The Five Types of Entertainment

Always nice to take stock about what entertainment feels the most important to me at any point in my life. Here's how I'm feeling right now:

5. Video Games

4. TV Shows

3. Movies

2. Books

1. Music

I haven't played a new video game in well over a decade. I'm sincerely exhausted with the idea of TV, that I might have to commit 10-20 hours to one single piece of art, and try to stuff that into a lifestyle that provides maybe 60 minutes per night of uninterrupted big-screen time. I'm finding that I'd rather just watch a movie, and have been watching them a lot more than I have in years past. Books would usually be #3, unless I'm reading a really good book, which I seem to be now (though we'll see what the other Boys Book Club members have to say about it). Music is going to always be number one no matter what happens (unless I go deaf, which is a grim possibility).

(Also, are there any other types of entertainment? I thought about Sports, but I dunno, I feel you could slot that into the TV Shows category, despite the live element. So, Live Sports maybe? Live Entertainment, i.e. seeing a sports team or a Broadway show or going to the Barnes Museum or whatever? There's an argument for that, but then the ranking starts to feel a bit apples-and-oranges, in my opinion.)

Mostly because I'm avoiding watching Doctor Zhivago (I know I talk a big game about David Lean, but man, I can't think of a specific type of movie I'd be less motivated to watch than an over-three-hours black-and-white romantic drama from 1965), and also to level my frustration about not knowing where I'll be this autumn (basically, I'm an "alternate" in a program that is going to pay me to get my master's degree, and I need to know by Thursday so I can tell my school whether I have to defer or not, and the people at the program don't seem to want to answer any of my calls or emails, and, like, I kinda need to know at some point whether I'm going back to school this year?), I'm gonna write a mini blog post for all five types of entertainment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Video Games Will Always Be a Part of Me

It's interesting, because you'd think I could squeeze a short blog post out about Mythic Quest—the Apple TV workplace comedy from Rob McElhenney, et al—and slap it here, since it is a show that is technically about a video game. But not really. The video game thing is just an excuse for this smart, funny, dark show to explore the medium of TV. The mid-season departure episodes prove that TV no longer has rules; the near-total absence of romantic love between any of the main characters (save for a B-story about two lesbian testers, a story that the other main characters make very clear that they don't give a fuck about) goes against what we assume every workplace comedy will turn into, eventually. But none of this has to do with video games, right?

Plus, the very specific type of video game that the characters have devoted their lives to making—an MMORPG, or massively multiplayer online role-playing game—has never really been something I could ever imagine getting into. I've never actually sat down and played one, to be honest. Seems like a lot. So while I appreciate that Mythic Quest is able to use this video game as an underpinning to the series even though I would never care about it in real life, I also believe that Mythic Quest does nothing to change my appreciation of or understanding of video games, in either direction.

Nah, as always, we go back to that ol' standby, the video game that will show up in 9/10ths of the blog posts that appear when you click the "Gaming" tag—Super Mario. We actually went to a third birthday party this past weekend whose theme was "Mario." The invitation was adorned with Mario riding Yoshi, some of the balloons featured Bowser and Super Mushrooms, a few of the cookies were shaped like Invincibility Stars and Yoshi Eggs, etc.

This was the first time I really appreciated the ubiquity of Mario, if I'm being honest. The games are new, and the frames of reference are probably different for me and for any random five-year-old at the party (I heard one dad mention a "Super Mario Odyssey," for instance, which is not a Mario game I had ever heard of), but after all these years, the characters remain the same.

Pam and I were playing zone defense throughout the party, and at a certain point, I was covering Martha. My defensive strategy at that point was to bring her over to this big banner that hung over the side of the house and check it out with her. The banner had the whole Mario crew on it—Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Toad, Bowser, Peach, a Koopa Troopa, a Goomba, some of the power items—and Martha seemed pretty content with staring at it for a while, which was preferable to any attempts to jump in the pool without swimmies.

And I did what I try to do when I'm chilling with Martha, and just talk as much as possible (might help her to actually start talking herself, right?). I found that, even after all these years, monologuing about Super Mario came pretty easily. I received my first video game system (Super Nintendo) and my first game (Super Mario World) for my fourth birthday, so I was only eleven months older than Willow is now. Which is pretty crazy to consider.

 

But my point being that Mario hit me hard when I was super young, and made a big enough impression that I'm still talking about it three decades later. And I think it's kinda cool that maybe, possibly, this could be something that me and the kids could share one day. There is a reason that I've kept that same Super Nintendo system all these years in a box in the basement. Maybe Willow will be gifted it for her fourth birthday next spring...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TV Review: Kevin Can Fuck Himself

The elevator pitch is that this AMC show is designed to lampoon the genre of "three-camera sitcom about funny fat idiot husband and his hot shrew wife" by actually featuring such scenes, but then following the wife characters as she leaves that world and enters a gritty drama all her own. Like, the show violently shifts between the brightly-lit sound stage of the living room with a laughtrack, and a dimly lit kitchen where the wife decides to kill her husband.

The wife, Allison is portrayed by Emmy Winner Annie Murphy, and only she and neighbor Patty (portrayed by Mary Hollis Inboden) inhabit both worlds. The titular oaf Kevin (Eric Peterson) and his best friend and his father all concoct harebrained schemes in the sitcom, and then Allison is left to clean up the mess in the drama. It's pretty great, how both of these shows are able to exist together, and how flawlessly Kevin Can Fuck Himself can switch back and forth.

Honestly, the whiplash, in my opinion, is the point, and the biggest thrill of this series so far (I've seen four episodes). The sitcom is awful, because those types of sitcoms have always been awful. The prestige drama has been pretty decent but at times comes off like a knock-off Breaking Bad. But the tension between the two sides is what is going to keep me coming back to this show for as long as it exists.

You can feel the tension in the sitcom side especially. Now that you know that Allison is trapped in this viciously abusive lifestyle, and know from her POV on the drama side that she is deeply hurting emotionally, you can't help but feel so fucking uncomfortable when we're seeing the comedic exploits of Kevin. There's a laughtrack, which should indicate that these situations—chili cook-offs, anniversary parties gone awry—are supposed to be funny, but through Kevin Can Fuck Himself, the laughtrack makes you nauseous. Which is the point, I guess.

I can see why this would be annoying—maybe you don't want to watch a TV show that is this fucking depressing—but to me, this is the perfect premise for a TV show, in that it makes you reconsider how you watch TV in the first place.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5 (so far)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Movie Review: Luca

Absolutely wild to me that the general consensus for this Pixar movie was that it was "too simple," seeing as how the general consensus for the last Pixar movie, Soul, was that it was "too complicated." At a certain point you have to consider whether there are too many critics out there who feel it necessary to add their two cents to the crowded audience of takes.

Consider me one of them, I guess. Even though my pitch is that "movie critics suck cock," it still makes me a movie critic, technically. Pathetic!

