Just drove back home from northeast Houston and that part of the world is freaking weird, man. Went from straight city to rural swampy forest to sketchy city to industrial park to strip-center-rural in like an eight mile ride. Zoning! Catch the Fever!
Briscoe - Heat of July. I'm still a little disappointed that I skipped their ACL debut. I think I would have enjoyed the energy and hearing these new tunes added into the setlist as well. And this album feels like they have taken a step forward. I don't know if they leveled up on producers or changed their backing band or what, but this has a richer sound and some nice Americana flavor. A relatively short disc at 40 minutes, I have enjoyed just cycling back through it repeatedly for a few days. I figured that "Saving Grace" was going to be the hit, as I have heard it on the radio a few times recently, but for now that title belongs to "Roughnecks." 466k streams.
I love it - playacting as oil rig roughnecks in their sponsored Howler Brothers shirts. Funny legal disclaimer at the end - DO NOT ACT LIKE YOU ARE FIXING A PUMPJACK AT HOME! Good song though, I like the vocals and the mandolin. These guys met at the same youth camp where I grew up and where my kids go now, and so I was really hoping that "Flashlights in the Canyon" was going to be a cute retelling of how we used to sneak out of our cabins with barely muffled flashlights to go play pranks on our fellow cabins. Instead, a pretty harrowing tale of illegal border crossings told from a few different perspectives. Well written.
Taylor Swift - Life of a Showgirl. Maybe I am just overwhelmed by her non-stop popularity, but this is two in a row of hers that are completely forgettable. No, that's not true. I'll definitely remember the Travis Kelce dick song. But as far as musical moments - the kind of smart, catchy, indelible tunes that she has released for years - those are missing entirely. Something that is more interesting to me than the music is this part of an article I read about the release of this album:
"Upon announcing the album, Swift put up a vinyl for pre-order on her site, and then another, and then another. Before the album was even released, she had promoted and sold on her site eight exclusive vinyl variants in different colors with different names ("Sweat And Vanilla Perfume Edition," "Baby, That’s Show Business Edition," etc.), and eight CDs, and one sweater which comes with a CD. The vinyls cost $34. The CDs cost $20. The sweater/CD costs $70. ... And it worked. Billboard estimated that on the first day of release, from all of these pre-orders, Swift sold 2.7 million copies of this album in physical and digital editions. When she announced this album on the New Heights podcast, she promised that this album wouldn't have any bonus tracks. Historically, Swift has sold her fans the album, and then asked them to buy it again to access extra songs. The Life of a Showgirl, she promised, was fully complete. But then on Saturday night, another countdown appeared on her website, and at the end of it, she announced … four additional CDs of the same album that fans could buy. These versions cost $7.99 apiece and each includes two "exclusive" acoustic versions of songs on the album. That means that in addition to the songs on the album, Swift also recorded eight acoustic versions, but you can only hear them if you purchase each of the four CDs. She didn't lie, technically. There are no new songs on these CDs—just an opportunity for her to make even more money."
That is from Kelsey McKinney's article on Defector and it lays this whole mess very bare for me. She likely doesn't care that these songs have no soul or power. She just needed to keep the spotlight on and the cash hose gushing. Also, the last song with Sabrina Carpenter is horrible. Looking at the playlist right now, and trying to imagine which of the songs would be the hit, I feel like "Eldest Daughter" might be my favorite, even when a lot of the lyrics are painfully trite, but my guess for the top streamer is "Opalite" because it has that "whooaah ah ah ah oooh" bit that people will like singing along to. Let's take a look. Nope. Instead, this is another classic example of an album by an established artist where you can tell that the masses do not like it. The stream count order of songs is: #1, #3, #2, #4, and then the rest of the album is under 200 million streams. So, most people tried it out and then wandered off to find something else. "The Fate of Ophelia" is the top track with 455 million streams and the painful use of "keep it one hundred on the land, the sea, the sky" like an adult trying to use the 6-7 thing but in song.
That is a beautiful video. The McKinney article also contains a fun detail about that song, where Swift admits that she never read Hamlet, she just wanted to use that reference, and so her references to Ophelia make no sense in the context of what truly happened in the play. Perfect. I don't need to save this, I'll just keep her classics around.
Tame Impala - Deadbeat. Just keeping the disappointing vibes going here... It's not all bad, I shouldn't be glib, but it definitely doesn't feel as sonically innovative as the last two albums. "Ethereal Connection" and "Not My World" just sound like a generic EDM banger by any of the ACL artists last October. "Oblivion" tries to bite the reggaeton/cumbia thing. "Piece of Heaven" bites flipping Enya. I definitely find myself nodding along to some of the songs, but a lot of this is not why I come back to him. Also, it is deeply weird to think about the O.G. T.I. music now - the psych rock fun of Lonerism - that is entirely gone from this sound now. I'll name "Dracula" as the one that bops the most like his last two albums and therefore makes me happy. It is also the most popular tune by a lot at 123.8 million streams. Next closest is at 40 million.
That video is like the jenkiest Thriller remake ever. Are those people undead? Or just terrible dancers? or just on all the drugs? I dunno. Definitely sullies my enjoyment of the song to see that. I will probably keep the album around and just keep grinding at it, but I don't feel like anything on it is a necessary addition to the canon.
Fat Boys - Fat Boys. I know this is not a new thing, but as I have mentioned before I am in this Music League deal where people get to nominate songs in different categories each week. Someone threw out a song from this album for a hip hop week, and it dawned on me that I really don't know the Fat Boys beyond "Wipeout" and "Fat Boys Are Back." So, I figured I should jump in here and see what this sounds like. It is freaking terrible. Like, laughably bad that this was ever a thing. "Jail House Rap" is also funny, just because they are rapping about going to jail for being fat. But the thing that was likely intended to set them apart from others - the beat boxing - is hilariously stupid. Just a dude yelling HU HUH HUHHUH or flicking the side of his mouth while he changes his mouth aperture. So bad. And the beats themselves are those OG beats made with lots of clicks and hand claps and no good lows. It is exhausting to listen to, even if only 7 songs long. "Stick 'Em" is the top track with 985k streams.
I mean, yeah, it is cool that you can make a whole ass beat with just your mouth, but I can't imagine this being something that I would want to keep listening to repeatedly. Glad I tried it out. We good.
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