"My mom has a blog." "Oh, my god. I'm so sorry, that's really serious. Mental health is a really serious issue. I mean I've never actually said this to anyone but... I am watching 500 movies I've never seen before." "Oh, my god! Shut the fuck up!"
Bodies Bodies Bodies
2022
Halina Reijn
Thanks to all those who watched a movie and wrote about it! See our thoughts on this most recent movie below.
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Kait
I don't have too much to say about this movie other than I enjoyed it. I liked the fun twist on a classic whodunnit. There was some satire and jokes that made me laugh out loud. I particularly enjoyed them grilling Alice about her two-week "boyfriend" and how they all assumed "vet" meant war veteran. I did find myself a bit bored at times, and I don't know much about Gen Z or all the chatter about different generations, but I imagine this movie was saying things about that. Overall, good fun.
Oh, and then I found this trivia on IMDB and had to share because I think this pretty perfectly sums up the movie:
Amandla Stenberg (who played Sophie) sent a direct message to New York Times film critic Lena Wilson via social media following the publication of Wilson's review for Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022). The message responded to Wilson's characterization of the film as a "95-minute advertisement for cleavage." Amandla Stenberg wrote, "Ur review was great, maybe if you had gotten your eyes off my tits you could've watched the movie."
3 pukes
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Sam
Sorry, I'm trying to get this on paper quickly because I forgot about it. Getting to Joe after deadline won't make it any more coherent, but I want to finish this up before I have to put my child to bed. (I also want to included in the review.)
In general, I tend to cut artists around the same age as me more slack. I usually get their references, I understand the cultural background in which they are commenting upon, and our senses of humor align. Additionally, I really like murder mysteries. Those two elements should have pushed this over the top and created an all-time Sam-pleasing movie.
And it was not the case! I guess I'm slightly older than the people in this film, so the difference between me and them created enough of a chasm for me to be annoyed rather than relate to the jokes at their expense. I also didn't quite care enough about the final girl to root her on.
That said, the twist did really work on me. It might've even justified and excused the plotting and irrational actions of the characters. Maybe that would shine through more clearly on a rewatch.
3 pukes
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Allison
A dark horror comedy written and directed by women where all the men die in the first 30 minutes? I can't explain how badly I needed this. The movie is fun, and I had fun watching it. I'm not a huge horror fan; I like spooky, but I don't like jump scares, and Bodies Bodies Bodies struck a nice balance.
Other thoughts:
That cast was good, but are we done with Pete Davidson now? Can we be? I would have liked more Lee Pace.
The use of light was very effective, with most of the film lit by ambient light and cell phones. The film plays up that feeling that you get when you shut the lights off and have to run up the stairs before something gets you.
The film keeps you guessing like a drug-fueled Agatha Christie novel. It remains clever while telling you exactly what it's doing. "Playing Bodies Bodies Bodies [the game] is a bad idea, because we always end up crying."
I don't know why Circle Slap was a part of the game, but I'm glad it was. Sometimes I miss my twenties.
I know Azealia Banks is pretty problematic, but my god, "212" is such a great track. Sometimes I really miss my twenties.
A few issues: Everyone's phone was charged enough to last the night? Jordan has a headlamp, Greg has a go-bag, but they don't have enough handheld flashlights? Was that little mirror light really enough to drain the car battery?
The reveal at the end, showing Pete Davidson dying in the most Pete Davidson way, is silly and satisfying. It is truly the only logical explanation. These friends were toxic backstabbers, but not literally. Until, you know, they were...
4/5 Bodies
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Gary
This movie proves that TikTok will kill us all.
And Then There Were None is my favorite book. I've read it probably a dozen times. And I can't help but think that this movie was based off the same concept.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
I want to start at the end. As someone who is obsessed with horror movies, this was an ending I actually didn't see coming. I always have a running theory that the person in most horror movies that the audience is supposed to see as the victim is really the killer. So I fully expected that to be the case.
The acting in this is probably the worst part. Maybe the writing. Wait. Definitely the writing. As I said, the ending was surprisingly spectacular. But there were so many things that just didn't add up. And I probably just overanalyzed an absolutely bonkers horror/comedy. But things just didn't make sense.
Why were they so trusting of certain people and not of people they knew for years and years? The fact that multiple times when someone died, who they supposedly knew for years, some of them didn't even care. The fact that Pete Davidson may somehow have been the best actor of everyone. And that's saying something. How much drugs and alcohol can someone take in one day and not pass out?
To that last point, Jesus Christ. I get it. Everyone, outside of the guy, is supposed to be in their mid-to-late 20s. But they just KEEP doing shots and lines. And everyone just kind of walks around like everything is cool. Xanax for shits and giggles after ten shots and a few lines? Why not?
I know. That's not the point. But it was pretty ridiculous that the only result of any of this was really just Pete Davidson biting his girlfriend's lips.
Obviously, paranoia came into play. But it just felt a little nuts.
Having said all that, I surprisingly loved this movie. It's like a crunch wrap supreme. A fantastic idea, great execution, awful acting, and terrible writing.
3.5 likes and subscribes out of 5
Helpful hint: if you enjoyed this movie in any way, highly suggest watching It's What's Inside on Netflix.
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Joe
This was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a while, which is NOT the reaction I would've expected. In fact, we originally queued it up because Pam was itching to watch a scary movie ('tis the season), and, without knowing anything about this movie (besides Slayyyter's place on the soundtrack, more on this in a second), I would've totally assumed it was a horror movie. It's more of a murder mystery, but even that mystery has a punchline that I was delighted that I did not see coming. Interesting to watch this back-to-back with In the Heat of the Night, since I walk away from both with the same takeaway: though there is a murder and people are trying to solve it, the murder and its solving are so totally besides the point.
Okay, so what was "the point"? I was originally saying that the point was that it was a who-done-it with a twist, that they spent the movie trying to figure out who the killer was and it ended up that there wasn't a killer at all. But I read that this was a late change in the script, and originally there was a killer, so I'm hesitant to say that this was the point. Though it is cool, I'll admit. It says something about how we are so conditioned to believe that there are nefarious forces outside of our control that are motivated to bring about our downfall, but in reality, it's really our own flaws and our own choices that will bring about our own demise. Either that, or it was just really fucking satisfying to see Punchable Face Pete Davidson cut his own throat with a samurai sword.
