant’s Books for Autism Acceptance Month ∞

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Thursday, bibliophiles!

As some of you may know, April is Autism Acceptance Month here in the U.S.! I don’t think I’ve highlighted a book list for the occasion, but in my ongoing quest for disability rep in general, I’ve come across many great books with Autistic protagonists and stories. If you’re looking to diversify your reading, it’s always important to uplift every kind of marginalized voice, and disability rep in general often gets left in the dust. So I’ve compiled a list of books by Autistic (with one exception—the author is still neurodivergent, just not Autistic) for this month.

NOTE: some of the older books on this list may still use the term Asperger’s, but in recent years, the term has since been renamed to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the DSM-5, in part because of its association with Hans Asperger, who was involved with Nazism. Some people still use the term, but it is still important to acknowledge the history behind the term.

Enjoy these book recs!

THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR AUTISM ACCEPTANCE MONTH

READ:

ON MY TBR:

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and if so, did you like them? What are your favorite books with Autistic rep? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s song:

That’s it for this list of recommendations! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (4/18/23) – The Spear Cuts Through Water

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I was in a fantasy mood recently, so I decided to pick up The Spear Cuts Through Water after hearing some rave reviews from other bloggers. The gorgeous cover only added to the sell. But in the end, this novel ended up being a major disappointment—a murky, 500+ page slog that was only enjoyable for fleeting moments. I really need to stop setting myself up for disappointment with all these overly long high fantasy books…

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Spear Cuts Through Water – Simon Jimenez

The Emperor of the Moon Throne has terrorized the land of the Strangled Throat for centuries, aided by his three reckless sons, aptly dubbed The Terrors. But like everything else that he has seized, the Emperor’s power comes from an age-old moon god who has been locked under the palace against her will. But a god is not meant to be kept in captivity.

So she escapes. Aided by Jun, a disgraced palace guard, and Keema, a warrior from a distant, mysterious land, she sets off on a journey to find her freedom. But the Moon Throne will not let go of her so easily…

TW/CW: ableism, cannibalism, child abuse, murder, body horror, substance abuse, mentions of sexual assault (off-page), torture, loss of loved ones

This is one of those instances where I feel like I’ve read a completely different book than all of the 5-star reviewers. I really wanted to like it—and there were a few things that I did like—but ultimately, it felt like a 20-minute prog-rock song in book form: well-written, but so unneccesarily convoluted and full of itself that it became insufferable.

Before I go on my tirade, I will acknowledge that there were some wonderful, very bold and skilled parts of this novel. Jimenez’s writing had moments of being both beautiful and insightful—there were a few anchors to pull me through the slog, and his prose had moments of being incredible. 2nd person is always a bold choice, but unlike other aspects of this novel, it was executed very well, succeeding at being both immersive and fresh without feeling like it was bold just for the sake of being so.

“Bold” is generally I word that I could ascribe to most of this book. A lot of it was written in a fresh, nontraditional way, and I appreciated its execution in some sections. But a lot of it just felt like showing off—having unconventional chapter breaks and an infuriating structure just for Jimenez to show that he was capable of doing so. Most of these ended up being to the novel’s detriment. The random “chapter” breaks (there really weren’t any chapters in this book?), which mostly just ended up being sized-up font that was, essentially, what should have just the first sentence of the paragraph. And since they were all just first sentences of the paragraph, there were 2-3 of these breaks per page. POVs got switched without warning and without explanation, making the reading experience overcomplicated where it could’ve been an easy fix. It just felt like it was biting itself in the foot in the name of art—it could have been a beautiful story, if it wasn’t so intent on showing off how “different” it was.

As a result, so much of this novel got lost. Even though I was fairly lost trying to discern whose POV is it this time, I did notice one thing while reading The Spear Cuts Through Water—where’d the worldbuilding go? Other than the vague notion of a fantasy world (gods and goddesses, some talking animals/spirits, etc.), I had no idea of the layout of the world, the regions of the world, any kind of cultural cues or conventions, any kind of magic system…it just wasn’t there. At all. The same goes for the characters—they were all but cardboard, moved around like pawns for seemingly no reason. (I get that they were under oath by the Moon God, but the point still stands. They didn’t need to be that stiff.) Other than the reveal about Keema, nothing compelled me about either of them, or any of the other passing side characters. This novel was just so intent on chasing itself in circles that it forgot the essential elements that a novel needs.

