Tag: Jeff Tweedy

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 3/2/25

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: were it not for me yapping about Horsegirl earlier this week, this post would be unfathomably long…sorry. Stick around for my rambling hitting concerning levels the minute I have more free time.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 3/2/25

“Less Than You Think” – Wilco

Since A Ghost Is Born got its anniversary reissue a few weeks back, I took the time to listen to the album in its entirety for the first time…surprising, I know! That being said, I’d basically listened to all but two tracks on the album, but I hadn’t gotten to listen to it all the way through in the right order. After a childhood being fed Wilco by my dad about as much as I was fed milk as a baby (both were nourishing and necessary for my development), only two tracks remained: “Wishful Thinking” and this track. It’s songs like “Less Than You Think” that make me remember how much of a poet Jeff Tweedy is. I don’t say that about every singer; in the abstract, music is poetry set to song, but it doesn’t often feel that way. In this case, it’s understandable that the poetry of “Less Than You Think” gets lost in the other masterpieces in Wilco’s catalogue. But it’s not just a case of an underrated track—there’s a reason this one gets lost in the fray so often. For three minutes, it’s any normal Wilco song—one of their sadder ballads, but standard Wilco fare…

…and then you realize that there’s 12 minutes left.

That 12 minutes is entirely composed of a shrill, grating stretch of electronic droning and background noise from the studio. To say that it’s excruciating to listen to, especially with the volume up after listening to the actual song part, is almost an understatement. It’s unpleasant in every sense of the word. Yet that’s precisely the point. Not to be the “🤓☝️ erm ackshually, this nigh-unlistenable 12 minutes of noise has a deep meaning that’s essential to the understanding of the song,” but…it does. It’s unlistenable because it’s meant to be unlistenable—Tweedy and the rest of the band used this song to recreate the experience of having chronic migraines, a condition Tweedy has had all his life, but was exacerbated by his painkiller addiction: “I don’t know why anyone would need to have that expressed to them musically. But it was all I had.” Tweedy put “Less Than You Think” out anyway, knowing that it’d be “the track everyone will hate,” saying that “I know ninety-nine percent of our fans won’t like that song, they’ll say its a ridiculous indulgence. Even I don’t want to listen to it every time I play through the album. But the times I do calm myself down and pay attention to it, I think it’s valuable and moving and cathartic. I wouldn’t have put it on the record if I didn’t think it was great.” And he’s right. Being so experimental with this catharsis brings us so much closer to the experience than words ever could, as much as a master wordsmith as Tweedy is. Catharsis for a pain as profound as this doesn’t have to be listenable or tolerable to be worth putting out into the world—it’s catharsis, after all. Sure, I’ve skipped it every time I’ve listened to it since, but once again…that’s the point. We’re meant to sympathize with Tweedy’s pain, but even he admits that it’s not exactly easy listening. (Some absolutely diabolical individual in the YouTube comments called it “the best song to tee up on the bar jukebox right before you leave…” Satan, is that you?)

But that glorious, incandescent three minutes before you get the worst headache you’ve ever experienced? Deeply moving, in an entirely different way. They got me. They got me good with the sad bastard music. The piano is played with such a heaviness that you can only imagine it being played with lead weights strapped to each finger. Delicate taps of the dulcimer climb up an invisible ladder, each strike coinciding with Tweedy’s repetition of “Lightly tapping/a high-pitched drum.” And for a song that Tweedy knew would be an instant skip for most of his listener, he packed it with some of A Ghost is Born‘s most downright poetic lyrics:

“As your spine starts to shine
You shiver at your soul
A fist so clear and climbing
Punches a hole in the sky
So you can see
For yourself
If you don’t believe me
There’s so much less
To this than you think…”

Yeah, I pulled a Lisa Hannigan again. I’m tempted to just copy and paste all of the lyrics. Punches a hole in the sky? More like punches a hole in my soul, ow. Though the lyrics toy with the chaos of the universe and the clarity of realizing that maybe everything hasn’t been choreographed by a higher power, I can’t help but connect it with Tweedy’s migraines—all the talk of shivering and “Your mind’s a machine” sounds an awful lot how I imagine living with both migraines and addiction must feel: a cycle of dullness and excruciating pain, exposing how much of the brain has been devoted to going through the motions. As for the solemn resignation to atheism, it connects to that experience—it seems pain that immeasurable makes you either seek out or entirely swear off of religion without a happy medium. With or without words, Tweedy conjures a pain he had to exorcise from his person, yet is able to resonate if you’re willing to dig through the earth to find it. Sometimes you have to make art from agony in order to make the burden lighter, whether or not you give it to the world. In any case, Jeff Tweedy makes the pain worth weathering.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling – Lucy Frank – told in sparse verse, these two characters go through a similar pain as they work through chronic pain diagnoses in the same hospital.

“Big Time Sensuality” – Björk

Today, on: Madeline listens to Björk’s discography wildly out of order…we’ve come to Debut. It’s another one of those albums that I’d listened to about half of already, but it was just track after track of honed energy and happiness…seriously, this album couldn’t have come at a better time in my life. I think listening to Post about this time last year and Debut now feel aligned with my life in some way. A lot of Björk’s experience at the time was drawn from moving from Iceland to the UK in her late twenties, and being adventurous, putting out her feelers, and embracing the newness of it all, taking everything in (see: “Enjoy”). In some ways, I feel a connection to that kind of exploration. Now that I’ve shed most of the apprehension of freshman year (though definitely not all), I feel like I’m slowly beginning to grow into a new place, a new home, a new environment. I know I’m a little dramatic about that…I’m going to a college that’s less than an hour away from my hometown, so I can’t quite compare. But there came a time when I realized I was living in a whole new place, and I’d barely scratched the surface of everything in it. After the initial crisis, I’ve begun dragging my friends to whatever new place that I can find. Baby steps, but I’m slowly cataloguing new restaurants that I’ve tried. New routes to class. New coffee places on campus, now that Starbucks jumped on the DEI-stripping bandwagon. I’m not throwing myself headfirst into a new city, immersing myself in the early ’90s rave nightlife like Björk did, but I can’t help but connect to that apprehension, that excitement of really knowing you’re somewhere new, physically and emotionally. I’d do well to take it to heart the more I grow up.

“Big Time Sensuality” embodies Björk’s absorption of ’90s house music while in London, and even though it’s far from the weirdest part of her catalogue, you can’t take the weird out of Björk. Even amidst the house beats behind her, you can’t erase the skyrocketing highs and growls that, even for her firs solo effort, were already staples of her vocal style. Despite what the title would have you believe, there’s nothing necessarily sexual about it, yet it retains the ecstasy you’d think it would have. This ecstasy, however, comes from a common theme on Debut: reaching out and taking risks to soak the fullest out of life: “I don’t know my future after this weekend/And I don’t want to.” Its heart is imbued with the rush of friendship, throwing your passion into your music, and independence in a few environment: Björk told David Hemingway that the song’s inspiration came from “[Creating] pretty deep, full-on love relationships with friends…I can be a coward a lot of the time and there comes a moment when I write a song when I get quite brave.” “Big Time Sensuality” throws itself face first into uncharted waters, all with a dimple-stretching grin. Björk’s already diverse vocal range embodies the chorus of “It takes courage to enjoy it/The hardcore and the gentle.” And the music video, directed by Stéphane Sednaoui, embodies that daring joy, with Björk dancing on the back of a truck bed driving through New York City, baring her grin for all to see.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers, #2) – Becky Chambers – Lovelace’s journey of having a body, separating herself from her old identity, and being a part of the sapient world mirrors much of the eager excitement of Debut.

“I Am The Fly” – Wire

All the cool people like Wire. I’m not saying that to assert that I’m [snaps fingers] hip (that alone proves that I’m really not). It’s more that if you rattle off any creative, clever band from the past three to four decades, they all name Wire as an influence–Sonic Youth, R.E.M., and Soundgarden are just a handful of people touched by their music, and you can hear their genealogy in grunge, hardcore punk, and even Britpop. (Heavy on the Britpop. See Elastica’s “Line Up,” one of several songs that Wire took Elastica to court over claims of plagiarism.) Want proof? How about Wire playing with Jon Spencer and St. Vincent back in 2015? See what I mean? They’re the great uniters. All the cool people like Wire.

For all intents and purposes, Wire left their more punk sound behind with Pink Flag (see “12XU”), trading it for a minimalist, synth-dominated sound on Chairs Missing. To my ear, it sounds like the musical equivalent of brutalism; to the touch, every texture is rough as concrete, but every edge is sanded down to absolute straightness. Graham Lewis’ thick bass dominates the sound, rippled through with guitars, handclaps, and a wall of synth so dense that it becomes more percussion than the actual drums. I can’t help but hear some leftover punk not in the sound, but in the lyrics. Houseflies don’t sound particularly punk at first glance (nor does Graham Lewis’ apparent thing for writing about winged insects on this album)—they’re more for being stepped on by a pair of massive docs than the subject of a song. But yet, this simple animal becomes so deeply punk: “I am the fly in the ointment/I can spread more disease than the fleas/Which nibble away at your window display.” At its core, punk is has always been about disruption, whether that’s in the abrasive quality of the music or grating against the establishment. A fly is a fundamental nuisance, a tiny speck of a creature that, as the song says, spreads disease so easily, ripping up the threads in the fabric of something pristine and perfect. No matter how many swings you take at them with a flyswatter, they always come out, reproducing rapidly…just like disease, and just like resistance. Even with the dry intonation of the lyrics, it reads to me as a deeply proud song, a finger crossed behind the back and a smirk on the face as the time bomb counts down its last second. It’s a promise, and it’s a declaration of purpose: disturbance.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Countess – Suzan Palumbo – “But there’s an air-pellet hole/I can crawl through to you/I am the fly in the ointment/I can spread more disease than the fleas/Which nibble away at your window display…”

“Frontrunner” – Horsegirl

See my review of Horsegirl’s new album, Phonetics On and On; bottom line, I LOVE HORSEGIRL. WE ARE BETTER FOR THEIR EXISTENCE.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

If You Still Recognize Me – Cynthia So – “In the morning, when you’re sleeping/I can’t wait and I can’t wait to compromise…”

“Amelia” – Cocteau Twins

How does it feel? How does it feel for those of you with the right names to share a name with a Cocteau Twins track? For all of the Loreleis, Amelias, Beatrixes, Ivos, Carolyns, etc…do you realize how lucky you are?

