Tag: Sunday Songs

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 11/12/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

11/12/23: another satisfying date where the month and the day add up to the year. Glorious. Savor these days. And to soundtrack those days, why not listen to some nice, orange songs? (Half of which I stole from Wilco’s pre-show playlist, but that’s beside the point).

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 11/12/23

“Saturday Come Slow” – Massive Attack

CONTENT WARNING FOR THE MUSIC VIDEO: most of the music video consists of an interview with a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner recounting the torture and inhumane conditions of the prison, so if this is triggering for you, proceed at your own discretion. That part of the video begins at 3:32.

I’m slowly (no pun intended) getting into Massive Attack, mostly thanks to my brother and my dad. This one is all thanks to my brother, who confessed to us while we were in line for Peter Gabriel last month that he had no idea until then who was singing on the track. His first thought was Gruff Rhys (makes sense), but apparently not—Damon Albarn does the lead vocals for this song.

That was all the convincing I needed to download it. You know me.

I’ve noticed a phenomenon in any later Damon Albarn project (of which there have been two this year) where there’s a point where it ceases to sound like Gorillaz or Blur, and just sounds like Damon Albarn. Gorillaz usually remedies some of this with its rotating cast of guest features, but on something like Blur’s newest album, The Ballad of Darren, there’s very little to distinguish it from his solo work. As I said in my initial thoughts on the album back in July, it’s still good music, but it lacks what makes Blur Blur, even though all the moving parts are present. But how does that flip when Damon Albarn is the feature instead of the one in charge of the features? “Saturday Come Slow” has an aura to it that could only be produced by the likes of Massive Attack; the slow build of it has an unmistakable air of foreboding, as if the Saturday coming slow is a shadow wiggling its too-long fingers over your shoulder. Fitting that Albarn croons about “the limestone caves/in the southwest lands,” imagery that calls to mind barren, sheer things towering over you. It’s a kind of eery creeping that meshes with the howling echo of his voice, but that you don’t quite get with Gorillaz or Blur; Gorillaz can get plenty spooky in a fun way, but they were never meant to be creepy—they’re a pop act at heart, and even though they’ve tread territory that pop hasn’t normally trod on for the 20+ years they’ve been active, it doesn’t have the foreboding build of this song. Blur, on the other hand, got plenty weird and unnerving in their experimental years (see: “Caramel,” “Trailerpark”), but their brand of unnerving came more from the claustrophobic atmosphere of off-kilter samples and synths that built up its cramped exoskeleton. The dread of “Saturday Come Slow” comes from how spacious it feels—like those limestone caves, that sense of foreboding comes from the primal sense of being surrounded by something larger than yourself—and being walled in by it, with only the echo of your voice to accompany you.

“Lucinda” – A Certain Ratio

This is the first of two songs this week that I stole from the playlist that played before Wilco’s phenomenal show at the Mission Ballroom back in October. An indicator of a really good show can be found in its playlist—if you keep going back and forth between you and everyone else who came along trying to Siri every song that comes on, then you know it’s gonna be a good show. Same thing happened with when I saw Spiritualized last year. That whole playlist was in heavy rotation for a solid month and a half afterwards. (Lesley Gore and Daniel Johnston: duality of man.)

The first thing that anybody has to notice about the song is the bass. That bass. Sweet Jesus, it’s so good. “Lucinda,” once the chorus kicks in, has not one but two basslines, all working in the thicket, most delicious tandem possible. Jez Kerr leads the charge with a sound that feels thick enough to cut with a butterknife—it propels the sound to new heights, taking what might have otherwise been a bare-bones, post-punk dance song to something hypnotically head-nodding. The bass might as well be the vocals—Martha Wilson’s tight vocals are soft and fleeting, but it’s Kerr’s bass that really takes center stage in “Lucinda.” It’s more than a head-nodder—it’s a whole-body-swayer, buttery and enigmatic enough to send waves through your whole system. Thanks, Wilco.

“Hold Em” – Maker

I’m not like other girls…I didn’t find out about this song through Abbott Elementary. I found out about it through my mom, who…found out about it through Abbott Elementary. It’s good stuff. The song and Abbott Elementary, from the laughter I’ve heard from the bedroom whenever she watches it.

Whatever the case, “Hold Em” was destined for theme music from the start. The beat and instrumentation has that kind of meticulous touch to it. Smooth really is the best word to describe it: the groove that persists through this song never wanes, but never feels the need to amp up the intensity. With the persistent but boxed-in drumbeat and the humbly soft bassline, it lulls you into an instant rhythm, but the kind of rhythm understated enough to allow for some freeze-frames and title screens as the opening credits roll through. And yet, it never feels understated: it’s bold. It feels like there’s constant pops of color bursting through your ears. It’s infectious. And that’s what would make it a great theme song: catchy enough to remember, but smooth enough to share the stage with a visual element.

“Move Your Feet” – Junior Senior

I have nothing to say for myself. It slaps. Just Dance 2 and its effects on society.

Look, the original spot for this slot was gonna be “The Day I Tried to Live,” but I figured we’d stave off that depression for a few weeks. I’m going to talk about it eventually (because it’s still a fantastic song), but it’s getting dark at 5pm and I still haven’t adjusted. We don’t need that energy right now. Move your feet. Feel united.

“Swing and Turn Jubilee” (cover) – The A’s

We’ll end on a softer note with the other song that I stole from Wilco, or, at any rate, whoever was behind their playlist. Drastically different than “Lucinda” (and most of this week’s songs), but nonetheless beautiful.

In the style of Kim Deal, The A’s are a side project of a side project; consisting of Amelia Meath and Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, the A’s came about after both of them took breaks from previous bands and solo careers—they both hail from North Carolina and had crossed paths in the music industry, and thus this project came to be. I haven’t listened to any of their work (save for…[checks notes] Sylvan Esso? That Sylvan Esso? The annoying Sirius XMU Sylvan Esso? Can’t be…) outside of this band, but the two of them together made for hauntingly beautiful harmonies. Watching them on their recent Tiny Desk Concert solidifies the image even more—they’re like charmingly unnerving cartoon characters, with their matching leaf-print dresses, black lipstick, and giant sunglasses. I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually became those old ladies from Coraline in their latter years.

“Swing and Turn Jubilee” is part of their album Fruit, an album of almost all covers (save for the original song “When I Die”), ranging from cowboy and folk standards to Shelley Duvall (more on the latter in a few weeks, mark my words). Some of the other songs that they performed on Tiny Desk definitely get too into that yodel-ay-hee-hoo, Buster Scruggs a-capella vibe for me, but in any case, there’s no denying the magic that happens when their harmonies collide. “Swing and Turn,” even if I hadn’t first heard it from Wilco, would have been an instant stand-out, if a quiet one; their performance is just their voices, Sauser-Monnig on guitars, and Meath making percussion by tapping her thick-soled sneakers into a basket of stones. Doesn’t get much folkier than that. Most of these kinds of Appalachian folk songs that I hear from movies or from covers (so covered that the original songwriter is lost to time) are the kind that have a kind of desperate, underlying sorrow to them that permeates even the sweetest love song. Living in the bare bones of the U.S. just does that to a person, I guess. But there’s something about this take on “Swing and Turn” that turns the sorrow into tenderness. It doesn’t give me that icky, Dust Bowl malaise; to be fair, most iterations are faster and more upbeat than most other songs of its ilk, but the restrained, slow pace of The A’s take on it fooled me into thinking so. But it’s partly due t how plainly sweet the lyrics are: “Hardest work I’ve ever done/was working on a farm/Easiest work I’ve ever done/was falling into your arms.” The gentle honey of Meath and Sauser-Monnig’s soft harmonies seem to take me in their arms themselves, like I’m being rocked to sleep.

Either way, these kind of modern folk covers are just begging to be put somewhere in either Fargo (NEW SEASON IN A WEEK AND A HALF WHO’S HYPED) or the next Coen Brothers project. If your whole deal is melancholy covers of already melancholy and unnerving folk songs, you’re just asking for it, at that point.

Since this week 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 – 11/5/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

Did somebody order a monthly blue period double-dipped with Peter Gabriel? Because you guys are not gonna believe what showed up on my doorstep this morning…

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 11/5/23

“The Tower That Ate People” – Peter Gabriel

COME AND GET IT! TWO FOR ONE PETER GABRIEL DEAL! TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!

If there’s a vaguely overarching theme for this week’s songs that I can throw together, it’s that Peter Gabriel gets so much weirder than people give him credit for. I suppose that’s the curse of any musician whose earlier hits get the spotlight while the later, more experimental parts of their career go on the wayside in terms of engagement, but are as full of life and creativity as anything else they’ve produced (see also: David Bowie, Kate Bush). To be fair, we’re so used to aging artists that continue to pump out more of the same in hopes of keeping the fire of fame going (say, what’s going on with The Rolling Stones lately?), but equating aging to a decline in musical artistry is shallow either way. Again: I just saw Peter Gabriel a few weeks back, and here he is at 73 delivering some of the most spectacular performances—both visual and musical—that I’ve seen from any musician on stage.