All in all, a fantasy with great potential, but that ended up losing itself under layers of attempts to be daring and new. 2 stars.

The Spear Cuts Through Water is a standalone, but Simon Jimenez is also the author of The Vanished Birds.

Today’s song:

LOVE this album, this feels like a perfect match for “There’s No Other Way”

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 4/16/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Casually just started coughing up a lung for a week, but at least the sun’s out for the first time in about 3 months, so a win is a win in my book. It would be nice to be able to sleep without waking myself up from said coughing, but maybe if I just listen to the record another time through…hmm…

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 4/16/23

“Hammer Horror” – Kate Bush

Oh, the beauty of unflattering YouTube thumbnails.

I always feel guilty for not liking Kate Bush as much. She’s clearly been such a groundbreaking artistic genius for most (if not all) of her career, and she’s an undeniably incredible storyteller as well. But music taste is music taste, and everybody’s got a different one.

I used to think that Kate Bush was generally just hit or miss for me, but as I’ve started to listen to more of her work, I think the root of it is that I’m just more into earlier Kate Bush. I haven’t pinned down a rhyme or reason, really—I haven’t listened to The Kick Inside or Lionheart yet—but they’re really just so fun. There’s an infectious, early-70’s-inspired undercurrent that runs through all of them, combined with high drama that only a 19-year-old Kate Bush could produce. Take “Hammer Horror,” which combines an operatic, orchestral element in the first 30 or so seconds, but slips into a Hunky Dory-like groove, punctuated by lightning strikes of bright guitar—man, I miss how guitars sounded in the 70’s. It’s pure theatre—and even though I’ve never claimed to be a theatre kid, there’s something about the way that she leans fully into all of the clawing-at-the-camera drama that makes it all the more fun to listen to…if you just forget the music videos of that whole period. (*coughcough “Them Heavy People” coughcoughcough*)

*cough*

can somebody pass the Dayquil? seems I’ve got some—*C O U G H*

“Satanist” – boygenius

Worry not: the Boygenius Breakdown is far from over. I’ll spare you from the rest of it after this week for the sake of adhering to my self-imposed color schemes, but behind the facade, I’m still curled up in the fetal position listening to “We’re In Love.”

Penned by Julien Baker and sectioned off for each of the powerhouse members of boygenius to shine, “Satanist” was an instant hit for me from the record after the singles had been released. Backed by steady guitars, this song stands as a fun, cheeky dare about pushing the limits friendship—”will you be a Satanist with me?/Mortgage off your soul to buy your dream/Vacation home in Florida.” It all feels like a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun, but with boygenius’ strong connection and shared friendship, there’s an intangible, genuine feel to it, as if the song could’ve stemmed from a genuine question. (Again: “Were In Love” feels like its lyrical twin, in that sense. Lots of callbacks and intertwining on this album.) But at its culmination, when Phoebe Bridgers’ sharp-edged scream fades into a hazy, sunset background, the music suddenly sinks underwater, all three of their voices seeming to fade under the waves in a haunting, enchanting conclusion. I can almost imagine that, with the image of the record, that the end of this song is their hands reaching up from the ocean—”you hang on/until it drags you under.”

“Amoeba” – Clairo

“[Clairo’s] a lebsian” was an easy sell from my brother’s girlfriend for this song before I could actually hear it playing, but it was a worthwhile sell beyond that. Most of what I know of Clairo comes from snippets of some of her viral songs and Lindsey Jordan (a.k.a. Snail Mail) making the crowd sing “happy birthday” to her over FaceTime during one of her shows, but I’m glad that I’ve been exposed to this song. It flows effortlessly, easily: never does it feel the need to elevate itself or explode entirely, and its gentle existence is what continues to endear me. The vocals scream 2010’s, but some of the instrumentals feel like they traveled in a time capsule from the 70’s—quiet as they are, the funky keyboard licks and bassline make me sway in my seat every time. Everything in this song is understated, but that’s its hidden power—if everything is quiet, no part can overpower another, making for a seemingly perfect melding of each element. I don’t know how much of that is Claire Cottrill and how much is Jack Antonoff (who my feeling are still divided on—he produced the betrayal that was MASSEDUCTION and then the masterpiece that was Daddy’s Home right after…?), but whatever the case, it’s a lovely, gentle pop song.