Out of all of the Cocteau Twins songs I’ve heard, “Amelia” is one that embodies their general qualities the most, taken almost to an extreme. Regardless of whether or not I could hear the lyrics even if they weren’t nonsensical, they’re sunken so deep into the production that they become a kind of fog-like mist. The unmoored, bass-less flow of the track reminds me of something off of Victorialand, a record where bassist Simon Raymonde was notably missing. Liz Fraser’s vocals are as textural as ever, uttering a whole menagerie throat-fluttering bird calls amidst a barrage of gated reverb that descends upon you like the patter of heavy rain on a windshield. Next to some of their other tracks, it feels slightly less cohesive—the intensity of the gated reverb, reverb’d into high heaven as it is, doesn’t completely mesh with the airiness of the vocals or the other instrumentation. Somehow, it’s almost comforting—the Cocteau Twins stand out to me as a band who truly found their niche and stuck to it, digging in their heels to make that niche as unique and them as possible in the most artistic and adventurous way. Weirdly, it comforts me that it took them time to get their rhythm down, and even then, their earlier steps still blow me away. “Amelia” certainly does—the sheer variety of vocal styles that Fraser layers over one another is proof that even on a record that the band famously hated, their nascent talent couldn’t help but shine in its own way.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Meru – S.B. Divya – I can only imagine that the experience of being a god-like Alloy and floating in space sounds something like the Cocteau Twins.

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: 12/22/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

Before I begin, here are the Sunday Songs from the past two weeks, as I had to crawl my way through finals hell and didn’t have time to write here. As with Hounds of Love, I PROMISE that I’ll end up talking about Before and After Science: Ten Pictures someday, because that album is spectacular. In the meantime…

12/8/24:

12/15/24 (or, “I haven’t seen Priscilla, I’ve just seen Suki Waterhouse’s episode of What’s in My Bag“):

This week: I didn’t intend for a) my color scheme to line up with the trans flag or b) the cover of this week’s Book Review Tuesday, but trans rights. Obviously.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 12/22/24

“Well Well Well” – Le Tigre

There’s nothing like looking through YouTube comments on this video and slowly piecing together that there was some kind of huge argument under them circa 2008 that, because of it being so far back, is impossible to trace the beginning or end of because the reply function gets weird to track after 10 years or so. Not to be defeatist about these things, but it seems that so long as there arises new technology, humans will find a way to use them to engage in pointless arguments. Given the band, there’s probably some butthurt republican of yesteryear at the end of it, but the point still stands. (But also, who the hell goes into a Le Tigre song and thinks “ah, yes, this will align with my conservative views?”)

Le Tigre is going to prove a vital wellspring to tap into for the next four years or so. In these dark times, we look to the gospel of Kathleen Hanna. (Also to my mom, who was the one who remembered “Well Well Well” in the first place). This is one of the songs where Le Tigre’s switch from Bikini Kill’s guitars to synths makes perfect sense—it’s a song of going through the motions, not unlike a machine. Hanna and Johanna Fateman deliver the lyrics with all of the enthusiasm of reading an instruction manual: “Well, what do you like/And what do you need?/How should I act/And who should I be?” Never have I heard a song so delightful in its over-the-top performance of being perfunctory: there’s no pleasure to any of it.

Which brings me to the subject matter—given some of the subtle (and not so subtle) sexual references in the music video (which was incredibly made, so kudos to Elisabeth Subrin and her direction), there’s an overtone of women being expected to exist only to please men, especially when sex is concerned. It’s all about men’s pleasure, and as with the lyrics, there’s no regard of what the woman wants—it’s all just “What, where, when, how, when, who?” on the woman’s part. Even if, sadly, that one Ben Shapiro tweet is fake (we all know that the sentiment behind it is probably true), even now women are expected to always be receptive, anticipate of every single need of men, and exist only to fulfill their needs. Obviously, it extends far beyond sex and into any aspect of life, as any woman or AFAB person knows all too well. That’s part of the genius of Subrin’s music video—aside from the fact that the fonts and animations are gloriously early-2000’s, the corporate atmosphere of it does capture the restriction of being under those patriarchal expectations: going through the motions and constantly awaiting another mindless task that brings you no pleasure. Genius.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Luis Ortega Survival Club – Sonora Reyes – the story of an entitled boy who thinks that he can get away with anything—and the students who push back against his chauvinist actions.

“this is my california” – mary in the junkyard

A promise for the new year, or at least for the next few weeks: this is not the last you’ll be hearing of mary in the junkyard here on The Bookish Mutant. The band name (who’s mary and why’s she in the junkyard?) was what originally grabbed me, but discovering them turned out to be those once-in-a-blue moon finds—they combine a reverence for 90’s alt-rock with an artsy sensibility that’s distinctly 21st century, unafraid of letting their melodies collapse like a crushed-tin can and reform as an entirely different creature. They’re good. They’re the product of a collapse of sorts—founding members Clari Freeman-Taylor and David Allison were originally part of Second Thoughts, a band that found success on TikTok but grew increasingly stifled by the music that made them popular. Their move? Break up, switch around some members, and start anew.

“this is my california” is one of their gentler, more restrained efforts (you’ll see what I mean next week…stay tuned), but even their restraint feels fresh somehow. I’ve pinpointed several comparisons for mary in the junkyard, but the one that immediately comes to mind for this track is Luna. From the easygoing, sidewalk-ambling pace to the warm pulsation to guitars to…well, you can’t blame them for the California part. It doesn’t help that “this is my california” rings close to “California (All the Way),” but it doesn’t feel like a rip-off—in fact, that wide body of songs about California makes the pairing enhance the lyrics. Freeman-Taylor has never been to California, but described it in an interview with Northern Transmissions as “a paradise or idea of success that didn’t really resonate with me.” Her California, as it I’m sure it is for hundreds of people, owing to Hollywood and its side effects, is an ideality, but one that’s just out of reach—”My dream/Comes from the pale light of a bright blue screen.”

It feels like a critical part of growing up and realizing that your lifestyle doesn’t align with what you once thought it did. You’re stuck in that place and think that you’re the only one feeling this way, but you realize that the path before you is even clearer than before. That image of California is a place for other people’s dreams, but not yours—there’s a physical distance, too. Certainly fits with that separation from the earlier sound they were boxed into before forming this band. These lines sounded wistful to me at first, and there’s plenty of wist to go around, but one of the last ones sounds more liberatory now than anything: “If you go to California/We will not stay in touch/I’ve never been to California/And I will keep it as such.” I feel this song echoing through me in every transition—getting away from my middle school classmates in high school, then realizing in college that my high school classmates wanted a different kind of college lifestyle than I did and forging my own path. Not everybody needs California. Lots of natural disasters and whatnot.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Where You See Yourself – Claire Forrest – diverging from other people’s expectations, but also the ones you’ve set for yourself.

“Memories” – White Poppy

If anyone on this Earth is deserving of being named Crystal, I think it’s a musician who makes a song like this. Her name is Crystal Dorval, and I really, really wish I remembered how I discovered her song, for the life of me. It was all a haze. I realize I’m talking like an aging stoner recounting the sixties. But no, it was the COVID lockdown, and to this day, I’ve never touched drugs of any kind, unless you count coffee. I floated from album to album, song to song, not quite absorbing all of them, but all of them sticking to me anyway. “Memories” is one such artifact from that time. I don’t remember where I found it, but it sticks—unpainfully and untainted thankfully—as a distinctly May 2020-or-thereabouts artifact.

“Memories” is one of those rare songs where the feel of the song, the album title and the album cover collide to create the most cohesive picture of the music possible; the pale blue and pink filter on the cover, combined with a lens flare that punctures the image of a person walking down a bridge into a forest, is as rippling and light as the music itself—Paradise Gardens is the name of the album, and, very likely, where that bridge leads. (Was this what George Bluth Sr. was missing all along?) As crystalline as Crystal Dorval’s name, “Memories” twinkles along in a dreamlike haze, untethered save for the thick baseline keeping it anchored. Even that anchor ripples with the rest of the glimmering, the edges blurred along with Dorval’s echoing vocals, which do sound like the whispers echoing from inside of a glittering geode split open. It took me until my Cocteau Twins summer to bridge the gap, but if you’re searching for something close to a modern analogue, look no further. Nobody can top them, of course, but Dorval has most certainly attended the Liz Frazer School of Dreamlike Music. I suspect the reason that she didn’t get a perfect score was because her lyrics are decipherable and have a concrete meaning. Either way, if you need to drift off for four minutes and five seconds, climb aboard.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Stardust Grail – Yume Kitasei – the album cover for Paradise Gardens, as well as the dreamy feel of the music, ripples in a similar way to how I imagined Auncle’s chromatophores. I promise it makes sense.

“Bill Murray” – Gorillaz

The joys of being a fan of a band with a treasure trove of B-Sides (or D-Sides, I should say) never end. It’s intimidating to see two whole albums of B-Sides from Gorillaz in particular, but if anything positive can be said about the Apple Music algorithm, it reminds me that they exist.

Being the B-Side for “Feel Good Inc.” has to be the worst job in the world for a song. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. When I say that “Bill Murray” is an afterthought, I don’t mean it in a derogatory way at all. It does feel distinctly like a B-Side, but some songs are meant to be B-Sides—products from restless minds that were never meant to be center stage, but create a more nuanced picture of what came out of their famously fruitful sessions. Even the title is a bit of an afterthought—the lyrics aren’t much to go off of, but Jamie Hewlett suggested the name off the cuff after seeing his name in a magazine while discussing the song with Damon Albarn. Even though it only came to fruition during Demon Days, it traces its origins back to 1999, for the recording of Gorillaz’s self titled album. “Bill Murray” screams Phase 1, and that’s what so charming about it to me—Albarn’s wistful vocals, backed by The Bees, call back to the plaintive high notes of “Man Research (Clapper),” while the easygoing rhythm could fit right in with “Slow Country.” Had it been sandwiched between, say, “Sound Check (Gravity)” and “Double Bass,” it could have been a smooth transition—a temporary cooldown for an album brimming with energy. But on its own, “Bill Murray” proves that even the songs that Gorillaz cast aside in its early days were constructed with nothing but passion and intricacy.