No, I think the "point" is more to poke fun at a certain type of person. I don't want to say "Gen Z" because it's not that simple. I think it's more accurate to say "terminally online people." I understand that the Venn diagram between the two sets of the population has a very large overlapping middle section, but it would be unfair to leave out my millennial peers, who are often just as "online" as people younger. It's something to do with an age thing regardless, because of the humor involved here. It moves quickly, the comedy, which I'd classify as a "newer comedy" or "younger comedy" thing. The punchlines are zippy, and many of them have to do with themes that feel younger. Like this quip, as an example: "David was a dick, but his politics check out." Something felt very true (and thus hilarious) about the idea that, even in the midst of a supposed murder mystery, someone would be concerned about a peer's politics.
I'm not saying that Bodies Bodies Bodies is reinventing the wheel here. There are comparisons to be made to other movies from recently or from long ago—my favorite was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a classic in the genre of "get people in a room together and let 'em verbally duke it out." What this specific film brings to the table is sense of style (fascinating to spend so much of this movie without the lights on) and sense of place (only people my age and younger could come up with an idea as dumb as "hurricane party"—yes, I've been to one before). And an extremely sharp sense of humor.
As sort of a postscript: what to make of how we got here? I don't think I would've heard of this movie (nor subsequently placed it on a list of films I've never seen before) had it not been for the pinpointing of Slayyyter as part of this film's world. I think if the hook is gonna be "kids these days!", then there's really no better choice than Slayyyter. As I said above, it's not that Bodies Bodies Bodies is a fresh idea, it's more that it takes existing ideas and blends them up in extremely novel ways. That's basically what Slayyyter does too. She's taking all the sounds that you might (credibly or not) describe as "iPod music" from whatever time period that is (mid-to-late-aughts, I guess?), and making them feel fresh and new. There is no such thing as completely original at this point, but if you twist something skillfully enough, you can make something that feels original anyway. I am convinced enough to call Bodies Bodies Bodies one of the more original movies I've seen in quite some time.
GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5
~~~~~~~~~~
GROUP AVERAGE GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5
Video record yourself attempting to cut open a champagne bottle with a sword in the comments below!
(NEXT TIME: We do a quick little week full of movies that share a theme of "transportation," starting with the immortal Snakes on a Plane.)
October 7, 2026. 39.95408, -75.16687. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.
Something about, I don't know, submerging into the depths of the city, a cement cavern that will take me away to parts unknown, something like that, I really don't know. I'm not a poetry guy. That feels like a task for other people. Choosing the right words carefully to describe a particular feeling. I feel like I can get the same outcome from prose, or maybe I'm just lazy. I keep saying that this is all practice for something, except I don't know what. Practice for the next thing I write, which will be the real thing; this is just practice. It doesn't count. Go read poetry if you want the real stuff. This is just some fake bullshit about the stairs into the concourse into the tunnel for my train home. There's something there, but not here, because I'm still practicing.
Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.
There's a music genre called "big music." I think I've written about it before on the blog (though, unfortunately, its generic name makes it impossible to adequately use the search engine to find), probably in the context of the Waterboys, whose Mike Scott coined the term originally. It refers to a specific type of rock music that is explicitly built to sound "grandiose" and "stadium-ready." Specifically, it is used in the framework of '80s British rock bands who sang songs you could reasonably call "anthemic." The Waterboys, Big Country, and U2 are the bands most likely to be cited when talking about this niche genre. But the influence juts out in both directions, into and away. You could say that Springsteen's heartland rock fed into what "big music" could sound like; you could say that Arcade Fire's indie rock heyday was the reincarnation of "big music" as we understood it years later.
Personally, "big music" as a definition is the closest explanation I've ever had for why music is important to me, why it makes me feel the way I feel. I want my music to be grandiose and anthemic. It's the easiest and best way to hit me square in the heart. Consider those aforementioned '80s British rock bands to be the only "big music" bands feels reductive to me. No, I think about big music whenever I listen to an artist whose music feels big. Even when they are '90s American alt-folk-pop-rock band. Even when they are Counting Crows.
A lot has changed since I covered Counting Crows' debut album, August and Everything After, in this column. Back in August (I know) 2022, I was saying how you needed to understand that this is lyrics-forward music to get into this band's sound. Is that true of the debut? Maybe. Such an argument, though, totally ignores the fact that "Mr. Jones" is one of the greatest, most anthemic songs of the entire decade. Earlier this year, for personal reasons, I checked out their third album too, This Desert Life, and I will say that this is when Counting Crows (non-"Mr. Jones") clicked for me. The music felt fucking BIG.
I feel the same way here, on Recovering the Satellites. Like, to the point that I think Counting Crows are probably one of the best bands of the 1990s, any genre. This is not such a revelatory thing to say, I guess, since they've sold 20 million records and are, in some respects, a household name. However, I'd argue that it's revelatory in the context of this blog, or at the very least for me personally. I was familiar with the hits on the radio, they faded to the background like so many rock hits from minivan stereos in my youth, and now it's only in middle adulthood that I'm waking up and looking around and feeling shocked to discover that I can dive deep into this band and come away thinking that this is an offshoot of Big Music, my favorite.
It probably comes down to Adam Duritz, if we're being honest. His vocals are unabashedly balls to the wall on every song. During their heyday, which was peak Gen X and peak irony, I'm sure Duritz's quality of singing heart-on-sleeve was the source of mockery. But as I try to push the sins of my ancestors to the side and approach art honestly and irony-free, I am finding that Duritz's vocals are what drives my immense feelings about Counting Crows' music. Some of the songs on here dip into alt-rock, some of them are more in line with the folky roots rock that you'd expect them to cover, but regardless of what the production sounds like, Duritz singlehandedly makes everything feel big.