The album, 2000’s OVO, is technically his soundtrack work, and was conceived for a multimedia show that ran in the Millennium Dome for 999 shows in that same year. Gabriel’s work on it interfered with his next album, the criminally underrated Up, which ended up coming out in 2002, a year after it was set to be released. The through lines between the two are clear; “The Tower That Ate People” (good god, what a title) has an industrial, almost Massive Attack-like crawl to it, propelled by a looped guitar riff. Gabriel’s voice comes out as a shrouded growl, making it all the more convincing when he opens the song with “There’s a bump in the basement/there’s a knocking on the wall.” The electronic grinding as he sings of “the pumping of the pistons” makes the music swell. It’s a clanging machine, but it never loses an ounce of that cinematic, Peter Gabriel touch—especially not the prolonged silence after he declares “We’re building up/Until we touch the sky,” letting everything fade to lumbering, echoing footsteps. I can only imagine what the stage show was like. I’m jealous that I wasn’t one of the lucky few who got to see this live on the i/o tour, because can you imagine the feeling of this reverberating straight through your ribs?

“We Looked Like Giants” (Death Cab for Cutie cover) – Car Seat Headrest

THEY’RE BACK!! THEY’RE BACK!!!! So what if it’s a cover—it’s a perfect fit.

Even without as much Death Cab for Cutie knowledge (much less about the album that they’re commemorating—before this, all I knew was the title track. Owie.), it’s easy to see that pairing them with Car Seat Headrest was a fit as perfect as puzzle pieces sliding together. Despite “We Looked Like Giants” being a cover, it feels like the whole song is harkening back to the Teens of Denial glory days, with its crashing guitar breakdowns and angst so dense you could squeeze it out of a dish towel. The lyrics feel even more like it was made for them—”When every Thursday/I’d brave the mountain passes/And you’d skip your early classes/And we learned how our bodies worked.” Certainly makes…every single song from Twin Fantasy make more sense. Even without the slam of an intro that the original version boasts, the tension and momentum that Will Toledo and company bring to this song fills it with the nervous energy that has defined the band for so long—it’s a song teetering on its tiptoes, balancing out both arms as it contemplates the edge. Toledo’s signature, honeyed wail takes the song to dizzying heights, making the collision course back to Earth as the final seconds plunge into silence all the more riveting. I always get all sappy about Teens of Denial and all of the memories of listening to it the summer before I started high school, and this song brings all of the good parts of that back—slip this before “Fill In the Blank,” and I wouldn’t even blink. Leave it to Car Seat Headrest to toe the line between an unchanged cover and one that makes the cover all their own.

“The Family and the Fishing Net” – Peter Gabriel

I’ve done it. I’ve finally surmounted the task of going through all of Peter Gabriel’s albums (minus his soundtrack work). Peter Gabriel summer has come to an end. Peter Gabriel 4: Security was the last one for entirely arbitrary reasons, but it’s fantastic—and a lot creepier than most people give it credit for.

Take this song. Immediately, it sonically calls back to “Intruder,” with its ominously creeping instrumentals, off-kilter chanting and an unsettling chorus of flutes that open the song. Slowly, you start to process the lyrics, and the chill starts creeping down your spine. “Icing on the warm flesh cake?” Yep. Mom, come pick me up, I’m scared. But if you take just a quick look through, you can see the true genius of this song—I was super curious about the meaning, and I was floored by the concept behind it.

“Vows of sacrifice (vows of sacrifice)/Headless chickens (headless chickens)/Dance in circles (dance in circles)”. It sounds like the makings of a cult. But Peter Gabriel specifically created “The Family and the Fishing Net” as a wedding song. Vows of sacrifice? For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Headless chickens? Could just as well be serving a roast dinner at the ceremony. Dance in circles? We’ve all done that at a wedding or two, haven’t we? That’s where the lyrical genius comes in—it’s not just that he’s subverting Western wedding imagery and making it sound like a cult ritual, there’s a level of exoticization that he brings to it that makes it clever in a conscious way that lines up with his worldly sensibilities. It feels like a response to every song that’s ever demonized and exoticized ordinary (and often sacred) rituals of indigenous people around the world. And given that much of this album has that worldly ethos (see also: “San Jacinto,” “Wallflower”), it’s a perfect addition. As much as I tend to rag on old white guys, Peter Gabriel should be one of the paragon examples in writing songs—and any kind of writing—outside our worldviews, just for the simple fact that he cares to listen about people’s lived experiences. It’s not just writing about some strange, foreign goings-on that he witnessed in his travels—Gabriel took the time to make sure that he understood and uplifted the people and cultures that he encountered. That’s what makes this song feel so important—he recognized the detriment in writing songs from an ignorant distance, and used that aspect of the history of Western music to create one of the creepiest—and most clever—songs in his catalogue.

Also, to the anonymous YouTube commenter who said that she wanted to have this play when she walked down the aisle: I salute you. I’d pay to see that.

“She Plays Bass” – beabadoobee

So it turns out that the she who plays bass is beabadoobee’s actual bassist, and…yeah. They’re aren’t romantically involved, but that still has to be bizarre to be playing bass on a song about yourself. At least all parties seem to be okay with it? Knock on wood that beabadoobee’s backing band doesn’t get into any kind of Fleetwood Mac funny business.

That aside, here’s another entry into my thesis that beabadoobee makes the perfect music for teen rom-coms. From her 90’s-inspired Space Cadet EP (hmm, wonder why there’s a song called “I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus”…), it’s an ode to yearning, longing, and bright, shiny guitars. Bea Kristi described the song as “a Cure rip-off,” a description that she admitted to Robert Smith himself when they met at the BRIT awards back in 2020. Either way you want to describe it, there’s no denying the brightness of it—despite the black and white cover of the single, “She Plays Bass” is rife with neon colors and cartoon stars. I halfway get the Cure bit—definitely more like “Friday I’m in Love” or “Let’s Go to Bed” than their other music—but what I do get is delightfully guitar-driven indie longing, sparkling and starry-eyed. If “Glue Song” plays in the end-credits of said rom-com, maybe this plays as the intimidatingly cool love interest is introduced. Just a thought.

“Black Hole” – boygenius

What? You thought I was gonna shut up about the rest after talking about “Powers”? You fools…

“Black Hole” is an easy song to have on loop—it’s part of the 3/4 of this EP where every song is freakishly hypnotic, but they’re all around two and a half minutes long, so they just suck you down with them forever, like water sucked down the sink drain. Or…maybe, something else? Mayhaps…a black hole? But the black hole in this song is a more recent revelation—”You can see the stars, the ones/The headlines said this morning were being spat out/By what we thought was just/Destroying everything for good.” The black hole in question is a fascinating one: caught by the Hubble telescope in early April of this year, NASA observed that this supermassive black hole was leaving a trail of stars in its destructive wake that stretched over 200,000 light years long. It’s the perfect, beautiful moment to write a song about. Hopefully this bodes well for me because I’m taking an astronomy class next year: I’ve always struggled with astronomy in school previously, but it makes me tear up that we live in a universe that we will never fully know everything about. That there will always be new things to discover about the vastness of space and the world around us and beyond us until the day I die.

Back to the song: it’s poetry. More specifically, it’s two separate poems. Julien Baker takes the reins in the first poem, with her musings about looking at the stars. The gently clattering electronic instrumentals sound appropriately starry, with the hum of synths leading into Baker’s voice, then transitioning into a tinny, ascending scale on a keyboard just before everything shifts. This is the second poem. It feels like the camera has whipped around as the drums and synths intensify, panning around to Lucy Dacus as Phoebe Bridgers lingers just out of the frame, opaque camera shots flickering at high speed over them as the camera zooms in on their faces. Hearing Dacus take the high notes and Bridgers taking the low, the opposite of their normal range, is an odd treat—it makes Bridgers’ voice seem like a ghost, barely there unless you really pay attention, while Dacus acts as the piercing lighthouse beacon cutting through the fog. All of their lines are enchantingly neat, spaced apart like they’re all collected in separate bins. Apart from the initial confusion (and fleeting clunkiness) of the first two lines (“White teeth/black light/White tee/brown eyes”—”teeth” and “tee” sound way too similar, especially when preceded by the same adjective), I’ve been eating up the emotionally-charged precision of it all. As each line is cut off the chopping block, the drum machine thrums on, just as meticulous as the delivery of each lyric. And I am nothing if not a sucker for songs on an album (or an EP, in this case) that transition into the other as though they’re the same song. Especially with this and “Afraid of Heights” being so short, it feels all the more like a single song. Pure artistry.

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: 10/29/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

Here we are, almost at Halloween, the most wonderful time of the year! And to celebrate, I’ve brewed up a very special post for you, complete with…

…a Christmas color palette.

Hear me out. I didn’t intend to schedule the Christmas colors this week. It just happened. And it’s currently snowing where I am. Please. Please hear me out guys

Will last week’s Sunday Songs graphic cheer you up, then? It’s nice and autumnal…(and it’s got some nice songs, if I do say so myself. Would’ve written about them, but I was exhausted.)