Anyways, Luca was anything but pathetic. Simple, sure, but it's a kids' movie, so I'm not sure why that world should be thrown around like it's a bad thing. Some of the best tales are simple ones. Luca is the tale about two childhood friends, filled with charm, betrayal, improbable wins, a beautiful setting (small Italian coastal town) and a very poignant ending. Yes, and the two kids happen to be sea monsters as well.

That last point, in classic Pixar fashion, acts as comedic tension until all of a sudden it's a serious metaphor. The kids spend the whole movie trying not to get wet so they don't expose who they really are, which amounts to a bunch of hijinks, but eventually, they learn to accept who they are.

 

I'm making it sound simpler than it actually is, but I also don't want to spoil the subtleties of the ending either, so maybe you should just watch it. The money line is even delivered by Mac's Mom! What else could you possibly want?!?

GRADE: 4.5 pukes out of 5

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Something About Books, Hopefully

 

Oof, I forgot that I had to write something about books here. I'm only like 40 pages into my book club book—The Lost Book of Adana Moreau—so I have no thoughts to add just yet. I dunno, here's something I guess?

 

Harry Potter, Ranked

11. J.K. Rowling's Twitter Account

10. Pottermore

9. The movies

8. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

7. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Song of the Day: "Held Back"

"Held Back"

2nd Grade

from Wish You Were Here Tour Revisited

2021

 

This is one of my favorite songs that I've been jamming along to this week, but not for the usual reasons: it doesn't give me a reason to introduce a band I've never written about before (2nd Grade has previously showed up in this column and in a Year in Review list); it's not the best song on their new album (that would probably be "Favorite Song," or the title track, or... I mean, this is a band for which the list goes on and on); it's not because of the wonky structure (Wish You Were Here Tour Revisited is half rerecorded versions of 2nd Grade songs released in 2018, and half those same original songs in demo form); it's not that I get to rep my hometown again (though 2nd Grade mastermind Peter Gill does hale from Philly, I read in an interview that Gill was renting out swan boats at Penns Landing before his gig got big enough, and the band did record the album at Headroom Studios, following the path of such esteemed Philly bands as Hop Along and Science Club).

I like it because of the guitar riff, which is super simple and super catchy. I like that the song is content to stay in that pocket for way longer than necessary, just so that Peter Gill can read off the credits for the album. Seriously. Is it necessary? Absolutely not; I probably didn't need to know that the album's original catalogue number was #SL13 and that its reissue through Double Double Whammy was catalogued #DDW079. But I also learned some cool stuff! Catherine Dwyer of Remember Sports is also in 2nd Grade! Abi Reimold is apparently from Philly and apparently took the cover photo (damn, what's she been up to since 2016's awesome Wriggling?!)!

Most importantly, I get to spend an extra few minutes with that fucking guitar riff. Honestly, I could spend all summer with that riff. You know how people say "he could sing the phone book and it would sound good"? Well, Peter Gill could literally read the album credits over such a guitar riff and it would still sound good.

Album of the Week: Mood Valiant

I don't know how many of you are like me and keep a running list on a phone memo of upcoming album releases that you might want to check out—I'm gonna go ahead and assume every single one of you—but if you do keep such a list, then you'll agree that there has rarely, if ever, been a Friday as jam packed with new and possibly worthy music as this past Friday. I had at least thirteen albums listed that sounds like they'd be worth my time. We could fuel Record Club for the rest of the summer on June 25th releases alone. I mean, we won't—mainly because I have a pretty dumb project that R.C. is starting in three weeks—but we could!

I am glad, though, that someone picked an album off the list, and so here we are, with a brand new album as our AotW. If you wanna write about it, then you know where to find me (via email). If you wanna relax and check out previous albums, we have the archives and the playlist for that. If you wanna forget about Record Club and just enjoy your summer, well then, I suppose I'll see you on Labor Day—just know that we'll miss you.

WEEK 126 — June 27-July 3, 2021

What we're listening to this week (Sunny's pick):

ALBUM: Mood Valiant

ARTIST: Hiatus Kaiyote

RELEASED: June 25, 2021

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: The band has described themselves as "future soul," and Wikipedia takes that seriously enough to include it in the genre section. Also there is neo-soul and jazz-funk.

WHY SUNNY PICKED IT: "I only heard about this artist recently from a friend, liked what I listened to so far, but am also self-abashed that I haven't ever heard of them before (two grammy noms, at least, though also grammys lol), so now I have minor excitement at looking forward to a new release to a newly found band."

TRACKLIST:

1. Fight of the Tiger Lily
2. Sip into Something Soft
3. Chivalry Is Not Dead
4. And We Go Gentle
5. Get Sun
6. All the Words We Don't Say
7. Hush Rattle
8. Rose Water
9. Red Room
10. Sparkle Tape Break Up
11. Stone or Lavender
12. Blood and Marrow

LENGTH: 42:34

 

WHERE TO LISTEN FOR FREE: Bandcamp

 

READING SOME SHIT: Here's an interview from, um, eight years ago, but I thought it might be important anyway because they explain their band name and that whole "future soul" thing. If you need something more recent, then NPR's got you covered.

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: Maybe that Hiatus Kaiyote have been sampled by Jay-Z? I dunno, that seems like a stretch. Let's just say that there is nothing to write here, which, to me at least, makes this week very exciting.

Happy listening, fam! Have a great week!

A Year of Blind Spots: Suicide

First of all... don't listen to this album. Suicide isn't music. It's some try-hard proto-edgelord bullshit that no one should have to go through. I spent one single day with it—a couple hours, really—and that was more than enough. (To put this specific point in PoYB context: Back in September 2019, it was confirmed to me that all-caps BAD music is much easier to write about when I received FOUR T-Pain reviews less than 24 hours after posting the AoTW for RC.)

I get that some people get their rocks off by being contrarian. I get it! Some people like to pretend that unlistenable bullshit is actually so listenable that normies don't even GET IT. These people are the worst, and you should stay away from them. I'm telling you now that I know that anyone who is needy enough to pretend to like something for the so-called "cred" is unequivocally NOT the type of person who is gonna be crawling on Puke on Your Birthday on a Saturday morning looking for some asshole's take on some fucking "classic" album. I.e., if you are reading this, then I fucking know with every fiber of my being that you will dislike the album Suicide by the duo Suicide.

