Never Seen It, #98 of 200: Loser

I'm just a teenager filmwatcher, baby, watching 200 movies I've never seen before, like you, ooooooo oooooooo.

Loser

2000

Amy Heckerling

We are here because of Weatus' 2000 song "Teenage Dirtbag." It's one of my favorite songs of all time, no question, and I have seen the video for it one thousand times (mostly on The Box during that summer between fifth and sixth grade).

I knew next to nothing about Loser, the 2000 teen romantic comedy (released in theaters 32 days after "Teenage Dirtbag" first hit the airwaves), before watching it as a post-Oscar-films comedown the other night. I don't think I was being obtuse when I assumed that the video for "Teenage Dirtbag" told the story of Loser. It features the same actors (Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari), and Biggs is clearly the "loser" in question in the video.

Yet it does not. The only actual clips from the film are the short clips that bookend the video, of Biggs' character sleeping on a stairwell. Loser takes place in college, not high school. Biggs' character, Paul, is still a "loser," but I guess it's more nuanced than a high-school-bullying situation. Suvari's character, Dora, isn't "popular" either, though she is aesthetically cool, and is sleeping with a college professor, who is a jerkoff but far removed from the "jock" archetype. 

I was definitely caught off guard that the film was so different than the video that I felt so much nostalgia for. I don't even want to say I was disappointed, because I just made a false assumption about all this, so that's on me. I'm just more baffled than anything, because Loser ended up being pretty bad anyway. It managed to sidestep the "loser in high school" clichés while also being so much worse.

Let me try to explain why I was frustrated with Loser as best I can, and then we can go back to talking about "Teenage Dirtbag." The problem with Loser is that it is populated with characters who are exclusively irredeemable assholes.

I don't say this as some sort of moral judgment, which would be stupid, because we're talking about an early '00s teen comedy (though I'm a terrible film critic so I felt that I needed to clarify the point just in case). The problem isn't the fact that the supporting characters are terrible people; the problem is that our heroes seem to believe that this behavior is acceptable, to a ludicrously delusional degree. It makes it hard to root for Paul and Dora. We know that they are going to end up together, so you end up just waiting for the obstacles—the assholes—to move out of the way. And that wait is agonizing.

Greg Kinnear plays the professor that Dora is sleeping with, and his assholery is pumped up to excruciating degrees, to the point that you would have to get a behavioral health exam if you were able to ignore all the misogyny and abuse that he brings to his relationship, and yet there's Dora, supposedly very smart and put-together, taking it all without question. Jimmi Simpson McPoyle and a dude from Wet Hot American Summer and some other guy play Paul's quadmates, and they are incredibly abusive toward Paul, taking advantage of him at every turn, and eventually slipping Dora a roofie(!!) so that she has to go to the hospital (the only thing that saves Dora from being date raped, surely, is the PG-13 rating). And yet there's Paul, taking the abuse and more, and treating the date rape thing like a run-of-the-mill college experience (Dora more or less shrugs it off as well).

I was asked why I might like American Pie and yet I don't like Loser. Based on the genre and the specific actors involved, I guess the comparison isn't completely out of line, but if there is one big difference, it's this. Yes, assholes populate the world of American Pie, but at least their assholery is acknowledged, in-world. I could definitely picture a scenario in which Stifler takes advantage of a girl or destroys a roommate's belongings or whatever, but the characters in the movie would point out how much of an asshole he is. It's realistic that there are assholes in a film, because there are assholes in real life. What's unrealistic in Loser is that no one seems to acknowledge how big of an asshole any of these characters are.

The conclusion, then, is that Loser is just a poorly constructed movie. There is no reason for Paul or Dora to react to the world around them in the manner that they do except that it keeps the plot moving for the requisite 90 minutes. I think there's a better movie in here, and director Amy Heckerling did nothing to bring that movie out. She had just come off of Clueless when creating Loser! What the heck happened that she took such a gigantic step backward?

And this isn't even addressing any of the logistical issues in Loser. Like, in what world does a university remove a student from his dorm room due to baseless claims of hygiene and then stick that student in a closet in the kennels in the school's veterinarian program, to live there? How does this make any sense whatsoever? Again, it's for the plot—Paul and Dora bond over taking care of the dogs and cats, I guess—but it literally makes no sense. I'm less worried about this kind of stuff (like, "Jason Biggs has to live in a dog kennel" is a good pitch, regardless), but it's still worth mentioning. Give me crazy, but make the crazy make sense on some fucking level, ya know? Give me a catastrophically bad Jason Biggs wig for 90% of the movie, but make the inevitable haircut mean something, okay?!

Sadly, we can't even make sense of the "Teenage Dirtbag" video, the more I think about it. My first thought was "Paul is kicked out of his dorms, is sleeping on the stairs, and dreams of his life back in high school." But according to the movie, Paul wasn't a "loser" in high school at all. I know his dad (Dan Aykroyd) said that he was the "funniest kid at school," and I'm sure most of that statement is him with his dad blinders on, but he wouldn't say that if Paul was unpopular. No, the general sense I got was that he lived in a small, intimate town, and knew everyone at his school, which didn't have a big enough population to make room for factions of "popular kids" and "unpopular kids" in the first place. His reaction (or lack thereof) to the treatment his receives at the hands of his college peers tells me that this idea of being a "loser" is completely new to him.

So you can't even say that Loser is redeemed by the presence of "Teenage Dirtbag," since they seem to be completely separate entities, and only share actors and those actors' costumes. No, not even its soundtrack's use of one of the most iconic anthems from my childhood (and consummate karaoke song of my adulthood) can save this fucking bomb of a film. If there is anything I will take away from this film, it is the soundtrack. Ah, but the soundtrack was never even officially released! God, Loser, you can't do anything right!!

 

GRADE: 2 pukes out of 5

 

NEXT TIME: Alright, we're gonna watch The Godfather Part III, I promise. I just couldn't bring myself to watch another 150-minute prestige drama after consuming so many of them pre-Oscars. Will Smith has slapped me out of my stupor, and we're back on track, alphabetically.

Following Up With Record Club Alumni: Part 4

I've decided that these mini-reviews should be explicitly framed as follow-ups to reviews that were written during each artist's Record Club spotlight. The reviews here should answer the simple question of: "How does this album stack up against the album that RC reviewed originally?" This means that none of this will mean anything if you weren't keyed into Record Club when we originally covered these artists. To that I say: get thee to the archives!!

