Pam came back from a trip to Nashville listening almost exclusively to country music. So I feel like I need to eschew all country music from my personal music listening decisions for a while to even the scales in my life. Here is this month's list of a dozen songs, none of them country.
May 2025
1. "Want" by Esther Rose — Okay, fine, this is technically country. Or at the very least, Esther Rose is technically a country artist (see: my Esther Rose selection for the pie fucker mixtape). But on her new album Want, she takes broad leaps past country's limitations, and creates something all her own. We see genre-switching a lot when it comes to country music, either gaining country music abilities or shedding it. I usually prefer the latter. We don't need that much country in this world. Esther Rose kills it in any genre, though, so this is all moot.
2. "Devereaux" by Car Seat Headrest — Oh wow, I completely forgot that this blog reviewed Making a Door Less Open. That was some COVID-brain thinking, that I would toss off six reviews just to do it. I don't think I've listened to MaDLO more than twice in the five years since that review was written. Every time I click on Car Seat Headrest, I'm drawn to one of their classics (there are two). The new one, The Scholars, takes a swing at achieving that "classic" status, and just barely misses the mark. Maybe I need some more time with the back half. In the meantime, here is the best song from the front half.
3. "Rodeo" by Momma — I had an off-blog discussion recently about XPN. It stayed off the blog because I know that is a bit of a touchy subject for some bloggers on here. It's tough to describe how I feel about XPN's music without sounding like a heel. Because I love this station, and I like most of the music. I just think that they have a particular style, and they stick to it, to the point where I can listen to something and know for sure that it's gonna end up on there. I knew Momma was gonna be on XPN when I heard them, and sure enough, I've heard multiple Momma songs in the time since. I went with a song I haven't heard on the radio station yet, because this isn't WXPN, it's PoYB. (Who am I kidding, they've probably played this song already.)
4. "Ljubav" by Ekatarina Velika — This is the big discovery for me this month. An '80s rock band from the former Yugoslavia, Ekatarina Velika (EKV for short) came to me via Shadow Record Club, as RYM noted that St. Lucia played the genre of "Big Music," and also that EKV had the seventh-best Big Music album of all time. "Ljubav" means "Love" in Serbian. I ljubav Big Music.
5. "Everything Is Peaceful Love" by Bon Iver — That Bon Iver, I'll tell ya. They never fail to surprise. I wish that Record Club hadn't covered the SABLE, EP last December, and we wouldn't have, had I known that that EP was going to be tacked onto the front of the new LP in the spring. Had I gone in blind, I would've delighted in the jump scare of Bon Iver suddenly turning into a sex jamz band. "Everything Is Peaceful Love" is like nothing Bon Iver has ever done before, and this is the fifth album in a row we're saying that.
4. "Ljubav" by Ekatarina Velika — This is the big discovery for me this month. An '80s rock band from the former Yugoslavia, Ekatarina Velika (EKV for short) came to me via Shadow Record Club, as RYM noted that St. Lucia played the genre of "Big Music," and also that EKV had the seventh-best Big Music album of all time. "Ljubav" means "Love" in Serbian. I ljubav Big Music.
5. "Everything Is Peaceful Love" by Bon Iver — That Bon Iver, I'll tell ya. They never fail to surprise. I wish that Record Club hadn't covered the SABLE, EP last December, and we wouldn't have, had I known that that EP was going to be tacked onto the front of the new LP in the spring. Had I gone in blind, I would've delighted in the jump scare of Bon Iver suddenly turning into a sex jamz band. "Everything Is Peaceful Love" is like nothing Bon Iver has ever done before, and this is the fifth album in a row we're saying that.
6. "Man Made of Meat" by Viagra Boys — There was some commotion when we covered Viagra Boys in RC that the hypermasculine parody thing was a little too much. For those who thought that, I am sorry to report that the new one, viagr aboys, goes hard in that direction. But it's to the point where the parody is unmistakable. No one is out there singing about Chandler Bing like Viagra Boys are. No one!!
7. "Junior" by Great Grandpa — Not country! Not country! Just because an indie rock band employs a little banjo pluckin' and some rustic themes doesn't mean it's country! Though I'll cop to the idea of thinking about my country-loving wife when I hear love songs like this. "I saw her twirl and it drove me wild" was the lyric on repeat in my head this month.