"Angels of the Silences" and "Children in Bloom" goes hardest for me. Apparently the former was a big radio hit for these guys? I didn't remember ever hearing it before now. Regardless, these are the ones that feel the "hardest," as in "hard rock." Adam Duritz is up for the task! I legitimately forget that Shrek 2 even exists when I listen to these songs! And then you have something like "Have You Seen Me Lately?" coming immediately after "Children in Bloom" that keeps the tempo up. They don't keep the pace the whole time, like maybe something like "Another Horsedreamer's Blues," but see, this is what I'm talking about. Even when they are ROCKING, Counting Crows sounds like "big music." It sounds important, essential. There's something in the sauce, and it's tasting really good.
The song that has been getting the most play on the internet and the blogs over the past couple years is "A Long December." I remember Nike Stratis pushing hard for this song somewhat recently. Maybe a little too hard, because now I'm seeing it pop up in conversations of "is this a Christmas song?" You know the answer to that (it's always "no" if you even have to ask the fucking question in the first place), but still, interesting to see Counting Crows reenter the conversation in the 2020s in a niche interest sort of way. The whole thing makes me maybe not take the song as seriously, but even this proves my point. "A Long December," even if overrated due to circumstances beyond my control, is a fucking BIG song. Big mostly because it's deep in its sadness and wistfulness, which is big in its own specific way.
I suppose there's a chance that you are reading all this assuming that I am exaggerating. I am not. That's just what happens when I try to describe "big music" as a genre. It sounds too big to be true. But it's not! As for you: it's not too late. You too can fall (accidentally) in love with Counting Crows, the Biggest of the '90s alt-whatever bands. I have, and it feels good. Blind Spot filled, now time to explore the rest.
I'm a big fan of second chances in art. There is literally nothing stopping anyone from creating something and then creating it again but better this time. The idea attached to such an act is something akin to redemption. I know I can do better... so how about this?
On High Hopes, Bruce Springsteen takes two songs previously released—at least one that we have already covered in this very column—and "reimagines" them. I don't think he would describe it as "making them better," but that's really what it is, when you get down to it. "The Ghost of Tom Joad" was, as we talked about when we reached that album, a song that was forever thematically relevant, but musically lacking. So here, Springsteen keeps its relevance intact, and simply makes the song musically better.
He gets a do-over. That's what High Hopes is all about. "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and "American Skin (41 Shots)" (originally a pre-9/11 single) are here in muscled-up form. There are also a bunch of songs that were outtakes from previous recording sessions, including the title track, which was on a random EP from the mid-'90s. And then there are two cover songs, including "Dream Baby Dream" by Suicide (which is, on a personal note, probably going to signal my own do-over, when I have to rectify my callous dismissal of that band from the throes of alcoholism).
The question might then be: does Bruce Springsteen need a do-over, an opportunity to make previous works of art better? This is Bruce Springsteen we're talking about, so the answer is probably no. But that's from a present-day perspective. We're now officially over 25 years into his bonafide "resurgence" period, when he recovered from whatever the '90s were and hooked back up with the E Street Band and went on a tear the likes of which your modern-day classic rock artist has rarely seen. He survived the threat of becoming a has-been and instead became a certified legend. So it's easy to say now that he didn't need do-overs, that he was just fine getting through the wilderness and coming out the other side.
But I think that's harder to stay if you're staring down the barrel of the gun around 9/11, even after The Rising kick-started the revival. And even a decade-plus after that, when you spend the entirety of the '00s and early '10s suddenly becoming prolific, and you take a breather collecting some odds and ends, I think even then, it's easy to worry that the chinks in the armor are going to grow and take over the otherwise sterling legacy. You might enter the 2010s starting to think: fuck, dude, what the hell was up with that Bruce's '90s output? Is Tom Joad even listenable at this point? And that's frustrating as fuck, for reasons we've explained already. Tom Joad is crucial to understanding Springsteen's outlook on life, but it is egregiously inessential to understanding Springsteen's musical output. So here's where he mends.
Cherishing the purpose and mission of High Hopes does enough for me to temper the mild disappointment in the actual songs. I would say that maybe 50% of the songs here are good (some great), while 50% of the songs are not good (some terrible). Even the bad ones, though, are all part of the process. If this column is designed to tell the entire story of Bruce Springsteen through the music only, then hearing what he has to offer in this odds-and-sods collection is mandatory. I love what he's trying to do by telling his story in this particular way. That the music is occasionally lackluster is mostly besides the point.
Probably worth going over the songs I don't like, even though, again, my dislike of individual songs is not disqualifying for the album. "Harry's Place" is interesting in the way it acts as a dark mirror image of "Mary's Place" on The Rising. I also might liken it to "Outlaw Pete" from Working on a Dream, in that Springsteen was playacting in the cowboy western genre for that one, and he switches to playacting in the gritty noire genre for this one. And, like "Outlaw Pete," it's sort of lame, sort of embarrassing. I will also cop to disliking "Hunter of Invisible Game" a lot. Yes, I watched the whole ten-minute "short film" that acts as the music video for this one, and sure, it's artsy and interesting, but the film could be 100 goddamn minutes and that wouldn't change the fact that it's a dumb song.
Those two songs actually hearken back to something we were talking about with... ah gosh, which one was it again... I guess it was Human Touch. It was during my time listening to that album that I realized that there were a fair number of Springsteen songs whose choruses were just a phrase (which incorporated the title) repeated over and over. I don't mean that to be a blanket criticism, despite the fact that it was first articulated in the blog column entry for what is most likely known as Springsteen's worst album (not sure if I agree at this point, but that's not the purpose of me bringing it up now). I think it's a tic that exposes a bad song, but otherwise fits just fine into good songs. Like, you don't hear me complaining that the main hook on "Thunder Road" is "oooh ooh ooh oooh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road."
That's where I land in my criticism of the two aforementioned bad songs, "Hunter of Invisible Game" and "Harry's Place." I would probably include "Just Like Fire Would" in this category, if it wasn't already a cover. It's actually not a bad song, per se. I think I just tend to not take it as seriously because of the homonym (I always hear "just like firewood," which is even dumber). We can talk about bad songs all we want, but let's not forget the overarching point of this album we're talking about here: redemption. Who knows when "Harry Place" could make a comeback. Maybe the E Street Band is elevating it during their tour right now! Probably not, but ya never know! It's possible!