Why am I even listening to this in the first place, you ask? Oh, that's simple. I'm a simpy little bitch who takes Rolling Stone Magazine's word regarding things like this. I can't help it—it's built in to the very foundation of my music listening habits. The 2020 RS500 named this album, Suicide, the 498th best album of all time. The number itself should've tipped the hand (I mean, if RS is saying that this is one of the best albums of all time but it's also worse than goddamn Harry Styles' goddamn latest album, then, like, c'mon). Here's the blurb that got me:

These New York synth-punks evoke everything from the Velvet Underground to rockabilly. Martin Rev’s low-budget electronics are violent and hypnotic; Alan Vega screams as a rhythmic device. Late-night listening to "Frankie Teardrop," a ten-minute-plus tale of a multiple murder, is not recommended. A droning voice in the wilderness when they appeared in the seventies, the duo would influence bands from Arcade Fire and the National to Bruce Springsteen, who covered Suicide live in 2016.

Two points. One, to get to #498 on such a list probably requires one asshole max to give you a high vote. So some fucking music journalist is coked out of his mind and is, during that high, asked to list his favorite albums of all time. Sure, I get it, this loon is gonna rank Suicide high because it might seem like it makes any sense to someone bonkered out of their skulls. But so then: two, regardless of the reason that it ranks on Rolling Stone's Top 500, it did, and so it must inevitably be printed with a blurb, and so some other asshole must write said blurb. He's gotta fill space. It's necessary in this world that we (myself especially) have created, the world in which we must write something for an album on any goddamn list, or else it's just a list devoid of meaning. Someone on the RS staff is tasked with giving Suicide meaning. He (or she?) is getting a paycheck. Get paid to write kind words about the band Suicide.

The irony of such a list, a list that features 500 albums, is that the lower rungs of the list are inevitably going to be overrated. Suicide, based on the two hours I spent with the supposedly 498th-best album of all time, is motherfucking incredibly overrated. It was akin to torture to listen to this (all apologies to PJ Harvey, by the way—I should've saved my harsh AYoBS criticism for this one). The further irony is that someone—potentially someone who is grounded enough to realize that this album is stupid—is getting paid to write about Suicide, and so what is produced amounts to bullshit.

Arcade Fire? The National? Bruce Springsteen?!?! Get the fuck out of here, man. These are some top-tier artists in terms of the Joe K*** pantheon of rock 'n' roll. If I were to place myself in the rankings of the general populace, I would fathom that I'm in the top 5% of Arcade Fire fans, the top 1% of National fans, and the top 10% of Bruce Springsteen fans (as compared to the general populace of America, I'm saying). So don't fucking take me lightly when I tell you that Suicide sounds absolutely goddamn nothing like any of these three artists.

First: fuck the RS staff member who wrote this blurb. Congrats, you tricked me into listening to something you knew I wouldn't want to listen to. Second, well... I guess I should admit that this exercise was at least interesting, if not enjoyable in any goddamn sense.

After like 20 minutes of being baffled by an album that I instantly hated, I turned to Wikipedia, which can sometimes provide some very basic and necessary context to an art form that I don't like. According to Suicide's Wikipedia page, this duo has "provided the blueprints for..." and then it names a bunch of musical genres. Post-punk, synth-pop, industrial rock—there are plenty of hours of music that I've found within these genres that I like a lot, and, with some of it, love unabashedly.

Can I, as the listener, connect the dots between Suicide and something like Parquet Courts? Or Chrvches? Or Nine Inch Nails? Sure, fine, yes. But that line that I drew is so goddamn long and twisty and convoluted, that you almost wonder why you're even drawing the line in the first place. It's like saying that I'm thankful for my '91 Camry and enjoy the fact that some caveman accidentally hit a piece of stone with a big wooden club and made the stone look somewhat like a wheel.

No, here's a better example: Suicide is like The Cosby Show.

Back in the day, when I was training for my then-new city job, our training class to a "class trip" to West Philly. The point of the exercise was that we would spend a half-day walking around the neighborhoods we'd be servicing through our jobs (with the assumption being, unfortunately, that if you got this job, that there might be a good chance you were not already familiar with the aforementioned neighborhoods—and you can extrapolate from there). So my group took an El ride to like 46th and Walnut (I think). We're walking down the exit steps, and I see a mural of Bill Cosby, and happen to make some snarky comment about the (very true) allegations that were just entering the general consciousness at the time.

The guy supervising the trip took offense to this, and eventually made me apologize in front of the group later on. I go back and forth on my feelings about this memory. On one hand, it was pretty fucked up that, in my lifelong quest to keep my head down at my city job and not make waves and shut the fuck up and etc., that I was made to apologize for talking shit about a verifiable rapist. On the other hand, I kind of get Mr. *****'s point, in that these neighborhoods are not privy to the information that I am, and West Philadelphians just see a portrait of a man who, at the time, represented a part of the black community that, up until that time, the entertainment industry had refused to portray.

My point—other than telling this very short and still perplexing anecdote—is that Bill Cosby, regardless of everything that has come to light in the past decade, was certifiably essential to the entertainment industry in general. Prior to The Cosby Show, black characters were caricatures. Cosby's show smashed apart that racism.

And yet, at the same time, we are allowed to have our opinions about Bill Cosby here in 2021. It is totally acceptable to say that Bill Cosby is a fucking monstrous criminal who deserves to die in jail. It is also acceptable to say that, now that we know that Cosby is a noxious life form, that The Cosby Show suffers because of that. I personally don't want to watch a show in which a rapist pretends to be wholesome. Do you?!

 

That's the same type of dichotomy I feel when I'm listening to and reading about Suicide. On the one hand, I absolutely acknowledge that, from an artist's perspective, Suicide quite possibly could have been essential in the overall creation of music as we know it today. On the other hand, I hate it. I hate it so, so much, and no browbeating supervisor or wackadoo RS journalist spouting out bullshit about Suicide's "importance" is going to convince me otherwise. I know what I know, and I feel what I feel, and importance ain't got nothing to do with it anymore.

I guess that's the fatal flaw in these types of lists, right? It's all a matter of who is creating it. Like we said in our reflection on The Raincoats, there exists somewhat of a disconnect between which artists you like and what those artists themselves like. So if Rolling Stone is going to have a list of the quote-unquote best albums of all time, then there are going to be some albums on there that only a musician could like, as opposed to fans of those musicians that like them.

So this is me throwing in the towel. I'm giving up. I don't like Suicide (and for real, there's a ten-minute horror song about shooting a baby in a crib, who could seriously like this?!?!?!). I am also here acknowledging that I can see why other artists might appreciate it. We can say that if Suicide didn't exist, then maybe artist X, Y, or Z wouldn't exist. Fine! I buy that! But I can also say that it is possible for me to love artists X, Y, and Z, and also viscerally hate Suicide.

 

The ultimate irony is this: it's taken me over an hour to write this blog post, and in the meantime, I've listen to Suicide at least twice more. In that small time, I've actually achieved some type of stasis on the whole matter. I've actually reached a point where I can almost see, from a very extreme angle, why someone might like this. Will I get to the end of my Year of Blind Spots and delete Suicide from my iPod? Almost fucking assuredly. But after typing 1000 words about how much I hate this album, I have, against all odds, grown to not hate it. Take that as you will.