I'm trying to finish up most of the RC alumni output from 2020 and 2021 today, since, as you saw this past Sunday, the list of RC follow-ups is growing exponentially larger by the month. Hopefully I can do another one of these next week!

Such Pretty Forks in the Road by Alanis Morissette

Released: July 21, 2020

Follow-up to: Jagged Little Pill, Week 50

I think the big takeaway from our week with Jagged Little Pill was how cool Alanis sounded, even all these years removed from the '90s. Her voice is preserved in amber. Obviously, an album from 2020 is not going to have the same power, and I didn't expect it to. However, I also didn't expect it to sound this... exhausted? Not so much the voice itself, which aesthetically sounds the same. I'm more talking about how she employs it. There are a lot of slow, sad ballads on this thing. I'd be willing to grant such a legend a certain amount of leeway, but she goes overboard. Seen in the right light, maybe the songs could seem powerful. In the context of her being decades past her prime, most of it just comes off as weepily nostalgic. Maybe that was the point. If so, call it a success. I'm over hear falling asleep through the back half, though, so I can't in good faith say we have a late-career resurgence on our hands. Pick out a few good songs for your playlist and call it a day.

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5 (-2.0 from previous review)

My Mamma by La Rappresentante di Lista

Released: March 5, 2021

Follow-up to: Go Go Diva, Week 79

When we first came across this festival-ready but often mysterious Italian pop act, all I could hear was Florence + the Machine. As ambivalent as I am toward Florence (and as inscrutable as La Rapp were, with the foreign language lyrics), I was sold with this RC selection. Credit where it's due to La Rappresentante di Lista for trying some new things on this most recent album, even though there is probably less than a 50% success rate. You have something like "Sarà," which takes the sound away from the festival stage and deep into the club (it's an okay transition I guess). You have something like "Fragile," which tries to be this dembow-type thing with a male vocalist (boo!!), and is terrible (boo!!!). Then you have "Amare," which tries to recapture what made Go Go Diva so special, and gets there by going even farther into the confetti-strewn molly-dropping festival-algorithm sound. I mean, if Go Go Diva did one thing really well, then My Mamma is the band failing at one thousand things. I greatly admire such an attempt, even though I'll never actually like it all that much. This was an INCREDIBLE album to listen to once and then never think about again.

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5 (-1.0 from previous review)

Sensational by Erika de Casier

Released: May 21, 2021

Follow-up to: Essentials, Week 37

Stereogum's The Number Ones column is currently moving through the early-to-mid-'90s, and so I'm getting my healthy dose of TLC, with Destiny's Child right around the corner. So in this way, I should be primed to return to the sounds of Erika de Casier. And yes, I am more mature than I was back in Week 37 of Record Club, and my outlook has changed so that I can appreciate the fact that de Casier took what was originally an immense, world-conquering sound, and pulled it all into her bedroom. Imagine T-Boz singing the old hits at your local coffee shop. That's Sensational. I admire it, and I think that a few of the songs connected with me on some subconscious level, but the fact still remains that this isn't really my style. I no longer think of it as "spa music" (i.e. this is actually closer to PinkPantheress than the last album), but that's about the highest praise I can afford at this current juncture.

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5 (+0.5 from previous review)

Intra-I by Theon Cross

Released: October 29, 2021

Follow-up to: Fyah, Week 28

Alright, I'm not gonna lie, I was excited for this one. The biggest problem with Fyah was that a tuba can simply not handle the weight of carrying an entire album. On Intra-I, however, it doesn't have to. There are vocals! As it turns out, the tuba can work wonders in a supporting role. Just feel that motherfucking rumble as Remi Graves gives a poetic intro. The tuba can lend a real power to these proceedings when it knows its place. In the spotlight, it just looks silly. The spotlight on Intra-I turns instead toward the guests, and they all shine. Shumba Maasai has real swagger on "Roots" while rapping over the tuba. Afronaut Zu and Ahnansé invite the tuba to a night out in the club. And then even something like "We Go Again" succeeds without vocals, because the trumpet and the synths(!) take turns, while the tuba is just the hypeman, as it should be. Look, I don't want to say that Fyah sucked because of its central conceit; it was instead a good album, crucially, despite its central conceit. And I'm here to say that, on Intra-I, Theon Cross has heard our pleas and has fixed everything. What a humbling experience that must have been. I, for one, appreciate it, and admire him for making that decision.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5 (+1.0 from previous review)

Thoughts About the Oscars

Submitted by Frank

Frank's Top Ten Thoughts About the Oscars That Don't Have to Do with The Thing:

1. The hosts did a really good job, I thought. I think it's always a tough tight rope to make jokes about how no one saw any of these movies in front of the people who really put a lot of work into these movies, and for the most part pulled it off, and pushed through the ones that whiffed.
2. THAT BEING SAID to cut some of the awards to pre-filmed edited moments so that you can do WAY too long bits about Regina Hall patting down Josh Brolin for five minutes or Wanda Sykes visiting the Academy for ten minutes or Amy Schumer being Spiderman is a bad look.
3. Jane Campion saying "Thank you Kevin Costner, that was very dramatic" after Kevin Costner was allowed to slowly speak for 30 minutes as a PRESENTER made me laugh out loud.
4. After that, Anthony Hopkins came out and spoke for another 30 minutes. If the Academy wants the telecast to not go over, leave the awards in the live broadcast, and make presenters be brisk and unwitty and sober and fast and not 84. Or if a presenter is 84, you can't have Kevin Costner, who was born in California and talks with a fake western drawl now because I guess Yellowstone, talk for 30 minutes about being a director when he has directed three movies one of which is The Postman.
5. This is KIND OF about The Thing, but Questlove really handled himself with class I felt. He is a huge film buff; this was an excellent and lovely passion project of his, so one of the biggest moments of his professional life happens and it is unfortunately overshadowed and swallowed up by another moment, and he trucks through. Check out Summer of Soul if you haven't.
6. I love The Godfather, but trekking FFC and Pacino and De Niro out on stage to have FFC not let the other two speak was so bizarre. Could you have them sitting in the audience and just have a moment where the crowd gives an ovation for the movie and they stand up and politely wave and then sit back down?
7. This is such a bad nerdy take that made my wife's eyes roll into the back of her head but De Niro wasn't in The Godfather, he was in Godfather Part II. Is it the 50th anniversary of Godfather II? No I don't think it is. When they have Joan Cusack come out to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Toy Story I am going to be just as annoyed. Jesse is great but not in Toy Story 1!!!
8. Chris Evans congratulating someone on their win and then plugging his cursed gritty realistic Buzz Lightyear was Orwellian in how little pretense there is that this is not an art show. Art is subjective and not a contest. This is a big cynical commercial, and it shattered the illusion yet again for me. It's not even an effective commercial. How many more people are going to see CODA now that it won Best Picture? Hollywood doesn't actually care about these movies, they want them as the gateway to push their hollowed out xerox'd IP money makers that they don't even invite to the awards party.
9. In Memoriam is always going to have snubs, that's the nature of the beast, and I'm sure they try their best. I like the idea of trying to make the moment upbeat with the choir, though I think "Spirit in the Sky" 99 out of 100 times is unintentionally corny as hell, and this time didn't prove me wrong. Also, Jamie Lee Curtis looked very uncomfortable holding that dog.
10. Probably the hottest take but "We Don't Talk about Bruno" stunk. I am a parent of a toddler which makes me an expert on not talking about Bruno and so as an expert I can say it stunk. Megan Thee Stallion Remix stunk. It not being nominated for Best Song and then done as a big production that felt held together with duct tape is the ultimate sign of how much of a sham this whole night really is. That and of course if something crazy happened and then the night just went forward with everyone pretending everything was fine because they are all a group of sociopaths who have been trained to hide behind masks and that the show must go on.