Wouldn't it be funny if Rage Against the Machine reunited and ended up being the ones to reinvent "Hunter of Invisible Game"? That's basically what happened with "The Ghost of Tom Joad," after all. Rage was playing that shit in concert, having connected with its message, and thus doing some requisite upgrading to make it fit the patented Rage sound. And then, when Little Steven was off doing his Sopranos-esque Lilyhammer, Rage guitarist Tom Morello filled in on tour, and then eventually played guitar on a bunch of High Hopes songs.
"The Ghost of Tom Joad" made it clear before the two rock legends made it official: these were kindred spirits, politically speaking. In fact, Springsteen played Morello's "Power to the People Fest" literally three days ago as of this publishing, where they performed "The Ghost of Tom Joad" together, and where Morello confessed that he did not vote for Kamala Harris, which is... not something were gonna get into here. I'm not saying these guys are the same people, and make the exact same decisions politically, but I do see them as being on the same side of the political fence, their music both framed in the tradition of the proletariat, the working class. It makes sense that their music would intertwine here, and stay intertwined until the present day.
Even if Morello wasn't here, we'd be talking about politics, with "American Skin (41 Shots)" seeming like a pretty important piece of Springsteen's beliefs and values system. I think maybe I was hit a little harder by this song than I might have been otherwise because it was already on my mind when watching In the Heat of the Night in the same week. It really is interesting, though, to hear through song the incident that radicalized Springsteen about this sort of thing. Amadou Diallo was murdered by police in 1999. I felt this way in 2016, when Philando Castile was murdered by police. This song makes sense to me on that level, even if senseless murders like these will never make sense.
In terms of reinvention and redemption, I think it's fascinating that this song was originally released in the early months of 2001, and we are hearing the first studio version of this song, released thirteen years later. It's fascinating because of what happened in between. It was NYPD that murdered Amadou Diallo; it was the NYPD FOP president that called Springsteen the f-slur in response to the song. Sweaty NY mayor Rudy Giuliani condemned Springsteen too (somehow managing to not say the f-slur). And then 9/11 happened, and then The Rising happened. Springsteen's career trajectory swerved.
So let's think for a moment about what might have happened to Springsteen's career if the Twin Towers were still standing on 9/12/01, if some well-meaning New Yorker hadn't yelled "we need you now, Bruce!" out of his car window as NYFD sifted through the rubble at Ground Zero. Would he have continued to press the points made on "American Skin"? Without the wildfire patriotism that irrevocable altered art in the earliest years of the 21st century, I think that Bruce Springsteen would have continued to push boundaries, would've dug deeper, and either imploded like his would-be peers Rage Against the Machine or became more of a niche legend. Think about all the Republicans like Chris Christie who were able to forget about "American Skin" because of September 11th. Might not have been so easy to forget if "American Skin" became the first of many progressive anthems for this artist, and those anthems were heard in a vacuum and not in the shadows of a terrorist attack on American soil.
That's why I'm pressing this point, here in our piece about High Hopes. The studio recording of "American Skin (41 Shots)" on this album serves a few important purposes. Yes, it finally puts to tape the official version of one of Springsteen's most passionate political credos. But it's place here, on the album that explicitly revisits previous statement pieces, and upgrades their music while keeping the message intact, is what counts. Let's gently wipe away the jingoism that sprung up post-9/11 and affected—whether intentional or not, probably not—the artistic purpose of even the comparatively progressive Bruce Springsteen's work, and let's now recall that this is the important stuff. Always was, even fifteen years after Amadou Diallo is murdered. Always will be, even two years before Philando Castile is murdered. The reinvention of this song serves as a reminder.
I like High Hopes a lot because it's got heavy songs like that, but also has dopey throwback songs like "Frankie Fell in Love." Not every reinvention signals redemption. I couldn't find too much info from cursory research (i.e. scrolling through Wikipedia) on where this song is from. I wouldn't be surprised if it was pulled from a demo from The River or something (though we do have other demos from The River coming up eventually, so maybe I'll get answers for us then). What I'm saying is that I don't mean to make it seem like High Hopes is too heavy. There's a lot of Springsteen locked into the classic rock 'n' roll songs that he's been playing this whole time. "American Skin" is important for everyone, but "Frankie Fell in Love" is important for Springsteen fans too.
There was a possibility that High Hopes was going to seem slight in the context of this discography, being a collection of B-sides and one-offs re-recorded, but I don't think it ended up being that way. Even beyond the fact that some of the songs collected here are legitimately important for post-textual reasons, I just think the idea of "clearing the slate" is a crucial one in understanding High Hopes' place in the pantheon. If everything that Springsteen does in the first fifteen years of the 21st century is a reaction to how he spent the last ten years of the 20th century, then High Hopes finds him back at zero. He's exactly even, karmically speaking. It provides some semblance of a fresh start for everything that will come afterward. And when we finally make it through Springsteen's discography proper (only three more albums, holy shit!), we'll get an opportunity to really see what "clearing the slate" looks like, with a bonkers number of archival releases.
Song for the "Tramps like Us" mixtape: "Heaven's Wall"
October 5, 2026. 40.07506, -75.08421. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.
How many board meetings did it take to move the trash can from the front of the building to the side? Was the subject header of the Outlook invite "new anti-homeless initiative" or something? Not saying that Wawa executives have a fiscal responsibility to treating the hoagie-eaters of this city with any respect, but I do think that we, as human beings, maybe have the moral responsibility to consider what it means to have people begging for change in front of the Wawa, and to maybe come up with a kinder solution then "let's take away the structure on top of which they keep their food while they beg." Like maybe there's a better solution to keeping our neighborhoods safe than paying a cop to play Candy Crush on his phone next to the deli counter. I don't know. It's easy to talk the talk like this. I just don't have many solutions that allow me to walk the walk satisfactorily. Walking the walk would be a group effort, large-scale and long-term investments in the well-being of our community by ensuring basic needs are met. Which isn't something we has a human race have figure out yet. Don't mind me, I'm just eating a shitty soft pretzel and minding my own business.
