Easier Said Than Done, Dillon

I like this record and I like this band. I like it because I liked all the bands on Warped Tour in high school. I like the weird structures and time signatures that make it less pop than Warped Tour, but I also like all the things that make it pop. I like the straightforward lyrics, emotions to project memories onto and a chorus someone wants to get a tattoo of, and, hopefully it will not be you. 

I thought the first handful of songs were exciting, and "Leona Street"'s music video was fun for all the reasons above. I like the vision that Pool Kids has for their music and I feel like I saw it there. But by the middle of the record, the originality had lost speed. "Sorry Not Sorry" was the low point for me. The lyrics fell off the pop line of just accessible enough but also refreshing, and rang to me as wholly generic. I began to feel like the weird technical stuff sounded the same as the last three songs. I was really hoping it wouldn't end like this. 

Then I hit "Perfect View" and "Exit Plan" and felt relieved to hear a different sound, but the same fun I had at the beginning of the record. So I like this record. I'd go back and listen to some of the early songs or maybe these last two.

Balloonerism, Dillon

When the ghosts show up in movies, the terror they impose on the living usually follows.

But sometimes the ghosts (while still pretty scary) take humans for a long walk, show them what could have been. Pause on a life's beautiful, fleeting moments. The living hold ghosts' hands. They step back with a view on life that no one actually gets. Your stomach drops watching it, maybe you get teary-eyed. The feeling of familiar and not familiar. You probably get where I'm going with this.

Balloonerism is both types of haunting. Horror and clarity. I think you could listen to almost every song and find both types. Mac's perception and humor slice through mundane observations and recast them as something you hadn't seen before. You missed it the first time, but it's ridiculous and kinda more weird than you're comfortable with.

But this record is also dark. Dark as in the line "I gave my life to this shit / Already killed myself" in a song called "Do You Have a Destination?" written in 2014. His destination was success, by all means, and he could have been riding high. Instead, you can feel that the album is circling and circling problems of mental health and addiction. When you think the subject of a song has gotten away from those, it loops back. The structure of the songs, the style of his repetition in pre-chorus, bridge and post-chorus feel circular in that way.

I kept trying to stop myself from listening to this album in 2025. I'm not sure if it's fair to see any point in one person's life as hurtling towards their most tragic moment. But it's hard. It's haunting.

You could also find songs that are more one haunting than the other. "Stoned" is horror. "She" could be a person or she could be drugs. But she's trapped or trapping someone, and at the same time, she seems close to death, just steps away: "We can get stoned / I swear to God, Heaven feels just like home."

"Funny Papers" is clarity. The piano is beautiful and sad. The bit at the top of the song is a thought bubble of memory; Mac is doing a very-okay British accent and it's somehow touching. Later, you get lyrics like "Eleven pounds, named after his uncle Gabriel / His mother cried with her lips against his soft face / Why'd she bring these bright eyes into this dark place?"

This record is just a record in one rapper's extensive, and too short, discography. It's also a story and many stories, songs I think all his listeners will be happy to have even, or especially, if it's haunting.

For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), Dillon

So I knew Japanese Breakfast's last album, Jubilee, for its few most popular songs. And I thought, "hey, if I liked a few songs from that album, I bet I'll have a good time with this one." That is not what happened. 

I really do think it was mostly me. As in, mostly me projecting my week onto the album, because I couldn't actually meet the music somewhere between it and me. This is not the type of record that I can listen to when I'm hot and tired and unable why the fuck is Jeff Bridges. 

So that's how it went. The structure of each song made me feel like there was little movement happening, even though the instrumentation was beautiful. Michelle Zauner's voice, as unique and compelling as it felt on Jubilee, whispered me into a state of dull attention. The dull attention made it hard for me to care that there was what seemed like a lot of storytelling going on. I waited for a way out of the dreamy, flat song and on came another. And then, when I was sitting down and listening to the last song and finally stopped wrestling with myself, I thought "maybe I do like this."

