God in the pod: Love Is Blind’s MAGA new season
New music from Model/Actriz, Bliss, Mamalarky and more!
Welcome to the Unskippables, where we’re still digging Thai Black Sabbath on The White Lotus even if this season isn’t great.
I'm a relatively new convert to romantic reality TV. In 2017 I started watching The Bachelor (Nick Viall’s season, if you’re curious) mostly so I would have something to talk about with my legal and PR teams at my job;I needed some sort of gossip so I'd have a reason to bother them about all of the work-related things I needed them to do for me. Of course, I was quickly drawn in, not just in a fun ironic way, but also in a weirdly invested way. I attribute most of this fascination with one question I kept turning over in my head: Is this what America thinks love is?
The answer is always at least sort of yes. And here we are, eight years later, and I’m on a slightly more comfortable couch watching romantic reality TV once again, with the same exact question looming over me.
This latest season of Love is Blind, Netflix’s hit show about people deciding to get married sight unseen, was filmed in the spring of 2024 in Minneapolis, and if I had seen it before the election I 100% would have known Trump would win. The Overton window of gender discourse in the show feels like it’s stuck in the 1960s, where the main points of tension are about prenuptial agreements, if the women are young enough to have enough children, if one of the men will accept someone’s gay sister, and if one of the women had slept with someone too soon before going on to the show. For the latter, Dave (all the male contestants are spiritually a Dave) can’t seem to understand that there’s drama because people just really want to get famous by being on TV, because he’s so stressed about his partner’s sex life before they knew each other. The pearl clutching feels absolutely bananas, as if someone ripped open the seams of mainstream American culture and found nothing but inspirational Facebook Bible quote posts.
Like listening to Spotify’s Top 50, binging reality TV feels like a peek into the strange subconscious consensus of American culture. Call me an out of touch member of the Coastal Elite, but it’s a truly jarring look at what America values in a love story. It’s so in-your-face regressive, that I’m hoping everyone gets ditched at the altar. But in the parlance of the reality show that got me hooked, if I had seen this closer to when it was filmed, it’d be clear that America was not ready to give a rose to Kamala Harris.
Anyway, if you want an entirely different take on Love Is Blind, check pal Nick Sylvester talking about the ambient music of the pods, and how this season’s big needle drops actually might be counterproductive to the vibe of Netflix’s wallpaper TV.
On to the new music! As always, you can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update every Tuesday along with the newsletter. Enjoy!
Mamalarky – #1 Best of All Time
If the phrases “Twee CAN” or “Lorem Deerhoof” mean anything to you, please let me introduce you to your new favorite song.
Bliss – Honey Please
BLISS is an absolute delight of a glam/power pop record from 1978, never released and recently unearthed by Reminder Records. Bliss were a hard-touring Doncester band active in the mid-70s, and you can feel the small stage sweat equity poured into every track on this somehow never-heard LP. The string intro of “Honey Please” drops into a hard-charging vamp and an irresistable song that perfectly threads the time period between Mott the Hoople and the Jam.
Model/Actriz – Cinderella
Model/Actriz are smart enough to know if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it for their debut single for their 2nd LP. Like all of the things that made their debut Dogsbody irresistable, the band smolders at the intersection of propulsive and repulsive while singer Cole Haden broods in the foreground. “Cinderella” has some pop sheen peeking through the concrete ice cream – a clap appears early, and the song has a minimal, piqued chorus that adds a delightful counterpoint to the rest of the song’s push and pull. The Cinderella-themed video is also a treat, with the band sitting in as the evil stepsisters. Stick around for the mice and choreo!
Q Lazzarus – A Fool’s Life
There are many gems amidst the soundtrack to Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus from her unreleased output – but most surprising is the range of sounds. From reggae to synthpop to house music, Q Lazzarus’ vault was filled with sounds, all anchored around her mysterious, huge voice. “A Fools Life” is shimmering 80s indie rock, with easily the biggest chorus of the bunch. The whole soundtrack is worth a listen, just to finally hear more from the singer behind “Goodbye Horses.”
Rico Nasty – TEETHSUCKER
Rico Nasty’s punk-pop “TEETHSUCKER” (for Fueled By Ramen, no less!) cement my theory that Sleigh Bells are rising as a dominant influence on 2020s pop rock. The cheerleader chants, the buzzsaw guitars, the union melody/instrumental chorus? Sleigh Bells all the way. Rico Nasty’s verses still channel her unpredictable charm, but there’s a fun 2014 blog energy here underneath the 20 foot tall guitar churn.
throwback
múm – green green grass of tunnel
There was a time in the 2000s when trying to date cool girls meant listening to obscenely twee music on burned CDs. This song gives me a Vietnam-level PTSD flashback to the smell of Djarum Blacks and wearing goofy ass scarves desperately trying to impress girls with miniscule bangs.