Tag: Everything Was Beautiful

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 8/16/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: Yes, I did, in fact, preorder a song for Sunday Songs because I knew that I’d have Things to say about Lost Weekend, even though it’s only been two days since it came out. No, I’m not trying to kill you by putting Sparklehorse, Mitski, and Phoebe Bridgers in the same post (I swear the Mitski is actually upbeat. No, really!).

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 8/16/26

“Little Fat Baby” – Sparklehorse

In the aftermath of a near-death experience that gave Mark Linkous chronic pain for the rest of his life, this is what he said that he realized: “I started noticing all these things I’d forgotten about. I remember I was outside the rehabilitation place and I noticed a grasshopper, and I’d forgotten about grasshoppers…I just had this new perception of things I’d been oblivious to.” Sure, Sparklehorse is a hallmark of sad bastard music (a label that Linkous himself somewhat chafed against). But as I get older, what draws me back to Sparklehorse again and again is the encased eggs of hope beneath the sadness. His world is populated with dust and rotten wood and bones, but there’s lively insects hopping around, bird’s nests in the rafters of crumbling barns. There’s a liveliness that persists in spite of many sources of great strife in Linkous’s too-short life.

“Little Fat Baby” is one of the more somber songs in an already somber album, It’s a Wonderful Life. Yet it’s also one of the more empathetic songs. In the chorus, he ruminates on the song’s nebulous protagonist: “He got dragged/By a donkey/Through the glass/And the myrtle/But he was once/A little fat baby.” We never know what circumstances lead to this man meeting such an agonizing fate, but Linkous peers beyond the pain to see the inherent humanity in this character. The circumstances aren’t the point—the point is that all of us started off as helpless little creatures deserving of love. “Little Fat Baby” is a tender duet between Linkous and Sol Seppy, who provides fairylike accompaniment to Linkous’s already fragile voice. Quivering strings give this track a kind of grand reverence, amidst the quiet sympathy it weaves for the man who was once a little fat baby. There’s a strange comfort in “Little Fat Baby” amid the sadness—the feeling that you can always come home, no matter what you did before you stumbled onto the doorstep.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Language of Liars – S.L. Huang – “Did you make the city slickers laugh?/He got dragged by a donkey/Through the glass and the myrtle/But he was once a little fat baby…”

“Fireproof” (One Direction cover) – Mitski

Everything that Mitski touches turns to gold. Well, maybe not Laurel Hell, but they can’t all be winners. The recent tenth anniversary of Puberty 2 prompted her to release an edition with two new covers with whiplash-inducing source material: Frank Sinatra (which I talked about around a month ago) and One Direction. Of course, Mitski didn’t have to try in order to make “Fireproof” loads more fun than the original, which is pretty much the dictionary definition of milquetoast. (How do you make a song called “Fireproof” and then make it into the most sauceless, pallid excuse for a song possible? Jesus.) Mitski, on the other hand, made the vague promises of the lyrics into something tangible and fiery—her breathless admission of “I’m feeling something deep inside/Hotter than a jet stream burning up” makes it feel real. Aided by the crunchy guitars of her Bury Me at Makeout Creek era, this cover feels like she means every word, even if they aren’t hers.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Song of Salvation – Alechia Dow – “I’m feeling something deep inside/Hotter than a jet stream burning up/I got a feeling deep inside/It’s taking, it’s taking all I’ve got…”

“Museum of Sex” – Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3

Having only seen him live twice, I can say in confidence that there’s a point in every Robyn Hitchcock show where it goes from a concert to a stand-up routine. The last time I saw him, he veered into a whole bit about how rock n’ roll was invented in the 1700’s aboard ships. There was a joke about “Horse Latitudes” somewhere in there. He quoted “Time and again, I tell myself/I’ll stay clean tonight” from Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes” before segueing into “The Cheese Alarm.” The guy’s just naturally hilarious. This is the same man who casually used the interjection “yaysville!” multiple times in his memoir, after all. It felt nothing but natural.

What sticks to me about Robyn Hitchcock’s sense of humor to me is that yes, he’s got jokes, but he never half-asses them. He still puts his all into a song with lyrics like “I love that old museum of sex/You never know what’s happening next.” With the grooving, horn-laden accompaniment of the Venus 3, he launches into a track that winds along slinkily like a snake. He added in a lyric about said Museum of Sex closing at 4pm, to the laughter of the crowd, and all the while he’s chipping away at an artfully complex riff. He’s committed to the bit to a degree that most artists aren’t.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Early Riser – Jasper Fforde – there’s not a lot of books or authors I can think of that are similar to Hitchcock’s sense of humor, but Fforde’s quirky, dry wit and out of left field premises certainly comes close.