LAST WEEK’S SUNDAY SONGS:

And now, enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 10/29/23

“Maquiladora” – Radiohead

I’ve long since accepted my status as a die-hard Radiohead fan, but I’ve noticed that most diehard Radioheads fans tend to put The Bends in time out in the corner in favor of Kid A and OK Computer. It’s understandable to a certain point—OK Computer is my second favorite album of all time, and Kid A is one of the most important records in modern rock history. But I’ll always have a soft spot for most everything that came out of the Bends era. Yes, it’s far more of a conventional rock record and there’s little of the experimentation that Radiohead became known for, but it’s consistently emotional and chock-full of some beautiful, punchy guitar work. Who can deny the grandeur of “Fake Plastic Trees?” Who can deny that “Planet Telex” is one of the coolest rock album openers of the 90’s, if not of all time? Come on now.

But there were a host of EPs (that I need to explore) that came out shortly before the full album released, with sprinklings of songs that would later appear on it (in this case, the iconic “High & Dry” and “Planet Telex”). Besides having some fantastic cover art (I think I had a dream in early high school where I had it on a shirt), this EP really has something of a hidden gem. The minute the distorted guitars kick in, my first thought was similar to hearing “Burning Bridge” by Kate Bush for the first time—how the hell was this a B-side? How was this not on the album and something like…I don’t know, “Bones” didn’t get relegated to throwaway EP status? It’s incredible. It has to be, since it’s in such legendary company, but “Maquiladora” is worthy of it. The grinding, tidal wave texture of the combined guitars of Thom Yorke, Johnny Greenwood, and Ed O’Brien is always a Radiohead trademark, but it really screams out on this track—the minute they kick it, it’s like watching yourself being buried in rubble, but with a smile on your face. Thom Yorke hasn’t quite wrestled the squeaky cracks out of his voice, but somehow, it sells the crunching angst of the sound ten times more. Everything cascades down around you as you watch it crumble, and the result is an explosion of sound that makes The Bends such a staple of the 90’s. It’s hard, it’s crunchy, and even the softer, twinkling moments screech along like a car past the speed limit, leaving trails of exhaust in its wake. Again: how this track wasn’t on the album is beyond me. Good god. It could’ve been perfectly sandwiched between “High & Dry” and “Fake Plastic Trees.” I’m just saying.

“I Just Wanna Get Along” – The Breeders

Speaking of punchy, early-to-mid 90’s rock…do I smell a coincidentally great transition? (It’s all gonna fizzle out by the time we get to the next song, don’t worry…)

My god, I love the 90’s. I love the 90’s. I really need to listen more of The Breeders, because this hits an especially sweet spot for me. It toes the line between abrasive and absolute tightness; it’s got a punk sensibility to it, but with a sanded edge that smooths it into something truly meticulous in how much it rocks. For a song that’s only a minute and 44 seconds long, it has such a punch to it that could only be so self-contained; it’s rare that I like a song and don’t want to extend it if it’s so short. Some songs were meant to be a smack in the face and then fade away like a sparkler fizzling out. And this song has just the same bite as a sparkler—the double guitar act of twins Kim and Kelley Deal, combined with the thrumming bass of Josephine Wiggs, makes for a deliciously spiky, driving sound. Kim Deal’s deadpan vocals only elevate it—the dry delivery of the line “if you’re so special/why aren’t you dead?” feels like spitting a wad of chewed-up gum in the trash in the most gloriously 90’s way. Deal delivers the song’s title in the same way; it’s not a chant so much as it is a rolled eye and a shrug as you reapply red lipstick in the mirror. There’s a sharply stamped period at the end of each repetition: “I just wanna get along. I just wanna get along.” It oozes confidence, but not in an arrogant way: it’s the kind of confidence of pulling yourself onto a motorcycle without a word and leaving everyone else in the dust.

“Bliss” – Annie Clark

“Bliss” starts at 0:32 in this video.

I’ve done it. I’ve reached peak obscurity in one of these posts. Streaming? No can do. Available to purchase? Doubtful. All we’ve got is a few YouTube videos where the “full” version is still missing a song (or two?), complete with some crusty pixelation on the album art. Mwah.

I am become annoyingly into St. Vincent, scroller of wikipedia rabbit holes. Even though I first heard about this EP during my initial St. Vincent superfan period in about sixth grade, I hadn’t gotten around to listening to it until now. Ratsliveonnoevilstar is St. Vincent before she was St. Vincent; she released the EP in early 2003, when she was a student at the Berklee College of Music. Most of the only copies that exist are floating somewhere around Berklee and possibly on eBay. What remains accessible is three to four songs—Wikipedia only lists three, but “Good Morning” (the first song in the above video) is only on this YouTube version, and “Breathing” seems lost to the ether. And from what Clark herself has said about the EP, it’s likely to stay that way:

“It was horrible. I did that my sophomore year or something. I haven’t listened to that in a really long time. I would say I should have put a little more Bill Callahan and a little less Herbie Hancock in it.”

And upon listening to it, I’m glad I listened to it then and not in middle school, because I sincerely doubt that I would’ve lasted more than 2 minutes at age 12. Now, I can say this affectionately, as someone who is around the age Clark was when she made this EP: this is the most college student thing I’ve ever listened to. She’s made her voice theatrically lower than how her voice sounds as a grown woman, and most of the EP is a very particular brand of over-the-top avant-garde, jazzy-sounding circularity. Most of it’s pleasant to listen to, but it still has an air of “look at me, College Student, producing High Art™️.” But it’s not all bad. Songs like “Bliss” are still full of the meticulous threads that led to the wonderfully clever art-pop of Marry Me five years later. It’s a portrait of a very artsy young musician, one who hadn’t hit her stride yet, but was brimming with inspiration and determination. Clark had a very specific sound in mind, and she was well on her way to nailing it. It’s certainly not your ordinary acoustic college student EP—I guess that’s bound to happen if you’re going somewhere like Berklee, but either way, there’s something endearing about this effort; it’s far from perfect, but it’s the seedling that would go on to sprout one of the most iconic musical careers of the 21st century. #26 on Rolling Stone’s 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time list? Those lists may be exceedingly subjective, but come on. More than deserved.

I love the sound of old men foaming at the mouth in the Rolling Stone comments section in the morning.

“Backslider” – Toadies

There’s no bond like the bond between a high school girl and a simple but spectacular song that she learned how to play by herself on guitar. It’s a perfect warm-up song; part of why I’ve loved playing guitar more than piano is that I’ve feel more connected with the material that I can use for keeping my fingers dextrous. And when I was first learning this and slowing the song down on YouTube, it doesn’t sound silly like a bunch of other songs do (play “Drive My Car” on 0.5x speed, I dare you)—this just sounded so perfectly bluesy.

I suppose this could be the closest to Halloweeny that this week’s songs come to, but I really should’ve gone with something like “Possum Kingdom” if we wanted some real Halloween. Alas, “Backslider” was on the brain more. But that’s not a complaint—I’ve been coming back to this, the aforementioned vampire song, and “I Come From the Water” since 8th grade, and I have nothing but fond memories of them. That chugging, grinding guitar never fails to hook me just like it did when I was 14; there’s a dark grime clinging to every Toadies song I’ve ever heard, muddy and hazily dark, like the humidity that clings to your forehead at night in the South. (A feeling that they probably knew well, what with the band hailing from Texas.) The flies lingering around the band in the video really tie it all together. It’s a sludgy, eery texture that pairs with everything I’ve heard of theirs, but especially with this, a series of vignettes of Todd Lewis’ Southern, Christian upbringing and the creeping dread ever-present within it. All crammed in just over two and a half minutes, all of that grime and dread is as tight as ever—not polished, but sculpted into something fully-formed.

“Glue Song” – beabadoobee

Since I first posted about beabadoobee way back in July, I’m veeeery slowly sprinkling some of her songs into my rotation. And although not everything’s my speed, I’m not regretting this mini deep-dive into her music! Again, if anyone has any starting points as far as album goes, be my guest! Onto the Sisyphean album bucket list…

An open letter to anybody looking to make a high quality teen rom-com: please, this needs to go at the very end. Imagine that: you see the two protagonists look into each other’s eyes, their hands slowly slip into each others, they smile. The opening strings kick in, camera cuts back to them looking into each other’s eyes. Roll credits as beabadoobee’s voice hits. Perfection, right? I’m starting to see why so much of her catalogue is made up of love songs—from what I can tell, that kind of sweetness has been her trademark for years. “Glue Song” is one of her newest efforts, and it’s easy to see that she’s known for that kind of love song craft. She has the perfect voice for these kind of tenderhearted, smiley ballads—gently high-pitched, feathery, and glimmeringly sweet like honey. As soon as she declares that “I’ve never known someone like you,” I can’t help but believe it. And just like the orchestral arrangements in the background of “the way things go,” the strings and horns trilling in the background elevate “Glue Song” into the perfect bite of cheek-blushingly, dress-twirlingly lovey-dovey declarations. It would be easy to make something like this incredibly sappy, but Bea Kristi’s light voice is light enough to feel like she isn’t trying to pack a ton of unneeded sugar into every note—she knows the balance, and she keeps it simple, gentle. It’s just the right amount of sweetness—enough to melt on your tongue, but not so much that it rots your teeth.