But in the meantime, don't listen to this album.

Lost and Gone Forever, Sam

Recorded entirely on a notes app voice to text take it as you will.  I apologize for all the typos and can only attribute it to my mumbling

I first became familiar with customer through the song Amsterdam off the album blank.

In college as a friend of Melissa's I certainly heard far far far and barrel of the gun. I remember them being fun dancer though not as upbeat as other song kind of jams that would be played at 671 Melissa's apartment my freshman year. There's something to be said for being adjacent to a band that a friend of yours really likes. Do you have a certain fondest for it but ultimately don't really care about it

Listening to them 15 years later, I found them to be fine but a little bit more whiny than I remembered bongos be damned I’m not sure if Guster is my jam anymore.

Lost and Gone Forever, Nate

In the same way Blink-182 offers the children of the suburban '90s a training-wheels on-ramp to the more poisonous ghost towns and suck-joints of punk's bombed-out diaspora, so too does Guster offer a gentle lowering into the waters of jam band mind erasure. You don't have to go that way, of course, you can simply enjoy the sexless, tuneful, Barenaked Ladies-esque songcraft before your sleepytime tea. Two roads diverged in a wood; I took the one that lead to a lovely afternoon with my Christian aunt. Guster can lead you to another place, too, even if they can't take you there.

Lost and Gone Forever, Melissa

I could tell you so many things about how Lost and Gone Forever was the soundtrack to my teenage years, but I won't. I could tell you about the time my brother drove my friends to St. Joe's University because Guster was doing a small (very cheap) concert. I could tell you how we somehow landed front row and a security guard gave me Adam Gardner's guitar pick because I "knew all the words to every song." I could go on to tell you how we stopped at Taco Bell that night and made a mess of my brother's car and somehow all of those things are important together. I could also tell you how my mother, Loretta, once asked me "can we listen to something else" as she drove me to school and Guster played in the background. I could tell you all this, but it just further proves how attached I am to this album. In a sea of Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, and Backstreet Boys CDs, there was also Guster. A creepy, dark cover in a plastic world of pop pink. It truly is a part of the catalog of albums in my life (you know the binder kind with the plastic sleeves for all your most precious CDs).

And how does it hold up? For me, it holds up in both my attached sentimentality and musical quality. Songs like "What You Wish For," "Two Points for Honesty," and "Center of Attention" are aspirational lyrically while doing very different things musically. "If that's all you will be, you'll be a waste of time," is a lyric that loops in my brain when I'm struggling to be more, do more, and want more. "You've dreamed a thousand dreams / none seem to stick in your mind." I want to generalize and say this is a universal problem, but I also take ownership of it being a very "me" problem. And good god, what a high school problem to mull over through music. 

I was assigned a task in a class to find a song that musically represented me. I chose "Happier" because I thought (or still think) the opening to that song fits how I see the world. A slow build to a bigger, grander, louder moment. And then we mellow out again. The highs and lows of being a real person, being a teenager, being a friend, being loved... I could go on forever. There is something in that opening that contradicts itself immediately, and that's where the cool stuff in life comes from. The quiet hush into the crescendo, back into the hush. The rush from a concert with friends and the quiet giggles as tacos falls apart in the backseat of a Chrysler. That's this whole album for me. And sometimes life sounds like one thing, but the lyrics say something else (ahem—"Barrell of a Gun" is a cheeky little song about masturbation). Facades, masks, and all the good stuff we use to hide what we're actually saying on the inside ("I'm the center of attention / in the walls inside my head") while we hide outwardly. 

While we can't choose Musical soundtracks, this is fairly close to rock musical for me: harmonies, fa-fas, bongos, cutesie little breaks in music. I guess this wasn't such a stretch for me in high school.

On a re-listen with my husband, I worried if this would hold up. I wanted validation for all the ways in which these songs worked for me. I worried that Ryan Miller's voice was too whiny. Is this all too '90s, somehow? Inevitably, and while I know Gary did like it (or at least that's what he told me), it isn't about anyone else's experience with it. This album will forever mean getting a cheap-o guitar pick, eating tacos with friends, and annoying my mother. This album will forever mean heartbreak, highs and lows, fluctuating dreams, music that is discordant with its lyrics, and knowing all of those lyrics even 20 years later. 

5 out of 5 Fa-Fas 

Lost and Gone Forever, Pam

I didn’t realize Guster had been around for so long! And although I can't say I was part of the puka-shell, double-popped-collar crowd listening to Guster in '99/y2k, I can say that I do enjoy Guster. This was my first time listening to Lost and Gone Forever, although I was familiar with some of the hits already ("Barrel of a Gun," "Fa Fa"). As far as the entirety of the album, Guster has a pretty consistent sound—that soft singer and oh-so-Guster bongo sound that I haven’t listened to enough Guster to really call a novelty. The other Guster album that I’m way more familiar with is Keep It Together. In my humble opinion, that one is way better. But the sound does sound pretty much exactly like Lost and Gone Forever. I mean, the albums are only a few years apart, but do these guys still sound the same way in their most recent albums? I can't say. I did feel like some of the lyrics that would have resonated with high school or college Pam are a little cheesy listening to them for the first time now (for some reason "I Spy" felt real corny to me). So, just judging by how much I like Keep It Together, it seems that Guster has matured along with their fan base, so if they've followed the same trajectory, I imagine their new stuff may be even cooler.

Lost and Gone Forever, Sunny

A few years back I went on a date to a Guster concert. For some reason the word "Guster" made me think it would be a much harder rock band. Maybe I was confusing it for Seether? Disturbed? Maybe just the hard G sound? I dunno. The concert, then, ended up being a bit of a surprise, but not a bad one. Couple of the songs were recognizable from the radio and college party playlists. I'd end up hearing "Happier," "Two Points for Honesty," and "Fa Fa" soon again.

The odd thing is the same experience happened again this week opening up Lost and Gone Forever. I immediately remembered what Guster wasn't and that I had made this mistake once before. I think the challenge is that even though it's clear what Guster is not, I'm not quite sure what it is? It's not emo, but they do talk bluntly about emotions a lot ("I was meaning to tell you / I've been so damn sad"; "It must make you sad to know that nobody cares at all"; "If this will make you happier / It got you this far / Do what you have to"). I guess it's just alt-enough rock without too much lean in any one direction. In our zeitgeist, they're kind of one half of Fastball's schtick with some fun vocal and/or instrumental flourishes ("Fa Fa," "All the Way Up to Heaven") added on top for style. Playing with bongos and maracas and triangles and stuff gives them a bit more dimension than your typical kit, especially for '99.

Again, none of this is a bad surprise. The whole album is generally pretty pleasant over 45 minutes. It's not my favorite for close repeated listening, where the essence turns more from charming to blasé. The pictures do better than the album. Still, whatever Guster is trying to do, it's nice to have bands that you can accidentally stumble into a concert for and have a delightful time.

