a terrible country song i just couldn't ignore
plus abracadabra, boygenius, gruff rhys, clark, and wayward sons carrying on
Hello! Lots of new folks signed up last week, so to those who are new here, welcome to my roundup of the week’s most interesting songs and occasionally fun things to read!
Anyway - on to the best tracks of the week and some Good Links:
If I Could Only Remember My #Name - Jeremy Gordon’s tribute to David Crosby honors his legacy as the best poster of the boomer icon generation. RIP to my favorite hater of the Doors.
Black Zwan - The Internet may have memory-holed Billy Corgan’s alt-rock project, but us elder Millennials probably recall its weirdly hyped-up rollout. Steven Hyden talks it out on the 20th anniversary of Mary Star of the Sea, which isn’t available to stream???
As always, you can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update every Tuesday along with the newsletter.
abracadabra - in a photo
Abracadabra’s excellent second album shapes & color is filled to the brim with perfect insouciant dinky disco, where the bass plonks, the reverbs fit just right, the synths happily offer you a cigarette, and no one dares put on the overhead lighting. The album’s coy first half doesn’t demand your attention as much as coolly beckon you to the dancefloor with songs that break down where less interesting records might try and go big. shapes & color’s more paranoid second half is an appropriate hangover to the slinky joys of the album’s opening art-pop salvo; it’s a record that makes you wish you worked at a café, so you could play it in the background and wait for the “hey what is this?” asks to roll in.
boygenius - $20
You know what, I’ll take an event record! The reunion of Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker was heralded with a big press rollout, which makes the detailed smallness of their first new tracks almost ironic — if they weren’t so effective. “$20” has a perfect turnaround-as-chorus (“When you wake up I’ll be gone again!”) and the three singers form like Voltron via interweaving vocal lines in the song’s second half. A sad Voltron.
Gruff Rhys - LayerUponLayer
In the best possible way, every great Gruff Rhys song sounds like it comes from a fantastic animated children’s special. This one happens to actually come from an existing film, last year’s The Almond & The Seahorse, but there’s always something about Rhys’ songs that feels pulled from an alternate reality.
Clark - Town Crank
Clark’s upcoming tenth record Sus Dog is his first to feature his own vocals, and this time around he’s got Thom Yorke as an executive producer! Tapping Yorke makes perfect sense on “Town Crank:” Clark’s voice debuts as a bell-like floating texture over the track’s gnarled pulse, much like Yorke’s recent work in the Smile and on A Moon Shaped Pool. He builds stacks of harmony as the backing track grows to a writhing snake of distorted synths and krautrock energy that bloom into a massive refrain.
HARDY feat. Morgan Wallen - red
I don’t think this song is “good” per se, but “country songs just listing shit they think is very cool” is a truly excellent song format that’s somehow exclusive to the genre, and I *did* actually stop and properly laugh out loud on the street midway through the first verse when I realized how much these two country stars were committing to the metaphor. “I ain’t talking politics, I’m talking small town / and if you’re from one you know what I’m talking about” paired with a list of Very Cool Shit They Like that all happens to be red? I don’t love it…but I’ll allow it. Spoiler alert: Solo cups show up, but not til the end of the second verse.
WEEKLY THROWBACK
Kansas - Carry On Wayward Son (Live, 1976, found on TikTok)
My friend Matty from House of Feelings shared this after finding it on TikTok — who knew Ultimate Warrior sang for Kansas? The bongo solo, the shorts, the knee high socks, the glistening abs, a guitar player in a tuxedo - it’s all too much to process, but watch this if you want to experience the bizarre textures of AOR in one sweaty, weird clip.
That’s all for this week, folks. Please subscribe if you’d like these opinions straight in your inbox. See you next week!