Bonus: she also released a version of “Glue Song” as a duet with Clairo—it’s just as lovely!

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 – 10/15/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

THIS IS A CODE RED, I REPEAT, WE HAVE A CODE RED! IMPENDING BOYGENIUS BREAKDOWN IMMINENT! BRACE, BRACE, BRACE! BOYGENIUS BREAKDOWN HAS REACHED MACH 1, I REPEAT—[RADIO GOES DEAD]

…CAPTAIN? CAPTAIN!

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 10/15/23

“Powers” – boygenius

I’m writing this on the day that the rest – EP came out, and I can assure you that’s been the only thing pouring through my headphones all day. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve run through the whole thing. It’s easy to do it endlessly—only four songs, 3/4 of then in the two minute range. That’s this EP’s only crime—those three songs are just too short. Other than that, they’re so criminally flawless that it was exceedingly difficult to pick just one to talk about this week. There was the appropriate all-consuming but gentle harmonies of “Black Hole,” the painful relatability of “Afraid of Heights” (Ms. Lucy Dacus could you not stare into my soul today? Please?), and the gut-punches of “Voyager.” I was trying to have a good morning, but then, boom: Phoebe Bridgers hit me with that beautiful line about the pale blue dot. Ouchie.

But from the start, “Powers” would have always broken through as a standout amongst standouts. Led by Julien Baker, this song is appropriately the EP’s longest, and one of boygenius’ most lyrically exciting songs. It’s something that I wouldn’t have expected out of them—of all things, a superhero origin story. It’s the coolest. Who wouldn’t get that rush of excitement as Baker and company croon “Either way, I have been wondering/Just how it is that I have never heard/The tale of how I got my powers?” Leave it to a line so inviting, so promising of something cosmic, to immediately steal my heart. Over the course of the song, Baker ponders this untold tale, searching for some remnant of the event that made her extraordinary—”Did I fall into a nuclear reactor/Crawl out with acid skin or something worse/A hostile alien ambassador?” It’s the kind of subject matter that lends itself to a more pop-rock sensibility, something punchy and full of action, but the subtle rise from acoustic guitars to atmospheric, electronic background noise feels just as sweeping. As the background reaches something close to a quiet crescendo, the lyrics are all it takes to ramp up the stakes: “No object to be seen in the supercollider/Just a light in the tunnel and whatever gets scattered/Life flashing before the eye of whatever comes after.” And with a whole album about their shared friendship, how could the final lines of “The hum of our contact/The sound of our collision” not be about just that—the strange journey that led three to become one and create such meaningful music together? And to follow it with a somber, resonant chorus of brass as the EP fades out? Glorious. “Powers” really is boygenius at the height of their own powers—purely cinematic, all-consuming, and as emotional as ever. Long live the boys.

“A Wonderful Day In a One-Way World” – Peter Gabriel

It’s long overdue that I talked about Peter Gabriel 2: Scratch. I listened to it all the way through…wow, a month ago? But stubbornly, I refused to put it in because it didn’t at least vaguely fit into one of my color schemes until this week. As everything has been with my eternal Peter Gabriel summer, Scratch was a strange and jaunty little adventure. It seems to be his only album that never really produced any “hits,” as we’d define them, but it still charted to #10 in the U.K. Scratch didn’t chart quite as high in the U.S., and you can sort of see why—it wasn’t made for hitmaking. Neither was Car, but that album was just so nuts and all over the place that a hit was bound to come out when the dust settled. It’s still got that playful weirdness that Car had in spades, now with the cohesion that Car lacked. It’s still experimental and abrasive as all get-out at times (see: “Exposure,” another favorite of mine from the album), but you can see the unifying threads.

“A Wonderful Day In a One-Way World” was a surprise favorite for me, but it really shouldn’t have been. I’m not fully warmed up to prog in general, but Peter Gabriel’s late 70’s take on it has a certain jaunt to it that makes it endearing. Like some of Kate Bush’s weirder music coming out at around the same time, it’s got that hip-swaying, Bowie-inspired groove that propels it for the whole length. Something about the particular arrangement of instruments and the light, airy key that it’s in makes it feel so playful. I’d even go so far to say that it borders on sounding like a show tune. Again: not something I’m normally receptive to, but the combination of Peter Gabriel’s theatrics (no doubt leftovers from his Genesis days) and the winking spirit of the whole song make it much more fun to listen to. The wry lyricism only adds to that theatricality (“There’s an old man on the floor, so I summon my charm/I say, ‘Hey scumbag, has there been an alarm?’”) as the self-absorbed narrator makes his way through his one-way world (“Time is money/And it’s money I serve”). If there’s anything that this journey through the Peter Gabriel catalogue has taught me, is that he’s always been full of surprises, and continues to be to this day—that’s what’s made him so lasting, in my opinion. Whether he’s looking outward or inward for inspiration, he always has something new to offer. That sure is a rarity for an artist of his age.

As for me, I’m excited to see his newest surprises on tour tomorrow! Ready to cry…

“Me and Your Mama” – Childish Gambino

This is probably one of the more left-field songs that I’ve ever ended up including on these posts. I’m 100% under a rock when it comes to most mainstream music; most of what I know is a) what I remember from middle school dances (not fondly), b) random stuff I pick up from following Pitchfork and Stereogum, and c) my neighbors. It’s always just background noise for me—thankfully, I’ve matured past the “I don’t like mainstream music and therefore I’m better than anyone else” mindset that plagued me in middle school, and even though most pop/mainstream rap still remains not my cup of tea, I’ve gotten to the point where I can admit how cool something sounds. I’d be remiss if I didn’t deny that it happens once in a blue moon.

Like this. I only happened upon it because a friend of mine put it in the background of their story, but the snippet I heard blew me away. We’ll get to that a bit later. But if there’s any song that screams “album intro” louder than anything else, it’s “Me and Your Mama.” It starts off at a crawl, with some gentle, twinkling synths and a beat that doesn’t persist so much as creep up on you. There’s a nearly 2-minute wait for anything to change about this song—it takes a while to really kick in. But the payoff? Jesus, the payoff. The first time I hit the 2:01 mark when listening to this song all the way through, I swear my soul left my body. Everything about it makes it worth the wait—come on, how could that Halloween-store-skeleton laughter not immediately elevate everything? All of it—the sudden collision and time signature shift, the bass—it’s like getting an electric shock straight to the heart. And right on the heels of Donald Glover absolutely howling the rest of the lyrics. Even when some of the earthshaking soundscape fades in favor of letting a bit of acoustic guitar slip through, none of the momentum gets lost. Every line is delivered rawly, like it’s freshly covered in blood, pulsating with captivating energy. And just as it reaches its crescendo, it’s gone. Two minutes more of spacey synths, and this song drops out of existence. Poof. I can’t not see the expert craft that went into every note of this song—it’s elevated from a song to something reaching beyond an experience. It really does swallow you whole for all 6 minutes and 18 seconds. I only have a vague notion of the rest of Childish Gambino’s catalogue, but damn. That’s how you open an album.

All for a song called “Me and Your Mama.” Go figure.

“So Cruel” (U2 Cover) – Depeche Mode

I’m gonna say it: I’ll absolutely defend U2. Up to their more recent stuff, I’ll still hold that they’re an incredible band, the “we’re going to put our new album on every single apple device and there’s nothing you can do about it” incident notwithstanding. I might’ve been too young to understand the full degree of annoyance of every apple user who wasn’t into U2, but I wasn’t too young to have a ton of fun at one of my first concerts—U2, on that same tour. Even if Songs of Innocence wasn’t their best work, I can still remember how the show was just pure fun. And whoever was in charge of the visuals was putting out their absolute best work—even almost 10 years after that show, I still remember how wowed I was by them. Sure, their more recent work has gone more than a little stale, but they’re far from deserving of the “worst band in the world” title that people have foisted on them in the last 20 years or so. How is everybody putting that on them when…I don’t know, Oasis exists?

Oh, they toured together, you say?

…oh.

Anyways. I’m not necessarily here to talk about U2 themselves. Just as U2 has been the soundtrack to many a car ride in my childhood (see: at least a quarter of How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb), so too were many songs from this album of U2 covers. I’ve always been back and forth about Depeche Mode—I love their atmosphere in general, and I like some of their songs here and there. (“John the Revelator” will ALWAYS be a banger.) It’s that atmosphere that elevates their cover of “So Cruel.” The original was already chock-full of drama, and Bono’s soaring voice, as it usually does, sells it all. But Depeche Mode’s interpretation gives this drama and heartache a new flavor, taking it to goth heights that make both the heartbroken, enchanting moan of both Bono and David Gahan feel all the more palpable. The landscape of synths consumes the whole of this cover, with a murmuring heartbeat of a drum machine blanketed by a static hum of electricity that feels fizzly enough to touch. It grows sparser (and bleep-bloopier) in the chorus, but that’s exactly what it needs. Gahan’s cavernous voice needs all the more room to breathe, and it’s given that and more. It’s hard to think of anybody other than Bono who could deliver lines like “Her skin is pale like God’s only dove/Screams like an angel for your love” without sounding ridiculous. It’s an excellent cover—and a welcome surprise from my shuffle.