As I said, even Gorillaz’s afterthoughts had plenty of polishing up on their own. Here’s an extra from the special edition of Bananaz, where you can see Albarn, Hewlett, and The Bees recording this song, complete with the usual antics (and chicken noises).

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Full Speed to a Crash Landing – Beth Revis – “Bill Murray” seems right at home in the atmosphere of this novella—even amidst all of the climactic space opera machinations, Ada has time to quip and slip into her easygoing personality.

“A Bowl and A Pudding” – Wilco

Cousin, huh? It truly is the gift that keeps on giving. As full of hidden miracles as Cruel Country was, I think I’ll side with Cousin at the end of the day if we’re picking sides as far as 2020’s Wilco albums. (But why pit two Tweedys against each other?)

The more Cousin reveals itself to me, the more the album art makes sense. The original art is a photograph by sculptor Makoto Azura; this piece is Frozen Flowers 2023, and it’s one of his many botanical sculptures, many of which are frozen and propped into snowy landscapes. As much of a visual learner as I am, his sculptures immediately draw me to the sense of touch; with every separate flower frozen into its neighbor, I can imagine the ridges of icicles under my fingertips, of the curve of each individual petal and leaf as they were compressed into coldness. It’s so befitting of Cousin because the whole album is an exercise in textures. As with each individual shade of the vibrant botanicals in the sculpture, unique sounds blister and twirl next to each other, from the ear-popping cacophony (and possible all-time album opener, for me) “Infinite Surprise” to the dusty dewdrop softness of “Sunlight Ends.”

“A Bowl and A Pudding” was one of the Cousin tracks that flew under the radar for me. The bar was unreasonably high after some of the tracks that I mentioned, as well as “Pittsburgh.” No skips, the more I think about it, and this track adds to that pantheon. In comparison to some of the more in-your-face textures on the album, this song is more understated; it’s more of the woolen fibers of a sweater or the gentle trickle of water after you’ve left the faucet running by mistake. It’s softly cyclical. The acoustic guitar notes swallow themselves, the fingerpicking as gentle as sunlight through a window. Tweedy’s lyrics are similarly cyclical, every one parroting the other in whispers, laying bare the dissolution of a relationship. That calmness makes the title feel like a still life. It’s up to you whether the bowl and the pudding are two separate items or if the pudding is in the bowl by design…or maybe that’s the point of the lyrics. Is it? Is the togetherness of the bowl and the pudding meant to reflect the separation and alienation that Tweedy narrates as someone he loved slips away from him? The bowl loves the pudding because it fills up the empty space that was molded to hold something. The pudding loves the bowl for the security, but does the pudding want something more? Can it be contained? Is the pudding in question the kind that is even served in a bowl in the first place? Is the bowl sick of being created solely as a vessel to hold other things?

Oh, god. Got too English major with it. A note to my parents: I guess this means that my degree is going to good use?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Feeling of Falling in Love – Mason Deaver – “I can tell/How long this night is gonna be/And the one you love/Is not me…”

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: 12/1/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: apologies for the whiplash lineup, but if your shuffle hasn’t whooped you with Julien Baker and Caroline Polachek back to back, have you even lived?

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 12/1/24

“2468” – Horsegirl

2024 was such a powerhouse year of fantastic albums that I’ve found myself wondering how 2025 could possibly measure up. Of course, the future’s unwritten, to quote Phoebe Bridgers, but if the upcoming solo Tunde Adebimpe album and this are anything to go by, it’s gonna be another fantastic year of music. Or at least a fantastic February, now that we have new Horsegirl on the horizon! Their second album, Phonetics On & On (if there was ever a more Horsegirl album title) comes out on Valentine’s Day next year, so I’m officially spoken for, thank you very much. It’s produced by none other than Cate Le Bon (!!!), and no matter how utterly pretentious I sound for getting excited about Horsegirl being produced by Cate Le Bon, oh my gooooooood (nobody got that), I remain excited after finally listening to some of Le Bon’s weirder solo albums and knowing the magic she worked with Wilco on Cousin back in 2023.

Horsegirl have always been an artsy bunch, taking inspiration from everyone from Brian Eno to Built to Spill, but “2468” reminds me of their picks from their episode of What’s In My Bag?—specifically their last one, The Feelies’ Crazy Rhythms. Penelope Lowenstein described a moment on that episode where she was supposed to be doing homework in Spanish class and was listening to The Feelies instead and felt like “the coolest person in the world.” I’ve always respected The Feelies, but they just make me anxious. Props to them for having their music so sanded down that there’s no wrinkles whatsoever, but it feels like the point after you’ve enjoyed your coffee and the caffeine jitters start to set in, but you have to stay put in your seat. They feel itchy, weirdly. Like something’s trapped in the music and is clawing to get out, but The Feelies just won’t let it. Good for them, man, but the nervous energy transfers very easily. “2468” is proof that Horsegirl’s uptight needle is quivering in the direction of The Feelies, but for all of their toy-solider precision, I don’t think they could ever be that itchily nervous. All of the lyrics are spoken deadpan, in some sort of no-man’s-land between nursery rhymes and marching orders, complete with a little “da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da” in case it gets too strict. With the band decked out in their best Wes Anderson fits, they shuffle and paddy-cake around as their well-oiled machine skips along. They may be taking after their uptight forefathers, but they’ve left themselves plenty of leeway to jump around—and those artsy leaps are what make me the most excited for what the future holds for Horsegirl.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Early Riser – Jasper Fforde – delightfully odd in both concept and writing.

“When the Sun Hits” – Slowdive

Dread it…run from it…shoegaze always arrives on this blog.

I guess I was too mired in Spiritualized (and a sprinkling of Beach House) to get into Slowdive sooner, but it was always at the back of my mind, even when I’d never listened to it yet. I’d seen them floating around in the same musical circles that I listened to, not to mention my awesome honors English teacher from high school wearing a Slowdive shirt out of nowhere for band shirt day during spirit week. (My high school’s English department happened to be very shoegazey. I bumped into that same teacher at a Spiritualized concert in my senior year.) I should’ve hitched a ride on the bandwagon after Soccer Mommy covered “Dagger” last year, but here we are. Look, I know “When The Sun Hits” is their most popular song, and I’m a poser, yada yada yada, but LORD, this is beautiful.

For me, what separates shoegaze is its ability to create an atmosphere. J. Spaceman is the undisputed king (in my mind) in that regard, with his ability to create cosmically lived-in music that sounds all at once intimately personal and wide enough to swallow the world whole. “When The Sun Hits” stirs up that same feeling; the production is nothing short of cavernous, capturing the dappled reflections of water on the walls of a cave and the stringy sunlight shyly peering in. Both the vocals of Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell take a blinding backseat to the mounting ocean of sound that reduces all else to a wavering echo. Slowdive were one of many alternative bands inspired by David Bowie’s Berlin trilogy, citing Low and Lodger as key influences, but funnily enough, I discovered this song through this inspired mashup of this track and David Bowie’s “Heroes.” I’d be surprised if that missing album didn’t creep in there, given how seamlessly the chorus of “When The Sun Hits” glides into Bowie’s opening chords. Having the first line of the pre-chorus be “It matters where you are” is a choice that defines the song’s experience: when you’re in the midst of experiencing it for the first time, all else seems to fall away. You can’t help but be pulled into the undertow, to be in the present, just to experience this song. That’s shoegaze.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Heart of the World (The Isles of the Gods, #2) – Amie Kaufman – “Sweet thing, I watch you/Burn so fast, it scares me/Mind games, don’t leave me/Come so far, don’t lose me…”

“Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying” (feat. SOAK and Quinn Christopherson) [Belle and Sebastian cover] – Julien Baker & Calvin Lauber

If you’re able, consider supporting this album, TRANSA, a compilation album featuring over 100 artists organized by the Red Hot Organization to bring awareness to trans rights! The album features Jeff Tweedy, Adrianne Lenker, Bill Callahan, André 3000, Perfume Genius, and so many more amongst its ranks, with both original songs and covers ranging from Kate Bush to SOPHIE.

Predictably, I first heard of TRANSA through Julien Baker, who covered Belle & Sebastian’s “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying” with SOAK, Quinn Christopherson, and Calvin Lauber. Lauber, who also produced many of Julien Baker’s newer material as well as boygenius’ “Black Hole,” turns Belle & Sebastian’s melancholy, jangly yearning into an urgent spectacle, a sprint through the woods to a brighter future for all four minutes and 13 seconds. If there’s anything that Baker can always deliver on, it’s urgency—the urgency of trauma, the urgency of love. With the context of both Baker’s queer identity and the album’s overarching theme of the trans experience, “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying” takes on a whole new light; “Oh, I’ll settle down with some old story/About a boy who’s just like me/Thought there was love in everything and everyone/You’re so naive” becomes the loss of innocence in the face of homophobia and transphobia and finding solace in fiction, and “Here on my own now after hours/Here on my own now on a bus/Think of it this way/You could either be successful or be us” feels like a vignette of someone on the run after being kicked out of their home. Even the title becomes a rallying cry of wishing to break free of the confines of prejudice that so many queer people know like the back of their hands. SOAK and Quinn Christopherson, both trans artists, trade verses and backing vocals with Baker, creating a harmony of solidarity that gives Belle & Sebastian’s original words an even more emotional meaning.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

I Wish You All the Best – Mason Deaver – heartbreak, new love, and a desire for a new life.

“Dang” – Caroline Polachek

Even with specific music categories being an illusion kept afloat by critics, I feel like what I’ve heard of Caroline Polachek aligns with my hazy definition of indie pop. It’s theoretically everything that should be popular, but like alternative or mainstream rock, it’s the label or the sensibilities that separates it. In the case of Caroline Polachek, she’s definitely too out there for the Top 40, but make no mistake: in the words of XTC, this is pop (yeah yeah, this is pop, yeah yeah, etc). The pop part is what prevents me from entirely getting into her music; as impressive as her vocal range is, it’s often too polished for me, and sometimes the isolated instrumentals feel like they could belong in a commercial. Not always my cup of tea.