“The A Song (Laid In Your Arms)” – Spiritualized

“The A Song” is monumental. There’s no doubt about it. When I saw Spiritualized back in 2022, about a month before Everything was Beautiful was released, I remember being caught up in the towering tidal wave of noise. I could sense that “The A Song” was new, and all I could make out from the dizzying bee’s nest of sound was the line “One man’s crime is another man’s thrill”; the rest was just a shockwave.

It’s no wonder that I listened to Everything Was Beautiful to death when it came out. I had to take an extended break from it because it consumed me so much in mid-2022. To this day, I still think it’s one of Spiritualized’s best albums to date, nearly on par with Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, no less drugged-out but with the optimism that comes with age—and the revelation that you’re still alive, and there’s a myriad of things that you can do with your body and your life. Sure, “The A Song (Laid In Your Arms)” is probably as much about being high and watching your life slip away as any given Spiritualized song, but it’s a truly spectacular show of the amount of command that J Spaceman has of sound. Watching him at work is like watching a conductor with a 60-piece orchestra; squealing horns, screeching guitars, and percussion like pounding waves all convalesce into a marvelous, tidal force that knocks me off my feet, even when I’m sitting down. It’s so meticulously controlled and constructed, and yet there’s something so primal about how this song just swallows you whole. “The A Song” is a cosmic force—like the album title, it’s the kind of immaculate construction that, in spite of its lyrics, taps into the wonder of watching life itself unfold in front of your eyes, just like J Spaceman’s arresting compositions unfold in front of you. I think that’s the point of Everything Was Beautiful, in the end; it’s a celebration of the overwhelming shock of being alive.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Brightness Between Us (The Darkness Outside Us, #2) – Eliot Schrefer – I associate this duology a ton with Spiritualized—they have a very similarly epic quality to them.

“Kill Me” – Phoebe Bridgers

Predictably, I’ve become insufferable about Lost Weekend. Phoebe Bridgers could’ve easily gotten away with releasing Punisher 2: Electric Boogaloo after six years of radio silence, but she’s easily defied it. It’s a different record, temporally and stylistically. I’m struck by how it sounds next to Punisher; the former was lonely in the way of expansiveness, intensely sparse, like the image of Bridgers staring up at the stars in the middle of nowhere on the album cover. Lost Weekend, on the other hand, is lonely in a way that only happens when you’re caught in the eye of a storm in a roiling sea of chaos. The album is all about upheaval and disorientation, both positive and negative, with the confluence of her father’s unexpected passing and her relationship with Bo Burnham. Add to that the unforgiving eagle-eye of the music industry and the tabloid press, it’s got enough hairpin turns to make somebody want to abruptly get off the ride and throw up.

Chaos is something that Bridgers takes full advantage of on Lost Weekend, with some of the stylistic detours feeling disorienting if not played in the right order. But in order, the cohesion is difficult to miss; it feels strung together in a more adventurous way, especially with the bevy of instrumentation and noise that’s been added to the soundscape. “Kill Me,” one of my standout tracks from the album, feels like the lodestone of the chaos and disorientation: the repetition of Bridgers’s breathy admission of “This is gonna kill me/Wait!” as the instrumentation blinks into momentary silence feels like stumbling off of a dizzying rollercoaster, not knowing which direction is up or down. (Fittingly, I had a similar feeling coming out of the accompanying laser show at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. In a good way, for sure. Fitting.) Much of the song deals with time out of time, years bending and blending together: “My boys are getting married/Turning 21/I’m not, but I was once certain, always.” That sense of uncertainty feeds into the verse about a shared kiss at a costume party where “the veil is thinning.” (Admittedly, I thought that the “flower with chemical petals” line was corny, but it turned out to be a reference to David Foster Wallace.) All of it culminates in a propulsive turn into cascading shoegaze at 3:34 that sounds like the fabric of reality itself is fragmenting into fragile pieces, buoyed by Cameron Winter’s (!!!) backing vocals. Bridger’s rallying cry of “Let’s go missing” certainly puts “Lost Boys” in a new light—all of this upheaval and heightened visibility would make anybody want to go off the grid.

Lost Weekend, in the end, reads to me like a beautiful statement about facing the inherent unpredictability of life. Some days, it’s enough to make you want to disappear. But some days, it represents a promise of something wonderful that you’ll never see coming on the horizon. Life is full of this chaos, in all of its grief and turmoil—there’s no use running from it, good or bad. Sometimes what’s on the other side is the very thing you’ve always wanted.

BONUS: Speaking of Cameron Winter [ahem] Son-John Johnson, here’s one of my other absolute favorites from the album, the duet “I Can’t Wait” and it’s newly released music video:

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Infinite Miles – Hannah Fergesen – “Turning twenty-one/I’m not, but I was once certain, always/Now all I know is the ending…”

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 Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 5/19/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: in addition to my blue and black/white/gray periods, it’s become increasingly obvious that I also have a green period. On another note, food processors are great!

