Tag: Sunday Songs

Posted in Uncategorized

Sunday Songs: 7/9/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

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

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/9/23

“Quicksand” (demo) – David Bowie

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

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

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

“Gone Daddy Gone” – Violent Femmes

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

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

“Baby’s On Fire” – Brian Eno

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

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

“Tin Man” – feeble little horse

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

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

“Sun’s a Star” – Wilco

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

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

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

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 7/2/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Happy July, and happy disability pride month! Here’s a nice, warm, tomato soup and grilled cheese color palette to prepare yourself for the upcoming, inevitable heat that’ll make us all feel like human puddles. I like summer, but…to a point, y’know? Anything above 80 degrees is pushing it for me. I’d like the warmth without the sunburn, thanks.

Now I want some tomato soup and grilled cheese…

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/2/23

“Chinatown” – Shakey Graves

I had the incredible privilege of seeing Shakey Graves last week, and I’m not just saying that because it got us out of some apparently nasty hail back home. My brother and his girlfriend had seen him twice before, and they hyped it up perfectly—his solo guitar and suitcase kick drum endeavors were exactly as mind-blowing as promised. Dude’s got some undeniable talent.

One of the songs I’d been meaning to get around to was “Chinatown”—Roll the Bones X is on my Sisyphean album bucket list, I promise, but I’ve been cherry-picking songs in the meantime. The version that Alejandro Rose-Garcia played live was a much smoother, slicker, and faster version, and as good as the performance was, it didn’t seem quite right for such a tender soul-barer of a song. The defining quality of “Chinatown” is just how raw it is—even if it weren’t stripped down, as everything on Roll the Bonex X seems to be, how could these lyrics not gut you? “There will come a day/when the earth will cease to spin/You’ll hold me close and say/’My god where have you been?'” Sweet Jesus. I seriously get a hitch in my throat every time I come around to that part. I can’t listen to this song without getting chills. It seems like the other side of “Built to Roam”—despite being built for a life on the road and never being able to settle in one place, there’s an unwavering, almost apologetic devotion to whoever it is he loves and a regret for leaving them behind—”I still have sense enough to fear/that I’m not much without you near.” Lord. I’m getting choked up just writing this. You gotta stop, Shakey…

And even though this was one of the first songs on disc 2 of Roll the Bones X, I feel like it would’ve been the perfect closer, that wistful final line of “I’ll see you soon” that fades into nothing. Sentimental, self-conscious (hypothetical) album closers, anyone?

“All Stations – Stop Spiderman” (from Across the Spiderverse) – Daniel Pemberton

Listen. LISTEN. Across the Spiderverse is already the best movie of 2023. I’m all for the BarbenHeimer double feature in a few weeks, but nothing is gonna touch this. Nothing. I can’t think of another movie that’s given me this much faith in…well, media in general. The innovative art that made Into the Spiderverse so memorable has been cranked up to eleven, and nothing beats seeing a mixed-race character in a storyline about breaking away from people’s expectations of what he should be and writing his own story. (WE LOVE YOU MILES) Plus, the emphasis on a narrative about how good storytelling and heroism isn’t automatically synonymous with suffering? MAGNIFIQUE. Add that to a) everything about Gwen and her dimension, b) Jason Schwartzman’s innate ability to play characters with short man syndrome finally translated into a full-blown villain, and c) Spider-Punk (need I say more?), it’s rocketed up to one my favorite movies of all time. Tears were shed.

And part of what made both Spiderverse movies feel so fully realized in their richly detailed atmospheres was Daniel Pemberton’s scores for each of them. Blending all sorts of genres and cooking them all in the most seamless, synthy, movie score soup in, dare I say it, cinema history, there’s no sense of trying to get a feel for the mood—it’s as though the scenes were made with the music in mind. Everything from Spiderman 2099’s memed-to-death-but-still-iconic theme to the opening titles in Gwen Stacy’s dimension feels like it was part of the movie from the start—the innovative artistry of the animation clearly bled over into the score for every track. It was almost impossible to pick just one, but “All Stations – Stop Spiderman” came back to me again and again. Set against the chaotic but beautifully meticulous chase scene in the Spider Society headquarters, the music sounds as eclectic as the many Spider-Variants and as exciting and tense as seeing them all converge onto Miles Morales. There’s no excitement quite like the quietly encroaching bass paired with frenetic drumbeats that sound of the onslaught of Spidermen. And normally, hearing heavy breathing is a major sensory trigger for me, but the brief bite of breathing into the microphone at the 0:30 makes the high-octane excitement all the more palpable. The subtle weaving of Miguel O’Hara’s theme? The perfectly-timed switch from spider-fight to spider-betrayal? Good god, there’s nothing bad to be said about this score. Or this movie.

…What are you still doing here, anyway? DROP EVERYTHING!!! GO WATCH IT!!

“Bending Heretic” – The Smile

New Smile material is the best kind of present, no matter the song, but…does this mean we’re closer to getting “Read the Room” soon? Please? Please?

Don’t let that dissuade you, though—I’m still reeling from the former after hearing it live six months ago, but I’m just as excited that “Bending Heretic” has finally gotten to see the light of day. Rarely do I think of songs as truly hypnotic, but this one puts me under its hazy spell almost immediately with its gentle, murmuring guitars. Thom Yorke’s voice weaves through each gently plucked note like a lazy river with a cloak of mist. You really do feel the musical twisting and turning as Yorke sings about “coming to a bend now/skidding ’round the hairpin/a sheer drop down/an Italian mountainside/time is kind of frozen.” Time really does seem to freeze—the smooth limitlessness of this first quarter (or so) makes you forget that it’s 8 minutes long—the longest song that Thom Yorke has contributed to, not counting his remix of “Creep.” Every transition is liquid smooth—Tom Skinner’s drums kick in imperceptibly, as though they were always there, accompanied by strings. But just as you’re lulled back into a false sense of security, the strings coalesce into a shrill crescendo, morphing into sheer power as the guitars kick back in. The last quarter of “Bending Heretic” has the feel of being hit square in the face by a tidal wave—you can feel the raw power deep in your bones. It transported me back to how awe-inspiring their live presence was back when I saw them in December. Listening to them then was unforgettable, and hearing this song come to life for the first time on streaming was just as much so.

“Cinco De Mayo” – Liz Phair

Now that it’s July, I’ve realized that we’re neck-deep in Liz Phair summer over here. Buckle up.