But. But. I can’t not admire how weird she gets with it. I’m not seeing any other pop star willingly turn themselves into a chimera in their music videos, after all. And Polachek has more than a few excellent belts and screams in her. (Plus, she has my immediate respect for, after being called “this generation’s Kate Bush,” responding by saying that “SHE [Kate Bush] is this generation’s Kate Bush. Damn right.) “Dang” gets recommended to me in droves around every 6 months, and I can’t not be compelled by it. When I call it corporate, I mean it as a compliment—it feels like a strange distillation of disinterest and sanitized, company-wide messages saying something on the lines of “we’re all a family.” The intro of garbled vocals, followed by Polachek’s bored delivery of “Dang” feels like the pleas of low-level workers drowned out by an uncaring boss waving them off. “Aww, you don’t have enough to provide for your family? Dang. Get that spreadsheet on my desk by noon.” No wonder Polachek, in this live performance on The Late Show, is presenting an unconventional powerpoint, including but not limited to diagrams about “how many wolves are inside you” and a notes-app apology consisting of a paraphrased version of William Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just to Say.” (I’m wondering about the significance of replacing plums with grapes…maybe it’s not that deep?) Her music as a whole remains a bit too pop-polished for me, but I have nothing but respect for her unconventional spin on it—and her vocal range. The shriek beginning at 1:51? Autotune or not, either way, it’s enough to convince me that this is unedited:

good for you, Caroline…put those geese in their place

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Machinehood – S.B. Divya – corporate disinterest and neglect, with a dose of S.B. Divya’s signature weirdness (and a Christopher Nolan-style thriller).

“A Country Dance” – Joanna Sternberg

I write this as a light snow is falling outside my window, and even though this song was released in August (as was the film it was written for, Between the Temples), it’s so distinctly placed in that period between autumn and winter for me, as far as the sound. “A Country Dance” has a gentle, intimate warmth to it that could only come from the embers of a fireplace in late November or mid-December. It lands on the opposite spectrum of The Shins’ “Black Wave,” which I spoke about around a year ago; seasonally, it’s at the same time, but “Black Wave” feels more like huddling around a fire, exposed to the elements. “A Country Dance” is comfortably cozy, without any notion of the snow biting at your cheeks. For me, good folk music gives you the feeling that you’ve just eaten a stomach-warming, rich holiday dinner—maybe some kind of stew or soup—and that warmth stays in your bones long after you’ve digested it.

I fully thought that “A Country Dance” was a cover—it sounds like it could’ve come out of the ’60s or ’70s, but this is a Sternberg original, and that timelessness is hard to capture—it feels very ’60s and Adrianne Lenker at the same time. (Their music teacher voice certainly contributes to that effect as well.) As the leaves fall off of the trees, this track feels like the perfect antidote to the coming chill—warm, tucked inside of a log cabin, half-asleep and wrapped in woolen blankets. Not every Joanna Sternberg song captures me, but “A Country Dance” honestly makes me feel like the Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Bear, and that’s not something I’d say about just any song.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3) – Rainbow Rowell – Even if it is tumultuous in places, the quiet Christmas scenes here invoke this song.

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

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: 7/14/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: would you like a nice sci-fi in these trying times?

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/14/24

“Future Teenage Cave Artists” – Deerhoof

I don’t think I’d be alone in saying that we were all feeling apocalyptic in 2020. Fitting that Deerhoof would put out this album in June of that year, a concept album about teenagers making art amidst the collapse of society. Not intentional timing, I’m sure, but maybe too raw all the same. I wonder what it must have been like to listen to Future Teenage Cave Artists during lockdown, but what I can glean is from listening to Horsegirl; on their episode of What’s In My Bag? (worth watching for this and Sparks, The Feelies, and Brian Eno, among others), this was one of the albums that they picked, and drummer Gigi Reece shyly showed off that they’d stitched “Deerhoof” onto the flap of their book bag. So, besides thanking them for their excellent album, Versions of Modern Performance, thank you to Horsegirl for turning me onto this all-consuming song!

The title of Future Teenage Cave Artists reveals exactly what the concept behind the album is: during the collapse of society, cruelty and murder runs amok, but amidst all of this strife, a band of nomadic teenagers hold onto hope and make art. “Future Teenage Cave Artists” is that mission statement made manifest. The whole album was reportedly recorded entirely on laptops and phones (hence the iPhone/tardigrade hybrid on the album cover, drawn by Deerhoof’s vocalist, Satomi Matsuzaki), and I never thought such a simple act could have enhanced the song so much. The shaky, distorted quality of the recording sells the dystopian setting, like we’re not streaming music, but listening to it on some ancient, warped tape recorder leftover from the age of man. It gives it an almost uncanny quality, as though you’re holding onto the last vestiges of this music, and that the battery life on your device is going to run out at any second. It’s so urgent in its hope that I can’t help but play it over and over—amidst this societal collapse, every lyric is a declaration of defiance and purpose: “Gonna paint an animal on a cave wall/Gonna leave it there forever while empires fall.” Concept song or not, I didn’t expect this song to strike such a deeply resonant chord with me; not only does this society feel like it might collapse at any second, but even if it weren’t, we’re surrounded by people who lambast any kind of art as a career—what are you gonna do with that degree? Are you even going to make any money off of that? And in our capitalist landscape, I do have to get myself some money, but it’s separated the real purpose of art from art, the job—threading a piece of your soul out into the fabric of the world, and making art that reflects your image of the world, making contact with a well deep inside (and outside) of yourself. “Future Teenage Cave Artists” is a defiant ode to the lasting, breathless joy of making art—upfront and urgent, and running on an engine of joy. You can’t get a much better rallying cry than what Matsuzaki fills the jerky outro with: “try my sci-fi!”

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

This Is How You Lose the Time War – Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone – two lovers bent on making a mark in a world where individuality is all but gone.


“Sit” – Japanese Breakfast

Having the pretentious music taste that I do, I remember when Jubilee was everywhere in the summer of 2021. Persimmons, Jeff Tweedy covers, and rave reviews as far as the eye could see. Back then, I had a faint memory of hearing in interview with her on NPR sometime in middle school, but it was ultimately the combination of Jeff Tweedy’s cover of “Kokomo, IN,” my mom’s deep-dive into Michelle Zauner after reading Crying in H-Mart, and a friend’s video of Zauner playing “Paprika” with a massive gong on stage to finally give this storied album a try.

“Paprika” remains my favorite, but “Sit” came out of left field; in all of the shining praises of Jubilee, I never heard anybody talking about it. With its almost shoegazy distortion, humming and throbbing like a swarm of restless cicadas, Zauner’s voice pierces the haze like a lighthouse though the fog. Every lyric is spoken like a final message communicated from an ethereal barrier between dreams, the last words of a stranger your brain fabricated while you were sleeping that will haunt you for weeks afterwards. And like a haunting dream, Zauner sings of the memory of somebody that has clung to her with the strength of burrs, no matter how hard she tries to shake them away: “It’s your name in my mouth I’m repeating/It’s the taste of your tongue I can’t spit out.” They walk through her life with all of the transience of a hologram, a trick of the light that appears in every corner, in unexpected places with unexpected people. And what perfect instrumentals to meld with this; any sense of clarity only comes when Zauner is faced with the reality that she’s “caught up in the idea of you,” but as soon as it dips back into painful reminiscence, she’s consumed by the buzzing distortion, closing her eyes as she’s pulled back into the undertow of memory and fantasy. It’s a track with more weight behind it than most people seem to give it credit for. You can’t lift its impenetrable, stinging fog—the fog is the point.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Unbroken (Magic of the Lost, #1) – C.L. Clark – “Caught up in the idea of someone/Caught up in the idea of you/That’s done too soon…”

“Sometimes” – Erasure

I’d posit that there’s almost no queer experience that is entirely universal, as the queer community is as multifarious as the identities that it encompasses. But one thing that I think most queer people can relate to is looking back on their life before coming out and thinking how did everybody not know I was gay? How did I not know I was gay? There’s an embarrassing amount for me, including but not limited to lesbian Barbie weddings and a pair of blindingly rainbow running shoes I wore almost daily in 6th grade. But the fact that I had such an extended Erasure phase when I was about 8 or 9…yeah, there’s no heterosexual explanation for that. That CD of Union Street that I briefly kept in my room and played on my Hello Kitty CD player was probably the first to catch on. The gays yearn for the synths.

I have nothing but admiration for Erasure, not just as queer icons, but for being so consistent in their musical exploration. Well…exploration probably isn’t the right word, since they’ve been making variations on the same sound since 1986. But never once has it seemed like they’re doing it out of trying to feel young or reliving fantasies of when they were at the height of their popularity. Andy Bell and Vince Clarke are just artists that were built for the late ’80s—nowhere else could they have flourished so vibrantly. The drama. The synths. The yearning, my god. They’re not just from the ’80s—they are the ’80s. They’ve been acting like it’s the ’80s for every single decade since, never once hopping on trends or changing their sound because they know exactly what they excel at. Listen to any song they’ve put out in the past 10 years, and it’s clear that they’ve still got it. But the cosmic alignment that placed Bell and Clarke in the late ’80s was beyond fate—nowhere else could you have “Sometimes”, with its lovelorn pining…and Andy Bell dancing in the pouring rain with a soaked white t-shirt. Does it get any better than that?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Lost Girls – Sonia Hartl – angst, queerness, romance, and ’80s holdovers. (And vampires.)

“Annihilation” – Wilco

HOT WILCO SUMMER IS HERE!!! Well, it’s been here for about two weeks, but I’m stubbornly committed to these color schemes. But the weather right now is more akin to the Hot Sun, Cool Shroud we’re talking about, so there’s no time like the present. Urgh. I’m not sure much more of this 90 degree heat I can take…

Hot Sun, Cool Shroud – EP proves just how wildly versatile Wilco are. I can’t think of a single band active today that are not only as prolific as they are, but as consistent in quality—and creativity. The prickling apprehension and Nels Cline’s pipe burst of a guitar solo on “Hot Sun” feed straight into “Livid,” a chase sequence-ready metal instrumental that rockets through the air, ricocheting off the walls like a deflating balloon set loose, complete with a barrage of Galaga-like flourishes. “Inside the Bell Bones” has the quiet, uncertain clatter of frigid water dripping from a cave ceiling, and “Ice Cream” and “Say You Love Me” ground the EP to a more emotional conclusion.