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/19/24

“Advert” – Blur

The restraint I displayed by not blowing through Blur’s entire discography back in the last half of 2021 is restraint that I have yet to parallel, so it’s only now, almost three years after the initial Blur Breakdown, that I’ve gotten around to Modern Life is Rubbish (if there was ever a more British title). I did sort of sully it with the experience of listening to it while crawling under my bed while trying to exorcise the last of the dust bunnies from my dorm (and getting caught on the rain), but that’s all me—this is the first Blur album where they started to feel like themselves.

I’d never thought of Modern Life is Rubbish, Parklife, and The Great Escape (the final Blur album to surmount) as a trilogy until Trash Theory described it as such—from my understanding, this is what cemented their reputation as the foremost clever spectators of British life in the ’90s, peering out of every windowsill with a snappy remark about the passersby. Modern Life feels like Parklife just before it morphed into the masterpiece it would later be—all of the pieces were there, and all that was needed was to make it larger than life. The melted shoegaze of Leisure was hanging on by a thread (it’s much more evident in the special edition—see: “Peach”), and they’d shifted from staring off into the distance, bleary-eyed and exhausted, into taking out that exhaustion on whatever they saw fit. Straight off of the heels of the triumphant “For Tomorrow,” “Advert” opens with a soundbite from the commercial you’ve just heard (“Food processors are great!”) before launching into what feels like the genesis of Graham Coxon’s signature assault of pounding guitars that practically demand every crowd to jump up and down. This relentless guitar work feels like witnessing the larval stage of “Jubilee,” crashing and bouncing with unending abandon. And this kind of guitar that threatens to consume the track is perfect for the endless consumerism that “Advert” comments on—commercials everywhere, a flood of inescapable offers leeching off of the dissatisfaction of the ordinary man: “You need a holiday somewhere in the sun/With all the people who are waiting/There never seems to be one.” This consumerism leads to even more dissatisfaction, which leads to more consumerism to quell said dissatisfaction, which leads to…ah, capitalism. What could possibly go wrong?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Early Riser – Jasper Fforde – consumerism: the perfect diversion from an oppressive, unlivable winter!

“Abbey” – Mitski

LUSH, Mitski’s first album, was made for an end-of-year project when she was a junior in college; there’s an unverifiable TikTok rumor going around that she got a C on it, which, given the traction of the Mitski fandom, is just going to become an urban legend at this point. So it goes.

Either way, it’s both remarkable and understandable that she wrote all of these songs and had them produced while she was still in college. Remarkable, because just from “Abbey,” she clearly had the nascent talent for wringing emotion out like ice-cold water from a towel from a young age, and understandable, because sometimes being alone and sleepless in your dorm on the very first night of college brings out that flood of inner darkness. Leave it to TikTok to leave out the best part of the song for whatever trend it latched itself to; the slow, chanting a cappella that gained traction feels like a prayer to a void growing within your chest, a litany of acknowledgment to that which you want to reach, but cannot touch. As an instrument, Mitski’s voice, unaccompanied until halfway through the song, is a haunting, flitting machine, the slow peak and valley of a heart monitor. But once the digitized drums sweep through, it feels as though the sky has opened up. This prayer has transformed from a whisper into the confession box into a plea bellowed to the heavens. “Abbey” chronicles a search for the soul, a ravenous hunger that cannot be sated that lies just out of reach: “There is a light, I feel it in me/But only, it seems, when the dark surrounds me/There is a dream and it sleeps in me/To awake in the night, crying, ‘Set me free’/And I awake every night, crying, ‘Set me free.'” Hoowheee. God. Makes me want to travel back in time just to give her a hug, but it seems like she’s now far removed from that time in her life, emotionally: she described the version of herself that wrote the album as being “long gone,” so I can only hope that she’s been able to fill her heart, as much as the music industry has kept her from doing so.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Hell Followed With Us – Andrew Joseph White – a void within that only becomes hungrier the more it grows.

“Side By Side” – Crumb

AMAMA, which came out on the 17th, wasn’t at the top of my most anticipated albums of the year, but after only one listen, it’s cemented itself as one of the most exciting ones so far. It’s a side of Crumb that hasn’t been let loose until now, one that, instead of gently dribbling like age-old water from the precipice of a glacier, skitters around on the smallest legs, darting this way and that like a frightened millipede. The whole album feels like watching a bunch of beetles hopped up on sugar water run a race: their iridescent shells catch the light as they crawl about, scaling walls instead of the tiny racetrack and occasionally clambering over each other to get ahead. No wonder they named a whole song “The Bug”—I need the instrumentals of AMAMA just so that somebody can use them for a documentary about insects.