“Worrywort” – Radiohead

This song might as well be an endangered species. A hopeful Radiohead song? I almost don’t believe it…

I still have plenty of Radiohead’s discography left to trudge through, even after 4 years of them being second only to David Bowie for me, but the joy of that is that, for now, there’s always something new to discover. I’m just hoping that it’ll stay that way for longer—every cell in me is hoping that A Moon-Shaped Pool was their last project, but…hurgh, that’s a story for another day. Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood’s Fear Stalks the Land!: A Commonplace Book, a collection of lyrics, poetry, and art from the Kid A/Amnesiac era turned me onto this one, snugly tucked away on Knives Out – EP. Amidst…well, everything else that came from that period—a mass airing-out of early 2000’s paranoia and fear—”Worrywort” feels like the only light of hope that was produced at that time in Yorke’s life. Aside from how much I love the spelling of “Worrywort,” like it’s some sort of medicinal plant, there are so many delicate parts to this song, much like the tiny fibers inside of a leaf. All of the synths layered on top of each other feel like a visual representation of if you hooked up guitar pedals to plants and heard what tiny, thin sounds they made while photosynthesizing or spreading their roots. With that making up all of the instrumentations, Thom Yorke’s plaintive murmur stays shadowy, only resorting to his signature keening in tiny parts of the background. And as I said before, it’s one of the only Radiohead songs that I can think of that seems, at least on the surface, to feel lyrically optimistic (no pun intended); “There’s no use dwelling on/What might have been/Just think of all the fun/You could be having.” What? Who are you, and what have you done with Thom Yorke? Not that I’m complaining. Glad he was at least fleetingly cheery for a brief moment sometime in 2001.

Against the backdrop of…well, everything else that Radiohead has put out there, lyrics like these almost feel like a ruse, like there’s some sly, cynical commentary hidden in there. But there really doesn’t seem to be—if anything, it feels like Yorke confronting his own demons, a battle between the voice of depression and the reassurance that he’s trying to bring to the surface. But either way, it’s strangely comforting—there’s something of a beautiful mantra in the song’s outro: a repetition of “it’s such a beautiful day.” Sure is.

“Bath County” – Wednesday

Nothing heals the soul quite like an excess of crunchy guitars.

Getting through my album list is proving to be a Herculean (but still enriching) task, so who knows if or when I’ll end up listening to Wednesday’s new album, Rat Saw God, but I’ve heard it’s been getting good reviews? Pitchfork, like Rotten Tomatoes, is always something I take with a grain of salt (JUSTICE FOR DADDY’S HOME), but an 8.8 from them is still pretty impressive. Laced with urban legends, Southern heat, and abandoned houses, the atmosphere of “Bath County” shines through, pioneered by Karly Hartzman’s mercurial voice—capable of being all at once smooth and soothing, but cracking and abrasive at other times. The guitars are an extension, screaming when the time is right (and even when it isn’t), making the whole song feel like watching a bonfire tower into the sky. I’ve seen Wednesday be compared to everything from grunge (makes sense) to shoegaze (…nah, I don’t see it), but either way, from my limited experience with the band, they’re very 90’s—but still very them.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s songs.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Music

the record – boygenius album review

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Monday, bibliophiles!

It’s finally here! The moment that I’ve been patiently waiting for…

After I discovered Phoebe Bridgers back in early 2020 (before it all went wrong), my boygenius revelation came soon after (right around when it really all went wrong). Not only was it my gateway to Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus, but it stood out as a representation of so many things—a critique of the pedestals we tend to reserve only for male artists, the way the music industry often lumps together “women in indie rock” simply because of their gender, and the magic that happens when three incredibly talented queer women get together and make music. Their self-titled EP, released in 2018, seemed to be the beginning and end of their relationship, but they secretly reformed and came together to release their first full-length album this March. And the results are simply magical, full of different highs and lows, but emotional and heartrending all the way through—in the best way.

boygenius’ Rolling Stone cover, an homage to Nirvana

Enjoy this album review!