Designated Hitter

Prepare yourself for some virtue signalling today. Sometimes it's good to signal your virtues, though. Sometimes those virtues are important, especially in the context in which you feel compelled to signal them. For instance, if without that signalling you fear you might be lumped in with the people who do not have those same virtues. In that case, you need to signal away. It's called taking a stand. However minuscule or unimportant that stand is, sometimes you need to make it. Sometimes you need to continuously make that stand, as many times as you need to.

Yes, unfortunately, this heavy-handed opening paragraph is referring to the Phillies. If you're a long-time PoYB reader, and don't immediately skip through the posts that are about sports, then you'll know what—or who—I am referring to. I've written about it before. Odubel Herrera. You already know how I feel about the guy. I don't like him because he is a domestic abuser, and I have been forced to grapple with the fact that someone I don't like on a personal level is wearing the pinstripes of the baseball team that I love on a non-personal level.

Throughout the 2021 season, I grappled with this conflict by not cheering for Odubel Herrera at any point, and, depending on how drunk I was at Citizens Bank Park, by actively booing him when he stepped to the plate. But I still watched the Phillies, which seems hypocritical. Maybe it was. In my mind, though, I justified it to myself by saying that the dude was under contract, a contract he signed before he beat his girlfriend bloody, and so the Phillies' hands were tied, in a sense. This is what I told myself. It was a shitty situation, but it wasn't the Phillies' fault.

The reason I am writing this blog post today is because, well, I can obviously no longer use that internal justification. A couple weeks ago, the Phillies actively sought Herrera's services by signing him to a brand new contract. No longer were their hands tied. This domestic abuser was a free agent, and my hometown organization deemed him worthy of a million dollars and a spot in center field anyway. 

I will not be watching the Phillies for as long as this man remains on the major league roster.

This is where the virtue signalling comes in, because it's important in this particular context. It's not important that you know that I am unequivocally against domestic violence, and believe that the only way that an abuser can come back from that is to make amends with the victim's input in that process. You know that about me already. But I need to signal it to you anyway in this particular context, because my love of baseball muddles this shit.

 

It does for a lot of people. Scroll through Phillies Reddit to see endless justifications like "well we needed a center fielder" and "you never know, he might be a good fit" and "what's to lose?" and so on. I don't think it's particularly revelatory to say that some people take sports very seriously, that for some people sports is the most important thing in the world. Maybe my fervent Phillies fandom through the past thirteen years or so has convinced you that I am one of those people, that I could somehow separate on-field play from off-field crimes as long as it meant that on-field component was good enough. Here's the signal, shone into the sky above CBP for all to see: fuck all that, and fuck the Phillies for harboring this asshole.

I have said out loud to many people this past off-season that I would not watch the Phillies or participate in Phillies fandom at all this year if Odubel is still playing for them, and every time I said it I was met with skepticism, not only at the idea that I could possibly spend an entire summer eschewing the Phillies, but also at the idea that the Phillies would sign this awful person again at all. Look, I was just as shocked as you were. There was no reason to sign this fucker. Literally none! If he was a triple crown winner, we'd still be having this conversation, but I'd have to make my argument more airtight. He's not even that, though! He's a criminal off the field and average at best on the field! Moot point as soon as he hits his girlfriend, yes, but I'm just working through the logic of the Phillies out loud here. Why? Why?!

But fuck it. Seriously. I am a man of my word, and I have long ago committed to the fact that I would not watch the Phillies if Odubel Herrera was on their major league roster. He is, currently, and so I am out.

As with all hard moral stances I take in this life, I am acknowledging the fact that my stance ultimately means nothing to anyone, and usually makes close to zero impact on anything in real life. My consumption of Phillies games typically involved listening to free radio broadcasts and occasionally stealing a TV stream on unsavory internet websites. One person forgoing his usual involvement in this ritual is going to do jackshit to the organization's bottom line and to America's generally weak response to the social ill of domestic violence.

So that's where maybe someone could accuse me of virtue signalling in a negative sense, that I feel the need to prove to you that I am a "good person" by not watching the Phillies (and by subsequently writing about it on Puke on Your Birthday). I know that I'm not a good person, and that absolutely none of my planned response to this shit is going be of any significance to anyone.

 

I also even know that, yeah, if my friends were going to be attending the Phillies game this season, that I, for all my hemming and hawing, would most likely join them. Sure, I could say that I won't buy any alcohol at the stadium, and I'll match every dollar I spend toward a domestic violence shelter, and being a man of my word, I really do promise to do all those things if it comes to that. But don't you see how weak my argument becomes!? What good is not watching the Phillies going to do?

The only good is that it will put me in a more peaceful state of mind. I cannot support an organization that supports domestic abusers. So I won't.