8. "A European Search for Love" by ballboy — I've been diligently downloading one album per week from implied suggestions on the Monday Morning Mixtape. The albums are hit or miss generally, but if I find one special album per month, I'll be happy. ballboy's A Guide for the Daylight Hours was that album over this past month. I've already described it as Belle & Sebastian meet Neutral Milk Hotel. The song for today leans heavily into the former, and not just because of the accent. The whole album doesn't sound like this, by the way. They mix it up a lot, but it's mostly all bookish '00s indie, and it hits right.
9. "Deeper Than Inside" by Rites of Spring — Drive like Jehu has me on the hook for some more non-third-wave emo in my life. It was coincidence that Rites of Spring were so close to Drive like Jehu on the Blind Spots list, but this one pushed me even further. What else am I missing? What else is there left to explore? What other new-to-me emo bands will I come across? The genre remains endlessly deep and fascinating for me. Maybe it's not for recommendation; maybe this journey can be just for me.
10. "Fade into You" by Mazzy Star — What a weird song to touch the zeitgeist. It almost feels like an experiment sometimes, randomly picking a slow song from an alt-rock band and seeing if enough plays in the rotation will get it to stick in the hearts and minds of a generation. Consider the hypothesis true—I remember this song quite fondly, even if I only learned recently the who and where and when.
11. "Call on Me" by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band — I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong about music that I hate. Sometimes you just need to listen to something else from that artist, something you've never heard before. Yes, ha ha ha, I'm sure if I listened to some Queen deep cuts, I'd walk away with a better understanding and some semblance of an affection. But one take that I refuse to back down from is that Trout Mask Replica is the most overrated album of all time. But that hate started to manifest as a hatred of Captain Beefheart the artist, which didn't make sense, because this was the only album I knew. Confirmed: Safe as Milk is good. It's way closer to the band's garage rock roots than the annoying avante garde of their most infamous album. THANK GOD.
7. "Junior" by Great Grandpa — Not country! Not country! Just because an indie rock band employs a little banjo pluckin' and some rustic themes doesn't mean it's country! Though I'll cop to the idea of thinking about my country-loving wife when I hear love songs like this. "I saw her twirl and it drove me wild" was the lyric on repeat in my head this month.
8. "A European Search for Love" by ballboy — I've been diligently downloading one album per week from implied suggestions on the Monday Morning Mixtape. The albums are hit or miss generally, but if I find one special album per month, I'll be happy. ballboy's A Guide for the Daylight Hours was that album over this past month. I've already described it as Belle & Sebastian meet Neutral Milk Hotel. The song for today leans heavily into the former, and not just because of the accent. The whole album doesn't sound like this, by the way. They mix it up a lot, but it's mostly all bookish '00s indie, and it hits right.
9. "Deeper Than Inside" by Rites of Spring — Drive like Jehu has me on the hook for some more non-third-wave emo in my life. It was coincidence that Rites of Spring were so close to Drive like Jehu on the Blind Spots list, but this one pushed me even further. What else am I missing? What else is there left to explore? What other new-to-me emo bands will I come across? The genre remains endlessly deep and fascinating for me. Maybe it's not for recommendation; maybe this journey can be just for me.
10. "Fade into You" by Mazzy Star — What a weird song to touch the zeitgeist. It almost feels like an experiment sometimes, randomly picking a slow song from an alt-rock band and seeing if enough plays in the rotation will get it to stick in the hearts and minds of a generation. Consider the hypothesis true—I remember this song quite fondly, even if I only learned recently the who and where and when.
11. "Call on Me" by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band — I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong about music that I hate. Sometimes you just need to listen to something else from that artist, something you've never heard before. Yes, ha ha ha, I'm sure if I listened to some Queen deep cuts, I'd walk away with a better understanding and some semblance of an affection. But one take that I refuse to back down from is that Trout Mask Replica is the most overrated album of all time. But that hate started to manifest as a hatred of Captain Beefheart the artist, which didn't make sense, because this was the only album I knew. Confirmed: Safe as Milk is good. It's way closer to the band's garage rock roots than the annoying avante garde of their most infamous album. THANK GOD.
12. "Spangled" by Fust — Okay, fine, this is country. But not Country country. More like indie rock country. Which is different than what Esther Rose was doing at the top of this playlist, which was country indie rock. The difference is which direction you're coming from, and what your priorities are now. Fust is an indie rock band who is doing some country. You will not hear Fust at Kid Rock's bar in Nashville.
No comments:
Post a Comment