But I keep coming back to the chainlink that ties all of these vastly different songs together—”Annihilation.” Next door to “Ice Cream,” it kicks off the second half of Hot Sun, Cool Shroud, returning to a classic kind of Wilco that tugs a particularly tender heartstring. Even if it doesn’t have the sheer gut-punch of “Say You Love Me,” it reminds me of the more grounded moments of The Whole Love. Unlike “Livid”‘s riotous tailspin, this track spirals through the clouds, kept afloat by the wings of love: “A kiss like this/Is endless tonight/This kind of annihilation/Is alright.” Jeff Tweedy’s vocals bring another lyric of his to mind, from 2019’s “Hold Me Anyway”: “light is all I am.” There’s not an oomph behind it, like his voice often has, but this song is so airy and urgent that it can’t be sung any other way. Tweedy described the soundscape of Hot Sun, Cool Shroud as “a summertime-after-dark feeling…All the pieces of summer, including the broody cicadas,” and that makes the lovestruck urgency of “Annihilation” make perfect sense: it’s a secret kiss under the boardwalk as the sun goes down, the lights of the carnival slowly dying as the setting sun sets the sky alight. In that moment, there is nothing but the moment, in all of its humid, breezy warmth.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Kindred – Alechia Dow – “We’re boiling angels/Let’s kiss for hours/Equal power/Let’s make it art/This kiss is ours…”

“Old Lady City” – Shakey Graves

I’d all but forgotten about “Old Lady City” since I first listened to Deadstock: A Shakey Graves Day Anthology, and it seems that…judging from the lack of lyrics anywhere (which on the internet, the manifestation of too many people with too much time on their hands, is a rarity), so did everyone else. Tough crowd. But it’s so unlike any other Shakey Graves that I’ve heard, not even on Movie of the Week. Shakey Graves has never been afraid of being spooky, but this is a kind of off-kilter eery that he didn’t stray towards until now, or however long ago this was originally recorded. Maybe it was too risky to put it on an album for this reason, but this grittier, spookier side is one that I thoroughly enjoy. With vocals by Buffalo Hunt (Alejandro Rose-Garcia’s wife), “Old Lady City” is a scorched, rickety ball of spikes, no edges sanded down. In between twisted strains of nursery rhymes, purposeful breathing, and Buffalo Hunt’s cartoon witch-like cackle, the lo-fi recording makes for a crunching, off-kilter interlude. Rose-Garcia’s vocals are almost nowhere to be seen, but they float in ghostly tendrils in between the splinters, burnt paper, and charcoal of this B-Side.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Library at Mount Char – Scott Hawkins – a raw and rickety story that’s more than its appearances let on, just like its protagonist. (Doesn’t hurt that the book cover matches the feel of the song too.)

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: 10/8/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

Last week was unintentionally heavy on the sad girl fall music, but fear not! I’ve got more than a little room for joyous whimsy and glorious poetry this week. The color palette borders on my contractually obligated, monthly blue period, but I’d say it’s more periwinkle than blue. Periwinkle. I’ve always loved that word. It’s just such a delightful wonder of the English language. Plus, it reminds me of the cat from Blues Clues, which is always a plus.

Anyways, here’s Wonderwall.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 10/8/23

“Sunlight Ends” – Wilco

The time has come! Wilco’s newest album Cousin came out last Friday, and honestly? It’s such a treat. I wouldn’t expect anything less from one of my most-loved bands, but this one has some of my favorite songs that they’ve produced in the past 5 years or so. It really was a struggle to try and pick just one song to think about—there’s the ear-popping chaos of opener “Infinite Surprise” that truly lives up to its name, and the swirling explosion of color that is “Pittsburgh,” to name a few. But this one keeps coming back to me like a cat nuzzling against my leg, and who am I to deny it?

Whoever hired Traceloops for the visuals for the lyrics videos for Cousin needs a raise. The feel is so spot-on—especially for this one. The hazy, gently pulsating pops of color perfectly capture the tactile feel of the whole album. The sound production really does feel tactile in places, thick enough to pull apart and wring in your hands like a clump of wool. “Sunlight Ends” lives up to its name; from the first opening notes, lazy and tumbling over each other, it creates a hypnotic atmosphere like no other. The melody opens with all of the delicateness of a flower bud gently cracking open, shedding off bits of frost and morning dew as it awakens. (The frost from all those frozen flowers on the album cover, maybe?) It has all the sparkling haziness of seeing stars at the edges of your vision. And as with any given Wilco song, you bet that they have the poetic chops to match the song’s atmosphere in spaces. Saying that songs are just poems set to music is common enough, but it takes a lot to distinguish a songwriter as a poet. Jeff Tweedy, however, is an easy pick for a poet. There’s usually enough lines to spotlight, but…I might as well just paste in the entire song. Not only is it so well married to the music, every line is nothing short of a masterpiece. The way that the bass dips down as Tweedy sings “You dance/Like the dust in the light/And I’m following/Until the sunlight ends”? “You’re the kind of flashing sign/That only gets you lost”? The way that the carefully-crafted atmosphere subtly tears apart at the seams as Tweedy sings “And I’m lost”? It’s nothing short of gorgeous. And if it’s anything to any of you, the lyrics stood out to me so much that I nearly stopped in my tracks on my walk to the dining hall. That’ll do it.

“Here” (Pavement cover) – Soccer Mommy

Speaking of bands who’ve been cranking out fantastic music prolifically for the past few years…

My wife Soccer Mommy has had a productive few years! Barely a year after her incredible third album, Sometimes, Forever, she’s got a wonderful covers EP called Karaoke Night. It’s a lovely set of covers. Everybody from R.E.M. to Slowdive to Sheryl Crow meshes with her signature style, and she’s even managed to dupe me into liking a Taylor Swift cover. Rest assured, this is the only time I will willingly listen to Taylor Swift. (it’s a great cover, though. Sophie Allison can do it all.)

Anyone who knows Soccer Mommy well knows that the 90’s are visible everywhere on her. Even if almost all the covers of Karaoke Night weren’t from that decade, it would be easy to see the threads of many an alt-rock band from that decade rubbing off on her. And even though I’m not as familiar with Pavement, this cover was the perfect match—Allison said in a recent Instagram post that this song was her first exposure to the band, and remains one of her personal favorites of theirs. Stephen Malkmus’ laid back singing style was an easy translation for Allison, who sells every somber, quiet note. Her voice really is nothing short of luscious, and it fits with the vibrant but restrained guitars like two puzzle pieces. The whole cover has such an enchanting atmosphere for a song so full of 90’s indifference and ennui. And once the heavier guitars kick in, Allison’s voice rings stronger than ever, displaying everything that I’ve ever loved about her—the angsty soul she breathes into every note, the glow it seems to emanate, and the endearing way that she pronounces her W’s as softened V’s whenever she gets really into the lyrics. I’m glad that I’m living in this period of prolific output from Soccer Mommy, original or covers. Her music is always a gift.

“Go” – The Apples in Stereo

In the back of my mind, I always thought that this song had an exclamation point in the title. “Go!” It just seemed to be genetically embedded in the music. They do scream “GO!” like that in the chorus, anyhow. I don’t know. Just a suggestion. About 15 years too late to send my suggestions to Robert Schneider and co., but better late than never, I guess?

Exclamation point or no exclamation point, the infectious catchiness of “Go” is undeniable. From the first cry of “Go!” as the horn section kicks in, there’s nothing that can stop the runaway energy (no pun intended) of this song. It’s a song that’s just clawed its way out of a cardboard box, and will do anything to stay wild and free. Ever since I remember hearing it, most frequently in the car when I was in elementary school, it’s never failed to nudge at least one little shoulder sway out of me. It really is infectious. And the lyrics have that same air of anxious freedom—the subject is confronted with all sorts of trials (“When you go into the shop/Lady watches like a cop”) and tribulations (“She don’t like the way you look/So she treats you like a crook”), but all of them are met with a riotous burst of horns and Schneider’s rallying cry of “You know you wanna go (go, baby!)”. It’s impossible not to feel the rush of freedom from the end of the chorus: “You’re such a/Pretty, pretty, pretty little girl/Let’s blow this/Ugly, ugly, ugly little world!” And nothing beats the true chaos of the breakdown from 1:46-2:28—for a band characterized by tight, mathematical precision in every beat, they make the squealing, crunching mess of guitars, drums, and screeching flutes work just as well as anyone.

“She Flies Away With My Love” – Jim Noir

I don’t necessarily think about musical coherence whenever I put these posts together. It’s mostly just what I’ve been listening to lately, and whether or not the album covers at least somewhat fit together. But jeez..this song fits so well with The Apples in Stereo. Almost too welel. I feel like any given Apples song would fit spectacuarly with any given Jim Noir song. Like bread and butter. Peanut butter and jelly. Aziraphale and Crowley, but not before the last episode of season 2. (I’m still in pain.) Me on a Friday night and an episode of The Great British Bake-Off.

I was compelled to go back and listen to Jim Noir’s delightful Zooper Dooper EP the other day while I holed up in my dorm while a football game went on. Not that I expected anything less, but as always, it’s a pure burst of spacey, Britpop delight, served up with a side of absolute whimsy. Like half of my album/EP experiences, songs like the hopeful favorite “Map” and the oddball story of “Car” overshadowed this one, so much so that I forgot that it existed altogether. But now I’m embarrassed that I even thought of turning the other cheek away from this song—”She Flies Away With My Love” is a pure delight. Really. Again, this is your PSA to check out Jim Noir’s catalogue in general, because if you’re in gen z, chances are that he’s appeared more times in your childhood than you think. This song in particular feels sanded to smooth perfection, hitting a euphoric, whimsical balance between sharp, driving drums and bass and deliriously bubbly synths. The two parts feel like they’re in rooms right next door to each other, working in tandem but being exceedingly distinct from each other in the process. The opened-soda-can fizzing of the electronics and the pitched-up backing vocals sound miles away from the heavy punch of the drums once the verse kicks in, but they work in such harmony that could ultimately be crafted by mastermind like Jim Noir.