AMAMA‘s three openers—“From Outside A Window Sill,” this song, and “The Bug”—are its strongest links, and although the album never falters, these three shine the brightest. “Side By Side” ricochets with an energy that I never would have expected from the likes of Crumb; both the drum machine and the actual drummer are working overtime to create a scampering beat that frantically bounces like a honeybee trapped under a plastic cup. It’s a song that yearns to go, go, go, and go it does—the swirl of rapid-fire synth beats are unpredictable in their flight path, so much so that I feel a jittery, sugary rush just listening to it. For me, the most fascinating part of this change in speed for Crumb is how easily Lila Ramani’s voice adapts to the change; it’s not like I thought she couldn’t sing more quickly, but her voice only slightly seemed to change speed along with the music. Her voice is permanently trapped in a slurry of amber, unaffected by time or space—I feel like her vocals, no matter the speed, would mesh with any tempo. It retains that syrupy calm that made the rest of Crumb’s catalogue so soothing and laid-back—a quality that feels suspended in a space beyond time.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Half-Built Garden – Ruthanna Emrys – skittering with life and energy (and some insectoid and arachnid aliens).

“Lusitania” (feat. St. Vincent) – Andrew Bird

It took me how long to find out that Andrew Bird had recorded a song with St. Vincent? I’m surprised that 12-year-old me didn’t find this drifting around somewhere, but to be fair, St. Vincent’s name isn’t listed on the official track.

In 2024, Andrew Bird and St. Vincent do seem like an odd couple; since 2012, Clark’s style has morphed so many times that it’s difficult to imagine her stylistically even going near Bird’s songbird-whistling, violin-dominated alternative folk. It makes sense that this was probably recorded sometime in 2011—post-Strange Mercy, but before the last dregs of Actor and Marry Me were out of her system. She’s still never been fully folk, but the intersection of the Venn diagram of her early style and Bird’s is wider than I thought it would be. With her guitar playing mostly absent, what shines in “Lusitania” is her voice; you can tell in the first half that she’s been quieted in post-production or that she’s holding back on completely dominating the track. “Lusitania” makes me miss those artsier sensibilities of 2008-2010 St. Vincent, the delicate turns of phrase and the more feathery clarion calls her voice twisted into. Just like that, I’ve got another song in my hypothetical playlist of songs where artists sing certain phrases in a way that scratches all the itches in my brain: in this case, her singing of “there’s no shame” at 2:44. Her warble seems to chain-link with Bird’s in a way that produces its own chord, something more than a harmony that feels like a tuning fork struck at my heart.

But why don’t I talk about Andrew Bird, though, since…y’know, he’s the one who made the bulk of this song, anyway? Totally unlike me to go on about St. Vincent…completely uncharacteristic. (I have not changed a bit since middle school.) The instrumentation doesn’t stand out to me on this one as much, save for the rising cymbals that nearly swallow both Bird and Clark’s voices. But it’s clearly to make way for the lyrics—a clever string of World War I metaphors, presumably about a relationship where one party suffers volley after volley of abuse, while the other doesn’t even think to recognize that their behavior is harmful: “If your loose and libel lips/Keep sinking all my ships/Then you’re the one who sank my Lusitania/But somehow it don’t register as pain at all.” As far as ship metaphors go, the Titanic has likely been used one too many times, but the Lusitania feels especially potent on several fronts. The use of such a large passenger ship (and its sinking) drives home the metaphor of weathering emotional abuse until it drowns you. What’s more effective still about the Lusitania was its eventual role in the First World War; since a significant number of its passengers were Americans, the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-Boat was part of what pushed public opinion towards entering the war on the side of the British in 1917. Just like the boiling public outrage of the American public, the Lusitania was the straw that broke the camel’s back, an event so explosive that there could be no other option than to break away, no matter how many casualties it cost. “You laid mines along the shore” feels like the last gasp of this deeply harmful relationship, the claws that scored scars down the narrators back as they squirmed free of their bloodied grasp.

I really should have seen this collaboration coming, not because of my middle school obsession, but also because it slipped my mind that it wasn’t the first time. Here they are in 2009 performing “What Me Worry?” (15:51) and “Black Rainbow” (21:09).

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Fireheart Tiger – Aliette De Bodard – “If your loose and libel lips/Keep sinking all my ships/Then you’re the one who sank my Lusitania/But somehow it don’t register as pain at all…”

“The Mainline Song” – Spiritualized

How I’ve never covered Spiritualized on Sunday Songs is genuinely beyond me. I did sort of discuss them when I talked about “Monster Love” last June, but that was more of a remix than anything. They’ve been in my top 5 artists of all time for at least 4 years now, but I suppose I blew through most of their catalogue before I started writing these posts. Mark my words, “Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space” is always on in the background of everything else I’m listening to.