THE RECORD – BOYGENIUS (album review)

Release date: March 31, 2023 (Interscope records)

TRACK 1: “Without You Without Them” – 8.5/10

never underestimate the power of an intro 🥲

If the record encapsulates the friendship of Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus, then this song is the perfect summation of that thesis. boygenius have made me so emotional over a cappella, somehow—their harmonies, pioneered in this case by Lucy Dacus, rise in perfect tandem, as each one thanks their parents, and their parents before them (“who would I be/without you, without them?”)—for the opportunities that brought them together as friends, by a cosmic miracle, and relishing in the quiet moments opening up to one another. Already a hard-hitter, and we’re barely even a minute into the album…

TRACK 2: “$20” – 9/10

Mama told me that it don’t run on wishes, but that I should have fun,

Pushing the flowers that come up

Into the front of a shotgun…

boygenius, “$20”

Rocketing from the quiet moments to a supersonic pace, “$20” remains one of my favorite songs on the album, even after everything else came out. Every lyric is delivered like a punch while grinning, each member’s voice coalescing and pulling apart at just the right moments, fading in and out of sync in perfect deliberation. Everything erupts with Phoebe Bridgers’ final scream, which remains one of the highlights of this album, where all of the pent up energy in this song bubbles to the top and fades out just as quickly. HAAAAAAAGH I STILL CAN’T STOP LISTENING IT’S BEEN LIKE 2 MONTHS

TRACK 3: “Emily I’m Sorry” – 8/10

This was my least favorite of the singles, but it’s still a beautiful heartbreaker of a song—like much of Phoebe Bridgers’ work, the instrumentation (which I still love, especially when everything seems to dissolve at 1:46) takes a backseat to her air-light, heartstring-tugging voice, and lets her shine. It just feels less cohesive as a supergroup—I get that all of the members had their songs that they wrote on their own, but this feels more like a Phoebe Bridgers single that just happens to feature Baker and Dacus than a boygenius song. It’s worked with some of the other songs in that style, but I feel like this would’ve worked better as just Phoebe Bridgers.

TRACK 4: “True Blue” – 8.5/10

sidenote—the shots of them sleeping in the film remind me so much of Blur’s “No Distance Left to Run” music video…

And it feels good to be known so well

I can’t hide from you like I hide from myself…

boygenius, “True Blue”

Hooooooooowhee, we’re back to Lucy Dacus throwing her whole fist into my chest and tugging at the heartstrings, huh? Is that what we’re doing?

Although (almost) nothing compares to the meteoric ecstasy of “$20,” “True Blue” is still a steadfast favorite of mine on this album. It’s a case study of how perfect the harmonies of these three are for each other. The way that Baker and Bridgers chime in on the bridge always makes my heart sing, as though they were somehow predestined to have this pairing of differently gorgeous voices, all joining hands in another ode to their mutual friendship.

TRACK 5: “Cool About It” – 9.5/10

But we don’t have to talk about it,

I can walk you home and practice method acting,

I’ll pretend that being with you doesn’t feel like drowning…

boygenius, “Cool About It”

This one rapidly rose to become my favorite on the album, and I’ve had it on repeat ever since. boygenius is versatile in the way that they organize songs together—sometimes it works with all of them singing at once, as in “$20,” but neatly-sectioned songs like this one, where each of the members gets their time in the spotlight, works just as well as the other. And this one’s the shining highlight of the album, a Simon & Garfunkel-inspired, introspective reflection on the complicated feelings of confronting people who were once prominent in your life—not being able to deny their toxicity, but grappling with not being able to outwardly show it. Each facet of their lyricism shines—Baker’s ability to dig directly into the emotional core of these feelings and making it look easy, Dacus’ dry but solemn display of wit, and Bridgers’ vulnerable confessions steeped in glistening stars. I have nothing but love for this song.

TRACK 6: “Not Strong Enough” – 7/10

Strangely, this was one of my least favorites of the album—the lyrics remain incredible (and the music video is so sweet 🥲), but there’s a country-pop twang to this one that doesn’t quite hook me all the way. There’s no denying how wonderful the ending is as Lucy Dacus builds up the bridge—”always an angel/never a god,” which all comes crashing together as we get another fantastic Phoebe scream.