Lost and Gone Forever, Joe

Lost and Gone Forever's prevailing theme is, well, loss. Throughout its eleven songs, Guster finds itself focusing on stories of endings, closures, resolution, grief. And while each specific song paints its own story, if you take them all together, then it becomes evident that Guster is really talking about themselves and their own career arc. After Lost and Gone Forever, Guster would never return to the chill, auxiliary percussion, hacky-sack-on-the-quad-infused sound. Future albums would find them leveling up (within the scope of indie rock), layering the music and creating a more muscular sound overall. Guster, then, is aware of the upcoming transition, and takes an album to say goodbye to the sound that they first came into the world making. The Guster as we knew it in 1999, on this album, is lost and gone forever.

Oh yeah, I totally stole that theory. Read about on some other fucking blog that deigned to write a 20th anniversary piece on Lost and Gone Forever a couple years ago. Sounds pretty good, eh? It's certainly a theory that I'm interested in. I like my bands self-aware, and I like the idea of creating nostalgia for something that isn't even completely gone yet. So if I was a Guster fan, I'd probably be formulating such a theory myself. But I'm not really a Guster fan. Not that I don't like them—this is a really good album, y'all—I just have never been interested enough to dig in, if that makes sense.

I have crossed paths with Guster at least twice in my life in a quasi-significant way, though. The first was in high school, when their song "Amsterdam" was blowing up (again, I mean "blowing up" in an indie rock context—it's all relative), and PoYB contributor Mike brought 'em up in the context of "Songs Our Band Should Play." The years are slipping by at an alarming rate, so I am sorry to report that I cannot even remember whether our band—Burholme—ended up playing "Amsterdam" in concert at any point. Like all songs that Mike and Kev brought to the table during those years in my parents' garage, I held them at arm's length—I was still in the process of figuring out my own musical identity, and was defensive about it—and yet I'm finding years later that all those songs have carved their own little niches into my heart anyway.

Plus, I was pretty intrigued by Guster's live rendition of "Amsterdam"—as described by Mike, who only told the truth like 80% of the time in high school, but this has been verified by YouTube this week—in which all the band members would switch instruments and play a noticeably-on-purpose inferior version of what was then their biggest hit. (Due to a political correctness that I wholeheartedly support, we shall now refer to this onstage maneuver as an "Amsterdam Fire Drill," as opposed to what fans referred to it as at the time.) I liked the idea of a band fucking around on stage, especially during those years in my life when I was on the stage myself. Guster did the Amsterdam Fire Drill in the same way we were pulling the Taking Back Sunday bait-and-switch on all the Roman Catholic HS heavy metal fans packing their battle of the bands. I felt a kinship with Guster, even if I wasn't interested in exploring their actual music.

The second my life intersected with Guster's tunes was during the few weeks I attempted to get the ill-fated "Beerito CD Club" off the ground. I guess this could be considered a precursor to PoYB's Record Club, though it functioned differently and lacked the written aspect. "Beerito" was the moniker for the weekly Thursday beer+burrito+movie hangout at Maeve's NoLibs apartment. My idea was for everyone to burn an album onto a CD every week, and add it to the collection we kept at Maeve's, exchanging it for one you hadn't heard yet. Add a CD, take a CD, that kind of thing. It was short-lived, but only because we were at the very tail end of laptops even having CD-ROM drives at all, and already a few years past CD players being the standard in cars.

And so while I did end up adding most of the CDs to the box, there were at least a few other participants. And I was able to discover at least two albums from this exercise. The first was the Old 97's' Fight Songs (as provided by PoYB contributor Frank). The second was Guster's Ganging Up on the Sun, provided by—you guessed it—Melissa, who also chose Lost and Gone Forever as this week's AotW. So it's kind of a full-circle thing this week, I guess. (Sidenote: pretty sure Hannah added a Britney Spears album to the box too, but even I have my limits.)

Again, not that I fell in love with Guster after listening to Ganging Up on the Sun that week, or during any other sporadically listen between 2014 and now. Like my dalliances with "Amsterdam" seven or eight years earlier, the prevailing reaction was mostly: "This is nice." And it is! But it never was, and still isn't, something that I'm going to all-caps-and-italics LOVE.

I will say that, because of the above experiences, I've always had a soft spot for Guster. Despite the similarities to a band like O.A.R., whom I have expressed disdain for in the past, I feel like Guster is just quirky and unassuming enough that they escape that ire. They seem to not take themselves too seriously. Starting as a three-bros-and-a-bongo operation at Tufts says to me that they were as surprised as anyone else when they achieved even a tiny measure of success. Call it humility, maybe. Or if you disagree, blame it on the fact that I still know next to nothing about this band.

And if that's something that I've always sensed but never really knew why, then Lost and Gone Forever is clearly where it all falls into place. The problems I have with Ganging Up on the Sun—a little too cutesy at times, a little too close to being an acoustic-bro-Coldplay-lite—are not evident at all on their preceding album. Their reputation with all the bongos or whatever is true if you listen to Lost and Gone Forever, and, at least to my ears, it fits them like a glove.

Look, if that same reputation sounds corny to your ears, then I don't blame you. If you asked me in 2007 or 2014 what I thought about Guster, then I may have been a little reluctant to tell you that I liked them. It just doesn't seem like "my" kind of band, ya feel me? But here in my 30s, I'm comfortable enough to just admit that hooks are king. If an album is catchy, then I'll probably profess my admiration for it, regardless of the band behind it or their alleged reputation. Lame? Bro-y? Music for white private school kids? I don't give a fuck anymore, yo. Give me hooks. (Exceptions? Sure. But Guster is not an exception.)

The countdown-chorus on "Barrel of a Gun," the falsetto on "All the Way Up to Heaven," the relatively-anthemic buildup of "Happier" (a song that is apparently Guster's go-to concert-closing song), the bongo-forward head-nodder "I Spy," the pitch-jumping "Two Points for Honesty," the singalong fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa of "Fa Fa"—all of this shit has been taking up residence in my head all week, and I'm not tired of any of it yet.

From what I knew in the past, and what I learned this week, this seems to be the speed that Guster works in best. Chill and catchy. This will never, ever be enough for me to get on the proverbial mountaintop and shout Guster's name, but it's more than enough to make me happy. I look back of the past decade and a half, and I'm realizing that there really has never been a time when Guster has made me unhappy. I may not love the band, but I love being happy. I was happy this week.

 

And if Lost and Gone Forever really is about endings and about closure, then mark me as the dumbest Guster fan on earth, because to me, it finally felt like a beginning.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

Album Review: Megabear

To be clear: we are here because of the conceit. This album exists in the world and will always exist in my mind because of how it is structured, and that's it. So let's get that out of the way, and then we can circle back to why this makes Megabear a good album, but impedes it from being a great one.