Cards are just one of those masculine things that I'm not really into, or good at, or interested in. Is it a masculine thing? I don't know. Maybe that's me playing into stereotypes. "Poker night with da boys!" is the sort of thing I'm talking about here. Pam had a family friend who was employed at a casino as a card dealer, and she was a woman, so there's anecdotal evidence against what I'm saying right there. And I'm also ignoring the fact that a deck of cards can be used for a lot of other things than your typical gambling card games. Drinking games, for instance. Kings was gender neutral! (Six dicks AND four whores!) I guess it's just that I feel a strong propensity to explain my lack of skills in a particular arena sometimes, and I usually default to the sarcastic "I'm guess I'm not a true man!" It's whatever. —Joe
"Two of Hearts" by Stacey Q
from Better Than Heaven, 1986
I had completely memory holed this song, and hearing it again because I was just noodling on suits and ranks of cards has been a bit of a surprise. That odd feeling of something loosening and shaking free in the cobwebs of my brain. —Sunny
"Three or Four" by the New Pornographers
from Twin Cinema, 2005
It probably doesn't help that money is at stake, and I hate losing money over bullshit. Like, if I'm gonna spend $100 on something, I'd prefer it not to be at a Blackjack table on what amounts to "the thrill of losing money." The games are designed so that you lose. There are even ways to win, like counting cards, and that's not allowed! It's against the rules to win! It's tough for me to stomach the idea that I'm being conned in some way. This is in general. I don't like it. But specifically for card games, the con is so fucking obvious, that I just tend to avoid it altogether. —Joe
"Five" by Angel Du$t
from Pretty Buff, 2019
I don't know if I have enough thoughts on cards to fill twelve blurbs, so let's go back to the subject of masculinity. You ever hear that country song that's like "Wake up / coffee / camo / climb trees"? I don't know if I got those lyrics right, but that's what I remember. Pam showed me a parody of this (the faux tough guy comedian was singing a song like "Wake up / jerk off" or something like that, I don't know), and then was like "wait, do you know the song?" and I didn't, so we listened to the original song too. All of it is very bad, the song and the parody and Pam's Instagram feed, all of it. But I'll admit that I felt a little sympathy, too, listening to that dumb bro country song. Something about how it felt a little sad and depressing that so many basic-ass dudes are probably listening to this song and thinking, wow, he gets me! I too need coffee and wear camo and love golfing! Not that it can't be fulfilling, that sort of life... actually, I don't know. Maybe the sympathy I felt is for myself, that I think of such simple pleasures and recoil in horror. Life would be a lot easier if I woke up, had coffee, put on my camo, and climbed a tree. —Joe
"Six" by Bully
from Feels Like, 2015
I used to go to a regular "poker night." Have I written about this somewhere on the blog before? I almost assuredly have. I remember having to change my friend's last name on the blog in order to write about it. Oh yeah! The Ocean's Eleven write-up. Isn't it kind of funny that the only time I could ever say I was part of a regular poker game was for a reoccurring event that was just using "poker" as a cover for illegal activities? I think that's why I was drawn to being friends with my old pal Andrew, and all the rest of those lovable mopes too—no one actually gave a shit about dumb nonsense like poker. Priorities were in order. Let's live life to the fullest, let's get drunk, fuck sitting around playing poker like a bunch of dumb losers! There's a whole world out there! —Joe
"Seven" by Sunny Day Real Estate
from Diary, 1994
Wouldn't it be funny, though, if Andrew (or any of my hometown friends, really) tried to hold an actual poker night now? I think the irony would be pretty funny to work through. Something like, uh, "fulfilling our destiny as Fox Chase's premiere poker group" or something. Helpful in building that irony is that Andrew is sober too, so maybe we'd be reversing expectations by having a "poker night" that, contrary to the legends about the fake poker night that used to happen at Andrew's house back in the day, was actually poker night this time. I would buy in if that were to happen, despite my more general misgivings about card games themselves. —Joe
"Crazy Eights" by Tapes 'n' Tapes
from The Loon, 2005
Every mixtape must have the song that inspired the theme for the mixtape in the first place, and this song is this mixtape's inspiration song. For a while at the end of this past summer, maybe like six or seven weeks, my iPod was broken, and after quickly getting tired of the car radio, I reacquainted myself with the CDs that happened to be in the car as I drove around. I don't remember why these particular CDs were in the glove compartment, or when they got there. But there they were. I come out of this experience knowing that Elephant by the White Stripes is one of the best albums of all time, that Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was by far the most underrated classic rock album of my youth, and that, through the genius of Tapes 'n' Tapes, blog rock will never die. —Joe
"Middle of Nine" by Spanish Love Songs
from No Joy, 2023
Maybe the masculinity thing comes from the fact that my father-in-law is a card dealer. Since a lot of my ideas of "traditional masculinity" come from my dad and Pam's dad, I think. My own pops doesn't deal, or play as far as I know (though he did teach me the rules of poker, way back in the day, back before he realized that his son was a freak who didn't actually care about any of this), but my FIL has been dealing cards in back rooms for as long as I've known him. Was he ever employed professionally? I don't know. Probably would be a good thing to ask him during our next of many awkward silences. But I definitely understand why that kind of thing would be considered "cool" or "masculine," like from a sociological perspective. An excuse to hang with the boys! Still, deep into his 60s! (I guess that's another reason to like boys book club—upending expectations about what a "boys hang" is "supposed" to look like!) —Joe
"Ten" by Jimmy Eat World
from Clarity, 1999
Unmentioned thus far in my blurbs for this mixtape is the existence of card tricks. I'll admit that I'm fascinated with the whole "was THIS your card?!" thing. I like it even better now that I'm an adult and can push aside any notion that this is "real magic." Like, we're all adults here, me and you and the magician, we can all acknowledge that the magician is abiding by the rules of physics and is thus employing basic trickery to get the results. But the foundational question of "how did he DO that?!" is a great enough question that I'm fully bought into the process anyway. Last time I was at the sex club, there was a magician performing card tricks in the BDSM room, and I'll be the first to admit that it was the most fun I've ever had in that room. —Joe
"Jack of Diamonds" by the Daily Flash
a single, 1966
(not available on Spotify!)