“More Than This” – Roxy Music

This one’s been a long time coming on one of these posts. I listened to it a ton this August, but it got lost in my desire to create a somewhat coherent color scheme, despite the chills it gives me on every listen. But now here we are, in our nice little blue period, and here we are. Perfect time for us to join hands, close our eyes, and feel like someone’s blowing a nice, big gust of wind into our long, lustrous heads of hair.

There’s few songs that I can think of that are as instantly transporting as “More Than This.” I’m not usually as receptive to that eighties, saccharine synth extravaganza, but this feels like the fleeting, sweet time capsule of that moment in time. It does call to mind that angle where the subject is blindingly front-lit, glowing from within with the wind blowing in their hair. I feel like we would all be receptive to feeling that glow once in a while, right? I wouldn’t complain. Maybe it’s because “More Than This” came before this was the concrete norm—this was 1982, and we were still a few years removed from the overlords of synthesizers and consumerism, so maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel as contrived. Somewhere in between Roxy Music and the rest of the eighties, the romantic grandeur of this song was lost—and that’s what keeps this song so powerful. It perfectly matches the starkness of the album cover; Bryan Ferry conceived of Avalon, the album where this song hails (its title track and first single), while visiting the west coast of Ireland. I haven’t been, but I can imagine that kind of stormy environment of steep, gray cliffs, the kind that have endured since time immemorial, would tend to stir that up in a person. And even though I haven’t listened to the rest of the album, that sweeping beauty shines through. As the narrator languishes in melancholy, hoping that there is something beyond this deep sorrow but being so entrenched in said sorrow to definitively say so, the instrumentals make a combination of guitars, synths, and saxophone sound as expansive as the sea. Bryan Ferry’s voice isn’t the deepest, but it hits that level of deep that sells the existential plea of it all. “More Than This” really feels romantic—not in the lovey-dovey sense, but in the 19th century poetry sense. Is it too much of a stretch to say that somebody like Shelley or Keats would have rocked with this? I’ll stand by it. Bottom line: yes, we put too much focus on old dead white guys in literature, but sometimes nobody hits it quite like certain subsets of old dead white guys. Keats knew what was up. And if this song is proof, so does Bryan Ferry.

And as a bonus, here’s the legendary Karen O’s acoustic take, from a few months back:

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: 10/1/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

OCTOBER! Crunchy leaves and warm coffee and leather jackets and Halloween. That’s the most wonderful time of the year, if you ask me. And for the occasion, I’ve got a fall-colored graphic, complete with some sparing mentions of autumn and Lisa Germano.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 10/1/23

“The Deal” – Mitski

I went into The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We with my expectations low—as much as I like Mitski, I was prepared for another Laurel Hell that I didn’t necessarily regret listening to, but only came away liking about half of the songs. But I’ve seen consensus among diehard Mitski fans and people like myself, who know a handful of Mitski but nothing expansive—we’re all starting to agree that this album might just be her best work yet.

After several years of turmoil that saw Mitski on the verge of leaving the music industry altogether, The Land is Inhospitable sees her reclaiming a space for herself, while reckoning with the past that led her to silencing herself as she tried to endure the trials of being a musician in this creative climate. The whole album is full of some of her most grand, expansive soundscapes, more haunting and commanding than anything she’s produced in years. It feels like Mitski letting herself go, haunted by the multitude of ghosts and hounds at her back, but unleashing years of feeling and fury. Take this song, my personal favorite of the album (“My Love Mine All Mine” was a close second). As she describes a Robert Johnson-esque deal with the devil “on a midnight walk alone,” we discover that the deal was never to see her soul for fame or talent—it was for someone to take the burden of her soul away from her (“will somebody take this soul?”) The whole song is a harrowing plea for peace, no doubt taken from many sleepless nights. As ever, Mitski’s voice soars to meet every sky-reaching promise, unfolding like an ornate wedding dress with its ribcage-echoing depth and weight. And this song is the exact reason why I feel like The Land is Inhospitable is her most adventurous album yet. The instrumentals are truly mercurial, shifting from simple acoustics to an abrupt, all-consuming cacophony as the chorus kicks in, barely contained. And speaking of barely contained, can we talk about how beautiful the outro is? It’s my favorite kind of barely contained chaos, as though Mitski is scrambling to keep the battering drums and frantic movement under wraps before the song ends, but can’t help but let some of it pour through the cracks. I can’t help but be reminded of 1:53-2:34 of “Via Chicago,” with its moaning guitars disguising Glenn Kotche’s explosive outburst of drums. (It’s 100% worth putting a Wilco concert on your bucket list just to witness that live. Trust me.) And of course, it mirrors the line “your pain is eased/but you’ll never be free.” It always lingers.

Either way, I’m glad that Mitski is starting to heal, and that we have this excellent album to show for it. She deserves more than all the weirdos screaming “MOMMY” at her constantly. The horrific curse of making emotionally vulnerable music your brand, I suppose.

“Born For Loving You” – Big Thief

I’m still newish to Big Thief, but this song delightfully baffles me. I almost thought it was a cover—it seems simultaneously harmonious and out of place next to all of the other Big Thief songs I’ve heard. Somehow, I love that about this song.

“Born For Loving You” feels timeless in its warm simplicity. At its heart, it’s an earnest, folksy love song, plain about its intentions and the smile on its face. But it’s doesn’t bear that kind of earnestness that makes you cringe from the manufactured nature of it—there’s so much about this song that’s genuinely endearing to me with each subsequent listen. Adrianne Lenker frames the premise of the song in a tender collage of vignettes, from “After the first light flickered outta this motel/1991, mama pushin’ like hell/Tangled in blood and vine” to splashes of blissful childhood: “From my first steps, to my first words/To waddlin’ around, lookin’ at birds.” Every time I listen, I can’t help but imagine the fading graininess of old home movies, of giggling, squinty-eyed babies taking their first steps out into the summer grass as their parents follow in their footsteps, arms outstretched. Lenker delivers every line with a straining waver, with the band gently painting soft, acoustic brushstrokes behind her. It’s a song for peering out the car window at a sunset, letting the wind play with your hair as you think about all the things that led you to be here, right here, with the people that you love.

“The Darkest Night of All” – Lisa Germano

I know you’re all sick of me heralding the coming of sad girl fall since August, but since it’s actually fall now, I’ve got an excuse. Nothing says fall like a black-orange color scheme and some good, old fashioned baby doll heads.

After YouTube practically pied me in the face with this song, I couldn’t help but listen. For the first few times, “The Darkest Night Of All” felt like either an opening or a closing track. Turns out that I was halfway right—this song closed out her 1993 debut Happiness (touché), and even without knowing anything else from the album, this song does its job better than any other could. Even though it’s clear from the lyrics that she hasn’t nailed her darkly clever style completely, it’s evidence that Lisa Germano’s skill at crafting a vivid atmosphere was always there. This song couldn’t have been named anything else—it really does feel like watching a starless night from out the window, bleary-eyed and wishing for sleep to come. With its echoing, gauzy synths wrapping their arms around the track, it feels like the cool tucking of a too-thin blanket over your head. You can’t picture anything but sleepless darkness when this song plays. Germano’s younger voice, thin and breathy like tissue paper, can’t help but make me think of Julien Baker—I don’t know if she listened to her, but I can’t get the resemblance out of my head. Paired with Germano’s gentle piano playing and mournful accordions, “The Darkest Night of All” sits in a strange limbo between a lullaby and a dirge, cloaked in nighttime either way. And what a way to close out the album—the fading synths and her final whisper of “the night” like a secret in your ear?

“Easy Thing” – Snail Mail

Nothing like a new(ish) Snail Mail song to make my day. Even if it’s a demo, there’s nothing better.

Lindsey Jordan described “Easy Thing” as “a track that didn’t make the cut, but holds a special place in my heart.” And the more I listen to it, the more it feels like the bridge between her two albums. It’s bathed in a the cool breeze of autumn, lazily meandering around, anchored by Jordan’s plaintively plucked notes on the guitar. The lyrics meander over to the bitter, love-gone-sour malaise of Valentine (“making out’s boring,” “was there really something/or were we just drunk?”), but the delicate, meticulous guitar work reeks of the shining melodies of Lush. You could have placed this somewhere between “Stick” and “Let’s Find an Out” and I wouldn’t have batted an eye. And although I love this song dearly, I can see why it never made the cut; it doesn’t necessarily tread any new musical or lyrical ground that wasn’t already in Valentine—the same lost love, the same reminiscing. I could see why it would have gotten lost somewhere between “Madonna” and “c. et al.” But it’s a song that still deserves to see th light of day, but standing alone was the best choice for it to sprout. Now the only question left is where it’ll fit amongst the other Valentine demos on this EP.