Ever since last week’s Liz Phair (re)awakening and my recent listen-through of Exile in Guyville, the jolly deep sea fisherman in my brain has been dredging up spare fragments of hers from some part of my mind that’s been somewhat dormant since 2017. All I could remember of this one until I looked it up was “Cinco de Mayo/uhhh something something denial,” and…for once, I was right? Sort of? Listening to this one again makes me see exactly why it wormed its way back into my brain. Phair’s dry witticisms are dialed up to their full capacity, paired with jangly guitars that bring to mind sitting on benches in the midst of dry, summer heat. Dry, summer heat is what this song really is—sitting by yourself, remembering how it felt to wince, pull off the bandaid, and quit thinking about your ex. (I didn’t realize until now that there’s two breakup songs in a row? Whoops…) And as much as I now adore Exile, it seems like that album has overshadowed everything else that Liz Phair has put out (as…divisive as some of her more recent work seems to be). I’m just as motivated now to dig my teeth into Whip-Smart as I was to listen to her debut—I already adore this, the title track, and “Supernova,” so why not? Anybody who can rhyme “denial” with “Ohio” automatically has my respect. They’re already synonyms, so it was only a matter of time.

“Independence Day” – Palehound

Every time I see a new Supreme Court decision, it cements it in my mind that this song is the only Independence Day I’ll be celebrating on Tuesday. I’m just celebrating that I’m getting a day off work, at this point.

Even if the real Independence Day doesn’t have much of the same meaning anymore, at least Palehound can fill the void with a fantastic new track, self-described as a “gay breakup song for pride month.” Eye on the Bat’s first single, “The Clutch,” was hard to beat, but “Independence Day” easily slid to my second favorite single off the record so far. From the minute that El Kempner’s snappy finger-picking kicks in, every not3 is propulsive, with winding guitar melodies that crawl up the walls like ladybugs. It’s reached the level of Palehound Perfection™️ of some of their best songs—a catchy, three-and-a-half-minute long alt-rock hit that never loses its momentum. For a breakup song, it’s deceptively upbeat—it’s pure indie catharsis. It isn’t just heartbreak, plain and simple, but a series of pictures painted on tiny canvases. Each verse feels like a neatly-cut movie scene, from the “flashes of color on your face/the bass thumping, the chanting names/our cat running under the bed with his tail between his legs” as Kempner breaks it off with her partner on July 4th, to a near-death experience on the road that could have “dug us both a single grave,” but drove them apart rather than bringing them closer together. All of it is strung together by one of Kempner’s most memorable choruses: “I’m living life like writing a first draft/’cuz there is nothing to it if I can’t edit the past/and even if I could it, would kill me to look back/no I don’t wanna see the other path.” And for someone who constantly imagines alternate timelines, universes where I made different decisions, I can see how freeing it could be to know that the path that you’re on is the one you’re meant to be on—the ones still tied to their ex, for Kempner, aren’t worth dwelling on. Cheers to that.

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

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

Posted in Uncategorized

Sunday Songs: 6/25/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

This week’s batch originally included a cover of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” but for several obvious reasons, I omitted it since I feel like that would be the absolute worst possible timing. Whoops.

quick trigger warning: there are mentions of suicide in part of this post, so if you don’t want to read that section, skip over “Evening Star Supercharger.”

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 6/25/23

“The Sensual World” – Kate Bush

Here I was thinking that “Come Talk to Me” and my 8th grade graduation were the only times that pipes of some kind (bagpipes and uilleann pipes, in this case) would ever make me feel anything…

This time, I wouldn’t say that said feeling evoked by “The Sensual World” isn’t the same kind of visceral, scoop-my-heart-right-out-of-my-ribcage of said Peter Gabriel song; this time, it’s more of a “how could she make that sound so incredibly cool” feeling. Normally, I wouldn’t be on board with these kind of fiddling, dressing up in medieval outfits kind of tunes, but I have to keep reminding myself: if anybody can do it, of course it’s Kate Bush. Of course. My favorite songs of hers make me feel like growing my shaved head all the way back out and running through the woods in a white dress (see: “Burning Bridge”), so I’m glad that she and Peter Richardson channeled that for the music video. And even without knowing much of anything about James Joyce’s Ulysses, I can’t think of a better way to adapt a monologue from a classic like that—this version is a mishmash of Molly Bloom’s monologue and Bush’s own lyrics, since Joyce’s estate didn’t grant her the rights to make the song all Joyce. (She later re-released it as “Flower of the Mountain” as a sung version of Molly Bloom’s monologue, once she was granted the rights.) I would’ve passed it off as Kate Bush and nothing but—the silky, airy cohesion throughout, the rush of joy once the fiddle and uilleann pipes kick in at the start of the chorus…everything. The chorus remained faintly in the background of my childhood memories, the title and the rest of the song lost up until a few years back, just like my favorite song was up until around two years ago. And while it’s hard to compete with my favorite song of all time at the moment, I’ve enjoyed every minute that I’ve spent with this unearthed song.

“6’1” – Liz Phair

Complete coincidence—I had no idea that Exile in Guyville just turned 30 a few days ago! Perfect occasion to talk about this song, I suppose.

Most of my Liz Phair exposure prior to a few weeks ago came from two moments: seeing this album cover in passing on our iTunes library while my brother and I were trying to make a playlist for our dad ages ago, and two Whip-Smart tracks (“Supernova” and “Whip-Smart”) that defined a specific chunk of 8th grade. Listening to either of them instantly transports me back to a bus ride in the early hours of the morning, driving out to the middle of nowhere with my school to watch the total solar eclipse. And for years, I thought that that the Exile in Guyville cover was an illustration, and that the hood over her head was her actual hair. But the other day, my mom mentioned in passing, while we were listening to Palehound, how much it sounded like Liz Phair. I believed her, having a vague memory of said two songs.

And then my mom put on the first four tracks of Exile. Holy crap, dude.

I haven’t even gotten halfway through this album, but I haven’t fallen in love with an album this quickly in ages. This track is the one that keeps coming back to me—the minute the guitars kicked in, I was reeled all the way in. And even without the context of the last half of the album, this song seems to encapsulate its thesis perfectly—daring to have the courage to break into a male-dominated indie scene and make an irreplaceable mark on it. There’s the sly turning of the Rolling Stones’ lyrics back in their faces. And of course, there’s the references to height—”and I kept standing 6’1″/instead of 5’2″” isn’t just Phair keeping her head above the water after a nasty breakup, but a joking reference to her own height—she calls this song “the bravado that [she] manifest[s]” that seemed to confuse everybody once they saw how short she is. And…yeah, if I had a nickel for every person who’s said “I thought you’d be taller” to me, I could probably buy Amazon from Jeff Bezos. Liz Phair still has an inch on me, but…yep. The short king (queen?) experience.