I think the idea of watching people play poker on the TV is the most ridiculous fucking thing I've ever heard. If you find yourself staring at the screen while a bunch of overweight dorks stare silently at their cards, then you know you've hit rock bottom. It's mostly random chance, isn't it? I know there are "skills" you can have when it comes to poker, e.g. having a "poker face," and knowing when to get rid of cards and when to keep them, that sort of thing. But boiled down to its essence, it's random. No different than flipping a coin. Either I'm gonna get bored watching people who are winning and losing at total random, or I'm gonna get bored watching people who are able to win because they are able to show less emotion on their face than their peers. Either way, come on. Really. —Joe
"Queen of Clubs" by KC and the Sunshine Band
from Do It Good, 1974
I listened to a few Queen songs (not Queen that Joe dislikes) to arrive, ultimately, at this pick. I've linked them here, in roughly ascending order. Ironically, I was looking for a slow Queen of Something song that used to play on B101, that I couldn't find? Most of the songs I didn't care for, but the Styx, Fucked Up, and KC songs were worth coming back to. —Sunny
"Queen of Hearts" by Fucked Up
from David Comes to Life, 2011
But who the fuck am I to knock people who find pleasure in playing cards? I'm not king shit, I don't know anything. Just because I'm trying to find fulfillment as far away from the poker table as I can, doesn't mean that's the path forward for everyone. Once you get to your late 30s, then the question of "what makes me feel at peace" becomes really fucking important, and how you handle the question shapes how you're gonna spend the next 30 or so years of your life. If you don't know the answer (and, despite all appearances, I feel like I do not, yet), then there's a real risk of falling into some real heinous shit. Like if you're feeling unfulfilled, maybe getting really into poker might start to sound like an appealing option. That's why middle-aged dudes buy motorcycles, right? They are trying to feel some inner peace. —Joe
I don't know what the answer is for me, as far as inner peace is concerned. I thought for a while it was blogging, but lately I'm starting to doubt it. It's not drinking or drugs. It's probably not the aforementioned sex clubs either, though that particular exploration is still in the beginning stages, and you never know. What else? What else could there be? Still plenty of time to find something, I think. Either that, or I'm doomed to keep switching it up every few years, in a never-ending quest to find that inner peace. The journey itself could be the peace, too, right? TBD. —Joe
I forget what the Ace of Spades was in Latin Kings. Actually, I can look that one up on the blog too. Let's see... yeah, here we go. Ace of Spades is "Make a rule: body specific." I'll let you interpret that one however you'd like. Man, it's a real fucking shame that I'm not drinking anymore, because, looking over this list for the first time in a while, there is so much room for improvement. It's been almost sixteen years since a small group of drunk post-teenage boys came up with a list of rules during a blizzard. Lots of dumb bullshit on here. I remember there was a brief manic period shortly after this, maybe in like 2015ish, when I created a whole new game called "Team Kings," which had 52 brand new rules, and was designed to be played, obviously, with teams instead of individual members. But I wrote the rules on a physical sheet of paper, and after one single failure of an attempt to play at Kevedle's house, the sheet of paper was lost forever, and I never had the stamina to try it again. And now it's too late. But the regrets that I'm writing about now should offer definitive proof that there is at least one truly fun purpose of a deck of cards—getting loaded. All that other stuff, poker or whatever, that's all dumb bullshit that basic-ass bitches get into in middle age. —Joe
"The Joker" by Fatboy Slim
a single, 2004
I thought it would be a real offense to put a Steve Miller song on the list. Alas. I tried to look for a track called "Rules to Draw and Stud Poker," but that's going to need to be penned by me. Maybe "Bicycle-Holt Trading Co"? Eventually one is backed into a corner of strange and warped choices. —Sunny
NEXT MONTH: TBA for the next MMM on Monday, November 2nd!
October 4, 2026. 40.22768, -74.88919. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.
Speculation is that I breathed in fumes from the bonfire that was fueled with old crates that had been stored in poison ivy. I don't know where this speculation came from, whether it was baseless or if my parents called the farm and inquired or what. It didn't really matter why or how. What mattered was that I had some sort of allergic reaction that blew my face up with great pus-filled boils. Couldn't go to school for a week. Had to lay there with hot towels covering me for hours. I don't have no fucking clue why no one thought to take a picture, to prove that this happened to me, here, those many years ago. I don't think the theory of poison ivy wood holds much water, though, the more I've thought about it over the decades. Logically speaking, why was I the only one, and why did it take like 24 hours to happen? Nope, just one of those mysteries of the body that'll never be explained, only remembered, so long after the fact, when you visit the same farm during the same time of year and see that same bonfire and, sure, yes, stay far away from it, no matter how chilled you are on that wet fall day.
Week 400 felt like a big week for our little music crew here. I find that it's always helpful to do something extremely stupid after a big week. So that's how we ended up here. As we've done the past 400 weeks, I'll ask you to please enjoy the music, and please let us know if you have any words to share about it!
JOE'S PITCH AND/OR EXPLANATION: I was going to end the Algorithm picks after last week, but only because I couldn't think of a good way to incorporate the very last phase of the Algorithm, the list that includes all 400 weeks of albums reviews (as opposed to just the most recent 200). Especially because there ended up being a SIX-way tie between the six artists who have been mentioned the most in the last 400 weeks' worth of album reviews. I also had seven slots left before Thanksgiving, and seven people who completed their RC Summer Homework, so I had asked those folks to fill up the spaces. But only four people chose albums, so we had room. And then it struck me that there was a way to include two artists who were, in combination, mentioned a lot in past album reviews. So here we are. Not the most exciting explanation, but it's all true.
REVIEWS THAT MENTIONED TRAIN:Joe's review for Don't You Fake It by the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (a particular good Train reference too, if you're interested); Sunny's review of OK to Go by Virginia Coalition.
REVIEWS THAT MENTIONED LED ZEPPELIN AND TRAIN: n/a, but that's only because no one was aware that the no-doubt classic album Train Does Led Zeppelin II existed until right now.
NON-RC ARTISTS THAT WERE MENTIONED AS MANY TIMES AS LED ZEPPELIN WERE OVER THE LAST 400 WEEKS (TWELVE TIMES): David Bowie, Drake, LCD Soundsystem, Pink Floyd, Prince (I'll probably make this into a poll question for RC Summer Homework 2027).