“Come On (Let the Good Times Roll)” – The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Yep. Time for an emotional shower. I didn’t think about the order when I was making the graphic, but this is probably the best possible palate-cleanser for the lethal Mitski-Lisa Germano beatdown. Am I not merciful?

Even though I’m always mad about how stingy the Hendrix estate has been with lending off the rights to his music (every day, I not only wish for a world in which the Doctor Strange movies were actually as weird as they were meant to be, but also for a world where Jim Hendrix was their soundtrack), maybe it’s for the best that the MCU never corrupted this particular rush of late 60’s, pure, classic rock straight to the soul. This one would’ve fit right into one of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but again: I’m glad this song isn’t associated with Chris Pratt making some corny “it’s behind me, isn’t it…😳” type of joke after getting into some comical alien shenanigans. (Can you tell that I’m bitter about Marvel? No? Blame Disney. I’m suffering over here.) Either way, this song—and most of Jimi Hendrix’s body of work in general—feels somehow pure, like it came into being with every note in the riff already glitteringly mastered. I’ve used the “Athena bursting forth from the skull of Zeus” metaphor to death in reference to Super Furry Animals, for the most part, but if anyone else is deserving of it, it’s certainly Hendrix. The sound production feels thick enough to stretch my hand through, and each lightning-fast note ripped in the dazzlingly intricate riffs feels like the most intentional thing on Earth, just for a few minutes. It’s a 4:09 stretch of speedy blues that you can’t help closing your eyes and smiling along to. Jimi just has that effect.

BONUS: I meant to put this in last week…oops. Either way, boygenius released a gorgeous animated music video for my favorite track off the record, “Cool About It” (which I talked about back in April). The animations are by Lauren Tsai. Have a watch! (Who else is very normal about the fact that they’re releasing another EP on the 13th??)

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: 9/24/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

Guess who’s back! Here I am again, and I think I’m almost ready to get back on my somewhat-normal blogging schedule. While I was away, I still made the Sunday Songs graphics, but I just posted them on my personal Instagram; even though I never wrote about them, I think they’re all cool and that you should listen to them, so here are the songs for most of September:

9/3/23:

9/10/23

9/17/23

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 9/24/23

“On the Floor” – Perfume Genius

No, sorry, this isn’t the J-Lo “On the Floor.” I doubt that one’ll end up on one of these posts. Listen, I had a group project in my freshman year of high school where my friends and I had to make a version of it about reflexive verbs for Spanish II. You can understand why I’m not too keen on revisiting it.

Instead, have a wonderfully bubbly song that has no connotations about group projects for Spanish class! Huzzah! Back in June, I saw Perfume Genius open for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and while nothing can come close to the performance of the latter, I still came away with a few excellent Perfume Genius songs in my back pocket. The grinding indie chug of “Describe” overshadowed the few that I downloaded, but the other day, “On the Floor” came on shuffle right before I was about to pack things up for bed, and I couldn’t help but have an impromptu, one-woman dance party in my dorm room. Under the glow of my rainbow lights (I feel like Mike Hadreas would approve), I felt a rush of fizzy joy, like the pop of a freshly-opened can of soda, bubbling up in me as the notes filtered through my headphones. Ever since, it’s never failed to put a smile on my face. It has the same effect as a lot of Japanese Breakfast songs have on me; from the glistening guitars to the ethereal harmonies in the chorus, every part of “On the Floor” seems to glitter. It’s a song coated in colorful lights, twinkling like the panels of a disco ball as Hadreas sings of what he drescibed as “that maddening, solitary part of desire.” It’s a song laden with no shortage of obsession and longing, but coated in the most joyous façade of pop, impeccably polished. In stark contrast, the video feels…very Perfume Genius, from my limited scope of his work, but doesn’t mesh as much with how I perceived the song? “On the Floor” seems more suited to scenes of a club bathed in pink and purple lights, as opposed to a sweaty Mike Hadreas rolling around in the dirt with a lover that fades away like the breeze (like the crush he describes projecting onto). You do you, I guess.

“Kind Ghosts” – Sparklehorse

Ouchie.

I don’t have much experience with listening to posthumous albums, save for David Bowie’s Toy, and even in that case, it was more that Toy was fully recorded and then shelved while he was still alive, while Sparklehorse’s Bird Machine was never finished in his too-short lifetime. And even though my reputation for sad bastard music precedes me (be grateful that these posts never originated when I started listening to Radiohead), Bird Machine hurt to listen to. I can’t rightly say if my tolerance for sad music has faded since then, but if I had to sum it up, sometimes it helps to have the feeling of being consumed by sound. For a lot of artists in that vein, the spectrum of all that kind of all-consuming sound is somewhere that you can lose yourself in; on the one end, Radiohead felt like being transported into a haunting, alien landscape, a whole dimension where I could detach myself from the earthly world. (High school does that to a gal.) Right on the other end, Julien Baker’s first album, Sprained Ankle, was just the right amount of raw and vulnerable to feel as though the music was watching over me as I grieved. Even though I will always champion narratives of hope and the value of love, I’m not about to discount the times in which sad music is exactly what I needed. Healing should always be the goal, and I am better for having healed from what Baker was there for me with, but there’s something to be said for, in her words, “giving the sorrow some company.” And even though I only break out the specific “sad bastard music” playlist for that reason, sometimes it’s just simply feeling the sweeping swell of emotion surround you. I feel it with non-sad music as well (ever heard of Hunky Dory? Talk about sweeping), but the thread here is that I can’t not feel everything—good and bad—like a tidal wave some days. Thus, I gravitate to songs that make me feel that way. Big feels need company.

But here, it’s hard to lose myself. It’s not that it isn’t “sweeping” by my wobbly definition, but a song like this is almost impossible to separate from Mark Linkous’ circumstances. “Kind Ghosts” is a truly gorgeous song, with buzzing-insect effects on Linkous’ voice and a distorted, ethereal hum that permeates every note like moss growing over stones. And like an insect, it has the delicacy, the fragility of a dragonfly’s wing, a transparent wavering that catches the light. Like most of his other works, the lyrics balance woodsy, quaint nonsense with plain ol’ gut-wrenching devastation. “I came to drink more whiskey than water” and “I’ve swallowed a phantom/And I forget how to breathe” leave no room for misinterpretation, but even such sense-defying oddities as “I hung my wolves up high in the pine trees/Like cannonball sails they wouldn’t stay hung” sound just as plainly tragic. I doubt any listener could ever fully separate this lyricism from the absence that Mark Linkous left too soon in this world; some of Sparklehorse’s similarly atmospheric works of art are the aforementioned kind I can lose myself in, but Bird Machine will always be a hard record to swallow. Painfully beautiful, but necessary nonetheless.

Here. Come sit next to me. Grab a tissue. Send your thank yous to Mark.

“Déshominisation (I)” (from Fantastic Planet) – Alain Goraguer

Alright, who ordered the weirdest possible palate-cleanser?

I’ve had the honor of being the learning assistant for a science fiction class this semester, and that’s meant that I’m getting to read and watch a whole lot of wonderfully bizarre (and nostalgic—we love my man Ray Bradbury 😔✊) stuff. Early on, we watched this for homework; I had a vague feeling beforehand about remembering seeing something about giant, blue, French aliens with soulless red eyes somewhere (probably on one of my Pinterest deep dives), but nothing could have prepared me for this movie. The animation is nothing short of gorgeous—all hand-drawn, incredibly detailed, and full of vibrant color at every turn. But it’s…yeah, it’s more than a little bit of a trip. There’s random interludes with alien creatures eating each other (I’m certain that they all would have given me nightmares as a kid), an uncomfortable amount of alien boobs, and far too many lingering shots on said soulless red eyes with nothing behind them for comfort. It’s beautiful, but in the way that makes your head hurt—I’m still not entirely sure what I watched, but…I liked it? Yeah, I liked it.

Nothing added more to the surreal nature of Fantastic Planet more than Alain Goraguer’s score; most of it is a recurring motif of experimental jazz, which really does put you in the mind of “what did I just watch?” It all screamed Pink Floyd to me, which, since Dark Side of the Moon came out in the same year as this movie, makes sense. I can’t help but think of “Time” whenever I hear anything from this score. This movie seems like it would be on that kind of prog-rock wavelength. That’s what made it the perfect atmosphere for this film—the proggy, spacey theme that runs through the whole score marries perfectly with the oddball, alien landscapes that we traverse through. It’s a bizarre movie. I certainly don’t regret watching it.