So, to my mom, who talked about how cool it was that we were listening to the same knds of music at the same ages: I think it’s cool too. This one’s gonna be in heavy rotation once I listen to the whole thing. I love listening to music with you too.

“I Will” – The Beatles

Happy week-belated birthday to Sir Paul McCartney! Another song that ended up on here by coincidence, but I won’t argue against doing something for the occasion.

The White Album has something for everybody. Over the course of both sides, you have classic epics of songs (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”), nursery rhyme-style political commentary (“Piggies”), eight and a half minutes of experimental discomfort (“Revolution 9”), and everything else under the sun (here comes the). It’s part of why this album is my favorite of the Beatles’ discography—there’s no shortage of songs that you can come back to, and each time, it feels like reuniting with an old friend. Yes, even “Wild Honey Pie.” I will defend that song with my dying breath. It’s hilarious.

But it’s some of Paul McCartney’s quieter, acoustic moments that have stayed with me the most whenever I revisit parts of this album. It has the pleasant simplicity of their earliest, poppiest songs, but with McCartney’s added experience, there’s a weight to it that would’ve been difficult to achieve in their very early youth. I just now realized that the bass part is just his gentle singing—there are so many moments of quiet brilliance on this album. I added this to my playlist when I went up to Washington, and every listen felt like a warm hug—and every subsequent listen still does. 1:45 of nothing but comfort. Paul McCartney just seems to have that effect.

“Describe” – Perfume Genius

I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the beginning of the month, and it was EXACTLY as phenomenal and soul-healing as I’d expected it to be. Karen O brought an infectiously joyous energy to every minute of the set, complete with her glittery, Elvis-but-cooler outfits and confetti cannons aplenty. It genuinely warmed my heart to see the giant smile on Brian Chase’s face every time the camera panned over to the drum kit—the whole band just felt so, so happy, and that made the show all the better. Even with how damp that night generally was, I enjoyed every second.

Of course, you can’t really live up to that as an opening act, but I enjoyed parts of Perfume Genius’ opening set, without question, even only knowing one song of his beforehand (“Queen,” which…apparently he does a whole strip tease to that one normally? I guess the weather only permitted him to make generally strip tease-like motions while dragging an itchy-looking gray sheet around…the spirit is willing, but the flesh is a bit too chilly?). Every song wasn’t a winner for me, but “Describe” certainly was. Both on streaming and live, Mike Hadreas (a.k.a. “Mike on the Mic,” according to Karen O.) seems content to let his voice take a more understated backseat, which suits the propulsive guitars that wall this track in. The combination of these driving, battering rams of guitars and Hadreas’ whispery voice form a unique sound—a song that simultaneously feels sharp and prickly like porcupine spines, but smoother than a silk sheet. Hadreas toes that line of juxtaposition exceedingly well on this song—the two contrasting sounds blend only at the edges, making for a song that never feels like it’s teetering one way or the other—it’s content to plant one leg on either side of the fence and keep them there. My only real complaint is the minute-odd ending of muttering, synth-y silence, but it’s short enough to skip, and not long enough to be a major qualm. It’s probably a transition between songs on Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, but I wouldn’t know.

“Evening Star Supercharger” – Sparklehorse

I always struggle with posthumous album releases. At their worst, they’re blatant ways to capitalize off of an artist’s death and keep the nostalgia machine running, even if it’s just a collection of demos that were never meant to see the light of day. Even in David Bowie’s case—he’s my favorite singer, if I haven’t gone off about him for years on this blog, but even then, officially releasing his shelved 2001 album Toy felt weird—and it wasn’t his best work, either. I’m comforted by the fact that Bowie did actually want that album to see the light of day and seemed to be heartbroken by the fact that it got shelved, but I’m still dubious on whether or not that was Warner Music Group’s rationale for releasing it. I can say about the same for Prince’s Originals, even though I haven’t listened to it all the way through—especially with him and Bowie’s death being so close together, there’s definitely a 2016 pop-icon grief nostalgia machine running.

But Mark Linkous wasn’t necessarily a Bowie or a Prince. He wasn’t a worldwide superstar who changed the course of rock music—I can’t even think of anybody outside of my immediate family who might know about Sparklehorse. He’s gained significant renown in the indie community, but this feels different—given his history, it doesn’t seem like a cash grab at all. It seems like a genuine endeavor by Linkous’ siblings to revive some of his unreleased catalogue, not for reasons of greed or nostalgia. Toy felt somewhat off-putting; Bird Machine feels genuinely touching.

And the result of “Evening Star Supercharger” is purely Sparklehorse, without the touch of greed but still polished enough to sound smoother than a demo. It doesn’t feel far off from what I’ve heard off of Dreamt For Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain—the music has a polish of tinny glitter like a string of Christmas lights, but retains the unmistakable melancholy that ran through all of Linkous’ music. There’s an undeniable wish for stability and peace without the drugs and self-medication, but he still describes being wrenched through “the grinding metal gears/from a carnival of tears.” Knowing that he never achieved that kind of stability, leading him to take his own life in 2010, makes this unreleased material all the more heartbreaking; through the Christmas lights, it’s undeniably the sound of a damaged man. If anything, I hope Bird Machine allows us to celebrate the undeniably creative spirit that he had.

We miss you every day, Mark.

Suicide and Crisis Lifeline – 988

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: 6/11/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

Just a note—I’ll probably be radio silent for the next week (save for liking all your wonderful posts 🫡) because I’ll be on vacation! I’m heading up to Olympic National Park, so I’m pretty excited. But for now, have a nice, blue-gray color scheme and some silly goofy music while I’m gone. And of course, we’ve got Phoebe Bridgers, The Magnetic Fields, and Ernie and Bert for pride month.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 6/11/23

“Excuse Me” – Peter Gabriel

So…here I am. Finally got around to listening to Peter Gabriel 1: Car the other day. Fantastic album, but if I had to describe it in one word, that one word would be whiplash. I already knew I was in for a ride knowing that the album started out with the absolute proto-Danny Elfman insanity of “Moribund the Burgermeister” and the album’s classic radio hit “Solsbury Hill” one after the other (as much as I love the latter, it’s a crime that it’s all this album is typically remembered for…doesn’t surprise me, though), but even that couldn’t have prepared me for the full experience.