Everything Was Beautiful, which came out around two years ago, was some of J. Spaceman’s best work to date; at the time it came out, I remember describing it as Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space but happy. Insane concept, I know…when was the last time you saw J. Spaceman and happiness in the same room together? Hardly ever, up until maybe 2017, right? Jesus. This poor man has to be the dictionary definition of “going through it.” Which is why the “happy Ladies And Gentlemen” hit me so deeply—all of the heroin, heartbreak, and near-death experiences have begun to fade away from his newer music, but the explosive, immersive creativity remains the same—you can really tell that these positive changes in his life have really begun to take root. And I am so glad. This man has been on the brink of death not once but twice. He doesn’t just deserve it: he needs it.

Like Ladies And Gentlemen, Everything Was Beautiful is always at the back of my mind, usually in the form of the uproariously celebratory “Always Together With You” and the nearly 10-minute long, haunting and cinematic closer “I’m Coming Home Again.” “The Mainline Song” lands on the side of euphoria, and thank god that it’s not heroin-induced this time (as much as “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit)” slaps). J. Spaceman’s immeasurable talent lies in how quickly he can not just create an atmosphere, but how he can create one that consumes so instantly. It’s not a building wave that darkens you with shadows before swallowing you whole: a more apt comparison would be falling into the core of a star, instant immersion with stardust sounds and white-hot flares roaring all around you. Every song is a universe contained in a spare amount of minutes. However, even if I did cast aside the part about there not being a build before the immersion, the buildup to “The Mainline Song” may just be its main draw. The build itself is part of the universe; J. Spaceman doesn’t even start singing until the halfway point, letting the song construct itself from fragments of stardust and train tracks as it swirls into being. It’s a song patched from the breeze of night, the kind you only find when sticking your head out of a car window, breathless and ecstatic. It’s a sprint through the streets as city lights blink like so many stars. It’s the wind parting your hair as you run to catch the bus, panting as you stumble inside with a fit of laughter. As many songs as there are about this kind of adventuring, none of them quite capture the hopeful feeling of “The Mainline Song.” No feeling necessitates J. Spaceman’s magical universe creation more—the swirl of horns, choir, and machinery bottle the feeling in all of its rapid euphoria, as blurry as the world passing by from the window of a train. Like nothing else, “The Mainline Song” captures the look you share with your friend as you reach a silent agreement to leave everything else and run. The destination isn’t what matters: it’s the breathless thrill of love.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Scatter of Light – Malinda Lo – warmth, adventures in the city, and an unforgettable summer.

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 Music, Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 1/8/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

I probably should’ve said something before tweaking my blogging schedule without warning, but I’ve decided to do a little something new instead of my weekly updates. I figured that I ended up saying most of the stuff I said in my weekly updates in my monthly wrap-ups, so this seemed like a more fun and creative use of my time.

Since last summer, I’ve been making graphics of songs that I’d been listening to during the week and shared them every Sunday, inspired by my brother. I’ve wanted to write about music more on this blog for a while, so I figured that I’d move my Sunday Songs to this blog as well to get the chance. As I said, these will probably replace my weekly updates, but you’ll be able to see everything that I’ve been reading in my wrap-ups at the end of each month. I know I’m going to enjoy writing about music more, and I hope you all enjoy the results!

the background format for this & all further Sunday Songs comes from a close up picture I took of the massive section of David Bowie CDs at Amoeba Records in San Francisco!

SUNDAY SONGS: 1/8/23

Gorillaz – “Left Hand Suzuki Method”

I can’t say anything about the whole album, but you know a band has endless talent when even the B-Sides (or G-Sides, in this case) sound just as good—if not better—than the original album material. I’ve been a huge fan of Gorillaz for years, but I didn’t hear about this one until it showed up in my YouTube recommendations out of the blue. And of all the things I expected to get from a Gorillaz song, Suzuki flashbacks was not one of them. I feel like I got whiplash the second I heard the sample of “Long Long Ago”, and suddenly, I was experiencing every piano lesson that I had from ages 5-7 (or something) as well as every recital that I ever attended at my old music school all at once. Whew.