ABOUT: Train formed in San Francisco in 1993. The only member who has been in Train the entire time is frontman and lead vocalist Pat Monahan. Monahan was in his hometown of Erie, PA when his Led Zeppelin cover band (called Rogues Gallery) broke up. He moved to California and crossed paths with Rob Hotchkiss, who would soon become Train's rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist. Together, they formed Train with Jimmy Stafford (lead guitar), Charlie Colin (bass; died in 2024), and Scott Underwood (drums). Train had a completely different lineup in 2016, when they recorded this album—Monahan does Robert Plant, Luis Maldonado does some Jimmy Page, Jerry Becker does some Page and some John Paul Jones, Hector Maldonado does some Jones, and Drew Shoals does John Bonham. Currently, Pat and Hector and Jerry are all still in the band, and they are joined by Matt Musty on drums and Butch Walker (yes, that one) on lead guitar. Train has had sporadic commercial success. The songs that I personally recognize are "Drops of Jupiter" and "Hey, Soul Sister" and "Meet Virginia." Maybe you'll recognize some other ones. They are still a band! You can still see them live! They played in Harrisonburg, VA last night!
DISCOGRAPHY: This is their ninth of twelve albums. Their debut was 1998's self-titled (featuring "Meet Virginia"). Drops of Jupiter followed that in 2001. The other popular one was Save Me, San Francisco (featuring "Hey, Soul Sister"). The most recent Train album is Mad Dog in the Fog, released about two months ago (I don't remember exactly, but I probably saw that on a list somewhere, became intrigued that Train still existed, and then stumbled upon their 2016 full-album cover of Led Zeppelin II).
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ADDITIONAL INFO
READING SOME SHIT: FUCK this is just so fucking funny, I can't stop laughing, this whole fucking thing, I'm giggling just reading something like this, in which Train's Pat Monahan takes his job at impersonating Robert Plant very seriously
WATCHING SOME SHIT: That's right! Train does Led Zeppelin IILIVE!!!!!
RECORD CLUB CONNECTIONS: This is the second full-cover album we've covered, this year or ever. In April, we listened to "Pussy Cats" Starring the Walkmen by the Walkmen, which was a full cover of Pussy Cats by Harry Nilsson. At least we're not listening to Led Zeppelin II by Led Zeppelin first, and then doing this one. Led Zeppelin II isn't even eligible for Record Club (since threesongson this album were the focus of their own blog posts, plus this Top Five I would include too). But don't worry, Train Does Led Zeppelin II is very much eligible!
This is the third album to have the word "II" in it, after II and II. (I am writing this in advance, but one of my many conversation plans for last night was to talk to Dranders to see if he wanted to do an album called II in the next few weeks, so I'll be updating y'all about that shortly.)
Pat Monahan has a solo album called Last of Seven from 2007, and Brandi Carlile features on one of its songs. If Led Zeppelin ever reunites and does a full-album cover of Last of Seven, we will IMMEDIATELY listen to it in Record Club.
MENTIONS ON THE BLOG: Unfortunately, searching for "train" on the blog pulls up 823 results. There's no easy way to determine how many of those 823 results are referring to the band Train. In fact, it's more like that the majority of those are referring to Meghan Trainor. But I'm not gonna sit here and count.
I'll point out that Zach and Gloria have both chosen "Drops of Jupiter" for previous RC projects (YSC and MMM, respectively), so assuming the Gaza Soup Kitchen boycott is still ongoing, at least we have their Train thoughts on record already (Zach's post especially is one that I appreciated greatly when it was published).
I'll also mention here that there was an ongoing joke in our college friend group at some point, possibly when I was still in school, that our blogging pal Jamie was gifted Train tickets by his dad, like it was a family outing, and we all thought that it was very adorable, a very dad thing to do. But I searched through the "Jamie" tag, and found no reference to Train, so maybe we'll have to all think positive thoughts and see if we can cosmically force the return of Jamie to the blog for this week only.
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RECORD CLUB ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
This week's discography dive album: Second Coming by the Stone Roses
This week's follow-up album:FENIAN by Kneecap and Dancing on the Wall by MUNA
This week's keeping up album (probably): n/a, next new one I'm excited about is Fontaines D.C. in two weeks
Listen with us! Keep your favorite Record Club artists in the rotation!
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COUNTDOWN:
69 Weeks Until Week 420
aw fuck, wrong donny, my bad
We are tracking and counting down every week from here on out till Record Club Week 420. We started this countdown 69 weeks out. During Record Club Week 420, we will be covering Donny Most by the esteemed Happy Days virgin Donny Most. The goal for Week 420 of Record Club is that it will feature 69 reviews from 69 different people.
October 3, 2026. 40.07304, -75.06948. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.
This could be anywhere, but I'll confirm that it's here, far away from the party that I forgot to take a picture at. There are videos, but not taken by me, and they were not on the spirit of this particular blog project anyway. In fact, maybe I should see this as a good thing, an indication that it was a good time. I was having such a good time that I forgot about the blog and all its obligations. Such a good party that I felt free.
The Record Club Alumni Association meets every week to discuss the larger body of work that our RC alumni have put together, outside of the specific albums that were covered in the main section of our club. You can follow along with everything that the RCAA has covered so far HERE.
(Deeper Dive)
Hot Chocolate
Every 1's a Winner — RC Week 57 — 3 pukes out of 5
Cicero Park
June 1974 (exact date unknown)
It wasn't that long ago that I talked about how soul bands of the '70s (and I'm talking about true soul bands, not "blue-eyed soul" or whatever the fuck) seemed to have two modalities: either they were making party music, or they were making "life is hard in the inner city" music. I have a preference aesthetically but no preference thematically. I think that the choice of Hot Chocolate to make their entire debut album a "life is hard in the inner city" album is a fine choice. I don't think I get the same thrills out of it as I did for the RC album. And honestly, even when it does get a little lighter on Cicero Park (like "Changing World," for example), it just feels corny next to a serious epic like "Could Have Been Born in the Ghetto." So maybe it's all about balance. Not that Every 1's a Winner was a master of balance. I recall that one feeling corny too. But at least I was having fun. I don't need seriousness to understand the underlying themes. "You Sexy Thing" came out only one year later! What in the world happened in that time?!