But if there’s any song off of this album that characterizes said whiplash, it’s this one. I went in expecting it to be weird, but the pure shock of this one just sent me into the nth dimension of musical weirdness. I’m not even exaggerating. This one starts out with a barbershop quartet. It’s just nuts. And I love it. It’s like Peter Gabriel was just unleashing every ounce of the pent-up goofiness within. It’s kooky. It’s whimsical. It’s silly. I’d unironically call this one of the best tracks on the album, just because he just goes all in on the silliness. However, I go back and forth on whether or not the incoherence of this album is a pro or a con—I’ve tentatively decided that it’s more pro than con, but some of it didn’t work for me. Coherence is not a quality that an album needs to have to be enjoyable, but you can do an album where every song has a different feel, genre, etc. from the next and still have it feel cohesive and joyfully carefree at the same time (see Super Furry Animals’ Rings Around the World). But on the other hand, the antici……pation of having no clue of what comes next was such fun to experience. There were some songs on Car that were genuine misses for me (sorry, “Down the Dolce Vita”), but albums that are pure chaos, like this one, are a special experience. Go crazy, Peter.

“Waiting Room” – Phoebe Bridgers

This one’s now on Bandcamp—all proceeds go to Music Will!

(are we all still okay, bisexuals? nope? I thought so)

Now, here we are with something of a legend amongst Phoebe Bridgers’ catalogue. Famously written when she was only 16, it’s hidden in the shadows despite being a fan favorite, existing only in older video performances and a brief stint on Spotify as part of the Lost Ark Studio collection, before being mysteriously taken down. And now that it’s on Bandcamp, more of us can lose ourselves in it!

The fact that Bridgers wrote this at 16 is still incredibly impressive, but with all due respect, it…makes sense. It’s 6 and a half minutes of pure angst—she hadn’t quite nailed the lyrical flow and subtleties that came with experience yet. There’s nothing subtle about “If you were a waiting room/I would never see a doctor/I’d just sit there with my first aid kit and bleed.” But the point of this song was never to be subtle—it’s a time capsule, capturing young, unrequited love at the epicenter of its emotion. If Bridgers hadn’t nailed her lyrical style just yet, she had already nailed her innate ability to conjure engrossing emotion. There’s something about the lines “Wanna make you fall in love as hard as my poor parents’ teenage daughter/She’ll be the best you’ve ever had, if you let her” that always get me. Aww, little Phoebe…

And it all comes to a head in the iconic refrain of “Know it’s for the better,” repeated for the last half of the song. The instrumentals rise in intensity along with Bridgers’ voice until it all crashes down in a tidal wave of guitars. It really is a song to lose yourself in—the last part of the song really does make it feel like everything else has ceased to exist around you. And even though this song has gone through several iterations over the years, it’s still a feat to achieve so young. If anything, I’m just glad to exist in a world with Phoebe Bridgers in it. I know it’s for the better.

“La La La La Lemon” (Sesame Street cover) – The Barenaked Ladies

Alright, here’s a childhood nostalgia pick-me-up after Phoebe Bridgers’ sea of teen angst. I wouldn’t blame you if you needed a palate cleanser.

This one was a last minute addition, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t include it in this. I haven’t thought about this song in a solid 15 years, but the other night, I had a dream—I can’t even remember what the dream was even about, but whatever the case, it dredged this song up from the dark recesses of my mind. And I’m not complaining! There’s nothing like the joy of uncovering a forgotten childhood song, like digging through dusty old boxes of mementoes in the attic. Or, at least, that’s how I imagine it. I don’t have an attic. I digress. It’s moments like this where I really appreciate the incomprehensible eccentricities of the human brain—which neuron fired and made me remember this all of the sudden?

Even though they have the worst possible band name to have included on a kid’s album (which they did—not just this, but the classic Snacktime!), The Barenaked Ladies really do have a talent for making nostalgic, clever kid’s songs. This one is technically a cover, but for once, I’ll defer to them instead of Sesame Street; in any other circumstance, I’d immediately call blasphemy, but in this case, their take on “La La La La Lemon” surpasses the original for me. No disrespect to Ernie and Bert, the original gay TV couple. This is the only exception. They reign supreme in all else. Nothing tops the Rubber Ducky song.

The slower, more subdued Sesame Street version fits when you consider that our crotchety friend Bert is singing half of it. But The Barenaked Ladies gave this song an infectious energy—just by picking up the speed, the song gains a far more carefree, loose, and altogether more joyous feel. Maybe my preference is the nostalgia talking, but I swear that this version manages to turn the kookiness up to the perfect level—the level that made me giggle as a kid and still makes me smile now, when I’m somehow an adult with a job. Man, how’d that happen…

Either way, the main takeaway is that comedy peaked at at “La la la la, linoleum!”

“I Don’t Want to Get Over You” – The Magnetic Fields

I’m entirely serious when I say that the only thing keeping me from listening to 69 Love Songs right this second is because of…said 69 songs. I will, eventually, but it’s gonna require a nice, long, uninterrupted stretch of…[checks notes] almost three hours, Jesus. But you’re not gonna catch me complaining about nearly three hours of Stephin Merritt and company.

In the meantime, it seems like almost every song I hear on its own from this album rearranges my brain chemistry for a solid three days before I can snap out of it. Case in point: this one. The minute the buzzy background synths and deeply distorted…well, everything kicks in, I lost myself. Again. With his signature, dry witticism, Merritt pens another two-and-a-half minute bite of love gone sour, cloaking the thought of “[taking] a sleeping pill and sleep at will/and not have to go through what I go through” in a web of tinny distortion. I always come back to the tongue-in-cheek lines of “Or I could career of being blue/I cold dress in black and read Camus,” because…I mean, he did kind of make a career out of that? Almost? Aside from a few songs, most of The Magnetic Fields that I can think of is about love left to get moldy after a few weeks in the fridge. But here’s the thing—it never feels like Merritt is spinning a broken record—each time, has has something new to bring to the table, whether it’s the drowning melancholy of “I Don’t Believe in the Sun” or the confessional nature of “Born on a Train.” He always finds something inspired to spin out of love lost or gone the way of spoiled milk, and every time, it’s a rush of inventiveness to the head.

“World of Ammonites” (from Prehistoric Planet 2) – Anže Rozman & Kara Talve

Here’s my PSA for today: if you haven’t watched both seasons of Prehistoric Planet on Apple TV+ …respectfully, what are you even doing? If David Attenborough’s part in it isn’t convincing enough by itself, will a masterfully-animated, nature-show style documentary about Cretaceous dinosaurs and other prehistoric life entice you? The animation puts almost everything else of its kind to shame—so much so that it looks too real to be animated, which adds to the nature show feel. Plus, it acts like a good nature show should, not focusing all on “DINOSAUR FIGHT!!!!!1!!! RAAAAAAH THEY ARE ANNIHILATING EACH OTHER RAAAAAH!!1” and giving a speculative insight into many aspects of these extinct creatures’ lifestyles. It’s a beautiful show, whether or now you’re interested in prehistoric life. You will be, after watching this.

