the best of the week (so far)

Licorice, Maxo Kream, Kate Bollinger...and Linkin Park???

Oct 02, 2024

Hey welcome to the Unskippables, sorry I’m a day late!

Pitchfork dropped their best of the decade (so far) lists and they’re as strange as you’d expect – it’s not really Pitchfork’s fault, considering the decade started with a culture-altering pandemic, though you can feel some underlying tensions as the pub attempts to recap this nascent decade. Mostly I found myself getting outraged that albums/songs weren’t on the list, only to find they came out more than five years ago. What do you MEAN A Crow Looked At Me came out in 2017??? Bullshit!

Well, we can at least confidently say these are some of the best links of the decade so far:

Doot Doola Do Do – Vulture interviewed Nardwuar about some of his best (and worst) interviews, and he gives a bunch of background on how he got some of his most memorable moments in his career.
Trip Hop and a Mirrored Ceiling – Michelle Leung made an amazing video for Vampireluvr’s “Helpless” (a song I helped write/produce) with maximum noir Lana Del Rey vibes
Dracula Mountain, Revealed – Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt did a studio tour on TikTok and there’s so much more Lego than you’d expect. Like, so much.
5/10, Notes of Yoncé – Jordan Weissman went to tastings for Beyoncé’s new whiskey to see how her $85 dollar bottle compares to…Bob Dylan’s?
Diamond Who-bilee? The Cindy Lee discourse popped back up on Twitter last week, which inspired Sadie Sartini Garner to re-up their excellent piece on the layers of obfuscation and the role of gender in Cindy Lee’s opus.

As always, you can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update every Tuesday along with the newsletter. Enjoy!

Maxo Kream & Tyler, The Creator – CRACC ERA

As much as I'm here for Tyler, the Creator’s constant evolution as an artist, it's so nice hearing him over a minimal ugly Neptunes indebted grinder. Appearing with Houston rapper Maxo Lream, the songs’ syrupy shimmy is delightful – it’s hard, it’s familiar, it’s great.

Licorice – Beautiful Boy

I've said a lot of things about my friend Nick's new label Smartdumb but I had to include his track “Beautiful Boy” in this week's roundup. Nick originally wrote this for a soundtrack for the 30 for 30 documentary American Son but he released the doc’s closing track as a single, fittingly, on his son's birthday. The track is a gorgeous mix of buzzing Frippertronics prog and cutting lyrics about the passage of time – at its heart, it’s a simple ode to the silly life lessons you rarely learn on purpose, collected in a breathless and lithe swipe of bouncing pop.

Kate Bollinger – I See It Now

I really love this Kate Bollinger song mostly because it sounds like two really good Carly Simon songs stitched together at the halfway point. If you're not trying by the first half stick around for the second! There's a lot to love in “I See It Now,” thanks to it's well worn familiar charm.

MICHELLE – Akira

I started listening to the new LP from New York alt pop collective MICHELLE after working with one of their members Sofia d’Angelo on some tracks and I'm really happy I did. “Akira” is a really good example of the collective's ability to stitch detailed lyrical storytelling into a delightful interweaving of pop textures, drawing from bright 90s pop, G Funk bass and pandemic bedroom pop, sealing it all together with a deeply addicting chorus. Who’s Akira? Who’s Adrian? We love a mysterious proper noun in a pop track!

Linkin Park – Heavy Is The Crown

Okay, yes, I'm very aware of the controversy around Linkin Park's new singer Emily Armstrong, but when nu metal tracks work, they’re as technically thrilling as the best of Max Martin or ABBA, and “Heavy Is The Crown” is a great example of the genre’s rollercoaster builds. Starting with a double-time underlick that has an almost video game in the expected drop into a huge chorus? It’s predictable but still delightful – and everything feels surprisingly fresh, maybe except for Mike Shinoda, mostly because he just really sounds like Mike Shinoda, but the huge chorus is such a delight and it's really fun hearing big budget nu metal deliver on its simple pleasures.