This album is long enough, and it's been long enough since we grappled with Stick Season, that all my strong feelings about Noah Kahan have been completely washed away. The Great Divide is an album packed to the brim with songs that sound exactly like you'd expect Noah Kahan songs to sound like. The man has a brand, and it's apparently a lucrative one. How would you describe it at this point? I'm going with "Bon Iver doing stomp-and-clap." A song like "Stayin' Still" is so on-brand that it cannot possibly be mistaken for any other artist on earth. There's value in that, I think. That, even if I'm not into this music, per se, just the idea of having your own niche style and playing dozens of songs that fit into that style and being popular for doing so is a worthy one. I appreciate it, even if I don't like it. There's also the fact that Noah Kahan is a good egg. That fact is extremely helpful in swallowing the hours of music that would otherwise torture me. As it stands, I can stand it. I get why it's popular. It's not for me. I don't feel strongly about it. I would say that, out of all the bad albums I've ever hated in these hundreds of RC follow-ups, this is the bad album I've hated the least.
No Rain, No Flowers — RC f/u #48 — 2.5 pukes out of 5
Peaches!
May 1, 2026
When will it end? Never! Never! We are condemned to listen to a new Black Keys album every year for the rest of our lives. Unlike Noah Kahan above, I wish that the Black Keys would do something else. Unlike Noah Kahan above, this is not lucrative anymore. I wish that they would take some real fucking risks. I get it though, I get what they are doing, and why. The fucking mopes had the world by the balls, somehow, for a brief period, they were THE rock 'n' roll band, and that's of course all over, long over, the coffin nailed shut with iron nails funded by crypto schemes and empty stadiums. And so here they are, yet again retreating to their comfort zone, two dudes playing their version of blues rock in the garage, their bread and butter, the thing that no one can take away from them. It's fine. It's boring, but it's fine. It's boring by design. They are stuck here, though, is the thing, and the longer they keep bashing out some fucking normal-ass bullshit and recording it and pressing it to wax, the more aggravated I'm gonna get. I'd rather hate the Black Keys than exist as I do now: being okay with them, being bored with them, being unsurprised by them. That's the shit that really pisses me off.
GRADE: 2 pukes out of 5
(Keeping Up)
Carly Rae Jepsen
The Loneliest Time — RC Week 206 — 4 pukes out of 5
The Loveliest Time — RC f/u #18 — 4 pukes out of 5
Day and Night
September 18, 2026
My opinions on this album are not fully formed, but that's how it always is with double albums. It's impossible to listen to a 24-song album enough times in one week to fully get a grasp on it. That's okay. It's not like Carly Rae Jepsen is pumping out high art here. These are 24 pop songs. The only way that Jepsen changes up her usual routine is the way she organizes them. Up until now, she's released a dozen straight-ahead pop jams on the proper LP, and then a dozen more experimental (relatively) songs on a "B sides" disc. For Day and Night, the usual and the unusual are all mixed up. You have songs that push Jepsen's personal boundaries rubbing up against the songs that are Jepsen's bread and butter. Instead, the dichotomy comes in the form of Disc 1 ("Day," or pop songs in Top 40 style) and Disc 2 ("Night," or pop songs in house/disco style). I like all of it. I think that there's a real truth in saying "these are songs for CVS," but at a certain point, there's only so much Carly Rae Jepsen can do to beat back those allegations. Just because she's skillful in making things that are catchy to the masses does not mean that she isn't testing boundaries on what "catchy" can look like. She's doing both! I'm looking forward to spending more time with this album and trying to pick out what some of the standout tracks are.
GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5
(Random RCAA News)
Ed "Not Complicit" Sheeran's concert at Robert Kraft's stadium was cancelled due to rain. Meanwhile, Macklemore's plans to go on a tour (with all proceeds going toward victims of the government of Israel's campaign of murder on the Palestinian people) will not be covered in this space, at least not until Macklemore announces an opener who is a Record Club alum.
Todd Rundgren says that Taylor Swift "ruined music," which seemed unnecessarily harsh, Taylor Swift simply being a small-time hardcore band from New Brunswick.
Ween is set to release a fourteen-CD box set next month.
Gnarls Barkley, a duo featuring RC alumnus Danger Mouse (also from Broken Bells), is touring at the end of the year, but it had to be clarified that the tour does NOT feature Danger Mouse, only the rapist (and not RC alumnus) CeeLo Green.
Kacey Musgraves honors Dolly Parton at that MTV award thingy.
Meanwhile, PinkPantheress and Charli XCX are posing.
Nick Valensi of the Strokes played with Jack White of the Raconteurs (they even played a Raconteurs song!)
October 2, 2026. 39.92071, -75.18715. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.
I love seeing the city skyline, even from a random-ass like Burger King parking lot or whatever, just something to admire on the way home—I did not buy a burger, or any food, NOT Taco Bell, I promise, my stomach wasn't feeling all that great, it wasn't that kind of night—because it reminds me that it's a big fucking world out there. So many places to explore. And yet, tonight, and nights like it, remind me, conversely, that despite the wide scope of the world, it doesn't really matter where you go. It matters who you go there with. I don't care where we go, as long as I'm with people I care about. This kinda thing is easier to see after you get your priorities out of whack.
This reminds me, I meant to look up who that fucking guy is on the cover of this album (and on the rear artwork too, I see now). Apparently his name is Duke Nicholson, and apparently he is Jack Nicholson's grandson, and apparently he is a close friend of Lana Del Rey's family. I don't know if this information would have been helpful in discerning the music on this album (I'm writing this in advance, so who knows, maybe someone did mention it in their review). Probably not. I can't even think of a good Jack Nicholson connection through Record Club. And we have 400 weeks to pull from at this point!
So let's ignore the album cover and let's instead talk about this album's music, its artist, the context of Record Club in which we examine the art, and life itself. Anything interesting to share? Let's chat about it in the comments. Maybe you're singing 60 seconds of a Lana Del Rey song this weekend at a birthday party? Now's the time. TGIF.