Even though the animation obviously steals the show (as it should), I couldn’t help but notice parts of the artfully crafted soundtrack as well. The ammonite section of season 2’s ocean episode wasn’t just my favorite moment of the season because of the tiny prehistoric cephalopods—the paired track, “World of Ammonites,” made it all the more gorgeous. Nothing fits the image of thousands of funky little guys with weird shells bobbing about in a prehistoric sea than a mixture of low woodwind, violins, and synths tinny enough to fit into a sci-fi B-movie from the fifties. The synths especially capture the audio representation of the likeness of these bizarre animals; fitting these very spacey sounds with such alien-looking creatures feels like an obvious choice, but it’s a genius one. Prehistoric Planet has consistently been a joy to watch, but nothing quite gave me the rush of joy that the ammonites—and this track—did. Love me a good cephalopod.

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: 6/4/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

And more importantly, happy pride to each and every one of you! I’ll say a bit more about that in my annual pride recommendations post (working on it as we speak), but for now, here’s what I have to say: the past year has been incredibly difficult for the queer community, but it’s important to remember that amidst all of the anti-lgbtq+ legislation, that they can never take away our happiness—queer joy is an act of resistance. We’re still here, so get used to it. And please, buy your pride merch from somewhere other than…y’know, Walmart. Queer small businesses make better stuff, anyways.

On a lighter note, I really wish I’d found this clip earlier…I would’ve used it to come out to so many people, you have no idea…

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 6/4/23

“Oom Sha La La” – Haley Heynderickx

There’s no whiplash quite like searching for this song on YouTube, and then seeing that one of the top results is “oom sha la la leafpool.” I kid you not. Glad to see that the Warrior Cats fandom is alive and kickin’ and making AMVs like it’s 2014. I did hear that the main series is still going (I stopped at the 5th series 🥴), and now there’s canonically…[checks notes] cats getting possessed? I’m not even gonna touch that. Call me an uptight old boomer, but everything was just fine back in the good old days, when it was just cats committing heinous war crimes against each other. Moving on…

I Need to Start a Garden has earned its place on my Sisyphean album bucket list ever since my brother turned me onto “The Bug Collector” by way of his girlfriend. I loved the latter, melancholy and full of creepy crawlies as it is, but this one immediately snagged me like a fish getting unceremoniously reeled up from the depths of a lake. There’s a comforting steadiness to this song; anchored by Heynderickx’s warm voice, it gently cups you into its hands like you’re a moth stuck in the house. Neat, glossy guitars buoy along a plethora of razor-sharp, wonderfully oddball lyrics—I doubt the words “arbitrary” and “sonogram” will ever be paired together again, unless Bon Iver or Ezra Koenig come along and steal it. (Obvious Bicycle 2?) But beyond that, “Oom Sha La La” is one of those songs that feels universally relatable. Judging from both my brother’s reaction and the YouTube comments, there’s a nugget of truth for everybody in this one—everybody’s had a moment in their life when they’ve come to the impetus that they need to get off of their butts, shake off the dust of the past, and get their lives together. For me, it reminds me of when I first started college—being so afraid to do anything and everything, but that saving voice telling me that “If you don’t go outside/well, nothing’s gonna happen.” And that impetus comes in the speeding catharsis train of Heynderickx’s cry of “I NEED TO START A GARDEN!”, which was apparently accompanied at one of her concerts with potting soil raining from the ceiling like confetti. There’s no use in waiting for the dirt to rain on you, in the end—you have the scream inside you, telling you that nobody but you can steer your life for the better. You have the power.

“Paprika” – Japanese Breakfast

I’m new-ish to Japanese Breakfast, but now that I’ve seen a video from a friend of mine who saw her a few weeks back, the best part of this song, by far, is that Michelle Zauner drags a whole gong onstage for this song. I really don’t think I need to justify that.

Every time I listen to “Paprika,” I get this voice in my head that slaps me upside the head, chiding me for not getting into more Japanese Breakfast right this second. Trust me, the only thing keeping me from it is my self-imposed need to get through a) some albums that are too hard to draw on a whiteboard (Here Come the Warm Jets) and b) get through all of the Blur and Peter Gabriel I have left to listen to before both of their new albums. This song, though, is absolutely enchanting—there’s no better word for it. Like so many of her other songs, it coats you in an intoxicating cloud of glitter, backed by faint steel drums and a bright horn ensemble. It really does feel like you’re “at the center of magic,” as Zauner chimes in at the chorus. It’s a shame that the famous gong is understated, but the sound mixing blends it perfectly with the rest of the instrumentals, paring it down to a clean crispness that seems to disappear into glittering sparks. I would’ve thought it was a cymbal, if it weren’t for said friend’s video footage. But that all works to uplift Zauner’s voice, bright and perfectly suited to the swirl of light surrounding her. Maybe she is the swirl of light.

“Breakadawn” – De La Soul

There’s something undeniably summery about this song. You can say that with certainty for the entirety of Three Feet High and Rising, with its carefree spirit and day-glo-colored album cover, but there’s a different kind of carefree slickness of “Breakadawn.” Smoothly collaged with samples from everybody from Michael Jackson (the backing track) to Smokey Robinson (the famous “breakadawn”), this song is proof of how seamlessly you can weave samples into a song—they all sound so natural together that they might as well have been borne together from the start. And what better soundtrack for watching Plug 1, Plug 2, Plug 3, and their many clones (?) walking along the beach and making camera moves that feel like proto-selfies? There’s no denying the shift in tone post-Three Feet High and Rising, but every song I’ve heard from Buhloone Mindstate is convincing me that this ethos never really left—in the end, this song is still filled with vibrant, summer colors that are impossible to deny. What better song to stick your head out a car window on a warm day to?

“Allison” – Soccer Mommy

We’ve got an Allison trifecta on this post, I guess? A song called “Allison,” made by my wife Sophie Allison, and an Al(l)ison Goldfrapp down below? Are we summoning Allisons here? (And can I summon the second one?)