Okay, so, Megabear, from the band ME REX. A London-based band that, like many great musical projects, started as the moniker of a solo artist (in this case, a guy named Myles McCabe), before eventually morphing into a full-band effort. Megabear is technically ME REX's debut album, though last year I considered Triceratops / Stegosaurus an LP, even though it was a "double EP," which is fucking stupid and I hate it.

But I didn't hate the music. Kinda reminded me (and others) of Los Campesinos!, with its thick-accented fast-talky snark layered on top of the fourth-wave emo playbook (so I'm told—I don't talk waves). It was good shit. I ranked it high on an auxiliary top music 2020 list. I was excited to hear that there was more music to come this year.

Alright, the conceit: Megabear has 52 songs. Most of them are 32 seconds long—with exceptions, but still combining for a sub-40-minute album. But what sets this album apart is that it is intended to be played on shuffle. Intended by the artist, ME REX a.k.a. Myles McCabe. He says that you should always play Megabear on shuffle, and it should always work. All the songs are in the same key (or whatever), and all of them naturally segue into whatever happens to come up next in the order.

 

I mean, I guess this works for me better than it would other people, right? I have all the songs on an iPod that still has a shuffle function. It makes sense. If you're trying to do exactly as the artist intended, then I'm in a better position than many. If you're listening to it on Bandcamp or on vinyl, then you're shit out of luck—the order has been set. It was set by Myles McCabe literally pressing shuffle on his own music and writing down the order and committing it to the website or the pressings, but it's still set. I can do shuffle, and so I can honor the wishes of the artist.

 

But you know me, and so you also know that this whole idea makes me way more uncomfortable than it would other people. My problem is that I respect the standard idea of "the album." I like that there is a static piece of music, structured in such a way, that I can listen to over and over, and become comfortable with in its actual form. I like when the artist has a vision, lays that vision down, and allows me to consume it in the same way, repeatedly. An album having structure gives my own life structure, in a way.

However, I am also a stickler for the artist's intentions, and tend to follow them to a T when possible. Dumb capitalizations, bonus tracks that are "actually" part of the album, and so on. I'll do it. That apostrophe in "the Old 97's" makes me so goddamn anxious, but I still use it because that's what the band wants. If ME REX is telling me to play Megabear on shuffle, then I'm going to do it every fucking time without exception.

So I guess it's the juxtaposition, that untenable conflict between an artist who is telling me to treat an album in a certain way and how uncomfortable that treatment makes me feel, that ultimately gives me grief about Megabear.

It's a goddamn shame I'm so neurotic about this kind of shit, because the music itself is pretty good. I'll say this: for an album that could be played on shuffle in 8.065x10^67 different permutations, it always seems to work well. Very, very rarely do I even notice that one song is ending and another song is beginning, so seamless is the switch. If we're comparing how much of a challenge this must've been to how efficiently the challenge was met, then consider Megabear an overwhelming success.

The thing is, I will never feel that "connection" with Megabear that I do with other great albums, and that is directly because of its structure. Think about how much track sequencing plays into our opinions of albums—Song A was great and lead perfectly into the banger Song B, while Song C was a beautiful breather, and so on—and then think about how you'll NEVER get that with Megabear. Think about how reading the lyrics might enhance your understanding of an album's themes, and then picture trying to jump around Genius.com throughout 52 different lyric sheets—by the time you figure out what song it is and click on the appropriate webpage, the 32-second song is already over. Think about how these reviews usually feature a couple songs embedded at the end of the blog post, and then try to figure out how to do that, when every song individually means absolutely nothing.

There's achievement in being able to throw 52 songs in a barrel, pick 'em out at random, and easily be able to pretend that this is all a cohesive artist statement. At the end of the day, though, you're still just pretending, and Megabear has made it so that you can never stop pretending, ever. 

It's absolutely wild to me that this is how ME REX has decided to officially introduce themselves. I would've been totally cool with another double EP of emo cockney anthems. And to again be clear: there are 52 shades of what ME REX does best, all over this album, and I like it a lot. But... what would the saying be, the whole suffers despite the sum of its parts, I guess?!

This is a good album because I like listening to it. I don't think ME REX has a bad album in them (and I hope they are around for decades and decades so that we can find out). But Megabear is the worst case of cutting oneself off at the knees that I have ever seen. True, ME REX stands taller than many bands even without shins or feet, but man, imagine how towering this could've been without the goddamn hacky and frustrating premise.

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

 

Never Seen It, #52 of 200: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

I made a list of 200 films and now I'm watching them in alphabetical order, and then somehow finding the will to write something—anything—about them. Puke on Your Birthday is mutually assured destruction.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

1964

I don't really have a whole lot to write about this movie, and at the risk of getting too convoluted, I think we can find something interest in that idea. The idea being that there could be a movie that I don't find much interest in writing about. I feel that way about a lot of these movies (because I'm lazy and/or a bad writer), but with Dr. Strangelove, there was a particularly strong malaise. Why?

Because it definitely wasn't a bad movie. Sure, Pam and I made it about 20 minutes into the film before we were both falling asleep on a Friday night, but I think you can blame that more on a grueling Friday and a general lack of a sleep than the quality of the movie. I watched it by myself at work a few days later, and ended up quite liking it.

One thing I can definitely say was that, had I watched this in high school, I would not have liked it, and mostly wouldn't have "gotten" it. To flesh out last entry's postscript: yes, I remember very clearly a weekend night in high school, at my dear old friend M.S.'s house in Abington, when Dr. Strangelove was queued up on the TV. It was black and white, starts incredibly slowly, and it was decided very shortly thereafter that our night would be better spent sneaking out and meeting some friends. Teenage Joe thought life was too short to waste watching '60s b/w films. 32-year-old Joe thinks differently (though, let's be real, if I still had the option of sneaking out and meeting M.S. at the Abington IHOP at one in the morning instead of watching this movie, I probably would make the same decision).

I also remember at least two specific conversations among my high school friends about Dr. Strangelove. There were some Strangelove fans in the crew I palled around with at La Salle College High School. You should know that I hung out with some smart motherfuckers. I lost track of most of them over the years, but I have no doubt that they are spread out all over the country, moving and shaking and getting shit done in their chosen fields. 

So one theory is that I'm just not as smart, and this is a "smart comedy." You might be required to be on a certain brain wavelength to truly appreciate Dr. Strangelove while you're watching it. I didn't hate this movie—again, I liked it a lot. But it was not the gut-buster that I was made to assume it was by my buddies from back in the day. Dr. Strangelove was funny, but very, very dry.

Along those same lines: maybe you need to be at least partially knowledgeable about the subject that this movie is satirizing. This reminds me that I should probably explain at this point what Dr. Strangelove is actually about. Basically, it's a black comedy about the Cold War, made during the Cold War. Basically, a nutso U.S. general spouts a bunch of proto-QAnon shit and orders the bombers to nuke Russia, while the U.S. President tries in vain to stop them and prevent humanity's total destruction. Hilarity ensues.