There's at least two more sad layers to this whole debacle. The first is that Odubel Herrera is currently (as of this writing on 3/25/22) on the injury list, and is not scheduled to be in the Opening Day lineup. It's not sad that this dude is injured—obviously no sympathy will be spared for him—but it's sad that this is a possible harbinger of Herrera's impact, or lack thereof, for the 2022 Phillies, and that's sad because that would mean the Phillies pissed away good will and drove away a non-zero number of fans for NOTHING. If Herrera does well, that means that the Phillies value baseball worth over human worth, but if he doesn't do well, then that means the Phillies are just giving money and attention and stability to a unrepentant domestic abuser. I don't know which is worse.

The other layer is that Odubel Herrera isn't even the only certified domestic abuser that the Phillies signed this off-season! I guess that makes sense logically—if the Phillies don't give a fuck about domestic violence, then they really don't give a fuck about domestic violence—but from a moral standpoint, it's just fucking baffling. The other guy is a bullpen piece, Jeurys Familia. Being that he is brand new to the Phillies (and not being the type of person who is going to set up domestic violence google notifications or something, because how eye-opening and depressing would that be for a sports fan), I am way less familiar with the specifics of his case.

I'm looking it up now, and it sounds like the same sort of deal as Herrera—in 2016, police arrested him because they had reason to suspect that he has assaulted his wife, who was found to have a bruise on her face and a scratch on her chest. According to MLB investigators, his wife—Bianca Rivas, who has a name, despite what any story on the incident will have you believe—"fully cooperated" with the investigation, and the charges were eventually dropped. Familia served a fifteen-day suspension.

I don't say all this to make the case that Familia is off the hook. Just the opposite. We all know how this works, because we saw it with Herrera, and we see it with every goddamn domestic violence perpetrator in this country. The victim is silenced, the abuser is "sorry" for something that "didn't happen anyway," the victim is forced to choose between going through a messy court proceeding or just shutting up and attempting to live with the violence that was inflicted upon them. Note that in neither case were the abused significant others given voices in this process. The institution of Baseball—as the institution of America—spoke for them, unjustly.

Look, I have no idea how I would have reacted to the Familia signing if the Herrera signing never happened. It's almost not even worth considering. It's moot. There is a non-zero number of domestic abusers on the Phillies roster, and so, fuck the Phillies. But if we're talking about the worth of my own convictions, then sure, considering the possibility that I would not have acted so strongly if it was "just" Familia on the team definitely weakens my stance. I just feel so personally burned about the Herrera thing—being the former "president" of his "fan club" and all that—that it overshadows anything else.

One final thing I'll say is that I still love baseball. I love watching baseball. And even if I'm giving up the Phillies specifically, I don't think I'm in a position where I have to give up baseball altogether. I have a plan for that, but let's save it for next week. In the meantime, let it suffice to say the following: Fuck the Philadelphia Phillies, and please join me in not watching them this year.

Album of the Week: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Record Club Alumni Release Calendar — Spring and Early Summer, 2022

March 25th — New Preoccupations by Caracara

April 1st — THE UNRAVELING OF PUP THE BAND by PUP

April 8th — El Mirador by Calexico

April 15th — (watch my moves) by Kurt Vile

April 22nd — Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.

May 20th — Harry's House by Harry Styles

June 17th — Life Is Yours by Foals; Ugly Season by Perfume Genius

June 24th — MUNA by MUNA

Keep up with the rest of the Record Club alumni via the archives, and then check out this week's new RC artist (and the album of theirs that we'll be listening to) below. Thanks for joining us this week, friends.

WEEK 165 — March 27-April 2, 2022

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

ALBUM: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

ARTIST: Arctic Monkeys

RELEASED: January 23, 2006

LOCATION: Sheffield, England

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: indie / garage / punk

WHY KAI PICKED IT: "I went to university in Sheffield (Arctic Monkeys' hometown), so I lived there for three years, and they sing about the area. It's an all around nostalgic trip for me."

TRACKLIST:

1. The View from the Afternoon
2. I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
3. Fake Tales of San Francisco
4. Dancing Shoes
5. You Probably Couldn't See for the Lights but You Were Staring Straight at Me
6. Still Take You Home
7. Riot Van
8. Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured
9. Mardy Bum
10. Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But...
11. When the Sun Goes Down
12. From the Ritz to the Rubble
13. A Certain Romance

LENGTH: 40:56

WHERE TO LISTEN FOR FREE: YouTube

READING SOME SHIT: Last year, this album celebrated its fifteenth anniversary (which means it is sixteen years old now, and so it is as old as you were when you first listened to the album, probably).

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not is now officially the Record Club album with the longest title (tough luck, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost — Part 1 and Part 2).

This album also won the U.K.'s prestigious Mercury Prize, which is the annual award for the country's best album. Four RC alumni were nominated for non-RC albums: Erasure (1991's Chorus), Gorillaz (their 2001 self-titled), Adele (twice, for 19 and 21), and Foals (twice, for Total Life Forever and Holy Fire). Three RC albums have been nominated for a Mercury Prize—Foals' Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Fontaines D.C.'s Dogrel, and Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia. Most importantly, Record Club album KIWANUKA actually won the award in 2020 for Michael Kiwanuka (on his third nomination for the prize).

Happy listening, fam! Have a great week!

The Record Club Final Say: Joe on Where Were You When It Happened?

As noted a week and a half ago, I'm going to start sending "exit surveys" to album pickers on Friday afternoons. It's annoying and totally unnecessary, but I like the idea of allowing the person who gave us the music for the week to have the final say. I'm looking for that sense of closure.

This is all optional for that person, however, so I have no idea how often something will be posted in this spot on 6:59 AM on Sunday. I actually got something back from Sara a couple weeks ago, but that was a rough draft of the exit survey and I hadn't even thought of the idea of publishing those thoughts yet, so I figured it would be unethical to publish it without prior consent. Last week, Pam acknowledged the exit survey, but understandably chose not to participate on her birthday weekend.

In the future, if you choose an album, you'll be getting that survey. Do whatever you want with it. Answer the questions literally, or use the questions to formulate a quick paragraph, or write something totally different, I don't care. I just want you, the album picker, to have the final say.

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

Not too bad of a week here at Record Club. It's always surprising when my review is the most positive (whether I purposefully am writing a positive review due to external factors or not). I hate the idea that it might look like I picked this album "for me." I'd rather pick an album that, out of everyone, I like the least. But it's tough to determine what the response is going to be without listening to the music before Sunday, which I refuse to do, so what can ya do.