Collection is Soccer Mommy’s first mini-album before her major label releases, and this was one of the few new songs amidst the other redone songs from when she self-released music on Bandcamp. Knowing this, it’s clear to see the sonic bridge between these periods of her career—the maturity of later albums like color theory comes through—this one reminds me of “night swimming”—but the young angst, painted with her tender, gentle touch, feels timeless. Allison’s guitar work has her signature, bedroom-pop touch of reverb and soul, and every bit of the song rings out like birdsong heard through the wind. It’s interesting that she likely named the song after herself—with that in mind, the song transforms from somebody else’s story to a mantra to her past self, a reminder of missed chances: “Allison, put down your sword/Give up what you’re fighting for.” There’s another layer of intimacy that manifests knowing that Allison crafted a lot of these earlier songs from pieces of her own diary entries—does it get more heart-laid-bare than that? It’s proof that from the beginning, Allison had no interest in being disingenuous—every song she writes is her, and nothing but—no airs put on, no glamorizing her life. I guess that almost comes with her bedroom pop, homemade roots, but I doubt that every single one of those musicians stay as true to themselves as she does.

“Monster Love” (Goldfrapp vs. Spiritualized) – Goldfrapp & Spiritualized

This is the only song that I’ve heard Spiritualized remix/reimagine, but it feels like he is to “Monster Love” what Denis Villeneuve was to Arrival: taking something that’s already beautiful, and artfully exceeding all of the qualities that made it so.

Goldfrapp and Spiritualized is a pairing that I never would’ve imagined, and yet, J. Spaceman has deconstructed her Seventh Tree album closer, already a beautifully introspective song, into…well, just pure J. Spaceman. All of the lyrics from the original have been stripped, save for this line: “Everything comes around/Bringing us back again/Here is where we start/And where we end.” Just from that, it already sounds like the words to a Spiritualized song, but it’s so fascinating to see the J. Spaceman Cosmic Touch™️ applied elsewhere. Alison Goldfrapp’s voice is cloaked in reverb, and the synths rise and fall like waves. Accompanying them is a series of chimes, harmonica, tambourine, which, if any other person was reimagining this song, would sound exceedingly out of place, but again—the J. Spaceman Cosmic Touch™️. His voice feels perfectly natural for the landscape he and Goldfrapp have created, his staticky harmonies melding smoothly into the music and drifting away just as quickly. It’s not surprising that Spiritualized would have such a Midas’ Touch on anything he lays a finger on, really.

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

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 5/28/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This is gonna be a fun one. By coincidence, the fault lines of Palehound Panic™️ and my recently reawakened Blur Breakdown™️ have collided in the span of a week. Let’s hope the results won’t be cataclysmic.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/28/23

“Black Friday” – Palehound

I’ve finally finished my quest to catch up on Palehound (the albums, at least) before Eye on the Bat. Over the past week or so, Black Friday has been in heavy rotation—it feels like El Kempner’s most cohesive and lyrically strong album, and it might just be my favorite of theirs so far. It was a feat to pick just one song from this album—“Worthy,” “Aaron,” and “Killer” were all strong contenders (GO LISTEN THEY’RE ALL SO GOOD)—but the title track, “Black Friday,” stuck out to me in so many ways.

Palehound often leaves the introspection for a handful of songs at the end of each album, but the personal threads run deep throughout the entirety of Black Friday. This song in particular hits a particularly emotional note—it’s a continued story of catching up with old friends, all the while having a nagging feeling that they don’t care about you now, and that they never cared much about you before, either. Yet somehow, you still feel tied to them by some kind of desperate obligation, a lingering thought that maybe things can change, but knowing they won’t; Kempner sings that “I’ll take being the last one that you call/You’re Black Friday and I’m going to the mall.” The chorus of “Before you said we’d keep in touch/I don’t hear from you too much/If you need to call me, I’m too weak to hold a grudge,” with Kempner’s layered harmonies, glitter like the edges of stars and ring out like a faint sound of a jet flying overhead. It was a song that felt like a punch in the stomach, all while I was just trying to give myself a nice manicure. Afterwards, I had to sit back for a minute…there will always be those songs that hit a little too close to home for comfort, and they always come when you least expect them to. But songs like “Black Friday” give a voice to the feelings that we think, in our darkest moments, are isolated only to only us. So thank you for that, El Kempner. Here’s to making friends with people who really do care, and not chasing after people who don’t.

“The Narcissist” – Blur

All is right in the universe. Nature is healing. We’ve got a new Blur album out in July…everything’s okay again…

…and this song is testing my ability to spell the word “narcissist.” I could’ve sworn that there was another ‘c’ in there somewhere…

I’ve got to hand it to Damon Albarn at this point—he’s having not one, but two of his projects (this and Gorillaz) releasing albums this year, and even if Cracker Island was a bit of a disappointment, the sheer creativity and talent is all there regardless. Knowing that the forthcoming The Ballad of Darren was a spur-of-the-moment kind of reunion makes it all the more impressive—they didn’t plan on making another album in the first place, and then they come out with this?

That being said…I’m not sure if it’s Blur’s best, but it’s still a great song. I didn’t listen to it on repeat while cleaning out my closet last week for no reason. It’s such a catchy tune—the instrumentals are a little understated, but it’s clean, it’s smooth, and it’s proof that Blur have mastered the art of a polished Britpop tune. My only problem, as much as I’ll sing praises for Damon Albarn, is that there’s too much Damon Albarn. It’s not something that I’d ever picture myself saying, but we live in strange times. “The Narcissist,” delightful earworm that it is, feels more like a solo Damon Albarn effort than a Blur song. Even though we do get Graham Coxon’s backing vocals, I find myself missing his captivating, intricate riffs. You can hardly hear the presence of Alex James’ iconic basslines. And Dave Rowntree’s precise drumming is still there, but again: understated. I just want more Blur, less Damon Albarn.

All that is to say that, for once, the fact that we’re getting a whole new Blur album overshadows most of the nitpicks I have about “The Narcissist.” I have a feeling that I’m gonna enjoy Hot Blur Summer.

“I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to Be Nicer” – The Cardigans

If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought this was a Giant Drag song—it’s got a very similar kind of bite. I’ve only listened to First Band on the Moon, but this song has me wondering what happened between that and their final record, Super Extra Gravity. I wouldn’t call it a sea change—it’s still got the pop sensibility that Nina Persson perfected to a science, but there’s an undeniable roughness to the song that pushes it more towards the edges. Persson’s voice, although it retains her signature, dainty tone, curls into a rasp as the song begins with half-spoken dog commands—”Sit/good dog/stay/bad dog/down/roll over.” The rest of that song is as bitter as the intro suggests, singing of a relationship gone sour, dulled by alcohol and fleeting visions of lost love. The Cardigans have toyed with these kinds of songs, but this one really makes the feel come through—it’s still a pop song through and through, but the sharpening of the guitars on this one make the image really come to life. “I Need Some Fine Wine” is, in short, Nina Persson’s hairdo in most of the video—it coexists as the neatly braided crown and the spiky hairs coming out all at once.