I think I'll give it another try, when it's cold and I'm not in a rush, and I can be the melancholy brunette this record was meant to reach.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 20: Dillon

Prompt: "A song with the most disgusting curse word you can imagine"

Selected by Dillon

"And Then What"

Young Jeezy ft. Mannie Fresh

Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101, 2005

So, this Jeezy song actually starts with not one, not two, not three, but nine disgusting curse words. The only one I'll put in writing here is number nine of nine: "scalawags."

Most listeners will sense that the term scalawag is pejorative, for some reason, even if they can't give an exact definition of the word. There is probably a legitimate linguistic reason we can sense that scalawag is pejorative, but for the sake of brevity, I'll just say that it has strong rascal and scoundrel vibes. What listeners may not know is that the origin of scalawag takes us back to Reconstruction-era America, where white Southerners who joined the cause of Reconstruction were seen as traitors and often called "scalawags" or "carpetbaggers."

Right after Jeezy brings his string of disgusting curse words to a peak with scalawag, he instructs all the aforementioned groups that the slurs were directed at to get on the dance floor. I'm sure that, in a grave in somewhere in the South, a person who was called a "scalawag" by their contemporaries can rest in peace knowing that a famous musician like Jeezy—who at one point captivated a large American audience, including a lot of young, white music fans—instructed scalawags to join him on the dance floor.

Summer Song Challenge, Day 4: Galia

Prompt: "A song that makes you think about something somebody said about that song, a while ago"

Selected by Galia

"Hells Bells"

AC/DC

Back in Black, 1980

My boyfriend Dillon told me once that his dad would play him this song every time he drove him to football practice when he was is elementary school and middle school. The memory comes up a lot, including last night, because the Philadelphia Union, who Dillon and I are fans of, play "Hells Bells" every game. So every time we go to a game, I picture little Dillon in all his (American) football gear listening to the song with this pumped-up dad.

Horizons, Dillon

Surfaces is vibes. It's pure energy. It welcomes you and offers you what you need—a day off, a walk in the sun, a friend who tells you you're awesome. The chords are always major, the drums always swing, and the steel drums always hit at just the right time. And did I mention, it's always, always sunny?

The lyrics and shape of the album are just one bright day after another, or one empty phrase after another, depending on how you look at it. Like the concept of vibes, Horizons has little substance. As I listened to the album all the way through in one sitting, I couldn't help feeling that the album was actually not composed to be listened to as a cohesive whole. And maybe the songs weren't either. Every lyric was just simple enough to be taken out of context and dropped into a sun-soaked TikTok. But there it would probably find its true home—as pure vibes.

Young Enough, Dillon

I've reviewed the last few records doing a lot of thinking about what I was listening to, and I'm here to proudly say that I didn't break my brain with this one. Not that this record doesn't deserve serious attention—it does. Maybe it was my mood this week, or maybe this album really fucking slaps (it does), but I just felt. No, there shouldn't be an "it" at the end of that sentence. I'm not sure what I was feeling, but I know I was feeling.

Two times this week I turned on Young Enough when I was sinking after a long day, feeling tired and hollow, and felt somehow more alive. I can't say I really felt better or felt my worries fade away into a kale-smoothie-yoga-CBT-induced nirvana, but almost every song on this album made me feel like it was what I needed, each in a different way.

My strongest guess for what is behind all this feeling is that pop lyrics are specific enough to wake up your imagination, but general enough to project your own experience onto the lyrics as well as the instrumentation. Or maybe Charly Bliss just slaps.