“Your Personal Penguin” – Davy Jones

Compared to last week, this week’s selection of songs ended up being a lot more light-hearted and bubbly, at least in terms of sound. The color scheme screams less of the decay of fall and more of fresh-washed sheets and flowers. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t end this ensemble with the epitome of comfort.

Sure. Kid’s songs are generally meant to be silly and joyous, and they generally don’t deviate from that. But there’s a certain subset of kid’s songs that go past that and remain bastions of comfort for the rest of your life. “Your Personal Penguin” crossed that threshold long ago— I mean, here I am, now in my twenties (how’d that happen, huh?), still nodding along to this sweet little tune. Say what you want about Gen Z and nostalgia, and yada yada yada (as if every generation hasn’t had some kind of romanticization of the past, and we’re only pointing the finger at Gen Z because the Internet has exacerbated how widespread the phenomenon actually is, etc.), but going back to these kinds of songs is like reuniting with an old friend. And this song really has been everywhere in my life. It soundtracked many a car ride to school when I was young, and on my 10th birthday, when I got my brand-new iPod nano (which is still kicking, somehow…thanks, Apple), I listened to this song while huddled under my grandma’s bathrobe while a thunderstorm rumbled outside. I had a Minecraft world on the family iPad where I built a house in the snowy mountains, and I tried to fit some of the lyrics of this song on a sign in front of it—the part about how “lots of other penguins seem to do fine/In the universe of nothing but ice.” (Suffice to say, it was too long to fit the whole thing on there. Pressing problems for a 10-year-old.) And yet, it took me until about a year ago to figure out that this song was based on a book—in fact, all of the songs on Sandra Boynton’s Blue Moo are. I’m surprised that I missed out on that part, but it really says something that this song gives me such warmth without the addition of the delightful penguin illustrations. Davy Jones just has that special quality about his voice—it borders on nasally, but it’s filled with such a playful, contagious joy that sets it apart—the silly smile this song wears can’t help but spread to you. The rollicking pianos and almost comically deep backing vocals make for an earnestly hug-delivering song.

And, for more joy to add to your life, here’s the song paired with the illustrations from Sandra Boynton’s original picture book:

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: 8/13/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

Since I’ve been making these Sunday Songs graphics for just over a year and writing about them for about half that time, I’ve noticed that there’s inevitably at least one light blue week per month. Different shades of blue, but there’s always at least one, and it’s always pale. Like this one. Or this one? Either way, here’s the court-ordered blue period for August. Bon appetit.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 8/13/23

“1 Billion Dogs” – Jay Som

I listened to Everybody Works entirely on a whim, just to have something shorter to have as a soundtrack while I rearranged the bulletin board in my room. But I should’ve predicted that any given Jay Som record—much less this one—would be so much more than that. Perfect summer album, I have to say. Go listen to Everybody Works, guys.

Everybody Works is an album of many faces, from the chugging indie rock of “Take It” (which works way too perfectly with boygenius’ “Satanist“—can somebody with the ability to make mashups make this a reality?? please?? makes sense, seeing that she’s the bassist for boygenius’ touring band), the pop hooks of “The Bus Song” (BUT I LIKE THE BUS!), and the fever dream atmosphere of “(Bedhead).” But never once does it feel inconsistent or lacking cohesion—if I had to pick them from a crowd, all of these varied songs would still feel distinctly Jay Som. But amidst all of that, aside from the two tracks I already remembered from the album (“The Bus Song” and “Baybee”), “1 Billion Dogs” was an immediate standout. The title alone would have caught my eye on any other record, but strangely, even though it has nothing to do with dogs, much less billions of them, it has that feel to it. It fits. “1 Billion Dogs” is a song with an immediate urgency; even with Melina Duterte’s reserved voice almost melting into the instruments, it’s a song that grabs you by the shirt collar, then invites you to jump around and dance. But even the crashing rhythm guitars, steady bass, and just-so off-kilter riffs can’t take away from the electronic haze that never lifts from Duterte’s music. It’s a uniquely Jay Som flavor to me: dreamlike and fuzzy, like it’s cloaked in multicolored static.

“Evicted” – Wilco

September is shaping up to be a heavy hitter as far as albums go. I’ve already talked about tracks from Shakey Graves’ Movie of the Week and Mitski’s The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We, but I haven’t yet talked about the new Wilco, with their new album Cousin coming out on September 29! And only about a year and a half removed from their last double album, Cruel Country…Jeff Tweedy is just cranking ’em out, huh?

Tweedy and co. have advertised the upcoming Cousin as their art-pop/rock album. Wilco has always had a penchant for the experimental, but I feel like when they’ve previously advertised their albums as a certain genre, it doesn’t always fit the label. Take Cruel Country—”country” was literally in the name, but it felt like more of a folkier side of Wilco than anything, which, given their roots, wasn’t much of a stretch. Rather, as Tweedy said in his Starship Casual newsletter, “Cruel Country was our idea of country music and a lot of people went, ‘Huh?! this doesn’t sound like Colt Steed!’ (or some other plausible sounding country mega-star name).” So I’ll have to go into this album knowing that it’s Wilco’s idea of art-pop—and that’s certainly promising. And maybe I was screwing myself over when I saw “art rock” and immediately went into this song thinking it was gonna be “Art of Almost” 2. It isn’t. Even as much as I love Wilco, I feel like even that would be hard to reproduce. That’s not to say that “Evicted” is a bad song in any way—if there’s anything that Wilco has been in the last 10 years or so, it’s consistent. Regardless of our personal definitions of where this song fits into, “Evicted” is proof that Wilco’s ability to feel relevant and rock-solid will likely never fade. With its timeless guitars and the gently ethereal backing vocals and Nels Cline’s quietly glittering riffs rising like plumes of dust in the background, it’s a deceptively simple song—much like the Trojan Horse that Tweedy compared his definition of bubblegum pop to. And if I’ve learned anything from Cruel Country, it’s that I can’t judge an album by its first single. I’d be lying if I said that “Evicted” wasn’t an earworm. Jeff tweedy is true to his word.

Also, can I take Colt Steed as my new stage name?

“Crash” – Lisa Germano

EMERGENCY WEATHER REPORT: we regret to inform you that sad girl fall is scheduled to arrive two months earlier than expected. Hunker down, everybody.

A song that begins with the line “You could say I feel this way/’Cause it’s the way I feel” doesn’t seem terribly memorable at first glance. But that’s the thing. You have to wait. Not even that long of a wait, really. Because it’s followed up with “Or you could say I’m making it up/I want it to be real.” See? Have a little faith in Lisa Germano, in all of her raw, dilapidated-house-with-rusty-nails-lying-everywhere craft.

My introduction to Lisa Germano goes to show, once again, how deeply and wonderfully my dad knows me. Here I was, almost a year ago, when my dad made his annual birthday playlist for me (yep, that’s how cool of a dad he is), and played me “Victoria’s Secret” in the car; Immediately, I was lost in the eerie, spare-and-found-parts, and 90’s (in the best way…I really do love the 90’s) universe of Lisa Germano. (Guys. C’mon. “Victoria’s Secret” has her cat purring in the outro. It’s so good.) I listened to Slide in its entirety a few months later, during what we can actually call sadgirl fall (read: November), and bits and pieces of that record have constantly drifted around me ever since: specters, all of them, but welcome ones. Somehow, though, as much as I played tracks like “Way Below the Radio” and “Reptile,” I forgot about “Crash” until it came on shuffle not long ago. And now that I’ve listened to it more and more (you know it went STRAIGHT to the library playlist), I’m almost ashamed that I let it slip through my fingers, if only temporarily. On further listens, it’s so clear to me that it’s one of the best tracks off the whole album. “Crash” is a song that purposefully droops and lumbers, only faintly held together with fraying twine and half-intended promises. As Germano creates her oft-expressed lyrical landscape of languishing in depression and a lack of motivation (“Wonder why it’s so easy/to be the way I hate”), the instruments sit on the verge of falling apart; they all play in time, but they teeter enough to get the sense that it would only take one sneeze for them to collapse. Germano’s silk-thin voice is a gentle hand that barely caresses you, cool and ghostly, but undeniably present. And it wouldn’t be a Lisa Germano without an uneasy, 40-second piano outro. If there’s anything that she can do, it’s create an atmosphere. Slide was the perfect album to listen to in November, in retrospect; there’s something about this song (and most of her other songs that I’ve heard) that capture the melancholy limbo of that snowless but undeniably wintry chill.

“The Rabbi” – Blur

I’ve been conned. Again. And Damon Albarn is to blame. Twice this year, we’ve gotten albums from projects of his where the album as a whole has been disappointing, but then he comes back with the deluxe edition, and at least one song that would’ve made the original album SO MUCH better. Damon, you sly dog, you pulled a “Captain Chicken” on us AGAIN. (For reference: the other disappointing album happens to be Gorillaz’s Cracker Island.)

I wouldn’t call “The Rabbi” as good as “Captain Chicken,” but then again, it’s hard to replicate the chokehold that the latter had on me for at least 2 months after it came out. But amidst the decent but disappointingly flat expanse that was The Ballad of Darren, this new addition was a breath of fresh air and energy. Equipped with the jangly brightness that Blur has been the master of for 30+ years now, “The Rabbi” is an upbeat spark, and a welcome injection into the album. Graham Coxon’s guitar finally gets its time to shine outside of “St. Charles Square,” but where that recalled the grungy, disillusioned punch of their self-titled record, these joyful riffs feel more youthful, calling back to Parklife and even further back. Like “Barbaric,” the instrumentation of “The Rabbi” is nothing short of upbeat, but cleverly cloaks the underlying disillusionment and melancholy that permeates through the rest of The Ballad of Darren; as Coxon goes off with said jangly guitars, Damon Albarn drawls about how “‘Cause where’s the joy in this self-delusion?/We’re all practitioners of vague illusions/Hieroglyphics and pictures.” Even if I’ve come away from The Ballad slightly sore, at least I have one more song that I can actually nod my head along to and believe that it’s Blur. I refuse to shut up about “St. Charles Square,” though.

