Album of the Week: If You Asked for a Picture

This past Friday, four different Record Club alumni released new albums. We have D R E A M S I C L E by Maren Morris, Fancy That by PinkPantheress, the world is still here and so are we by Mclusky, and GOLLIWOG by billy woods. That's four wildly different albums, but Record Club is what they all have in common. And I eventually want to cover all these new albums on the blog. If you wrote a review or are at least familiar with the albums that RC originally covered, and you'd like to write a follow-up review for that artist's newer album, let me know!!

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WEEK 328 — May 11-17, 2025

If You Asked for a Picture

by Blondshell

LISTEN:

Spotify | YouTube | Bandcamp | Apple

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PICKED BY TOM

TOM'S COMMENTS: "Her backstory is that she's an alcoholic bisexual Jewish girl who wanted to be a new Lorde initially when she was performing under the name BAUM. Then she told her producer she actually hated her sound, so he asked her what she had in the vault, and it turned out she was making really good grrl grunge. Cranberries, Veruca Salt, Kim Deal, Kim Gordon, take your pick of comparisons. But if you listen to 'Veronica Mars,' which is track one on the debut, you'll understand her most clearly when she says 'Veronica Mars / Two Thousand Aught / Logan's a dick / I'm learning that's hot.' Pure developmental pathology baby."

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ALBUM DETAILS

GENRE: Indie rock, indie pop, alternative rock, power pop, jangle pop

RELEASED: May 2, 2025

LENGTH: 46:59

TRACKLIST:

1. Thumbtack
2. T&A
3. Arms
4. What's Fair
5. Two Times
6. Events of a Fire
7. 23's a Baby
8. Change
9. Toy
10. He Wants Me
11. Man
12. Model Rockets

LYRICS: Genius.com

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ARTIST DETAILS

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

ABOUT: Sabrina Mae Teitelbaum was born on April 28, 1997, in New York, and grew up in Manhattan. She started taking singing lessons at age seven. She moved to LA after graduating high school, and attended the USC Thornton School of Music. She dropped out after two years and pursued a music career. Tom covers a lot of the fine details in his blurb above, but basically, she was pursuing a career in pop music, but during COVID made a hard pivot into alt-rock. The pop path seemed to have a little momentum, but the alternative path even more so. The newly christened Blondshell received immediate praise from major publications, and she has over the past two or three years toured with a variety of artists. She has been sober since the end of 2019, and lives in LA currently with her boyfriend and dog.

DISCOGRAPHY: This is Blondshell's second studio album, after her 2023 self-titled debut.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

READING SOME SHIT: RS interview from twelve days ago. Also, Cosmic Hero reviews Blondshell's first album.

WATCHING SOME SHIT: "T&A" on Jimmy Kimmel Live

RECORD CLUB CONNECTIONS: A lot of artists have an "Influences" tab on Wikipedia. I notice this because I'm often combing through them to come up with "Connections" to other Record Club artists. I will say that I have never in my life seen an "Influences" section as Blondshell's. Here are the RC artists that are mentioned, in the order that Wikipedia presents them:

Carly Rae Jepsen, MUNA, Adele, Lady Gaga, Halsey, Maggie Rogers, Fiona Apple, Snail Mail, Olivia Rodrigo, boygenius, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Ashlee Simpson, Katy Perry (Teenage Dream era specifically), the Velvet Underground, Bon Iver, Tame Impala, the National, the Killers, Tierra Whack, Mitski, Jamila Woods, and Ethel Cain. That's only like half of the artists mentioned there. I didn't include artists who have been featured on RC albums, like Dominic Fike (Manic), Sharon Van Etten (I Am Easy to Find), SZA (GNX), etc.

MENTIONS ON THE BLOG: Surprisingly, none. I feel like Niko Stratis recommended this artist at one point, but the music never made the transition from Anxiety Shark to Puke on Your Birthday.

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OTHER ALBUMS TO CHECK OUT

LAST WEEK'S ALBUM: Imperfect Cadence by ONR. and the Listening Planet, and make sure to check out the reviews if you wanna see what we thought of it!

RC@5: We're relistening to the Record Club album we featured exactly five years ago this week. The RC album for this week in 2020 was Microshift by Hookworms. Unlike most other weeks in this column, I won't be relistening, but I will still be writing my thoughts about it.

RC f/u: We're attempting to catch up on all the new albums from our esteemed Record Club alumni. Mini-reviews coming next Saturday, this week for COWBOY CARTER by Beyoncé and Rain on the Road by Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements.

SHADOW RECORD CLUB: Each week, I'm exploring a genre of last week's album by listening to one of that genre's top-rated albums. Last week's Imperfect Cadence was an alt-pop album (I guess? I just know I'm not trying to listen to a field recordings album). We're listening this week to epistolares by AKRIILA.

NEXT WEEK'S RC ALBUM: In case you need some extra time with an album to write a review for it, you can get a head start on Blue Garden by Delta Sleep!

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Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!