TRACK 7: “Revolution 0” – 7/10

Though this one doesn’t hit me as hard as some of the others, Phoebe’s soft introspection truly shines on this song. The barely audible strings and the fluttering, dissolving synths make for an atmospheric song that feels like the musical equivalent of watching the sunrise on a crisp, winter morning. I can practically feel my breath fogging out before me, just as all three of their voices seem to gently drift into the air.

TRACK 8: “Leonard Cohen” – 6.5/10

Though Lucy Dacus’ lyrics are still funny and tender at the same time, this song feels oddly disjointed to me. Dacus’ voice comes in at a sudden, weirdly-placed time, and it doesn’t seem like it’s no purpose. Again: lovely lyrics, but the song never quite picks itself up from that initial, rocky start. I hate to say it, but maybe it’s for the best that it’s so short.

TRACK 9: “Satanist” – 8.5/10

(do I get something for being the 666th like on the lyric video for a song called “Satanist”?)

(STOP TRYING TO AUTOCORRECT CRED TO CREDIT SHUT UP SHUT UP)

One of my favorites after the singles, “Satanist” is proof that the neatly-sectioned format of letting each member sing a verse is a perfect way to let them all shine through! With Julien Baker’s witty lyrics and punchy guitars all the way through, it’s just a lovely chunk of indie rock all the way through. The ending, though drastically different, is just as wonderful, with all of their harmonies rising up like bonfire smoke into the night sky.

TRACK 10: “We’re In Love” – 8.5/10

If you rewrite your life,

May I still play a part?

boygenius, “We’re In Love”

Ow, did Lucy Dacus just get saddled with all dealing all of the emotional damage on this album? Does she just have a huge paddle that she’s just musically whapping us with? If that’s the case, “We’re In Love” was what knocked me off my feet for good…ouchie

Nearly 5 minutes long, “We’re In Love” presents Lucy Dacus and company ruminating on the nature of their shared friendship once more, reflecting on inside jokes and quiet moments spent together, and loving every inch of each other despite their flaws. Even outside of their cosmically aligned harmonies, it’s clear that boygenius have struck something truly special with their friendship, a connection that has allowed them to grow and produce no shortage of beautiful, creative works, and get to know each other better through it. It’s gorgeous…get out the tissues.

TRACK 11: “Anti-Curse” – 8/10

Turning back to the more fast-paced side of “Satanist,” “Anti-Curse” has Julien Baker letting loose once more. Though I enjoyed some of Baker’s other tracks more, it still has that raw vulnerability that endeared her to me when I first became a fan, but with the expansion of her more vast, Little Oblivions sound that gives everything even more weight. It feels like the whole song is painted in the same colors as the album color, with sunsets, breaking waves, and the taste of salt in your mouth.

TRACK 12: “Letter To An Old Poet” – 8.5/10

I wanna be happy, I’m ready

To walk into my room without looking for you,

I’ll go up to the top of our building,

And I’ll think of my dog when I see the full moon.

I can’t feel it yet,

But I am waiting…

boygenius, “Letter To An Old Poet”

Oh, so I see they let Phoebe Bridgers have this one tearjerker, and she took the opportunity and RAN with it? YOW.

I can’t think of a more fitting closer for the record. The whole song acts as a sister song to “Me & My Dog,” off of their self-titled EP, a reconciliation not only with the complications of a past relationship, but of a desire to heal oneself, move on, grow, and confront the truth. It’s clearly personal to Phoebe, but it feels like a collective healing call for all of them, a promise that the past is the past, but that we are all different people than who we once were. Every re-worked lyric acts as proof of change, a renewed mindset, and of hope that the future will be better while stargazing. Gah. Beautiful end to a beautiful album…

THIS PHOTOSHOOT HAD NO BUSINESS BEING THIS FUNNY 💀 I CAN’T GET OVER JULIEN IN THAT FRILLY DRESS HAHAHAEHJKEFKFDKJ

I averaged out all of the ratings for each track, and it came out to about an 8.1! I’m so glad that they decided to make a whole album—through all of the highs and lows, it displays their talents as individual musicians and as a collective creative force, and I’ll never get sick of their heavenly harmonies. And above all, it stands as a tribute to queer friendship, and every kind of love that we share, no matter the feelings that we associate with it. I’m sure it’ll be one of my favorite records of this year, without contest.

Since this is an album review, consider the entirety of the record to be today’s song.

That’s it for this album review! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!