But the way Damon Albarn utilizes this sample in “Left Hand Suzuki Method” is a testament to his creativity as a musician; building off a creaky sample that’s meant to teach kids how to play music, he creates a collage of funky keyboards and thick, punchy guitar intervals that transform a simple song into a collage of instantly catchy sound. Genius. Again, how was this a B-Side? (Sorry, G-Side…)

David Bowie – “All the Madmen”

I forgot up until a few days ago that this Sunday also happens to be what would have been David Bowie’s 76th birthday, so I’m glad I’m writing about him today. Happy birthday, sir. ⚡️

This one’s a bit lesser known than most of his (extensive) catalogue, but it’s crept up to become one of my favorite, underrated songs of his. Taken from The Man Who Sold the World, it’s loosely based on his schizophrenic half-brother, who was in and out of the institutions that the song fictionalizes. As you’d imagine, it’s appropriately chilling in that sense, but it has a lighter, almost nursery rhyme feel to certain parts of it—flutes and light drums that almost sound tinkling—before launching into epic, sweeping electric guitars that have come to define much of his early 70’s material. It all culminates into one of the most simultaneously creepy and catchy outros that I can think of in any song—as the guitars blend into synths as the song closes, Bowie begins a clapping chant of “Zane, zane, zane/ouvre le chien” (open the dog), a line which he later confirmed to be nonsense, seemingly the final nail in the protagonist’s loss of sanity. “All the Madmen” makes me appreciate Bowie so much more a songwriter—with his combination of sharp lyricism and musical craft, every song is a story.

Missy Elliott – “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)”

At last…I finally know what my mom was referencing every time she said “Beep beep!/Who got the keys to the Jeep?”…

And my mom is also the reason why I found this song, after I told her about how I rediscovered “Get Ur Freak On”, and I’ve been listening to it nonstop ever since. Hip-hop isn’t usually my go-to, but even from the two songs I know her from, Missy Elliott is masterful at making a song so smooth and seamless that you miss the samples within—I just found out that the main structure of the song was sampled from Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” Like “Left Hand Suzuki Method,” “The Rain” creates a collage of smooth, instantly catchy sound out of a single, looped sample, creating a wider soundscape that keeps my head nodding through all 4+ minutes of the song. This phrase is definitely going to come up constantly in these posts, but…yeah, I need to listen to more Missy Elliott. So good.

Fontaines D.C. – “I Love You”

I know shamefully little about this band—before hearing this one on a friend’s Instagram story, the extent of my knowledge of Fontaines D.C. came from their glowing Pitchfork reviews (I think this album that this song is from came out on the same day as Everything Was Beautiful and got best new music instead of it? Come on, Spiritualized deserved it…I digress…why am I so fixated on these things?) and some guy’s hoodie that I saw in passing at the Smile show (“oh, the album with the elk on it?” – my internal monologue). I’m liking this song enough to explore more, though; through my first and only exposure so far, I love how “I Love You” slowly builds tension and breaks it just as quickly. With the faint bass and twinkling guitar notes in the quite first few minutes, the drums build to a slow, tight crescendo as the vocals intensify and then return to the peaceful, strangely sinister place where the song came from just as quickly, fading to nothing but a few strained strums in the very end.

So thanks, anonymous friend, for the new song and possibly new band to listen to! Maybe another album to add to my hydra-like list of albums that I have yet to listen to?

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Despair (Acoustic Version)”

Going back to a mainstay favorite of mine for several years, here’s a beautifully uplifting song to take us into the rest of the new year. I know, look at the title, but stay with me: the song is more about overcoming despair than the despair itself, don’t worry. We’ll save my sadgirl songs for later. Although the original makes the uplifting message all the more prominent (because how else would Karen O. dancing on top of the Empire State Building in a rhinestone-studded jacket make you feel? Really?), there’s a certain intimacy that I glean from the acoustic version; whereas the original is a rallying cry for optimism and hope in spite of the darkness that life brings, this feels like a gentle comfort, a reassuring word whispered as you’re tucked into bed, promising that the monsters under your bed won’t hurt you after all. “Through the darkness and the light/Some sun has gotta rise.” Leave it to Karen O. and company to keep the light going in these uncertain times.

Oh, and I just realized that the original is almost 10 years old now, OW…

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

I hope you all enjoyed my first time doing Sunday Songs! I love writing about music almost as much as I like writing about books, so hopefully you can enjoy it too. I look forward to writing more about music in the future outside of just album reviews (although I’m VERY excited to review Cracker Island when the day comes). Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Monthly Wrap-Ups

April 2022 Wrap-Up 🎫

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Saturday, bibliophiles!

I keep saying things along the lines of “this week has been low-key…” in my updates and in my journal, fully knowing that it’s the calm before the storm (read: AP tests), but it’s been good to enjoy the calm nonetheless. And if I could get through three AP tests last year, then I can do it this year too. At least they’re all in one week again this time.

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Looking back, April was somewhat busy, but it never quite felt that way. Going to three concerts in a month was certainly a plus, however tired I got the day after the second two. I have less than a month left of high school (!!!!) and it certainly feels like things are slowing down…it’s all coming into perspective…

April’s been a great reading month as well! Aside from one DNF at the beginning of the month, I haven’t read anything below two stars. I found some great books in the bunch too, both from new-to-me authors and from tried-and-true authors! A good batch, I think.