“Limbo” – Shakey Graves

Looks like somebody was enjoying himself in quarantine, huh? Enough to crank out at least thousands of possible combinations for this album? Seriously, go play around with the Movie of the Week section of the Shakey Graves website. My first go at it generated a cover of David Bowie’s “Five Years” as a part of the soundtrack… :,)

But even without all that insanity, Movie of the Week is nothing short of excellent. Even though the second half lags slightly, I wouldn’t call a single track off this album bad. But, sadly, it’s really the first half that carries it—aided by the album’s singles, the fantastic “Lowlife,” and this absolute stunner of a song. Clocking in at nearly 7 minutes long, none of that length ever feels real—if I had to make an estimate, it sounds more on the 4-minute side. But I’ll always be grateful that we get all 6:40 of “Limbo” in all of its utterly cinematic weirdness. The beginning is deceptively unassuming, clunking in with distorted piano chords and Alejandro Rose-Garcia singing each word with gentle restraint. But right around the 1:10 minute mark, “Limbo” erupts into a shock wave of humming synth that could only find a place elsewhere if elsewhere was the outer space exhibit in a museum. It’s a song that looms, casting its shadow over your in waves of colorful static, blinking in and out of focus. And even if this song didn’t explicitly reference limbo, it would still be fitting for the soundscape that Rose-Garcia has created; between the discordant marriage of every instrument and effect and the gremlin-ish, artificial harmony alongside his voice, it really does feel like slipping in and out of some wild hallucination, toeing the line between reality and delusion. Shakey Graves knows the unsteady cradle of limbo, and they play it well.

“Veronica” – Daddy Issues

I heard this song in the background of a video, and after I found out that the band was called Daddy Issues, I was prepared for the rest of the song to not be up to pat. We get it, you edgelords. And although I’m still rolling my eyes at the band name, the timeless catchiness of this song makes it slightly better. Guess that’s just the kind of thing you have to name your punk band. It was bound to happen eventually.

“Veronica” feels like a song lost in time. It has that bright, pop-rock flavor that could have made it a cult hit if it was included in an 80’s teen movie. But it lacks just enough polish to make it land somewhere between 90’s riot-grrrl, grunge, and alt-rock. It wouldn’t have even been out of place sometime in the 2000’s, spoken in the same breath as Giant Drag. And here we are in 2015, where Daddy Issues married all of those elements and came out the other side with this. In theory, it shouldn’t stand out from any other song of its breed. You know the drill: She’s Veronica. She’s gorgeous. She’s fierce. She’s a little crazy. She’s off to steal some hearts. She’s gonna take over the world. You wanna make her your girlfriend. You wanna make out with her. But there’s just something about Daddy Issues that makes you believe every word of it, even though you’ve heard it a thousand times. Maybe it’s the mercurial lilt of Jenny Moynihan, effortlessly shifting from delicate high notes to delivering the grungy punch this song needs. Or maybe it’s the way that it all feels so precise, like it was floating in the ether all along, waiting to be discovered. Either way, it’s an undeniable earworm. All of you directors trying to put together a soundtrack for a teen movie: get over here, what are you doing?

And there’s no way that this whole song isn’t a Heathers reference. “She’s teenage suicide”? Come on.

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: 8/27/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

I just moved back to school a few days ago, so after this, chances are that I’ll be posting less for the next few weeks as my classes start and I start to settle in. At least my new dorm has air conditioning, so said settling in will be decidedly less sweaty than last year. But for today, here’s a warm, orange color scheme to wish for fall to come sooner. I’ll leave you with the following dilemma: are you decided, or are you a man of constant sorrow?

Enjoy this week’ songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 8/27/23

“Lovesick” – Lisa Germano

It’s around the one year anniversary of my Lisa Germano awakening, all thanks to my dad. And almost just in time for sad girl fall. But for now, we’re still at the end of hot girl summer, and by “hot” I mean “walking six miles in 90 degree heat just to find out where my classes are and sweating profusely.” Now that my birthday’s over, I’m about done with summer, thank you very much.

Sometimes, it’s a specific inflection of a singer that hooks me onto a song: Lou Reed’s rambling, melty pronunciations on “Sweet Jane,” or the rising, climbing-vine quality of Kevin Barnes’ high pitch on the chorus of “Gronlandic Edit.” Here, the first thing that grabbed me was the subtle, softening lilt in the way she sings “Yoko Ono.” The sharp ‘k’ in her name is smoothed down to whispered velvet, every pointed edge melted to softness like warm candle wax. I can almost imagine the tired, curious tilt of her head as she leaned into the microphone to record it in the studio, eyes averted, head bent. It’s not the only way that this song is immediately memorable: the devastating context of Yoko Ono being mentioned is in the opening lyrics: “You’re not my Yoko Ono/You said those words to me.” Yeesh. That’ll do it. I can’t stop listening to it, but sweet Jesus, even though Excerpts from a Love Circus came out about 27 years ago, I just wanna give her a hug. But as with every Lisa Germano song, there’s always a distinct touch to macabrely decorate her heartbreak: distortion on her violin that makes it sound like a frantically buzzing insect, and the sparse guitar loose enough to conjure the image of the strings holding on by a thread and a half-spoken prayer. And just like said image of guitar strings, Germano holds onto an abusive partner; Part of her desperately wants to hold onto them (“You stop me being mean”) but they mistreat her at every opportunity (“Is that why you hit me?”). All of that roiling memory and frantic, nervous energy culminates in a rasping, scraping scream of the chorus: one word, “Lovesick,” three times over. Every inch of it is haunting and hypnotic, culminating in the most hidden details.

“I Am Decided” – The Amps

The Dandy Warhols really were onto something with “Cool as Kim Deal,” huh? Even if it is about wanting somebody as cool as Kim Deal, I doubt any of us are ever going to be quite as cool as Kim Deal. And quite as prolific, for that matter. For most of her career, every band that Kim Deal has been in eventually spawns at least two more: she joins one (Pixies), they break up, she forms another band (The Breeders), they go on hiatus, The Amps are briefly born, and both of the aforementioned bands reunite and/or break up again. (It’s weird what my brain retains; I can’t remember what I need to study for on a math test, but I can somehow recall seeing the “Kim Deal Quits Pixies” headline left up on my mom’s office computer when I was younger. Apparently that was around 10 years ago. Huh.)

But through all of that, consistent is how Kim Deal’s projects have been. Consistently good, if that wasn’t obvious from how many deeply influential bands that she’s been a founding member of. Even if The Amps were the most short-lived of her projects, it doesn’t take away from the distinct urgency of any of their songs. “I Am Decided” is a punchy earworm that I’ve had stuck in my head on and off for years, and man, does it feel good to be listening to it on repeat. Even if the production makes Deal’s voice faintly fuzzy at the edges, it never loses its sheer power. Every shouted word is a call to arms, a declaration: the urgency of it all drips from every lyric as she sings of “I’d like to fly out/Fly away from here.” Crammed into only about two and a half minutes, that cagey, determined energy becomes the kind that you can feel in your chest, the kind that makes you want to slam on the gas pedal, roll down every window, and conquer the open road.

“I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” (from O Brother, Where Art Thou?) – The Soggy Bottom Boys

I rewatched O Brother, Where Art Thou? last weekend, but it might as well have been the first time. One of the many reasons why my freshman honors English teacher in high school was fantastic was the fact that, after he assigned the Odyssey to a bunch of confused 14-year-olds, he showed us this movie in class. I could barely hear it over the sound of this one girl asking if Pete really did turn into a toad (to my teacher’s great exasperation), but that’s just how school movies generally go. Regardless, shoutout to said honors English teacher for preaching the wondrousness of the Coen Brothers early on.

That is to say that I could actually hear what was going on this time around, which made my experience that much better. Also, this time around, I realized that John Tuturro was in this movie the whole time?? It’s a Coen Brothers movie, so he was bound to turn up, but I had no idea that he was Pete?? Either way, it’s just such a joy of a movie, even if you haven’t read the Odyssey and half of the references went over your head (read: me, having retained only fragments from that period of honors English 9). What else is there to say? HOT DAMN, IT’S THE SOGGY BOTTOM BOYS!

“Kite” – Kate Bush

Remember how I said that there are some albums that are better than others for cleaning the bathroom? The Kick Inside is a good album, but it’s far more suited for a) dramatically draping a hand over your forehead as you lean out the window of a stone castle, or b) indiscriminate 70’s groovin’. Hard to do either of those things when you’re trying to mop the floor.

“Them Heavy People” remains the best track on the whole album, but “Kite” instantly stood out when I listened all the way through. It’s not every day that a song starts with a bouncy, Bowie-like groove, and immediately kicks off with the line “Beelzebub is aching in my belly-o.” Excuse me? It’s wild. This whole song is just wild. Kate Bush really just wrote a song about somebody getting turned into a kite against their will (??) fully knowing how much of a bizarre banger it was going to be. It’s basically cosmic horror, if you think about it, but it’s just so bouncy and happy? I’m just here sitting in my dorm, hips swaying while I’m in my swiveling chair, while she’s talking about “I got no limbs, I’m like a feather on the wind/I’m not sure if I want to be up here at all.” It’s got that same smooth, bopping, Hunky Dory flavor as “Them Heavy People,” but whereas that subject matter is far more endearing and logical for something David Bowie-inspired, but Bush just went full-force into the absolutely bonkers, horrifying concept of the song, and I can’t not applaud her for that. Go crazy.

“Devastation” – The Besnard Lakes

Here’s another band that my dad pulled out of his sleeve that I had no idea existed. “The Besnard Lakes,” you say? That sounds like some kind of late 2000’s band of singer-songwriter dudes wearing flannel. Y’know, the kind that would be mentioned in the same breath as…I don’t know, The National? It’s just the vibe of the name. Don’t ask me to justify it.