It's very possible that a lot of the Cold War era-specific language that Dr. Strangelove was satirizing went over my head. How much do I actually know about the Cold War? Well, let's just say that the first link on the Dr. Strangelove Wikipedia page that I clicked on was the hyperlink for "Cold War." I had to read that first. I know close to nothing now, so imagine how much I knew in high school. As it has been made abundantly clear all over this blog: as a teenager, I knew less than nothing.

So maybe I just didn't want to write about Dr. Strangelove because it would expose some pretty glaring blind spots in my world history education, I dunno. Another possibility is that I was reluctant to write about the idea of "comedy" again. Y'all know how uncomfortable that subject makes me feel. And yet, it might be unavoidable here. Dr. Strangelove is not the first comedy that I've watched for this project, but it was absolutely the only of its specific type of comedy so far. That's pretty interesting, so let's spend a paragraph talking about it—but feel free to skip if you'd rather not hear Joe's thoughts about "comedy" ever again.

Compare Dr. Strangelove to something like Airplane!, or Ace Ventura, or Coneheads. Airplane! mined humor from layering ridiculous punchlines on top of a very serious story (a plane crash disaster), and layering them so thickly that the comedy completely overshadows the ostensible plot. Ace Ventura had a serious story too—I forget, honestly, and I don't have the desire to revisit this movie again, but trust me, it was serious, it had to do with crime or something—but inserted this absurd character into the proceedings. Coneheads actually went the opposite way than Ace—here are absurd characters living in the normal world, but unlike with Ace Ventura, the supporting characters are just going to accept these absurdities and pretend that they are normal. Not that I particularly thought all of these movies were funny—Airplane! was pretty funny, Ace Ventura and Coneheads are mostly trash—but you can see how they are all different styles of comedy.

Dr. Strangelove does something completely different, and presents most of its plot and characters as completely serious. There are some punchlines for sure ("Gentlemen, no fighting! This is a war room!"), but generally, the various characters are acting like real-life Army generals and politicians and pilots would typically act. It is up to the audience to find the absurdity in the realness. When General Buck Turgidson is arguing with the President that they should allow "only" two to three million Americans die in this conflict, it's presented as serious, and I have no doubt that a real Army General has at one point made that argument... and then you step back and you just have to laugh. Is this dude fucking serious?! It's too absurd not to laugh, ya know?

The fact that this film is an adaptation of a book is pretty fascinating too, seeing as how the book—Red Alert—is a very serious thriller about Cold War Theory. To me, that says that the line between comedy and drama is razor-thin, and Dr. Strangelove's ability to play jump rope with that line is pretty admirable. But that requires the audience to be aware of the line at least.

Like, consider Major Kong, the pilot of the bomber that eventually drops the nuke. Pretty ridiculous character, right? He has the propensity to wear a cowboy hat while giving serious motivational speeches to his crew in a thick cowboy accent. The trick to this being funny is that not a single character—not Kong, not his crew, not the generals on the ground trying to call off his mission—find this at all funny. They don't know it's funny, in other words. And it's that juxtaposition, that fact that everyone except the audience is taking this very seriously, that creates the humor. (It actually reminded me of It's Always Sunny in a few ways, and not just the jaunty classical music that played over the credits—the best part about that show is that these are unequivocally moronic people, but they will NEVER be aware of the fact that they are morons.)

It may not seem particularly revolutionary, this type of humor (especially when it's me writing about it), but I get the sense that Dr. Strangelove truly was revolutionary at the time. From what I hear, the Cold War was scary—recall all the fears that caused, say, children to practice hiding under their classroom desks—and here was a movie, right in the thick of all of it, taking the piss out of it completely and totally.

On the one hand, I feel like I would've felt the magnitude of this film's particular humor if I knew a little more about what it was satirizing. On the other hand: how could I ever possibly attempt to take the subject of the Cold War seriously ever again? Because so thoroughly does Dr. Strangelove dismantle the entire idea of it.

So yes, I am impressed, and yes, I did laugh (or at least chuckle), and yes, I appreciate the existence of this film. But I guess I didn't get anything out of this movie that everyone else hasn't already gotten out of it. I am thankful that it finally clicked for me, having known that it never would've clicked for me in 2007, had I committed to watching it then. I also feel like, because of the fact that it took so long to click for me, I have nothing unique to add.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just have a couple of other points that I couldn't fit into the short essay above, but I felt like I needed to include in some way, so here we are.

This is another Stanley Kubrick film! This is both essential and nonessential to know. Essential: Kubrick is one of the most important directors in modern cinematic history. Nonessential: Kubrick's films—or at least the ones I am familiar with so far—are so far-ranging and unique that it might not even be worth discussing any particular one in the context of his filmography. Like, is there anything to mine from a comparison between Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange? Besides a discussion about which you like better (for me: Dr. Strangelove) and an appreciation that Kubrick executes his vision with aplomb no matter which universe he is working in, I don't really think there is. Like, I very rarely hear the term "Kubrickian," because, like what could you possibly lump under that umbrella that applies to more than one of his films?

But we'll see about that—Eyes Wide Shut and Full Metal Jacket are just around the corner (and, much later, we'll get to Spartacus and 2001). For now, let's spend just a few words talking about Kubrick's 1957 film Paths of Glory. I feel like, thematically at least, there is at least one thought to be wrung out of its comparison to Dr. Strangelove. I felt a similarity in the way Paths of Glory, to use the phrase again, "takes the piss out of" its subject matter. How can you watch Paths of Glory and still support the war effort? Similarly, how can you watch Dr. Strangelove and still feel like the Cold War was an effort worth making? But Paths of Glory is supremely serious, while Dr. Strangelove is ultimately silly. And I just want to take a moment to appreciate how both films pretty much achieved the same goal through wildly different means.

Moving on. I mentioned Major T.J. "King" Kong already, played by the (wonderfully named) actor Slim Pickens, but here's an interesting tidbit. You know how I said that the humor is derived from the characters not knowing that they are in a comedy? Apparently, Slim Pickens also was not made aware that he was acting in a comedy. Kubrick allegedly told him that this was a serious Cold War drama film. This is kind of genius, actually. Major Kong was funny because he had no fucking clue how funny he was. Any self-awareness that might've peaked through Pickens' performance would've ruined the whole bit.

Pickens is sixth-billed. Top-billed, and rightly so, is Peter Sellers, the only actor to get an Oscar nom for this film. In what is a testament to how skilled of an actor Sellers was or to how much of an ignoramus I am, I had no idea Peter Sellers was playing three roles in this film until after it was over. He played the President, the British exchange officer, and the titular Dr. Strangelove. And I had no fucking clue! I suppose it was easier for this fact to slip by me due to the fact that I am not familiar with Peter Sellers at all (though we will see him again in The Pink Panther, which I'm told is his most famous role). I guess it would be like, I dunno, Jack Black playing three different roles in a 2021 comedy film. I would recognize his mannerisms, regardless of makeup and costuming. Even still... man, I am dumb.