It also sounded to my ears like a "dudes album," and as six out of the seven reviews this week were written by dudes, that also surprised me a little bit that the opinions ranged from "pretty decent I guess" to "not my thing." Ultimately, I think we need more female opinions. Unlikely Pammy, I don't care if people hated the album, that's not the point. The point is that we have a wide variety of opinions. We got partially there this week. Having seven reviews helped, which is definitely more than average. Thanks everybody.

Two more things. One, keep your goddamn Greta Van Fleet opinions out of this. I am very sensitive about this matter!

Finally, I want to acknowledge something that I neglected in picking this album, something that only Sunny mentioned in his review: there is a question as to whether we should be listening to a band from Israel at all. I know next to nothing about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, but my rudimentary understanding is that Israel has recently (or historically?) committed some pretty heinous atrocities against the Palestinians, and there exists some opinions that all Israeli products should be boycotted in response to this. Should that boycott extend to listening to a punk rock band from the late '00s who made most of their money touring in the U.S.? Maybe! There is value in acknowledging that you don't know enough about a subject to have an opinion on that subject, so that's where I personally stand on the matter, but I'm open to being educated on the subject (thanks to Sunny for answering my email with these questions). And if you refused to listen to Monotonix for this reason, I want to hear from you too!

Thanks again, everybody. See you next week for some Arctic Monkeys.

A Year of Blind Spots: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

There is so much to say about Public Enemy's magnum opus—and only about 25% of it I'd be personally qualified to speak on, due to my being brand new to a lot of this—but the most important thing I can say is that this shit is fucking awesome. I first became aware of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back's existence on that Rolling Stone list from so many years ago (the best best rap album of all time, according to that list), but I waited. I waited until I was ready. Fifteen years later, I finally am. 

I am ready because I am mature enough to acknowledge the poignancy of the subject matter in the lyrics, and how the themes expressed by Chuck D et al. have not changed even after all this time. Do the Right Thing made the same point, and the movie primed me for Public Enemy in more ways than one.

I am ready because enough time has passed that Flavor Flav has receded from the national spotlight, and does not serve as a distraction here. On ITaNoMtHUB, he is not a distraction, he is an asset. I can't blame him for grabbing the bag in the '00s by becoming a living cartoon on national television, but I'm glad that I didn't think about him in that way while listening. There's a fine line between hype man and albatross, but Flavor Flav does a great job staying on the right side of that line.

I am ready because I rightfully grapple with the fact that I am a man who is very white and who still feels so cool listening to this shit, especially with the windows down on a warm spring day in Philadelphia. I turned the volume down when I was stopped at a red light at 42nd and Girard because I don't want to be disrespectful, but that in turn makes me feel a little naughty listening to it. It's such a fucking cliché for some fucking white boy to be enthralled with classic hip hop, and I don't want to fall into such a cliché. But at the same time, this also makes this album feel kind of like a secret I'm keeping. One of the greatest rap albums of all time, and it still feels like a personal experience.

I am ready because it took me a long time but I'm finally at the point that I understand the nuts and bolts of rap music. I can listen to Public Enemy and I can break it down into parts. Here's the James Brown breakbeat, here's the sampledelica bridge, here's the record scratches at the exact right time, here's Chuck D using his lyrics to both paint a picture and to function as rhythm.

That last point is the most important part for me this week. I heard patterns in the lyrical rhythm that I would have never heard if I listened at age seventeen. Like, for example, how in "Caught, Can We Get a Witness?", bars are grouped into fours, with the percussion hitting a heavy kick drum on the one of each bar. 

And in each group, Chuck D skips the downbeat for the first and third bars, hitting the up beat after one for each, and then for the second bar hits the up beat before the one, and then on the fourth bar starts the lyrics on the downbeat. I am absolute dogshit trying to explain this in words. Point being that Chuck D is so goddamn talented, and I don't know if I would've been able to appreciate the extent of his rhythmical prowess prior to this point in my life.

There was a lot to take in (this is one of those albums that can't possibly be consumed in just one week). Still, every minute I spent with Public Enemy this week was a delight. I was ready.

Where Were You When It Happened?, Sunny

BDS has lifted and the Monotonix reviews are leaving embargo. Mono for one and tonix for tonix. Some assorted thoughts on Where Were You When It Happened?:

• I didn't spend enough time to understand what the "It" in the album title is referring to
• There's some interesting guitar, a guy screaming set me free, so it at least delivers on the promise of garage rock
• 30 minutes
• Most importantly, I cannot un-see Goatse (don’t click that) in the album cover. That will remain with me longer than any music.

Where Were You When It Happened?, Sam

If Tammy Faye Bakker (or her post-feminst avatar Jessica Chastain) would proselytize, everyone deserves god's mercy. Extending that credo to Record Club, there's a place for every band.

Monotonix indeed can serve an ideal function. For me, that was accompanying my futile pursuits to unclog my shower drain. I fully immersed myself in all the noise that Tel Aviv had to offer as I plunged with a ferocity usually reserved for demons.

The experience was not enjoyable and neither was the music. I normally have no time for this brashness wherever it originates. However, as I stood naked in my bathroom shower begging for the tiniest bit of light in the drainhole of oblivion, I found solace with Monotonix.

I hope to never have to resort to this album again. But as long as my wife has thick hair, I know Where Were You When It Happened? won't be far away.

Where Were You When It Happened?, Nate

Much joy has been extracted in critical circles at the expense of Greta Van Fleet, a band of young men with nice hair who, like countless young men with nice hair before them, discovered the rock music of the '70s and decided they, too, would like to do the Misty Mountain Hop. The joke isn't the rip, but how artless and straightforward the rip is. Really, the joke is on us, the rock-enjoying public, as our critical class howls against the very real notion of reanimation as only viable path to mainstream penetration.

Is it perhaps loaded to think of Greta Van Fleet while listening to Monotonix? Assuredly. Do the same questions of replication vs reinterpretation come up listening to Where Were You When it Happened?? Decide for yourself, and while you're at it, decide whether or not garage rock is the kind of thing that can be expanded upon in meaningful ways. There are certain sounds that will connect regardless of who makes them. That does not delude their power, though it might delude the messenger.