“Sinnerman” – Nina Simone

Full disclosure: I hoard reaction images. Too many. But even a refined reaction image connoisseur such as myself knows that some images are only suited for very specific, sacred times. You can’t go about wasting them willy-nilly, even if they are just…well, sitting on your phone. It’s not every day that something can evoke the feeling contained in this image, for instance:

But that’s how “Sinnerman” feels. All the way through.

Every TV show and film that this song has been featured in has cut it tragically short; and no, I don’t mean to call Gerard Way and Taika Waititi cowards, because they clearly aren’t, but also…if you’re going to include this song in anything, you have to go the whole mile—the 10:19 mile, to be exact. And if there’s any song that commands the listener to sprint through its entire length, it’s this one.

I can take longer songs, but there’s a specific art to crafting them: for me, if a song goes past the 6 or 7 minute mark, there has to be something that keeps me listening—that applies to any song, technically, but if you have that long of a song that mostly consists of repetition, you’ve started to lose me (lookin’ at you, LCD Soundsystem…you can pull it off sometimes…). Oingo Boingo’s sprawling, nearly 16 minute long swan song “Change,” for instance, has plenty of recurring musical motifs, but it keeps you on your toes, whether that be with artfully-placed oddball instrumentation or bizarre samples. But there’s a way that long song repetition can be done—my favorite song of all time, in fact, does just that; Blur’s “Tender” has a somewhat tidier format, but they bypass the LCD Soundsystem syndrome not just with breaks for Graham Coxon’s bluesy riffs and choir, but by fueling it with nothing but Emotion with a capital E—”love’s the greatest thing,” after all.

“Sinnerman,” however, does both of those things—it’s essentially the mother of every epic, extensively long song that you can think of. Even knowing the years that Nina Simone was active, it still amazes me that this was released in 1965. I could almost understand it if it had been the late sixties, when everybody started to realized how freeing musical experimentation was. Simone’s musical career was defined by pushing against so many barriers, from her protest music to her incredible piano skills, but this song pushed the envelope in such a wildly different way. Through all 10+ minutes, there’s an energy that seems to live and breathe and never stop—even when the music begins to die down in favor of Simone’s piano and a chorus of clapping. It’s a song on a desperate mission, one that takes no prisoners and never stops to catch its breath. Even though the song is an amalgamation of scattered 50’s songs, gospel, African spirituals, and remnants from her own religious upbringing, it can be easily reduced to a single word, one that Simone famously belts out near the song’s climactic ending—”power.” I can’t think of many other songs that grab you by the shirt collar and keep you hanging there quite like this—nothing comes close to how propulsive Simone is, with how purely propulsive both her voice and her piano playing are. Again—take my word with a grain of salt, but this really is a masterpiece. And knowing that she used to end her live shows with this song…WHEW. What a song.

“Sea of Blood” – Palehound

Whether or not it was intentional, it’s fitting that this song shares space with a song called “YMCA Pool.” Two dubious bodies of liquid on one single.

With some songs that end up as singles after the released of an album, you’re left wanting—what could’ve changed if that track was on the album, as originally intended? (see: “Bicycle”) But some songs were made to be tiny, standalone packages, never leftovers for works past or teasers for what’s to come. “Sea of Blood” works exactly this way—it’s got the sprightly beats and guitar work of something circa Dry Food or even Bent Nail – EP, but there’s something about the short, snappy atmosphere of it that doesn’t confine it to any of Kempner’s previous works. It might fight the catchier, brighter side of Dry Food, but it doesn’t quite match the introspection. It’s got the experience that Bent Nail hadn’t fully achieved yet. And yet it still sounds like a home demo, but so fully realized—a neat drum machine accompanies Kempner’s signature rasp, sharp lyrics, and climbing guitar fingerings all come together in what has the sound quality just above an iPhone voice memo, but the polish that comes from nurturing a tune like this for a long time. And leave it to Palehound to name a song something like “Sea of Blood,” a title you’d expect to come with throat-burning, heavy metal screaming, but start off the song with a line as innocuous as “I’m every bit as fragile as a baby bird.” You sly dog, you…hound?

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

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 5/21/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This post was brought to you by the never-ending Dark brainrot (it consumes), my disappointment in Kindred’s TV show adaptation, and the continued Palehound Panic™️. But this is all merely the calm before the storm, because now we’ve got the news that Blur is coming out with a new album in July…BRACE YOURSELVES

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/21/23

“What a Wonderful World” (Louis Armstrong cover) – Soap&Skin

Somehow, it was this song, and not the original, that made me realize that the line was actually “the dark, sacred night” and not “the dark, say goodnight.” Whilst I was crying my eyes out at the Dark finale. Whatever it takes.

It’s been about two weeks now since I finished Dark and got through that gut-wrencher of a finale, and I can say with absolute certainty that I doubt I’ll ever emotionally recover from…well, anything about that show. I’ll spare you any spoilers, other than the fact that this song is present. But hopefully that part shouldn’t be a surprise, at least, with how the show-runners have now triple–dipped with the Soap&Skin needle drops, including the theme song itself. I may be an atheist, but the atmospheric covers of Soap&Skin and the eerie, dew-covered-forest, small-town-murder-mystery-that-turns-into-something-way-worse aesthetic of Dark together is a match made in heaven. There’s something that she brings to this near-untouchable song (except for a third grade singing program that I did? I think), that no one else could have—it’s got all of the makings for the same haunting instrumentals of her cover of Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil,” but it’s impossible to take any of the love or hope out of this song. The synths make it sound like something that would’ve been in the running for a Golden Record candidate (or at least the backing track to a shot of a satellite in space), and Anja Plaschg’s rich, cavernous voice create a shadowy atmosphere, but one illuminated by an undeniable light at the end of the tunnel. It’s impossible to make this song sound anything but hopeful, but there’s different ways that hope can sing—and this was a perfect fit for the tearful, bittersweet ending to a series that’s taken up a welcome amount of space in this brain.

But while I’m here, I will offer the following…this was a great song to send off Dark with, but consider: “Blood of Eden?” Again, no spoilers, but…it’s all right there.

“Tomorrow Never Knows” (Beatles cover) – Junior Parker

Except this time, one show is a time-travel masterpiece, and the other is FX’s adaptation of Kindred. Octavia Butler deserves better than THAT. (@ the showrunners: Kevin being a somewhat static character in the book was NOT a sign to make him into a total dudebro. The X-Ray Spex shirt isn’t fooling anyone.)