Things have been slowing down as far as writing goes; since I shared my WIP, I’ve been in a sort of limbo where I’m not sure what to write next. For now, I’m outlining for said WIP’s sequel, but it’s been…rocky. I forgot how frustrating the beginning stages of outlining can be sometimes. Figuring out the playlist has been fun, though…Other than that, I’ve just been drawing, learning a few new songs on guitar, finishing Raised by Wolves (w h a t) and Severance (season 2 can’t come soon enough), watching Spirited Away, listening to an excess of Wet Leg, Spiritualized, and Jack White, and seeing Spiritualized, Snail Mail, and Ben Folds live. (All three were lots of fun, but Spiritualized was hands down my favorite!!)

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 18 books this month! I can chalk that one up to several lengthy books that took me longer than usual to read, but that’s okay. Still on track for my goodreads goal of 200—78 books as of now!

1 – 1.75 stars:

Witches Steeped in Gold

2 – 2.75 stars:

The Conductors

3 – 3.75 stars:

One for All

4 – 4.75 stars:

The Weight of Our Sky

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: Extasia – 4.5 stars

SOME POSTS I’M PROUD OF:

POSTS FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAT I ENJOYED:

SONGS/ALBUMS THAT I ENJOYED:

now THAT is an impressive high note
this was so beautiful live 😭
in which my dad and I try to catalogue all of the songs that they played at the Spiritualized soundcheck
such a fun album!
also a very fun album!!
every day I get more and more excited about the new Soccer Mommy album
such a haunting ending to a beautiful album
this was so much fun live!! the whole concert was so fun and interactive

DID I FOLLOW THROUGH ON MY APRIL GOALS?

  • Read at least 20 books: 18, but it’s all good.
  • Try not to spontaneously combust at the Spiritualized concert if/when they play “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space”: …well, no “Ladies And Gentlemen,” but nonetheless, I spontaneously combusted. Hands down, one of my favorite concerts I’ve ever been to. Thanks again, J Spaceman!

GOALS FOR MAY:

  • Get through the AP tests
  • Finish high school strong! (aAAA STILL CAN’T BELIEVE I’M GRADUATING—)

Today’s song:

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

Posted in Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: April 18-24, 2022

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

It’s been another fairly low-key week on my end; we had the day off on Friday, so I’m getting way too used to shorter school weeks. After last week, I’ve been on a streak of great books! So many unique books in particular—I can’t decide which one I’ll review next week! I’m nearly finished with the whole Heartstopper series too—I’ve got vol. 4 ready on my Kindle, along with my other library books!

Writing-wise, I’ve been attempting to outline for book 2 of my sci-fi WIP, and…it’s been…it’s going? It’s going. I have a clear picture of the beginning and the ending, but the middle is still hazy, so I’m trying to figure out what goes in between. Making playlists always helps get my sense of direction going, and it’s certainly helping now, at least.

Other than that, I’ve been listening to the new Spiritualized (AAAAAH), drawing a little, and playing some guitar. I also saw Snail Mail for a third time on Sunday night (great!) and Ben Folds with the Colorado Symphony last night (amazing!!), so there’s been a lot of concerts this month!! I’m tired now, but it was worth it.

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:

Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno-Garcia (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Heartstopper, vol. 3 – Alice Oseman (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

The Library at Mount Char – Scott Hawkins (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75, rounded up to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Extasia – Claire Legrand (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)

The Chandler Legacies – Abdi Nazemian (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

POSTS AND SUCH:

SONGS:

CURRENTLY READING/TO READ NEXT WEEK:

Heartstopper, vol. 4 – Alice Oseman

One for All – Lillie Lainoff

Warrior of the Wild – Tricia Levenseller

The Weight of Our Sky – Hanna Alkaf

Today’s song:

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

Posted in Music

Everything Was Beautiful – Spiritualized album review

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Saturday, bibliophiles, and happy world book day as well!! You’d think I’d have a book-related post today, but…nope. No thoughts, only Spiritualized for the next 3-5 business weeks.

Normally, I wait for a few days to a week after an album’s release to review it, but…well, between my listening to it yesterday and my dad playing it the whole way through in the car yesterday evening, I’ve probably listened to it three or four times in its entirety already, so…

Spiritualized has been one of my favorite bands for around two years—even longer, if you count when I first heard “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space” for the first time and listened to it on repeat to fall asleep on vacation. Their music, if I had to describe it in one word, is all-consuming; J Spaceman has built a stunning career out of making a song into a vast cosmos of sound, making themes of heartbreak, addiction, and new love into the dictionary definition of larger-than-life. That’s what I’ve always loved about his music—his songs never feel like just songs, but experiences.