Where Were You When It Happened?, Kai

I never listen to Punk music. My parents were both very much Punks—the pictures from when I was young are of my parents with bright dyed hair (picture of my mum included here, with permission), so non-conformity for me as a child was more likely to be not listening to Punk. Nowadays, Dad is bald, and Mum, whilst maintaining some dark red coloring, has long abandoned the bright pink. As such, maybe I can revisit the music. Despite my opening line, I went to my fair share of punk rock concerts when I was growing up, as that genre of music was most likely to be represented by local bands in my hometown. For me, it was more of a social experience rather than being in the mosh pits as my friends all attended, and I was never a part of that scene, but most Punks I ever met were incredibly kind people.

I enjoyed listening to the album, and it was a welcome break from my usual playlists which I have listened to on repeat for too long. I don't remember any of the lyrics from the album, but it was raucous, I enjoyed the beat, and I felt pumped up after the album. It sparked my curiosity, and I did some research on Punk subculture (i.e., I went to the Wikipedia page "Punk subculture," which is an interesting read). I wondered why Punk seems to be less popular (at least from my perception) nowadays compared to decades passed. Some considerations, as mentioned under the "Authenticity" section on Wikipedia, is that the "poseurs" all left for the next wave. Or that, given what is described as the "paradox of punk," Punk by its nature must stay out of the mainstream.

Maybe "waves" of music by their nature come to an end, and I will be interested to see what the future holds for the music industry. In the meantime, I think I'll incorporate more Punk listening sessions in my life.

Where Were You When It Happened?, Pam

Where Were You When It Happened? (WWYWIH), by Monotonix, takes you on a bit of a wild ride. It certainly fits the bill of garage rock. And although the entire band has a whole lot of energy, it's the lead singer and his incredible vocal range, who ends up being your guide. The vocals are wild and unpredictable, all the while still exhibiting restraint when required but largely messy and never boring. Which is a description that pretty much fits the band as a unit on WWYWIH, but the vocals just stood out the most to me. 

Monotonix pushed me to the edge of my comfort zone for rock music. There were many moments when WWYWIH was very much outside of my wheelhouse, but overall, I never hated it. It was enjoyable because it's music that I would never seek out on my own, and liking something so different for me feels refreshing. I mean, at least I think I liked it. It was difficult to find any lyrics for most of the songs. I could make out some of the lyrics but not all... there's not like anything anti-woman in there, is there? Whose face are they spitting "it? on? And what's "it"? The target audience is clearly males of a certain age, so that's always a little worrisome, and the cover art is a little hostile (or a joke? I can’t tell), but setting that aside, I do want these guys to be alright... so I'm hoping they are. And I don't think Joe would ever pick a band whose been Me-Too'd.  Although, he did pick McGruff the Crime Dog, which derails my theory a bit. 

Something random that I could laugh to myself about is how much certain parts of the song "As Noise" sounded like parts of Jesus Christ Superstar (JCS). I seriously doubt that the guys in Monotonix are intimately familiar with Andrew Lloyd Weber, but the similarities gave me a chuckle and reminded me that Easter is upon us which means I get to listen to JCS so many times that it might make JK regret his household policy of "there must be music playing at all times." 

Three cheers for 30-minute albums!

Where Were You When It Happened?, Frank

One of the biggest strengths of Garage Rock is probably its biggest weakness. When I listened to this album I was immediately taken back to standing in garages in high school, nodding along to friends or maybe loose acquaintances as they rocked out their new found musical skills. Or fast forward and I'm in not quite shitty but definitely dive bars drinking citywides as bands who were talented played in the background. Good enough to add to the atmosphere, create a vibe, but not pulling my full attention; playing hooks that immediately left my brain as soon as the song was done. It is raw and ephemeral and basic.

This album wasn't bad at all but I felt like I droned out and just let it wash over me. I will say that I think I gave this album a disservice in that I listened in a tiny work pod that is "kind of" sound proof. So I think this was listened to at most likely 1/8th the volume that it was intended. This definitely occurred to me while listening to "Set Me Free" and "As Noise." I wished I had a car all to myself, with no kids in it, so that I could really blast the volume, really feel the rock. I am afraid those days might have passed me by.

They are clearly pulling influences from places, I felt déjà vu listening to a lot of this (is "Hunt You Down" a cover?!?! I couldn't find it elsewhere but dang), but frustratingly couldn't pinpoint who they were ripping from. Smarter reviewers than me perhaps can. 

Overall a band that I could see myself seeing live and nodding approvingly to friends "they're pretty good" and then never think about ever again.

Where Were You When It Happened?, Joe

Here is my predicament. I came into this week planning to include in my review as many positive descriptors as I could for this week's album by Monotonix. This strategy stems from a discussion I have last weekend that included accusations of my supposedly being "too pessimistic" in my album reviews. I don't have the ability to step back far enough to evaluate whether those allegations are actually true (mostly because I'm also editing and publishing all these reviews and need to maintain that distance occasionally), so for all I know, it's true. And I don't like that. Music is fucking awesome, and to think that I'm here every week continuously shitting on music doesn't make me feel very good at all.

The predicament is that we know turn our focus to Where Were You When It Happened?, which is a great album, but being as it is rock 'n' roll in its most distilled form, it also comes off as extremely nihilistic. I can—and will—sing its praises, but I also get a strong sense that Monotonix would tell me to take my compliments and shove them up my ass. It's weird being optimistic when the album itself is a call for pessimism. If I talk shit on the album, then it's apparently just one more shit-talking blog post in a supposed long line of them. If I praise the album, then I am praising the fact that the world is a wild and dangerous place and that music can be a place for violence. It's a lose-lose.

Count it as further ironic that the person who accused me of being too pessimistic was, obviously, my wife, and without having read her review of this Monotonix album yet, I know for certain that she is going to be extremely pessimistic about her own listening experience this week. Either that, or jump through insane hoops to find something, anything, to like a little bit. I don't begrudge her opinions on the matter for one single second. In fact, it's just the opposite—it would be boring having the exact same tastes as my wife, and I am so appreciative of the fact that we have slightly difference tastes, and thus something to jovially argue about as we drive to yet another first birthday party. (Also, hers is the only feedback I ever get from anyone that isn't "it's too long," so I cherish and appreciate it doubly for that reason.)