There were plenty of other good performances—George C. Scott almost stole the show just by chewing gum as Buck Turgidson; Keenan Wynn nailed the best punchline of the film; Tracy Reed was very attractive; James Earl Jones' involvement will be very helpful in future games of Six Degrees—but I've probably written enough for one day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: This will be the third time I explain this (and I have no idea if I'm finally gonna get into it in the essay proper next time), but the only reason Dr. Zhivago, Brief Encounter, and The Bridge on the River Kwai are on this list is because of a poorly-aged viral YouTube video I was obsessed with back in 2007. As it turns out, all three are directed by the same guy—David Lean. And as it turns out, the latter two movies were two of the very best films I've seen in this project so far, with Brief Encounter most likely one of my favorite movies ever at this point. So when I say that I'm watching Dr. Zhivago because of a stupid-ass YouTube video from the mid-aughts, I don't mean to undercut the impossibly high expectations I now have for it. Will David Lean ever let me down? Let's find out next time.

(P.S.—oh my god, I just rewatched the video for the first time in a while. The full quote is "She said 'Whatchyu bring?' Dr. Zhivago, Brief Encounter, and The Bridge on the River Kwai. A LEAN NIGHT!" And for the past fourteen years, I've always read that as "lean" as in the opposite of full, i.e. the humor being that these movies were long and artsy and would not, by any means, make for a "lean" night when watched all together. But no... he's referring to the goddamn director. David Lean. Jesus christ I'm an idiot.)

Album of the Week: Lost and Gone Forever

We're back to the '90s this week, which got me thinking about the distribution of albums that we've covered here into the decades they were released. What decade have we visited the most frequently? And least? I'm bored at work today, so give me a few minutes to go through the previous 125 RC albums and count 'em up.

1960s: 1

1970s: 5

1980s: 5

1990s: 7

2000s: 12

2010s: 62

2020s: 33

The skew surprised me, even though it makes sense, since Record Club has existed from 2019 to 2021 so far, and reviewing new music feels more natural. Maybe it's just because we've actually been skewing a little older more recently? I'm mainly shocked that we've only covered one album from the 1960s so far (shout out to Mongo!).

Anyways, I don't know if this exercise could or even should inform your perception of this week's album from 1999. It was just something I was interested in. If you are not as obsessed with Record Club's history as I am and would rather get to the task at hand, scroll on. (You can also check out the archives or the playlist if you aren't as obsessed with RC's history but want to be.)

WEEK 125 — June 20-26, 2021

What we're listening to this week (Melissa's pick):

ALBUM: Lost and Gone Forever

ARTIST: Guster

RELEASED: September 28, 1999

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: Rock (and its various subgenres)

WHY MELISSA PICKED IT: "They're a '90s band that didn't really make it big, but have a dedicated group of cultish fans. Musically, they're doing fun stuff, but they're also somehow considered 'rock.' Did I mention they have a bongo player? Bongos. The end. Haha. This was a tough choice because it feels so close to me, BUT I think the people need to listen."

TRACKLIST:

1. What You Wish For
2. Barrel of a Gun
3. Either Way
4. Fa Fa
5. I Spy
6. Center of Attention
7. All the Way Up to Heaven
8. Happier
9. So Long
10. Two Points for Honesty
11. Rainy Day

LENGTH: 43:57

WHERE TO LISTEN FOR FREE: Bandcamp

READING SOME SHIT: Bongos, you say? Here is a 2011 interview with that bongoist (bongoer? bonger? bongoir?).

 

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: I knew if I googled it, I could find a link between the two bands, and sure enough—in 2020, right before the pandemic, there was an onstage-only supergroup consisting of members of Guster and O.A.R. Check it out HERE. Also, the producer of this album, Steve Lillywhite, has produced for the Rolling Stones and the Killers as well (but not the albums from those bands that we covered in RC).

Happy listening, fam! Have a great week!

A Year of Blind Spots: Sundown

If this column basically amounts to me telling a story, then there are three different stories I could tell, as I see it. The first is the "how I came to find this music for myself," which is usually mundane because who gives a shit? (In case you do: it was a mix of reading about the title track two years ago and drinking a beer related to the artist one year ago.) The second is the story about what this music sounds like, which I am bad at, and which can probably just be answered with the embedded YouTube videos below anyway.

The third is the story of the artist themselves. It's the type of story I increasingly feel unqualified to tell (especially if they were ostensibly a "blind spot" until like three days before I sit down to write about them), but for Sundown, a tiny sliver of Lightfoot's story piqued my interest enough that this is the how we are going to spend the next couple hundred words or so on this blog. The artist's story.

But really, it's more of a story about Cathy Smith. Ms. Smith is the subject of the title track (which is Gordon Lightfoot's only #1 song of his career). Had I chosen Story #2, I would be telling you that Lightfoot is very much in the mold of the classic '70s folk singers, like John Denver and what have you. I would also tell you that, if you really sit down and listen to Gordon Lightfoot, you'll notice that the subject matter is harder, darker, more serious than the John Denver types.

Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing (e.g. something like "Circle of Steel" is kind of icky, the more I think about it), but it's certainly an interesting thing. "Sundown" seems almost cruel to me, in a way. Lightfoot gives himself totally to the jealousy that consumes him. This was based on his experiences with his real-life partner at the time.

 

Cathy Smith was famous groupie and drug dealer in the '60s and '70s. She had Levon Helm's baby, though Helm never acknowledged paternity (which is fucked up). Most infamously, she served prison time after taking the blame for injecting John Belushi with a fatal dose of speedball in 1982. And for a few years in the '70s, she was Lightfoot's girlfriend. In "Sundown," Lightfoot claims that Smith made him feel like a "loser." There are also accounts that Lightfoot was physically abusive toward Smith, so maybe he should feel like a loser.

All that to say that the story of this folk album, which on the surface is pretty light and airy, is actually dark and uncomfortable the deeper you dive. That interests me. Like, Cathy Smith is credited for backing vocals on "High and Dry." That's crazy to me! That's some Fleetwood Mac shit, making your girlfriend sing backup on an album that speaks to your toxic relationship. That's some fucked up 1970s shit that I can't get enough of. 

It's possible that I need that shit, too, especially for an album like this. If I was a few steps fewer removed from Gordon Lightfoot, then maybe I'd find it too uncomfortable to really enjoy. But I'm just far enough way to appreciate the edge that it brings to an otherwise lightweight folk pop album. It's at least interesting. As dark as it is, at least it's a hook. Can't say that about every album.