album-a-week
This week, I’m diving into Bon Iver’s brand new fourth album, i,i, his most honest and forthright music yet, according to Pitchfork’s rave review. Others are calling it a “sonic masterpiece” and “objectively dazzling.”
I don’t have much else to say, but I’m excited. Justin Vernon pretty much never disappoints, so I have no doubt that this will result in the same.
I love Regina Spektor. Begin to Hope brought life to my iPod headphones in high school. She was weird and cool and interesting and, soon, very mainstream (thanks a lot Grey’s Anatomy and (500) Days of Summer).
A while back, the podcast Wonderful inspired me to revisit Soviet Kitsch in full. She’s always been there in the background and hearing her voice takes me to so many places and spaces in my life.
Now I’m getting back to it with her most recent album from 2016. I’ve only gone once through so far, but feels just like her and I’m not mad at it.
Pitchfork review
Well, thanks to Spotify reminding me that I will never escape my high school self’s musical obsessions, this week I’m jamming on the JoBros’ most recent reunion album.
So far, it’s fine. Pitchfork’s review is a perfect summation of the whole feeling. “Sucker” is a banger, “Cool” is fun and self-referential in a way I appreciate, there are some serious DNCE vibes coming through, and most of the rest of it is a little boring and derivative (I probably shouldn’t be thinking, "Sigrid’s ‘Strangers’ is better than this song with the same name”).
#boybandsforever #joeisstillhot #poorkevin
This week is a rec I got from my sis-in-law while we were bacheloretting it up last weekend in northern Minnesota (burning bay leaf intentions, making flower crowns, skinny dipping, the works).
I love it! I can listen to it almost twice all the way through on my bike to work, it’s funny, relatable, surreal, heartwrenching, and really just a treat <3
This week, I’m finally going to figure out who Billie Eilish is. I’ve heard some songs here and there, obviously seen her around the internet zeitgeist, but she is definitely one of those artists I feel a little “too old” for, for whatever reason.
She’s weird and dark and that’s all my jam, so I’m keeping an open mind.
Hurr we go.
After taking a week off (hey, I’ve done pretty dece this year, this was my first lil break!) the blog is back and, in the words of Pitchfork on Hot Chip songs, I am back on my “sleek, polished, unsubtle, a little ridiculous” bullshit.
This week’s album comes courtesy of my lifelong BFFF** Skylar. During her 4th of July weekend visit, she talked up Hot Chip and this album (and showed me this video starring our shared fave dude Martin Starr) and she sold me!
It’s really binge-listenable. Like, I drove to and spent a ton of time at the DMV a bunch and just played this forever and ever without really getting sick of it.
~**~**~**~**~Color me a rebirthed Hot Chip fan ~**~**~**~**~
**the extra F is intentional
We saw together PANGEA last night in Portland and they never cease to disappoint. One of the best acts in the garage punk game. They played all the hits and it was a rad time (we played and acoustic version of “Offer” at our wedding earlier this year, so I may be biased but they really do literally physically metaphorically rock). This week, I’m going to listen to their last several EPs…
Sleeping Til Sunset (Acoustic Versions):
Non Stop Paranoia:
Dispassionate:
I’m stoked (I have been into Dispassionate since it came out but I missed the others in the past year or so). Here we go.
this week’s album is courtesy of a marlee grace (IG @personalpractice) dance video from may 31. I had never heard of this artist but it is, as pitchfork said, a “sleek, vibrant R&B that’s packed with 1980s soundtrack flourishes and big moments.”
I’m only a couple of songs in, but I’m 100% hooked.
~*~*~ a nice refresh reset for a full strawberry moon week when job-searching/self-searching/life-searching is getting me down and I need all the good vibes I can get. ~*~*~
(ALSO IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY, CHECK OUT MARLEE’S MAGIC via INSTA, HOW TO NOT ALWAYS BE WORKING, ETC.)
This week I’m throwing it back for myself by revisiting a band I was super into in high school. Back then, they were called Good Morning Maxfield and I first saw them in Glenwood Springs, CO at a tiny festival called Strawberry Days in 2008.
I was young and heady and my friend and I got to go to this show alone which we thought was so cool. We were riding high that night (not literally, we were 15-year-old goodie goodies) and decided we would talk to the band after the show (which was easy, backstage was next to a children’s play area). They were all so nice and indulged our teenage excitement (and what I’m sure was not us playing it cool as we thought we were). We bought their album, got it signed, and eventually added them on Facebook (ahhh to be in 2008 again). I kept in touch with a few of them for a couple of years, they changed their name to Fictionist in 2009, and competed for (but did not win) a chance to be on the cover of Rolling Stone in 2011.