The Record Club Final Word: Dillon on Version Galore

If you pick an album for Record Club, you will get an "exit survey" on Friday morning, after the reviews have been published. This isn't to add more to your workload; I instead just want to provide space for the album picker to have the final say, if they feel like they need some sort of closure on the week. It's totally and completely optional. But I also love reading what my friends write. You can tell Dillon is a writer. I was glad that he wrote.

~~~~~~~~~~

1. Was there anyone who convinced you to consider a different opinion regarding the album itself?

Not in the way that I had one opinion and after reading someone's review, my opinion had shifted 180 degrees. BUT I do think people's reviews at large, and a few specific reviews, underlined and helped clarify some ideas that I already had, but I hadn't explored or put into words (on paper or in my head) as skillfully as you folks. 

Joe and Pam made me think more about the dynamics of "feel good vibes"—how, why, and when a record makes you feel good, which seems like it was an important part of this album for everyone. Ryan's remark about the "capacity hip hop developed for self-expression and even serious preaching while still having fun," really put a fine point on some of the ideas that had been percolating in my head after I wrote my review.

2. Was there anyone who you felt did a good/bad job at presenting their own views, regardless of whether you agreed with said views?

I gotta shout out Nate and Sunny here. I really enjoyed their dancehall anecdotes. Technically, their reviews were less about the record than the anecdote, but I did feel like my understanding of the record was fuller after reading their reviews.

3. Were the reviews varied, or did this album elicit same-y opinions? What about that album made that true? Or do you think that this answer is reviewer-dependent and not album-dependent?

The reviews were generally same-y, but I think that is almost certainly because dancehall, and the sub-genre of toasting, seems like it was unfamiliar enough to all of us that we could only take the low-hanging fruit or felt like we didn't have the knowledge or vocabulary to have louder, more pointed opinions. But as the captain, I'm kind of responsible for that.

Don't want to put words in people's mouths, but then again, I'm the captain (for) now.

4. Did the variety of reviews justify the album choice? Would you choose a different album (yes/no) based on the reviews received?

Straight up—when I picked the album, I didn't really grasp that toasting would make this record much more of a week focused on singular voice rather than a record with various musical elements. I don't think I would impose that on the group again, but I don't regret it.

5. What can Record Club do differently to make your RC experience (especially as a weekly captain) a worthwhile one?

I don't have anything I'd change from this week, but as I'm writing this exit survey, I do feel like this survey was an important part of the process for me and want to see other people do it more.

6. Any other takeaways you have from this experience?

This was my first time leading the ship, and I really enjoyed the chance to pick a record for everyone. I'll be looking forward to captaining again in the future.

Version Galore, Dillon

Hey reader, don't watch that! Take a look at this!

I thought I was getting us into dancehall or reggae with this record, but after several fuller, deeper listens, I now see I was getting us into U-Roy. I feel like that's what U-Roy is saying on the track "True Confession," when he says "Don't watch that! Take a look at this!" What I think that line really means is "look at me."

And what does it mean to say "look at me"? I'm not 100% sure what it meant at the time, but because U-Roy is known as dancehall innovator and influencer of modern hip-hop, I imagine it was pretty ground-breaking to tell listeners to look away from the music and instead pay attention to the person playing the music. As I listened to this record, I kept asking myself what it would be like to be one of the first musicians to have the courage and confidence to tell listeners "listen to this music you know and love, and are you ready? I got something even better for you."

It's kind of a wild proposition. U-Roy gives us his own style on Version Galore, and maintains that style audaciously as he toasts over musicians that were no doubt much more established than he was at the time. He's both our guide and the main event. The songs on Version Galore are the songs he wants you to hear, but in going a step farther, they're the tracks that he wants you to hear in the way he wants you to hear them. His energy is sometimes sporadic, sometimes more serious. I actually laughed out loud a few times at U-Roy's excited and joyful way of shouting (maybe an early ad-libbing) on tracks like "On the Beach"  or "Things You Love."

