The Killers - Pressure Machine. Very cool album, not only in that the music and lyrics are good, but also because it tracks a story/feel in here, tied together with some spoken word interview bits, of a small town struggling to get its head around modern life. "Quiet Town" is the hit and several other songs sound deceptively upbeat, but the rest hits like when Bruce Springsteen dialed back the arena rock power for the dusty melancholy of Nebraska. The same goes here, with them turning off the disco drum machine for an album about junkies and dusty roads and dead kids and a train that sounds like a real jerk. "Quiet Town" is a good song. Most streams at 2.4 million (which is actually surprisingly low).
The track does a good job of juxtaposing an upbeat chorus about how nice the town is (they don't have to deadbolt their doors! they believe in Jesus!) with some painful realities in the verses (some kids got killed by the train! Everyone is dying of opioids!). Some of these songs are just low-key acoustic guitar numbers without much to them. "Runaway Horses" has a high stream count for where it is on the album, likely because it features Phoebe Bridgers, and it is a good quiet tune. But others still bop like you would expect from the killers, like "In The Car Outside" or "Sleepwalker." I like the disc.
Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg. I subjected myself to this long article the other day all about this style of talk-singing, which told me to check out this new album as a great example. WTF, man. I like the music itself a lot, good groovy indie alternative rock music is a hit with me. But all the vocalist does is just talk? She never once sings. So freaking weird. But then I find myself absolutely digging "Strong Feelings," which makes me think of an 80's song I can't put my finger on because of the guitar bit. Deeply weird. Feels like it's a joke and I'm just not in on it yet but the person playing it for me is waiting for me to crack. The first song is the top streamer - I'm sure everyone tried it out of curiosity and then bailed - but I am going to give you the number 4 song because it is the most popular that isn't at the start of the album. "Her Hippo," with 808k streams.
Lil Nas X - Montero. Nothing on here is nearly as catchy as the "Old Town Road" business. It's all kind of gently boring trap rap stuff (except for "Lost in the Citadel," which makes me think of all of these goofy Blink 182 wannabe bands) or R&B stuff like most rappers angle for these days. Probably the best track is the one with Jack Harlow, "Industry Baby." He has a bunch of other A-List guests here - Miley Cyrus, Doja Cat, Elton John, Megan Thee Stallion - but the key to the album is his extremely personal lyrics. "Don't Want It" is a good example of that, rapping about having to smoke himself to sleep and taking too many shots. While I just called the album "gently boring," and I stand by that, I just discovered that NPR named the title track as the 2021 song of the year. Which is kind of insane. I know the video was a hot button source of social media fire - including a lap dance for Satan - but the song isn't that interesting at all. I guess this album is having more of a social impact on the world, and to LGBTQIA folks, than to me personally. Montero is actually his first name - so it is an interesting and good choice to make that the name of his album and the lead single. It is, by far, the stream hit with over 1.1 billion streams. Getting funky with Satan must have worked for marketing!
I mean, that's just dumb and funny. I don't know why people get all up in arms about stupid stuff. Other tracks have a lot of streams, but interestingly it goes that one, then "Industry Baby" with 792 million, "Thats What I Want" with 234 million, and then "Sun Goes Down" with 100 million. Those tracks are all over the album, there is no real pattern to where the popular songs are in the track listing. A few songs on here are just bad - I do not enjoy the poppy enthusiasm of "That's What I Want" or the "Lost in the Citadel" one mentioned earlier. But I also know that the lyrics on this album really aren't aimed for me. When he's singing "Sun Goes Down" to his childhood self (and other kids who aren't sure about themselves), that isn't resonating much with me anymore. The album overall is fine, but nothing that I need to keep forever.
Taylor Swift - Red (Taylor's Version) but only the bonus songs from the vault. I'm a little torn by the (Taylor's Version) movement here. On the one hand, I love that she is taking back her art and sticking it to the jerks who have monetized her and then refused to sell the masters back. That feels cool. But on the other hand, it feels sucky that she can just destroy the investment made by those people, like I bought a Picasso only to discover that he actually painted 7 billion exact copies and gave them to everyone in the world. I think I lean more towards Taylor's side, but it just feels weird.
Anyway, the original Red album is a masterpiece that I love very much. But I wasn't terribly interested in hearing the original tracks again, so I just queued up the nine "From the Vault" songs included as bonus tracks to see what those are like. They're solid, of course, with cameos from Phoebe Bridgers, Ed Sheeran, and Chris Stapleton, as well as the long-awaited release of the ten minute version of "All To Well." BUT, I think the new version of "All To Well" sucks ass, to be honest. The good thing it does is helps you to see how amazing the original track was, and how important it is to edit. The original version (still five and a half minutes long!) does a great job of describing her love and the hurt without devolving into anger or pity. But the new one breaks out more of the story, and it becomes more like sour grapes and less like a relatable story that any of us have experienced. That original song still fucking rules with so many perfect details of the romance and the breaking (including a killer nuclear dismissal line, with "so casually cruel, in the name of being honest," which rules) and so the regular version is just what everyone needs. Of course, though, because everyone wants to revel in the joys of shitting on Jake Gyllenhaal and how mean he was, the song has now broken streaming records as the longest #1 song ever and has over 108 million streams already. Instead of giving you that thing, I'll give you the Bridgers collaboration - "Nothing New" with just over 30 million streams.
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