I graduated from high school in 2010 and kept up with their music until around 2014 when I graduated from college. Since then, I have followed their goings on via Instagram, but haven’t made much of an effort to listen to their new stuff (though about 2 years ago I got a hankering for the old-school 2007 GMM tunes and, when I couldn’t find my original signed copy, bought what appeared to be one of the last copies on Amazon - it has lived in my car stereo ever since).
This week, we are listening to Fictionist by Fictionist and so far I’m very into it. Maybe it’s nostalgia talking, but I think they are just rad musicians doing what they do.
I love the song “Brujas” so this week, we are deep-diving into rapper and intersectional feminist, Princess Nokia and her first album “1992”. She is a badass. The album cover for this is amazing and hilarious. Brujas.
Let’s do it.
This week’s album is from an artist I knew/know almost nothing about. I found the song “Portland, Oregon” by accident earlier this week and was intrigued by the pairing of Jack White with this famed country singer (and let’s be honest, I was in a bit of a Dolly mood this week). And White produced this album too, so, I went for it.
I guess 2019 is a shift back into country music for me, because I am loving it!
This week we are swinging back to an indie rock vibe with Big Thief’s recent album U.F.O.F. It is exactly the slowed down head-space I need to get into to reset after a pretty nutso week (re:leaving Omaha, driving 25 hours solo, returning and settling back into Portland, family visiting time, etc.).
It’s dreamy surreal darkness is the misty overcast blanket my brain needs. I’m here for it.
This week I am moving/driving to Portland, OR, which means I will have 25 very long and very free hours to listen to all the podcasts and music I can lay my ears on. That said, I have decided that my “album of the week” will actually be a “discography of the week”…
I am deep-diving into the full discography of the one and only Miss Diva Kween Britney Spears! Very excited for this week, as I’m obviously very familiar with the early albums and the big hits, but there are a lot of deep cuts that I know I have never heard. It’s gonna get weird. It’s gonna get emotional. It’s gonna get bitchy.
Let’s go.
Another very fresh album. Vampire Weekend released their fourth studio album last Friday, Father of the Bride. Over the last several months, they have been dropping singles here and there and so far I have thoroughly enjoyed them. I honestly don’t think my inner high-school-nostalgia-heart will ever think they can do wrong. Ezra is forever a damn delight.
There’s a lot of hate out there for these guys (or, rather, for the people who say they like them), but oh well! Let’s dive on in.
I’ve been on a real leading-ladies of music kick lately, so I wanted to switch it up the next few weeks before my big DIVA DEEP-DIVE I will be doing in a couple of weeks when I am driving across the country.
This was recommended to my by my husband, and it’s definitely an artist I haven’t spent much time with before. But so far I dig it! It’s slower and very mid-aughts. Les go.
This week, I am on my shit and doing an album that literally just came out last Friday. Cuz I Love You is rapper-singer-flautist Lizzo’s third album, and first album on a major label. I’ve loved Lizzo for a few years now (her Insta is my favorite thing, should be required following).
Singles “Juice” and “Tempo” have been out for several months and are already go-to pump-up/feeling-myself jams for any occasion. But I’m excited to deep dive into the rest and have a powerful week of Lizzo love and energy. * <3 ~ * <3 * ~ <3 *
This week, I’m taking a sharp turn from 90s girl grunge to a modern revelation where the “charmingly simple” meets the “lightly psychedelic” country of Kacey Musgraves. Hers is a name that I had disregarded as just another country singer until last fall when a friend I regard as very hip and cool came to stay with me and to my surprise said she is his current favorite artist. And then Stereogum named this the best album of 2018. And then Pitchfork named it the second best album of 2018. And then this past weekend she flipped everyone off at Coachella and I finally had to cave and listen because I’d been denying the universe too long.
I love this album. I’m late to the party and I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I love it. She’s rad and made me cry and I’m obsessed.
That is all.
I’ve dabbled with Sleater-Kinney’s back-catalog here and there, but have never taken the leap. First and foremost, I fucking love Carrie Brownstein. She is my indie queen and even though I read her book, I have more history on the band than knowledge of their music.
Second, we are moving back to Portland in about a month and to get me back in that Pacific Northwest grungy, punky headspace, I’m listening to the band’s third album from 1997, Dig Me Out.
I’m stoked and anyways, yass….here I go.
It’s wedding week, so I’m going to be a little bit lazy here.
We are walking down the aisle to “You and Me” by Penny and the Quarters, so I have been listening to their tiny but powerful collection of recordings. There are three on Spotify, and the link here leads to a YouTube video compiling several.
Love this song, love this group, it’s as simple as that!