By the time I’d really gotten into Spiritualized, I’d accepted that I wouldn’t be able to see him live or experience a new album of his; he’d said in several interviews that And Nothing Hurt would likely be his last album. But in late 2021, we were gifted with the best kind of surprise: we would be getting more Spiritualized after all!! Now that it’s here, I can say with certainty that there isn’t a single bad song on this album. It’s probably impossible to re-achieve the genius of Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space or Sweet Heart Sweet Light, but Everything Was Beautiful comes very close, even at just seven songs.

Enjoy this album review!

EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL – SPIRITUALIZED ALBUM REVIEW

TRACK 1: “Always Together With You” – 10/10

This was the first single to come out of this album, and it singlehandedly provided all of the serotonin that I needed to get through the rest of 2021, so there’s that.

It’s not hard for me to say that this is easily one of Spiritualized’s best songs. Expansive and cosmic, I feel as though I’ve been lifted into the air and through the clouds every time I listen to it. I was texting my family about it when it first came out, and I jokingly called it “‘Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space’ but happy,” and as much of a joke it was, it feels true; “Always Together With You” feels like a more matured, more hopeful version of its predecessor, down to the morse code sounds and J Spaceman’s daughter (😭) saying the album’s title at the very beginning. Absolute masterpiece.

TRACK 2: “Best Thing You Never Had (The D Song)” – 8.5/10

Smoothly transitioning from “Always Together With You,” “Best Thing You Never Had” keeps up the momentum set up by the first track with classic Spiritualized elements—catchy guitars, a backing choir, and what sounds like a good-sized brass section. Just as spacey as ever, it’s the perfect song for rolling the windows down in your car, and it’s sure to cement this album as one of Spiritualized’s best.

TRACK 3: “Let It Bleed (For Iggy)” – 9.5/10

When I saw Spiritualized back at the beginning of the month, this was one of my favorites of the new songs they played. Now that I’m hearing it through my headphones, it’s one of my favorites off the album! Here’s where the momentum sustained by “Best Thing You Never Had” picks up once more, with another sweeping, all-consuming thing of pure beauty.

TRACK 4: “Crazy” (cover of Nikki Lane’s “Out of My Mind”) – 8.5/10

(so apparently this is a cover?? took me a while to find out…I guess because the original has a different title)

“Crazy” is one of my least favorites on the album, but it’s beautiful nonetheless. Even as a cover (I’ve only listened to the original once, so…), it’s indicative of the quiet, genuine tenderness that J Spaceman is capable of amidst all of the heartbreak and darkness that’s prevalent in so many of his other songs. Lovely.

TRACK 5: “The Mainline Song” – 9.5/10

This is another Spiritualized piece that seems more like a journey than a song—all of the train sounds layered in only adds to that effect. With J Spaceman’s airy vocals and rushing instrumentals, it’s another song that seems to physically carry you somewhere else, watching the clouds rushing by. It doesn’t even matter that it’s chiefly instrumental—it’s an unmistakable highlight of the album.

TRACK 6: “The A Song (Laid In Your Arms)” – 9.5/10

Like “Best Thing You Never Had,” “The A Song” is a persistent, powerful march reminiscent of Spiritualized’s harder side. For Spiritualized, longer songs are a common sight, but at over seven minutes long, this song never loses its impact or momentum, delivering guitars and brass that crash against you like waves on the shore. Nothing short of a masterpiece—and another song that was phenomenal live!

TRACK 7: “I’m Coming Home Again” – 10/10

For a lot of Spiritualized albums, the final song is either a sweeping ballad or a mournful, soft ending. “I’m Coming Home Again” is neither of those—and it’s almost more powerful than some examples of both. It’s the longest song on the album at almost 10 minutes long, and like “The A Song,” never loses its momentum all that time. But unlike the former, it achieves its affect more in its consistent feeling of foreboding. It’s a haunting song—I have an oddly specific feeling that it would mesh perfectly in the second-to-last episode of a TV show, in a scene where the main character gets their revenge, walking away from lighting something on fire. From the first notes to the final strains of the choir, “I’m Coming Home Again” is a looming masterpiece, and an unexpected but perfect ending to a near-flawless album.

I averaged out all my ratings for each track, and it came to about a 9.4! Absolutely accurate to how I feel about Everything Was Beautiful—it’s hard to touch some of Spiritualized’s other albums, but this album establishes itself as one of J Spaceman’s masterpieces. It’s the perfect melding of the sound of 90’s Spiritualized with the hope of 10’s Spiritualized, and it makes for an album with a lasting, haunting, and eternally memorable effect. Thank you, J Spaceman, for another religious experience. 💗

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Since this is an album review, consider the entire album today’s song.

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