However, as generally peeved as I was with that show, if there was one great thing I got out of it, I’d point to this deliciously eerie Beatles cover. I’ve since given up the whole “don’t cover the Beatles” mindset, even if we are living in an uncharted sea of awful “Here Comes the Sun” covers, because with how influential they were on…well, almost every aspect of rock music that you can think of, there’s infinitely many things that can be done with these songs, classics as they are. Take picking this song to cover—the original song is nothing short of experimental, psychedelic insanity, deliriously noisy and filled with rubber duck noises at random intervals, as one does. It’s glorious. It’s a childhood staple of mine. But Junior Parker’s taken all of the trimmings off of it, slimming it down like a tree stripped of its bark. When the dust settles, all we’re left with is bass, soft drums, scattered keyboard chords, and Parker’s sonorous, bluesy voice. The bare-bones construction of this cover makes “Turn off your mind/Relax, and float downstream” feel like a chilling whisper of coercion, not a famous allusion to psychedelics. I never thought that this song could get quite this ominous—and, despite my general beef with the Kindred show, it was a perfect fit for the show’s atmosphere—definitely the best needle drop of the show, right at the end of episode 2. It wasn’t all bad, I guess.

“Night Time is the Right Time” – Ray Charles

Listen. I only know the basics of studio recording technology, but somehow, it’s “Night Time is the Right Time” that makes me appreciate what they were trying to do in the 50’s—not necessarily what it could do, but what it caught. The version I have on my iTunes library is plenty scratchy, cloaking almost everything in that signature fuzz you get from most recorded music up to the 60’s or the 70’s. It’s charming—it’s the sound of the era. But here’s the thing—the key word is almost. In almost every recording that I’ve listened to, no matter when it was mixed, Ray Charles’ voice sounds as clear as day. You could probably chalk that up to the main goal of said recording technologies being to record his voice first and foremost, but I can’t help but romanticize that in my head, Charles’ resonant voice soaring through any technology and defying any attempts at being aged. But no matter how fuzzy or remastered any recordings get, it’s always a beacon, the foggy gleam of a lighthouse across the sea.

And on the other side of the coin, there’s Margie Hendrix’s iconic voice—not spared the fuzz, but with what I’d argue is an almost equal amount of power. She put everything into that first call of “BABY!” and never slowed down. Her voice did fall victim to the scratchy fuzz, but her declarative growl of a voice almost fits with it; there’s a rough edge to Hendrix’s voice, the kind that makes my throat raw just thinking about belting out those notes. Knowing she was in her early twenties when she sang that makes it all the more impressive. It’s a voice that instantly conjures an image—screwed-up eyes, mouth open wide, putting every ounce of lung power into the verse that you have. The song is a testament to both of their talents, what little that I know about either of them—but either way, there’s a reason that they called Charles “The Genius,” and just as much of a reason for the influx of YouTube comments declaring their love for that iconic shout of “BABY!”

“See a Light” – Palehound

Another find on my quest to absorb as much of Palehound as I can before Eye on the Bat comes out, here’s a single that El Kempner released about a month before it all went wrong. February 27, 2020, to be exact. Yeesh. Simpler times.

I noticed a pattern after listening to both Dry Food and A Place I’ll Always Go—indie-rock lightness and guitar fun are the main priorities, but Kempner always has a few melancholy, slower tracks to balance everything out, nudged just past the middle (“Dixie”) or nestled at the end (“Feeling Fruit”) of any given album. “See a Light” allows this breed of Palehound to stand on its own. It’s the perfect vessel for Kempner’s whispery voice to flourish, drifting along like fog amidst the homegrown, shoegaze-y, bedroom production. It gently crawls along to a slow drum machine and glossy guitar notes, settling in your lap like a kitten. Distortion creeps in at perfectly calculated moments, fuzzing up the edges of the instrumentals and Kempner’s voice. Beyond all of that, it’s one of the best instances of album covers (or single covers, in this case) perfectly matching the feel of the song(s) itself—the combination of the handwritten typeface and the basketball hoop taken over by bright green vibes, set against a cloudy, gray sky, matches all of the bits that make me go back and listen to this song.

“Cubist Castle – Part 1” – Alan Peter Roberts (a.k.a Jim Noir) and Steve Wareing

📢YOUR REMINDER TO SUPPORT JIM NOIR ON PATREON (link above) IF YOU CAN HE’S AMAZING📢

Ever since Jim Noir has started said Patreon, we’ve gotten a handful of his older catalogue in between the new EPs. One such offering is this—a collaboration from 2000, between himself and a longtime friend, now remastered from the original ten tracks and expanded to 30 (!). (For reference, the tracks are grouped into four chunks on the Patreon link.) It’s not the first time that Jim Noir, under whichever name, has offered up his experience with making ambient music (see Omission Sound, also available on Patreon). I’m not as well versed in ambient music in general, but I’ve gotten tastes of it from him over the years; usually, I’m ambivalent about it—for me, his ambient music functions mostly as background music, plus the odd sample with a nice layer of distortion thrown in. But “Cubist Castle – Part 1” feels different than Omission Sound’s Solutions—there’s something cheerier about it that sets it apart. Including an early version of “Everytime” (a bright soundtrack to many a painful hour studying during the pandemic), “Cubist Castle – Part 1” has calm woven into it. Although some of the later parts get plenty ominous, there’s something so gentle about this first chunk—the tinny, bubbly synths, samples of birdsong and beach sounds…it’s just nice, simply. Nice. Nice is often such an inadequate word, but given the background-music nature of this album, it fits. It’s like the auditory version of a baby sensory video. I’m just glad that all of the essay writing that I did to the tune of “Cubist Castle” didn’t ruin it.

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

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 5/14/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

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

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/14/23

“The Clutch” – Palehound

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

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

“Humdrum” – Peter Gabriel

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

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

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

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

“Room” – Palehound

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

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

“Dawncolored Horse” – Fenne Lily

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

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

“Times to Die” – Car Seat Headrest

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

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

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

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

“Bees?”

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

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

Posted in Uncategorized

Sunday Songs: 5/7/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

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

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/7/23

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

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

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

“Can I Go On” – Sleater-Kinney

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

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

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

“Supermassive Black Hole” – Muse

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

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

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

“Wherever You Go” – Beach House

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

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

“Rubberband Girl” – Kate Bush

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

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

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

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 4/30/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

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

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 4/30/23

“Ride a White Swan” – T. Rex

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

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

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

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

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

“A Love of Some Kind” – Adrianne Lenker

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

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

“House of Jealous Lovers” – The Rapture

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

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

“The Cradle” – Colour Revolt

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

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

“Sunshine” – The Arcs

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

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

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

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

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