“Monkey” (Low cover) – Robert Plant

A reenactment:

The family car. Some time in the early evening. MADELINE and her family are driving on the highway. Robert Plant’s cover of “Monkey” plays over the speakers.

MADELINE: Huh, this song sounds like it could be in Legion.

EITHER MY DAD OR MY BROTHER (I FORGET): That’s because it was in Legion.

The realization hits MADELINE. Cue vine boom.

~

There have been many such moments in my life. But for all the ones that my brain decides to loop in the odd hours of the morning, at least I got a song out of this one.

Unlike my brother, the world’s biggest Legion fan in the world, I haven’t gone back and rewatched any of it since it came out. I’d rank it as my second favorite TV show, right behind Fargo, but I haven’t gone back to any of it in years, save for the fantastic Superorganism musical number in season 3. I don’t think it would ever be ruined by further rewatches (simply impossible for any Noah Hawley project, the man can do no wrong…okay, Anthem was a lot, but other than that), but it’s been like a beautiful, terrifying insect trapped in amber in my mind—it’s hard to replicate that feeling of sheer confusion, horror, and wonder when I had no idea what was going on with that show. But even with the mounting pile of shows and seasons that I need to catch up on, this song reminds me of Noah Hawley’s unmatched craft—and his unmatched music taste, along with the keen eye of Maggie Phillips, the show’s music supervisor. I can’t find the clip anywhere on the internet for the life of me, but this song is slipped into a chilling scene in season 1, episode 3, where a young David Haller chases after his wayward dog on Halloween night. It’s a scene that stressed me out, even if only for a few minutes’ rewatch—Cary did tell present David to “think of something stressful,” after all. And I can’t think of a better song to illustrate that pit-stomached sense of creeping dread than this. Low’s original version has that feeling of dread, but with an unmistakable urgency; Robert Plant’s version (and yes, it is that Robert Plant) swaps that urgency for a grinding, chugging sound that watches you from the darkest corner of the room. “It’s a suicide/Shut up and drive” would have been a blatantly chilling lyric in any other circumstance, but Plant’s strained, hollow whisper makes the chill up my spine all the more chilly. Patty Griffin’s backing vocals, somehow more audible than Plant’s, seem strangely sinister, even with the lightness of her voice. I can’t help but get a little anxious every time I listen to it—all the more reason that Hawley and Phillips were really onto something when they picked this one.

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: 7/9/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

Today marks almost a year since I’ve been making these Sunday Songs graphics, and about six months since I’ve started writing about them on here. But if there’s on thing I’ve learned in this year of collaging album covers on Previews, it’s this: all roads lead back to David Bowie.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/9/23

“Quicksand” (demo) – David Bowie

Lordy. This song gets me in whichever form it manifests—the original, untouchable album version, the live performance with the Cure’s Robert Smith for Bowie’s 50th Birthday Bash…everything. Since when did I wake up in the onion cutting plant, and where’s the door?

“Quicksand” has been an immensely special song to me, from the time I was young and my dad still had to speedily turn the car volume down in time for little me to miss the word “bullshit.” Even back when I didn’t even have the capacity to understand anything about what an ego is or the fact that it was capable of death (“knowledge comes with death’s release,” cue the “aah-aah-aah-aah” that always scoops my tender heart out of my ribcage), this song felt like the encircling warmth of a cosmic pair of arms, infinite in their reach and love, rocking me to sleep like a baby. The iconic lyric “I’m not a prophet or a stone-age man, just a mortal with the potential of a superman” has been my life’s mantra ever since I comprehended it. Learning it on guitar made me love the song down to its molecular structure—chances are, if you can rattle off any old chord off the top of your head, it’s in there somewhere. Even the painful, finger-twisting ones—especially the finger twisting ones. And yet David Bowie makes them all sound like they were all destined to be played together since the dawn of time—all of them. It’s the kind of song that was fully-formed from the very start, as Athena splitting out of the skull of Zeus, armed with a ragtag, motley crew of guitar chords. It feels like listening to the heartbeat of the cosmos itself.

So it’s so strange to think that it wasn’t always quite as fully-formed as I thought—in parts, at least. With the release of Divine Symmetry (a line fittingly taken from this song), a boxed set containing Hunky Dory in its entirety, plus the demos and live performances that eventually fused to form my favorite album of all time. Among them was this—a raw, stripped-down version of one of my favorite songs of all time. “Quicksand” was always destined for the epic grandeur of the album version, but there’s a different brand of poignant tenderness to this demo. With only David Bowie’s voice and the heartbeat-thrum of his acoustic guitar, you can hear the subtle differences—lyrics swapping places, Bowie straining to reach the high notes in the higher key he originally plays this song in. There’s an urgency to every strum, as though he knew this song had to see the light of day, but he had to put his heart into it, whichever way it came out. And that’s the power of this song: Bowie never took the easy way out. Every version is in tune with the resonant hum of the universe.

“Gone Daddy Gone” – Violent Femmes

Never in my life would I have anticipated liking a xylophone solo this much. The words “xylophone” and “solo” make sense separately, but you rarely ever hear them together, right? And yet, against all odds, it’s so good. Imagine being at a Violent Femmes concert and the crowd going wild over a xylophone solo. That’s the dream.

A lot of what I’ve heard of the Violent Femmes works against all odds, from the infamous story of how the cover of their debut, self-titled album came to be to everything about their unique, abrasive sound. All you’ve got here is some guitar, bass, and a drum set that was originally part washbasin (plus said xylophone). The nicest you can necessarily say about the vocals is that they’re abrasive. It really is the essence of D.I.Y.—separately, there’s no way that it should work together and sound good, and yet it does. We all know “Blister in the Sun” nowadays, right? Whatever formula that Gordon Gano and company worked out in the early 80’s with this album, when everybody started turning to synths and capitalism, they nailed it. Every song I’ve heard off of this album feels timeless, but “Gone Daddy Gone” feels like it could’ve come from anywhere—a tiny, under-underground garage in the 70’s, somebody sick of all of said synths and capitalism in the 90’s—there’s something so ubiquitous about this song, from its frustrated, high school lyrics that Gano delivers with a sinister sneer, to the unexpected patchwork of sound. And of course, whoever’s idea it was to add a xylophone solo to this song deserves an award.

“Baby’s On Fire” – Brian Eno

I’ve been overdue to talk about Here Come the Warm Jets and Brian Eno for a few weeks, but I am nothing if not pointlessly devoted to trying to create a nice color scheme. But yes, I finally got around to listening to it after putting it off for several months (blame it on the whiteboard…oh, I still need to post those, don’t I?), and I’m a fan! Even though nothing rivaled “Cindy Tells Me” (which is, for me, a hard thing to achieve—my absolute favorite Brian Eno song, now that I think about it), there wasn’t a single song I didn’t like. I’m a sucker for any album where each track bleeds into the next, giving the illusion of a continuous, long song—almost a symphony: some of my favorites albums do it, or at least do it partway (see: Hunky Dory, OK Computer), and in the case of Here Come the Warm Jets, it added a cohesive layer to an already meticulously weird album. There’s Brian Eno doing weird voices, there’s guitar freakouts, and there’s uptight-but-glam 70’s weirdness all over the place. It’s an album.

“Baby’s On Fire” stood out immediately—I remember hearing the name somewhere and looking it up a few years before I listened to this album in full, but I’d all but forgotten about it until a few weeks ago. It has a deliciously creeping, building feeling to it—with every thrumming piano chord and drumbeat, it feels like something is sneaking up on you, casting a long, thin shadow over your body before coming in to pounce. And pounce it does, with an extended, purely 70’s guitar freakout that, if you break the separate parts of it, easily takes up half to 2/3 of the song—as it absolutely should. It’s fantastic. I find myself vibrating in my seat every time I listen to it; Robert Fripp’s frenetic playing sounds like the auditory version of fabric being torn apart, all at once ragged and full of hypnotic color. Add that to Brian Eno’s distinctly nasally, theatrical vocals, and you’ve got something that feels like the shadow of a hand on the wall—a hand with long, glossy acrylics on the nails, the kind that look like claws. I suppose that’s what ‘s tearing through the fabric, but I doubt that would be very conducive to the kind of guitar insanity on this song. In this house, we love and cherish 70’s guitars.

“Tin Man” – feeble little horse

I swear that my motive for downloading this song wasn’t just to create a playlist consisting of songs that have the same names as other songs. It’s twins with “Tin Man” by Shakey Graves, if you were interested. I named the playlist “Attack of the Clones.” Execute Order 66.

I’m very new to feeble little horse, but “off-kilter” was the one (hyphenated) word that immediately came to mind when I first listened to “Tin Man.” Every note just seems slightly tweaked from the next—almost pleasant sounding, but just enough to make you furrow your brow. Lydia Slocum’s dry, droll drawl creeps over the withered vines of notes, just as creaky and rusty as the the famous Tin Man himself before he got some oil in his joints. But unlike the Tin Man, this song doesn’t need any oiling or polishing; like the Violent Femmes, it exists in its own, uniquely abrasive space, not existing to please, but baring its prickly porcupine quills proudly. Like Lisa Germano, Sparklehorse, and others before them, feeble little horse is content to make their songs look and feel like a collection of rusty spare and found parts. But where the former two is the dread you feel upon finding said spare parts, “Tin Man” is the sudden prick of stepping on something sharp sticking out of the pile. It’s almost like Sid’s cobbled-together, mutant toys in Toy Story—despite all of its parts from other toys, it crawls along the carpet just fine. And maybe it’s an insult to compare this great song to that baby doll-spider monstrosity, but given the aesthetic of the music video, I don’t think Lydia Slocum and company would be too insulted.

“Sun’s a Star” – Wilco

I didn’t intend for this one to end on such a somber note, I promise. Just the way I thought the album covers went together. But I came upon this song on accident—as dear to my heart as Wilco is, I haven’t listened to Being There all the way, despite the claims of an unknown employee at Amoeba Records in San Francisco that it was “the best Wilco album.” BOOOOOO. DUDE. Not to rag on a complete stranger several states away that has no idea that I exist, but respectfully…Yankee Hotel Foxtrot exists? Summerteeth? My guy??