The role of the toaster or the deejay is to speak directly to the listener. Like I heard on a song I can't remember (that song itself was paying tribute to a song by Eric B. and Rakim)—"MC stands for move the crowd." And listening to U-Roy feels like a history on what it means to move the crowd. For me, this may not be an album I listen to frequently, but it's an album that somehow made sense to me and taught me something. Hip-hop music was my first real love. My (much) older cousins had all the famous '80s G-Funk pirated from Limewire already by the time I could hook my iPod up to their computer every few months when I was over at their house. From G-Funk to Kanye West's College Dropout, decades of hip hop flew through my ears while producers sifted through crates to find the best records to sample and rappers vied to put their voice and personality a step even higher than the musicians whose shoulders they stood on. Version Galore explained to me a little more about what that means.

Album of the Week: Version Galore

It feels like the members of Record Club have done a great job over the past few months keeping things fresh and making some great picks for the albums of the week. Think about it: when was the last time you saw the album on a Sunday morning and thought "Damn, this again?" It's been forever. We've done art rock, R&B/funk, lo-fi shitgaze, third-wave emo, hip hop, classic rock, and on and on and on. So when I say "and now for something completely different" every week, I really do mean it.

And now for something completely different. Check the album out below (after you explore the archives and check the goals update), and let us know what you think!

WEEK 188: September 4-10, 2022

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

ALBUM: Version Galore

ARTIST: U-Roy

RELEASED: 1971 (I think? The unknown exact date is unknown. Some sources say it was released in 1973, and YouTube says 1970.)

LOCATION: Kingston, Jamaica

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: Deejay—a genre that, like reggae, originated from ska music in the 1960s, but features chanting or talking over prerecorded reggae beats. The act of talking over that beat is called "toasting," and U-Roy appears to be one of the pioneers of the method.

WHY DILLON PICKED IT: "A friend put together a playlist for me recently that had a few U-Roy songs, and though that friend is a big reggae fan, I'm not (largely out of ignorance). This record seems like a fun listen with an approachable length, and from what I've read, an important influence on American hip hop."

TRACKLIST:

1. Your Ace from Space
2. On the Beach
3. Version Galore
4. True Confession
5. Tide Is High
6. Things You Love
7. The Same Song
8. Happy Go Lucky Girl
9. Rock Away
10. Wear You to the Ball
11. Don't Stay Away
12. Hot Pop

LENGTH: 35:15

IS THIS A COMPILATION: No, it is not, but streaming services seem to classify it as such. Make sure you're only listening to the first twelve tracks for the purposes of this review (though obviously feel free to continue down the rabbit hole if this is something you like).

WHERE TO LISTEN FOR FREE: YouTube

READING SOME SHIT: U-Roy passed away in February of last year. Here is his NYT obituary.

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: It's pretty cool to trace a music genre back to its roots to understand just how many disparate musical styles it eventually inspired. U-Roy, the Arrogant Sons of Bitches, and Johnny Nash all play music that can be traced back to the ska music of the 1960s, and yet none of them really sound like one another (though I haven't heard Version Galore yet, so this is a bit of an assumption).

Happy listening, fam! Have a great day!

Electric Warrior, Dillon

I really enjoyed this record, and I mean what I'm about to say in the best way, so please trust me to consider this idea: what if this album has two types of songs? And... what if these two types of songs could be best described by being a raisin or a grape?

The first type are the raisins: steady, not quite somber but almost tired and reflective joints, songs like "Cosmic Dancer," "Lean Woman Blues," or "Life's a Gas." The lyrics are relatable. The rhythm is dependable. The combination of these two combine to give you a feeling that T. Rex is dropping some sun-dried wisdom to you while you're just taking in with the rays.

The second type are the grapes: catchy, high-energy songs like "Jeepster," "Bang a Gong" (please lord someone tell us what shows or movies that song is most prominently in), and "Rip Off." The lyrics are colorful. The rhythm is about to burst, and you feel like you probably could too. There's not much to relate to in the ideas of these songs, but they make up for that in the feeling. I don't think any of us know what the idea of banging on a gong really means to T. Rex, but I'm damn sure we all feel it.

Is it a coincidence that the first and the last cut of the album ("Mambo Sun" and "Rip Off," respectively) match this dichotomy? Almost surely, but if you've read this far, you've indulged me enough to leave this extended metaphor here.

And again, this concept isn't to say that the album lacked variability in any way. I was actually struck by the journey of the album from song to song. To me, Electric Warrior turned with each song—in tone, lyrics, and even instruments. I really appreciated the cinematic-type strings on "Cosmic Dancer" and the saxophone on "Rip Off." Those two songs couldn't be more different, so in a way, this album's variation had variation.