But so it was one of those Record Club weeks in which I did not feel comfortable putting on the album of the week as we ate dinner or anything like that, because I knew that Monotonix was "too harsh" for family listening. I'm passionate about my family and I'm passionate about music, and I love when I can combine the two, and I missed out on that this week. Though that probably says more about Monotonix than it does family dynamics in the K*** household (plus, consider the fact that my kids couldn't give less of a fuck about anything of this, because if it was up to them they'd rather just listen to the Moana soundtrack again).

So what does it say about Monotonix? It says that this band is loud and aggressive. It says that they kick ass and are unrelentless. It says that the guitars are harsh and pounding. It says that I probably missed the mark in describing the band as "garage rock" before listening to it. There is more heavy metal in Monotonix's DNA than I would've guessed. I didn't mind it. It's like they were able to go back in time and catch that same proto-metal wave that Led Zeppelin did in their prime. Imagine "Immigrant Song" in stature and "Kashmir" in spirit.

I guess I often talk about "key songs" in reviews such as this, and we can do that here if you want. The key song on Where Were You When It Happened? is "As Noise." It's the skeleton key because it pushes back against any of the aforementioned criticisms that this band's sound is "too harsh" or whatever. The answer: go even further in that direction. The band imagines the criticism that their music "sounds like noise" and then makes that literally true. It's boundary-pushing. There is guitar feedback. There are quasi-religious chants. There is a riff that stomps heavier than anything Jimmy Page ever did. There is a motherfucking drum solo. There is a lot of screaming. It's pretty fantastic stuff.

Look, there's a reason pretty much every picture I have ever seen of Monotonix lead singer Ami Shalev features him shirtless, upside-down, hanging from the rafters—this band is fucking nuts, in the best way. That's why I described them as "rock 'n' roll, distilled to its purest form" above. The sounds you hear on Where Were You When It Happened? are the sounds of rock 'n' roll as it was intended to be. If rock 'n' roll is painful, then it's reflective of life. If rock 'n' roll is cathartic, then it let it elevate your life from the mundane. If rock 'n' roll is a lifestyle, then let us all strip off our shirts and hang from the rafters.

I can't even blame the band for feeling worn out in the album's final song, "Hunt You Down," at the end of this already short album. Monotonix does the heavy lifting in the half hour that precedes that song, and you can tell it took a lot of our them. It takes a lot out of me too. It's the end of Monotonix week now, and I'm tired. But I worn out in the same way I'd feel worn out after a workout at the gym: something was achieved here, and the fatigue proves it. Something was built. Let that something stand as a testament to the work that was done.

So yes, I obviously want to be optimistic about music. And no, not every album that crosses through my earbuds during any given week of RC is going to inspire optimism. It would be boring if they did! Still, it's always nice to come across an album that truly does inspire. Pam is right—hating music every week is no way to live. I don't want to hate music. I don't hate this. I fucking love this. Music lives, thanks to Monotonix.

QUANTITATIVE—GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

QUALITATIVE—Using an NVivo transcription tool, I have picked out every positive or positive-sounding word in this review, and bolded them. This should give a better sense of the optimism that I felt throughout my listening experience. 

PoYB Oscars Week, Day 4: Best Picture

This is the fifth year that Puke on Your Birthday has covered the Academy Awards (or, more accurately, Joe's dumb ill-informed thoughts about the films nominated at the Academy Awards), and more than any other year so far, this one felt like a chore. Maybe I really am biting off more than I can chew—committing to watching as many nominated films as we could and then forcing myself to come up with an opinion about each is too tall of a task for someone who, even after all this goddamn time, still doesn't feel too comfortable filling those film critic shoes. This is supposed to be fun, right? Then why does it feel like work?

Regardless, we soldier on, completing our week-long coverage of the 94th Academy Awards by going through the ten Best Picture nominees, and then eventually ranking them. I will be stealing liberally from my Letterboxd account and the "reviews" I already wrote there, since I assume there are maybe two people at most who read both, so they will just have to excuse the shortcut today. Plus, it's been pretty well established by this point in the week that I don't have anything intelligent to say about movies anyway. Maybe you're just here for the ranking. If so, welcome, and feel free to scroll directly to the bottom of this blog post.

 

Look, okay, I didn't really have much time to write this week about any of this, but I didn't want to forgo the Oscar thing this year, so I figure the copying/pasting is a good compromise for this morning. I'm literally waking up early to write about Nightmare Alley, which we just saw last night. I'm dedicated to the cause, I promise! I just didn't have the energy to write brand new thoughts for every single film! Sorry!

Best Picture

 

Belfast

To those who stayed: I thought this was a pretty poignant snapshot of the search for joy in unrelenting cruelty. To those who left: I really don't get why I was told repeatedly that this was a boring film. To those we lost: At this point, out of all the so-called "frontrunners," I'd be the least disappointed if Belfast won, even though there are other worthy films here.

CODA

The premise of "the whole family is DEAF but her true passion is SINGING" sounds like it could be an SNL skit, so I was truly shocked how much emotion they were able to wring from it. Truly remarkable how expressive everyone was without saying anything out loud.

 

Don't Look Up

A movie that I both enjoyed and also can understand why other people don't enjoy. It was like getting beat over the head with a sock full of nickels for two and a half hours. I enjoy considering the sock full of nickels. I believe it exists, because I feel it hitting my skull. At a certain point I'm just wondering whether I need to be beaten with it. Still... it does make an impact.

 

Drive My Car

 

This took us three nights to watch. By the end of the first night I was wishing that she'd just drive him to the fireworks factory already. By the end of the third night, I think we had gotten there (but, ya know, emotionally). This one is gonna take a bit to sink in, but I know now that it touched something within me, even if I can't name that thing specifically just yet.

Dune

Thought it would be confusing and it wasn't. Thought it would look stupid but it didn't (i.e. visually stunning blah blah blah). Thought it would have something special, something Oscar-worthy, and it didn't. But I also thought it would suck ass, and it definitely didn't.

 

King Richard

 

Always kind of weird when the main character is a real person and the people involved in making the film have a reason to make sure that character looks good. I was hoping for some crazy tennis parent fun. I instead got kinda crazy and kinda fun, albeit SUPERBLY acted as well. I just wonder if this is the truest version of this story, is all.

Licorice Pizza

"You only think this is funny because it's the Haim sisters." This was Pam during our viewing when she saw me smiling ear to ear. Yeah? So what? It's cool seeing a star being born in real time. Same with the Hoffman kid. This film lives and dies with its fantastic leads.