But I’m not here to rag on Being There, either. It’s the same record that gave us “Misunderstood,” after all, and proof that screaming like a death metal frontman is just one of the great Jeff Tweedy’s many talents. Every member of Wilco is proof that they’re really a jack-of-all-trades band; they’re primarily known for generally being on the stranger side of alt-country, but they can do it all, from Nels Cline’s famous, spidery guitar solo on “Impossible Germany” to the pseudo-Thom Yorke surprise of “Art of Almost.” The thing is, loving songs like those almost makes me forget that they’re just as apt at creating gently melancholy folk numbers: “Red-Eyed and Blue,” anyone? And as with every Wilco song that I can think of, Jeff Tweedy’s sharp, ever-clever songwriting is the clear star (no pun intended) on “Sun’s a Star.” What’s more Tweedy than taking a look at one’s own folky breakup tune and declaring “and there’s this song/in a minor key/hey, how could it be/such a cloudless tune?” I’m nothing if not a sucker for a sad, acoustic song, and leave it to Jeff Tweedy to scratch that itch. And there’s nobody else that could translate walking away into a single contraction—somehow, the name “Sun’s a Star” feels like an apathetic shrug of the shoulders. You’re not as special as I thought you were. Oh well. Sun’s a star.

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, Goodreads Monday

Goodreads Monday (11/30/20)–Victories Greater Than Death

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Monday, bibliophiles!

Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme created by Lauren’s Page Turners. All you have to do to participate is pick a book from your Goodreads TBR, and explain why you want to read it.

This week’s pick is another 2021 release that came on my radar via Edelweiss. I was excited from the start, but the cover made me want to read it even more!

Let’s begin, shall we?

GOODREADS MONDAY (11/30/20)–VICTORIES GREATER THAN DEATH by Charlie Jane Anders

Victories Greater Than Death | Charlie Jane Anders | Macmillan

Blurb from Goodreads:

A thrilling adventure set against an intergalactic war with international bestselling author Charlie Jane Anders at the helm in her YA debut—think Star Wars meets Doctor Who, and buckle your seatbelts

Tina has always known her destiny is outside the norm—after all, she is the human clone of the most brilliant alien commander in all the galaxies (even if the rest of the world is still deciding whether aliens exist). But she is tired of waiting for her life to begin.

And then it does—and maybe Tina should have been more prepared. At least she has a crew around her that she can trust—and her best friend at her side. Now, they just have to save the world.

So why do I want to read this?

star wars: attack of the clones | Tumblr

When I first found out about Victories, it didn’t have a cover…and now that it’s out, lemme just say…ISN’T IT THE DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF GORGEOUS? The faint star details on the sidelines, the beautiful shade of purple in the hair and the eyes, the art style, the…everything…

But beyond that, this sounds like an amazing premise! I’m always searching for quality YA sci-fi and space opera, and this looks like it might just satisfy. I love the concept of Tina being the clone of an infamous alien warlord, and that could certainly open up tons of interesting possibilities as far as the plot goes. (I’m just hoping said aliens aren’t…y’know, unnaturally attractive humans with unconventional eye colors. Just…stop…) And it’s shelved as LGBTQ+ on Goodreads, so that’s always a plus!

Chances are, this is going to be my first experience of Charlie Jane Anders’ writing, and I think this is her YA debut, too. (I also have The City in the Middle of the Night on my TBR). I always see her on the list of authors/artists/creators who almost always comes to the Denver Pop Culture Con (formerly Denver Comic Con), which is the closest thing I have to a local Comic Con, so it’d be cool if I enjoyed her books AND got to meet her in the next few years! Fingers crossed…I might just have to preorder this one sometime soon.

Victories Greater than Death comes out in April 2021, so I’ll see you all then…

cool stuff discovered by nemesis on We Heart It

Today’s song:

Jeff Tweedy: master musician and songwriter, purveyor of many mildly cursed music videos

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

Posted in Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: November 23-29, 2020

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated everybody well. Only one month left in 2020…we can do it…

My Thanksgiving Break was this week, and luckily, only one of my teachers assigned homework, and I was able to get it done last weekend, so that was really nice. I had a lot of time to relax–I picked my Radiohead puzzle back up (I hit a wall with it in October, so I figured that now would be a good time to resume it), and watched Annihilation (AAAAAAAAH), I’m Thinking of Ending Things (excuse me while I internally write a 17-page essay on that one), and the newest episode of Fargo. Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, even though we didn’t have anyone over. And we just got our Christmas tree yesterday, and it smells so nice…🥺

And NaNoWriMo’s almost over! It feels like it’s gone by so fast…but hey, I’m on track to finish my 35,000 words very soon!

I’ve had a bit of a reading slump this week, though…after Clap When You Land, I’ve had a mostly disappointing library haul. So chances are, my Book Review Tuesday next week will *probably* be a bit of rant review…sigh…

But hey, I finished my 2020 Goodreads Reading Challenge! 250 books!

Top 30 Done GIFs | Find the best GIF on Gfycat

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:

I love this part–Tillie Walden (read twice) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

I Love This Part: Hardcover Edition: Walden, Tillie: 9781910395325: Amazon.com: Books

How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back–Jeff Tweedy (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back: Tweedy, Jeff: 9780593183526: Amazon.com: Books

Clap When You Land–Elizabeth Acevedo (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Amazon.com: Clap When You Land (9780062882769): Acevedo, Elizabeth: Books

Kingdom of Souls–Rena Barron (⭐️⭐️)

Amazon.com: Kingdom of Souls (9780062870957): Barron, Rena: Books

Music from Another World–Robin Talley (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Music from Another World by Robin Talley

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?–Philip K. Dick (⭐️⭐️)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick: 9780345404473 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Six Angry Girls–Adrienne Kisner (⭐️⭐️.5)

Six Angry Girls by Adrienne Kisner

POSTS AND SUCH:

SONGS:

CURRENTLY READING/TO READ NEXT WEEK:

Falling Kingdoms–Morgan Rhodes

Amazon.com: Falling Kingdoms: A Falling Kingdoms Novel (9781595145857): Rhodes, Morgan: Books

Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove, #2)–Shelby Mahurin

Amazon.com: Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove) (9780062878052): Mahurin, Shelby: Books

The Candle and the Flame–Nafiza Azad

Amazon.com: The Candle and the Flame (9781338306040): Azad, Nafiza: Books

Sparrow–Sarah Moon

Amazon.com: Sparrow (9781338032581): Moon, Sarah: Books

Today’s song:

“Submarine”–The Dook

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

Posted in Book Review Tuesday, Books

Book Review Tuesday (8/25/20)–The Good for Nothings

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

This book came on my radar via Edelweiss over the summer, and I bought it on my kindle before my trip to Vail, right around its release date. I’d seen it garner comparisons to Guardians of the Galaxy, The Lunar Chronicles, and the Aurora Cycle, so naturally, I was ITCHING to read it. Sadly, it lived up to none of its comparisons–but that certainly doesn’t mean that it wasn’t fun.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Amazon.com: The Good for Nothings (9781250311252): Banas, Danielle ...

The Good for Nothings–Daniella Banas

Cora Saros belongs to one of the most formidable crime families in the galaxy. Her role? The family disappointment. A heist gone awry lands her in prison, without any hope and with the eyes of all her family on her. Her only way out of the mess she’s in is through a deal with the shady prison warden–if she retrieves a long lost relic rumored to grant immortality, he’ll wipe her records.

With the help of Elio, her robot companion with a knack for baking cookies, Wren, a chipper pickpocket, and Anders, a warrior with a tough exterior, Cora sets off to clear her name–but soon realizes that she’s in over her head. Will she and her crew be able to live up to the task?

funny-guardians-of-the-galaxy-gif-3 - The Marvel Report

Imagine a mashup of Guardians of the Galaxy and Indiana Jones. Add in some of the charm of Heart of Iron and the Lunar Chronicles, and make all of the characters secretly ENFPs. Mix it all together, and you’ve got The Good for Nothings. But although all of the books and films that I mentioned should have made something I would love with every inch of my body, it was…decent, for me. Not bad, but not spectacular, for me.

I’ve mentioned GotG twice already, so I’ll attempt to make this quick: this novel certainly drew a lot from it, but with varying degrees of success. On one hand, it succeeded in making a classic, irreverent found-family sci-fi, filled with great treasures, banter, and reluctant friendships. But there were some portions that seemed to rip it off almost to a T–remember the “nothing goes over my head, my reflexes are too fast, I would catch it” scene with Drax, anyone?

Guardians Of The Galaxy Gotg Edit GIF | Guardians of the galaxy ...

Even though it’s been a solid four years since I’ve seen that movie, it was easy to see that Banas ripped off this gag with lines of Anders’ dialogue. Several times, too. I’m all for drawing inspiration from media, but don’t…y’know, borderline plagiarize it. As much as I love that scene, it fell flat for me with The Good for Nothings.

Now, onto my favorite part…found family! Though it’s not nearly as well-executed as, say, Aurora Rising or the Honors trilogy, I still liked some of the chemistry between Cora, Wren, Elio, and Anders. I wasn’t overly attached to any of them, but they were decent characters. All of them had moments of being funny or lovable. However…well, remember how I said in the first part of the review to make all of them secretly ENFPs? Now, nothing against ENFPs, but at their cores, all four of the main characters had the same personality. On the surface level, they had a few distinguishing traits to their names (Wren is cheerful, Anders is secretive and tough, etc.), as we got to know them better, their personalities were startlingly similar to one another.

With that aside, I’d say that The Good for Nothings was entertaining, if nothing else. The writing was decent, and the humor fell flat more often than not, but the world-building had moments of being fascinating, and I liked all of the different settings that Cora and the rest of the gang got thrown into. It’s a very light-hearted and feel-good novel, so if you’re looking for something to take your mind off the state of things (which I’m sure a lot of you are), The Good for Nothings would be a great pick for you.

Overall, a YA sci-fi that leaned too much on some of the material that it may have been based off of, but was still a fun, feel-good novel at heart. 3 stars!

Not bad obama GIF on GIFER - by Kezshura

It appears that The Good for Nothings is a standalone, but Danielle Banas has two other books out: Once Upon Now and The Supervillain and Me.

Today’s song:

(Happy birthday, Jeff Tweedy!)

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