El jardín de los presentes, Dillon

I'm actually scared to write or say anything about El jardín de los presentes because I have that feeling that maybe, if I try to verbalize what I understood suddenly while listening to "Niño condenado," the meaning of the experience I had might turn to sand right before me. I think I did experience something though. It had to do with a few Reddit threads on Prog Rock, and some thoughts about genres and structure and ideas I've racked my brain about earlier in life and somehow since lost the feeling of urgency to grapple with, a tall afternoon drink on a hot day that was making my head spin, a picture of the young Luis Alberto Spinetta, scenes from a film about the military dictatorship that I watched years ago, and a return of some shivers of urgency in imagining that this long, kooky song wasn't just long, kooky chamber music—it was a challenge. And it was serious.

I then discovered this blog post, which contains an excerpt from a book length conversation with Luis Alberto Spinetta. I've taken the liberty of translating a bit of Spinetta's words on the origin of "Niño condenado."

"En 'Niño condenado' también hay un intento de comunicarse con los animales."
—There is an attempt in "Niño condenado" to communicate with animals.

"Perdonado en realidad está escrito para una perra que teníamos en la casa de mis viejos en Arribeños cuando ensayábamos con Invisible.
—The song was actually written for a dog we had at my parents' house in Arribeños when we were rehearsing the album.

"Amapola era una perrita blanca totalmente dócil. No sé si los perros piensan pero a veces parece que se sentaran a pensar. Y Amapola tenía eso, parecía una persona."
—Amapola (the dog) was a completely docile white dog. I don't know if dogs think but sometimes they seem to sit down and think. And Amapola had that, she seemed like a person.

"Entonces me puse a reflexionar y me di cuenta de que, en realidad, ella era un niño que había sido perdonado de ser humano. Porque estaba en ese lugar como si fuera un niño, sintiendo todo pero sin lo que representa la noción de angustia de existir cuando uno es adulto."
—Then I began to reflect and realized that, in reality, she was a child who had been excused from being human. Because she was in that child-like place: feeling everything but without all that represents the notion of anguish of existing as an adult.

Hearts of Oak, Dillon

A few songs into Hearts of Oak, I felt the acute worry that the album would be thirteen songs of pure punk energy—fast, frantic, angry. I was wrong. Are you allowed to say that the thing you enjoyed most about an album like this is its structure?

Hearts of Oak begins with the prophetic "Building Skyscrapers in the Basement," and Leo's line: "I know some things I'd rather not / Like the time ahead is all the time you've got."

The somber start leads right into the energy of the next few songs. We're off to the races. "The High Party" is where I started to worry, but only because I was having so much fun. At that point, I was thinking that "High Party" could be my favorite song on the album so far, but could I handle nine more similar songs?

I shouldn't have doubted Ted Leo. By the time I got to "Dead Voices," the scenery had changed completely. The fear and frustration of the first few songs had turned from not wanting to know that time is slipping away to, "All time is right now, what do we learn from him, then?" My personal notes transitioned from "distortion and repetition gets me fired up" to "wow, I like the journey of this song."

Then, in the grouping of songs after "Dead Voices," the energy climbs again, before starting its final denouement at "First to Finish, Last to Start." There, Leo comes back to time and death with the lines,  "If you must, then jump away / I'm not afraid, we'll meet another day."

I could've written about a lot of things this week. I liked songwriting on this album and I liked the bare-bones instrument choices that put a spotlight on Leo's vocals. But really, the final test of an album is what leads you to the next song and for me, it was the variety of Hearts of Oak that kept me listening.

Taximen, Dillon

I'm writing this from Miami. I left Philly tired and plagued by a cough that has sat stagnant in my lungs for the last two weeks since having COVID. And that cough is one of too many stagnant things in my life that I wish would just move.

Taximen moves. The drums swing. The horns jump forward and back. Even the guitar on this album is basically a rhythm instrument.

It's rhythm I needed. I probably also needed some sun and a break from work. But bright horns and good rhythms don't hurt either. I really enjoyed Taximen though, especially the second cut, "Wariko." I think this record will be one that I come back to when I need to move. When I do, I probably won't have the chance to take a trip and get some rest, but the Taximan doesn’t really go anywhere anyway. He moves, yeah, but probably just drives around the city and it slowly starts to look a little bit different.