Nightmare Alley

Much like a carnival, there's plenty of entertainment to be had. I liked Nightmare Alley, but I dunno, it was missing a certain je ne sais quoi. I felt the exact same way about The Shape of Water a few years ago, and that was a Best Picture winner. This begs the question: who's the geek, Guillermo or me?

The Power of the Dog

The twist is really only answers the question "what genre of movie is this?" It didn't, like, require multiple viewings or anything. That kid was creepy enough that he deserves an Oscar. Cumberbatch voices the Grinch in the 2018 adaptation; I couldn't not hear the Grinch here. Plemons once again strikes the balance between "he was really good" and "my fear of being as pasty as Jesse Plemons fuels every single mile that I run." The twist is really the only thing that makes this movie worthy of conversation, but that's more context than subtext, so points off for that. Overall, I'll say "tentatively overrated."

West Side Story

This is how you make a movie on cheat mode. Have one the greatest film directors ever take what is already considered one of the best movies of all time and improve it in almost every conceivable way. It's like when you play solitaire by flipping over every card instead of every third card—it's almost impossible to lose. But winning feels so good!!

BEST PICTURE NOMINEES FROM WORST TO BEST

10. The Power of the Dog

9. Nightmare Alley

8. Dune

7. Don't Look Up

6. King Richard

5. Drive My Car

4. Licorice Pizza

3. CODA

2. Belfast

1. West Side Story

And I'll draw the line between #6 and #7 for which films I'd consider "worthy" of the Best Picture award. 

Alright, that's it for PoYB's Oscar coverage. Enjoy the show Sunday night. I'll talk to y'all Monday morning after I wake up and look on Wikipedia to see who won. 

PoYB Oscars Week, Day 3: Other Awards Besides Best Picture

If you thought I had few intelligent words to say about the acting yesterday, then just wait to see how few of today's thoughts are going to be well-informed. Oh boy.

Best Director

I don't know if this is actually how they determine the winner of this award, but I've always seen Best Director as rewarding the director who had the biggest workload in creating the movie. A film with a cast of two and a film with a cast of thousands could theoretically be of equal value, but the latter is going to require more strength and finesse from the person running the show. It's just a matter of quantity—certain directors are going to have more items on their to-do lists than others. I'm considering quantity because none of the five directors on this list have anything to worry about in terms of quality, right? How often is a bad movie helmed by a director who is still worthy of this award? So we go to quantity, and I'm saying that there was no movie this year that made me more impressed by its director than Stephen Spielberg's West Side Story.

Best Original Screenplay / Adapted Screenplay

Former (and future?) PoYB editor Mandy B. once posited that Best Original Screenplay is the most important award at the Oscars, since it is the only one that awards the act of taking nothing and making something out of it. "Original" implies that the screenwriter grabbed the idea out of thin air, and that, to Mandy, and on some days to me, is the most impressive feat. So who has the best original idea here? Let's say Licorice Pizza. I see plenty of relationships on my screen but I rarely see this one.

Adapted is at once easier and trickier, depending on how you look at it. Sure, you're taking someone else's idea and fitting it onto the big screen. At the same time, the act of "fitting" is extremely delicate. Taking an idea from another medium and turning it into a movie script is like turning coal into diamonds—we all know it's possible, but boy oh boy, it requires a lot of time and energy. It's tough for me to say what is truly worthy in this category, however, without being familiar with any of those source materials. Drive My Car is probably my pick, only because it was three hours, and jam packed with a ton of ideas, and yet it was based on a short story? To me, that says heavy lifting. Maybe I'm wrong though. Who cares? I'm not getting paid for this.

Best Documentary Feature

I've only seen two, and I already talked about Flee a lot two days ago, so I'm going to use this two-sentence paragraph to once again urge you to see Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). Possibly the best film I've seen out of any single nominee (though obviously I'm incredibly biased toward any and all music docs).

Short Selected Thoughts on the Technical Categories

• The fact that they use the "Visual Effects" category to sneak in a couple of bland Marvel movies is annoying, but hey, gotta feed the fanboys somehow I guess. I imagine the Dolby Theater might get some bomb threats otherwise.
• Dune's gonna win everything, right?
• Actually, scratch that, if there is a movie that deserves Best Production Design, despite being just an okay movie, it's The Tragedy of Macbeth. It made the film delightfully suffocating, despite the fact that I had no idea what was going on otherwise.
• Best Makeup and Hairstyling... man, is there a category that features movies I do not want to watch more consistently than this one?

Best Original Score

 

I'm mostly cool with anyone besides Jonny Greenwood, who is an overrated hack.

 

Best Original Song

 

Finally, a category I feel competent in discussing. I wouldn't know a good movie from a bad movie if they were both splitroasting me on a Saturday night, but bad music? Hell yeah, I know bad music.

"No Time to Die" by Billie Eilish (written by Eilish and her goddamn brother) — This terrible song came out 25 months ago and I will write a strongly worded letter to the Academy if they deign to lick Eilish's boots like the Grammys do. I've never seen a James Bond film, so this is a wild assumption, but aren't the Bond songs supposed to soundtrack James Bond having sex with a prostitute? Who wants to have sex while listening to this shit? 

"Somehow You Do" by Reba McEntire (written by Diane Warren) — The fact that this lukewarm nothing of a song from a film I've never heard of got the nomination over Alex Lahey and her Mitchells vs. Machines banger says everything that needs to be said about the goddamn Oscars.

"Be Alive" by Beyoncé (written by DIXSON and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) —Starfuckers! All of you! Goddamn it! Go give the award to the "girl boss" slash billionaire sweatshop exploiter and let's be done with this.

"Down to Joy" by Van Morrison (and written by him too) — He is an antivaxxer and an anti-masker. Explicitly. "Down to Joy" was probably the only song Van Morrison wrote this year that wasn't about government overreach conspiracy theories. Good job giving him an Oscar nom, everyone. Really good fucking job. Jesus fucking christ.

"Dos Oruguitas" by Sebastián Yatra (written by Lin-Manuel Miranda) — Maybe it's just because of the dearth of any discernable quality in literally every single other worthy nominee in this category, but fuck it, whatever, here ya go—give Lin-Manuel Miranda his EGOT for the eighth-best song on the Encanto soundtrack.

The TRUE winner of this category: All of us, for the fact that we don't have to listen to any songs from H.E.R. this year.