I promise I am not depressed (or at least aware of being depressed (who knows what is happening on the subconscious level (God and my wife and that’s probably it))), but I’ve just been jamming to Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 on repeat for a few days now. I haven’t listened to too much of his work since college but he really has sad banger after sad banger. I forgot how good he was.
If anything, I’m sad he’s gone.
To use the modern vernacular, this track is a jam!
I remember how I first listened to this album because it’s one of the last CDs I ever bought. I found it at a thrift shop some time in the early 2010s and bought it cause I was already a big fan of Elliott Smith’s Either/Or album. It didn’t leave my car’s CD player for a long while. The dude was extremely talented.
I didn’t need to answer that status about how old we are because I listen to Vampire Weekend like all Millennials.
Their new album, Only God Was Above Us is sadly more reheated leftovers ironed into a lackluster, albeit savory waffle. I felt the same about Father of the Bride, their last album. The departure of Rostam Batmanglij* after Modern Vampires of the City has resulted in a band that lacks dynamism. That being said, I still think modern VW is good. I like a lackluster, albeit savory waffle made of reheated leftovers! But don’t be surprised if you finish Only God Was Above Us and immediately put on one of their first three albums. Why eat leftovers when you can have fresh ingredients instead?
*I know Batmanglij is still listed as a producer on the new album (check the production notes, he only produced on The Surfer), but that is not the same creative impact as writing ALL the compositions like he did on Modern Vampires.
Did you ever get into Ra Ra Riot?
I love their album that Rostam produced on. That’s regularly in my summer rotation.
(Trigger warning: Scary clowns.)
The weirdest Donkey Kong song I have heard so far 
I had to check the lyrics, because I was sure they were singing something else and I was just hearing it wrong.
Break down, take down
Now it’s on
Sold out, blow out
Donkey Kong
Well, no! Hell, no!
What you gonna do
When they keep coming for you?
I had high hopes but ended up ever only really liking a couple of their songs. But they fit in that Vampire Weekend/Grizzly Bear camp.
I enjoyed “Classical” off of the new album, but overall it just sounds like a worse version of Modern Vampires of the City. It’s fine I suppose, but the hype has been a little puzzling to me.
This might need to be its own thread, but AI-generated music seems to have taken a huge leap last week. A new service by ex-Google employees called Udio.com lets you generate music, WITH LYRICS, using prompts. You can either provide your own lyrics, or have it auto-generate them for you. The results are still not convincing enough to replace real music, but shockingly advanced. I thought we were years away from this. This example below is a silly country diddy that someone threw together on it.
As someone who’s been a musician for most of his life, I find this to be a complete abomination, of course. I’ve never actually made any significant amount of money off of music that I’ve recorded either by myself or as part of a group, but it’s just so disheartening to see tech bros expanding this full-on assault on art onto a new medium. I played around with it a little and tried seeing if it was any good at making weird genre combinations, and no surprise, it’s actually pretty horrible at generating anything that’s actually original. WORSE YET, I’ve had it sometimes generate literal ripoffs of actual artists, without me even trying to copy them in the prompt. Here’s a voice that sounds way too close to Mark Kozelek, and a literal Guided By Voices song generated by this monstrosity, both using the same prompt.
Once this gets better at creating schlock compositions, I can see people using it to avoid commissioning musicians for tracks, eliminating yet another of the already dwindling forms of income for musicians. The future is looking bleak 
Perhaps the irony of the track is this is the exact defense those same tech bros will use if they get sued for stealing artists’ work.
Best salsa song of all time, from the best salsa album of all time coming through.
Was hitting me recently how incredibly structured this song is from a lyrical perspective. It’s an escalating series of examples of finality, starting at the wilting of a flower, the sacrifice of time in search of a goal, the loss of a relationship, the death of a mother, and finally an apocalyptic proclamation (“Watch out, the earth is going to tremble!”). Gives me chills no matter how many times I listen to it.
I’m a big fan of Pinegrove’s new live album, Montclair. I don’t know if it is a great entryway into their music if you are unfamiliar, but if you are, it feels like the definitive way to listen to their music. I’ve heard people describe Pinegrove as Emo Country, but I think of it more as Alternative Folk music. There is something so guttural and sincere about their music that I find it undeniable. Nothing else I listen to is quite like it despite it feeling so familiar. I’d recommend checking out Cardinal or Skylight if you are unfamiliar.
The live album doesn’t have tracks up on YouTube so here is the definitive Pinegrove song, Aphasia.
This song triumphantly closes out the live album
Two soundtracks I still listen too are the halo 2 ost and oblivion ost. Now I need to listen to some enclave radio after all the good news about the fallout tv show.
One of the best. Fiona Apple gets it.