However, the minute this song started playing, my previous assumptions were turned on their heads, and not because, in contrast to my comparison to The National, there’s a woman singing. There’s really no title more fitting for this song than “Devastation.” It’s a song that immediately lays waste to the senses, from the minute the tidal wave chorus of off-kilter choir and screeching violins hits you. From there, this devastation never ceases. Even as the first verse dips into a false sense of security, with Olga Goreas’ voice shrouded in static, the chorus absolutely roars every time it comes around. It’s not every day that any given song on an album seems to perfectly emulate the album cover, but even without knowing anything about the rest of The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse (I kind of adore the whole The Besnard Lakes Are [blank] title format that they’ve mostly kept up), the song and the album art mesh so well; the crushing punch of the guitars and the urgency of it all, paired with the painting of a black horse being consumed by yellow flames, is the perfect match. And like those yellow flames, “Devastation” is a song that you can’t help but watch consume you. It’s the opposite of a song to zone out to—this song is commanding in its purest but most chaotic form.

Also, I love the music video. Again: all of the reds and blacks in the color scheme matches the energy of “Devastation” perfectly. It’s like watching an early Arcade Fire music video without feeling a rush moral revulsion the minute you remember how gross Win Butler is.

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: 8/20/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Here we are near the end of August, and I’ve got a color scheme adjacent to the aesthetic of my 10th birthday party. It may not be my favorite color anymore, but I still hold that pink is an underrated color. And it’s fitting, since my actual birthday is coming in a few days from now! August is apparently the most common birthday month, so I guess I’m not that special, but I love August simply because of that. Now that I’ve gotten to the point in my life where my birthday doesn’t land a week into the school year anymore, it’s a lot nicer. And it’s not on my first day of college either, like it was last year, so it’s a nice change this year. So let’s all settle down, eat some cake, and come to grips with the fact that we are all Kenough.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 8/20/23

“I’m Just Ken” (from Barbie) – Ryan Gosling

Here we are, a month removed from Barbenheimer, and this song remains stuck in my head. Everybody’s saying it, but it’s true: Barbie really is a masterpiece. It summed up modern womanhood more than any other film that I can think of. It’s whimsical, it’s clever, it’s incredibly funny, and for a movie populated by plastic dolls, it’s deeply human. My mom and I cried together so many times during the movie. Ah, womanhood. And anybody who says that this movie is “anti-man” is delusional—it’s just as empowering for men as it is for women. What’s “anti-man” about Ken realizing that his self-worth doesn’t have to hinge on romantic pursuit or material possessions?

If there’s anything that men—and anybody—can take away from this movie, it’s as the song says: “I’m just Ken, and I’m enough/And I’m great at doing stuff.” Look within. You are Kenough. What else is there to say about this song? Ryan Gosling stole the show. Feel the Kenergy.

“You Wouldn’t Like Me” – Tegan and Sara

And here’s today’s report on “why yes, I did blow through season 2 of Heartstopper last week, why do you ask?”

Tegan and Sara have been names that have been on the very edges of my radar for years; they’ve popped up alongside other artists that I listened to for years, and recently, the great Tillie Walden (!!!) illustrated a graphic memoir about their childhoods. But the snippets I heard of their music faded away—until last week, when this song was featured at the end of the second episode of season 2 of Heartstopper. (Both seasons always have a few gems on their soundtracks—Lucy Dacus and Wolf Alice in the same episode? We are truly blessed…) And as the backdrop to queer teen angst, “You Wouldn’t Like Me” meshes perfectly. It’s the perfect acoustic earworm, all at once gentle and soaring. The harmonies of twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin intertwine as seamlessly as you would think twin sisters would, blending into each other and branching out once more with smooth, warm ease. As the two Quins sing of “…a war inside of me/Do I cause new heartbreak to write/A new broken song?” their voices command a gentle acoustic strumming—again, I can’t think of a more perfect fit for Heartstopper. Again, I’m very new to Tegan and Sara, but this version feels like a vast gulf from the original, which takes a far more pop-rock direction. (Still Jealous, where this version is from, is an acoustic reworking of their album So Jealous.) I like the guitars on the original, but…how are their voices so nasally and grating there? It just feels so forced compared to how gorgeous their voices—and their story—sounds on this version. Needless to say, I’m far more partial to this acoustic version.

“Taking What’s Not Yours” – TV Girl

I never expected that a TV Girl song would ever end up on one of these posts, but life is nothing if not full of surprises. I’ve felt fairly lukewarm about most of their music that I’ve been exposed to; songs like “Blue Hair” and “Lover’s Rock” seem to have been everywhere after experiencing TikTok fame in the past few years, but they never really caught my eye. They were catchy, but not something that I would find myself listening to regularly.

Enter this song. I forger where I heard it first, but either way, it hooked me like no other song of theirs ever has. It all feels so carefree in its composition, and all of the sampling and the way it’s cobbled together is clear proof that somebody’s been taking some pages out of the De La Soul/Beastie Boys book. “Taking What’s Not Yours” gives it a more indie pop spin. The samples are just delightfully goofy, but so clever at the same time. The main sample comes from, of all things, a rap included in the video “Don’t Copy That Floppy.” (“That’s thieving/stealing, taking what’s not yours!”) I doubt it can get a whole lot sillier than that. And as Brad Petering talks about all of the things that he’s taken and left at various girlfriends’ places (sorry, “various apartments and domiciles”) over the years, what should get sampled but Richard Nixon’s infamous declaration of “I am not a crook” as the chorus starts over? It all seems so random, but the way all of these wild samples are tied back to the narrative is undeniably clever. I’m still not the biggest fan of the blasé, nasally drone of Petering’s voice, but it almost works as he rambles on about leftovers, jewelry and records left in the wake of his relationships. Fitting that the album that “Taking What’s Not Yours” is on is called Who Really Cares—it certainly fits Petering’s laid-back affect.

“Unpeeled” – Naked Giants

Here’s a pandemic memory that, for once, isn’t painful to recall! Thanks, Naked Giants. Weird name, but I’ll take it.

Naked Giants’ great album The Shadow also came out right around my birthday—it turns three years old tomorrow, as it happens! I was originally introduced to them when they opened for and performed with Car Seat Headrest, but they’re just as fantastic performing with them as they are solo, even if their brands of indie rock are more than a little different. (some of it definitely rubbed off on “Hollywood,” but I digress.) The Shadow, with propulsive tracks like “(God Damn) What I Am” and “Take a Chance” soundtracked that late August heat and cloudless skies, endlessly hooky and head-noddable. I can’t think of a single bad track on that album, but a few inevitably got a bit lost in the dust, as is what generally tends to happen when I love an album, but love a handful of songs just that much more. But that just means that it feels that much more joyous when you rediscover something else from that album. That’s where “Unpeeled” comes in. Although it’s slower and more droning than the previous tracks that I mentioned, the power it holds is unmistakable; with its hints of punk, psychedelia, and pure, guitar-driven rock all rolled into one, there’s never a moment where “Unpeeled” loses its touch. Like a great machine, it puffs along in a smoky, delirious haze, a different brand of their usually jangly 60’s influences. Even the harmonies on the chorus (“it’s unpeeling again”) sound off-kilter enough to sound like it belongs on the trippier side of Yellow Submarine. But nothing brings me more joy than the grinding, 13-era Graham Coxon-esque guitar chords that chug in at the 2:21 mark, cutting through the veil of smoke. It’s a truly hypnotic song in every way I can think of.

“Big in the World” – Shakey Graves

Another exciting song coming out of Movie of the Week, and with a great music video to match! Made me think of…I think it was a National Geographic Kids article about what they actually do to food in commercials to make it look appetizing. You can see a lot of it in the video, but that article was where I learned that glue is used as a substitute for milk for cereal in commercials so that the bits of cereal stick to the surface. The more you know.

True to form, all of what we see in the music video perfectly reflects the ethos of the song. As we see a man painstakingly pinning blueberries to the top of a stack of pancakes and painting a bowl of strawberries with red nail polish, Alejandro Rose-Garcia laments on “why I’ve gotta be somebody’s enemy/to be big in the world?” Something so curated and manufactured, like those nail-polished strawberries, is what Shakey Graves—or, at any rate, the protagonist of his imaginary movie—is musing on: the nature of how the media rewards drama instead of sincerity, only boosting fame if there’s a sensational story to be churned from it. In short: you’re only appetizing if you’re covered in shiny, fake crap. And even though that message comes through loud and clear, the musical drama of this song is what really sells it. Rose-Garcia’s rasping howl comes in at full force in the chorus, ringing out through almost Beatles-esque pianos and an ever-shifting atmosphere that really does feel like the fuzzy light edges around the multitude of screens on the album cover. It’s a lot more smoothly produced than most other Shakey Graves songs that I can think of off the top of my head, but it fits the feel of the direction that Movie of the Week seems to be going; it was conceived as the soundtrack to an imaginary film, and “Big In The World” has that cinematic touch in spades.

Since today’s 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!