Two songs into Midnight Marauders, had a brilliant idea for my post. I was going to not google what a "marauder" was and guess and write a blurb about why I thought it was a word based on what I thought of the album. Example: "guide" because this album and A Tribe Called Quest guided us though the vibes and rhythms we should be going through when out at midnight. "Orator" because they were sharing the sounds of midnight. BUT ALAS. My idea was ruined when the third (?) song shared what marauder meant. I guess y'all won't be able to experience the most creative brilliant post this blog has ever seen. Or maybe this is a lesson to me to not start crafting my blog post before I listen to the album in its entirety?
Either way, I loved this album. It's just plan groovy. It's music and sound and soul that you could listen to up in a club, or on a road trip, or when you need to lock in with headphones at work to get creative juices flowing. I can almost smell the scent of a packed club in NYC with this album being performed, or someone's stoop on a summer day with this sounding out of a boom box. I will definitely be listening to this album again.
from Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid, 1993
I think a lot about the idea that if you smile, the muscle you use to smile push more blood to your brain and make you happier. I don't know if that's scientifically true—and I refuse to do any research for a goddamn mixtape blurb—but I like the intention behind the idea. It's like, you're not happy, but if you force yourself to pretend that you are happy, then eventually you actually become happy. I'd like to propose the same idea to yelling Yeah! in a song. The '90s class of less-than-four-hits alt-rock wonders are a sad sack bunch, but how can we assume that Collective Soul remained sad? Their biggest hit features a few cathartic Yeah!s, and that must've done wonders for their mental health. —Joe
"Ye" by Burna Boy
from Outside, 2018
Is Burna Boy cancelled? People are very upset at him, including me, for yelling at someone in his audience who was sleeping during a show. He actually had security kick her out. This opened the floodgates of people saying he is a dick in general. He does also have odd insta posts. Kinda angry and isolated themes. This is not upstanding behavior to say the least, but is this enough to cancel? I haven't decided yet? Is being an angry but non-violent man enough to be cancellable? Or at least enough to make me not listen to his music unabashedly? Idk. Remains to be seen. —Galia
"Yeah! Oh, Yeah!" by the Magnetic Fields
from 69 Love Songs, 1999
But here, the Magnetic Fields put a twist on a Yeah! in ironic fashion. Yeah! Murder! This is a Top-23 song out of the 69 songs on 69 Love Songs. It makes me think about that fundamental idea in art criticism that the text and the intentions of that text are often directly opposed, on purpose. A happy song with sad lyrics, a movie featuring an outsized villain winning to make the audience appalled, that sort of thing. Life would be boring if we revealed our truth in a direct way every single time. —Joe
"Family of Noise" by Adam and the Ants
from Dirk Wears White Sox, 1979
Is there a most famous Yeah!? I felt uncomfortable choosing my pick for most famous Yeah!, but I did manage to fit in a song that directly quotes that famous Yeah!. This song is fine. Adam Ant is fine. I'm glad I was able to do something with Dirk Wears White Sox on the blog, because I was unimpressed otherwise. Interesting, though, that I'd prefer Adam Ant over the Beatles on a mixtape. Choosing the Beatles would be like going up to a soda fountain machine with 45 different flavors, and hitting the button for water. You need water to live, but sometimes it nice to try something else. —Joe
"Lithium" by Nirvana
from Nevermind, 1991
Maybe it's cliché to try to imagine what might have become of Cobain's career of he had lived past 27, but I find the thought exercise interesting enough that I lean into the cliché most times I find myself turning to Nirvana on the iPod. The easiest answer is that he would have been the Gen X Neil Young: prolific into his old age, steadfast in his ideals, not afraid to make his voice heard to his ever gradually shrinking audience, a strong body of work to build a legacy on. It's nice to think about all that, but also curious to realize how difficult it is to imagine Cobain in his 50s. How could someone possibly live into old age when the Yeah!s of their 20s are this sad? —Joe
"Mony Mony" by Tommy James and the Shondells
from Mony Mony, 1968
I would love to have this explained to be one day, but this far it soars that the anomaly was truly random, something that cannot be explain. It's an ego thing, like my ego is bruised that I can't explain this little sliver of trivia in music history, and I'm just waiting for someone to give me a good answer, and I've never gotten one, and it hurts. I'm talking about the fact that, in the fall of 1987, Tiffany and Billy Idol went back-to-back with #1 hits that were both covers of Tommy James and the Shondells songs from the mid-'60s ("I Think We're Alone Now" and "Mony Mony," respectively). Why? Why?? I need to know how this happened. What about American culture in 1987 screamed a need for a Tommy James revival? As someone in 2026 who loves that Tommy James and the Shondells greatest hits comp with all his might, it bothers the fuck out of me. —Joe
"Evil's Sway" by Japandroids
from Celebration Rock, 2012
We've examined so Yeah!s today: the healing, the ironic, the pastiche, the haunted, the coincidental. But now, witness the true Yeah!: the Yeah! of catharsis. A Yeah! that you scream into the night, either to mark greatness or a bottoming out, either way a Yeah! as a way to release, to feel infinity. C'mon now, scream it with me!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! —Joe
NEXT WEEK: "Family Reunion" — Songs that have family relationship terms in the title (mom, cousin, uncle, that sort of thing) (chosen by Joe)
Directed by Karyn Kusama, Destroyer is crime drama starring Nicole Kidman as an undercover detective seeking revenge. I remember watching this movie towards the tail-end of the pandemic and mostly remembering how grimy it made everyone look. The most memorable part of the movie, though, and what the trailers showcased, was how unrecognizable Nicole Kidman looked in this. I don't remember too much about the story, but I do remember how it looked, which I suppose is a success for a visual medium. —Batts
"Glitter" by Charly Bliss
from Guppy, 2017
The bit that I'll be performing today is that all seven of my song choices share a title with (but have nothing to do with) a film that has not yet been watched for Film Club, but is currently on the list and eligible.
The films on that list were originally chosen because 1) I have never seen the film, but 2) I for whatever reason feel like I should have. The reason that I "should have seen it" could be anything, but mostly it boils down to "I have heard about this film before," with a little dash of "I could imagine someone giving me a hard time for not having seen it." I.e. "You've never seen ___?!"
But this all means that I've never seen any of the movies who share titles with my song selections for this mixtape. My goals are threefold. One, to keep the focus on the music, and force myself to not take the easy way out and just describe a movie, since I literally can't do that here. Two, to bring attention to the movie's existence, in the hopes that people might choose these movies for Film Club in the future. And three, to have a little fun and try to guess what each of these movies is about, without looking up anything about the movie now. (Not that I would ever deign to research a movie before watching it, because that's spoilers. I'm more saying that there are movies that I know some things about without ever actually having seen it, just based on pop culture osmosis.)
What is Glitter about? Is this the one that stars Mariah Carey? Or is that Gigli? Or wait, Gigli is Jennifer Lopez? One is one, and one is the other. That's my official guess. I know they were both critically panned. I know, or I think? I think. I'm going to guess that Glitter is about Mariah Carey looking for love and finding it in all the wrong places (while looking immaculate in the process). —Joe
"Up" by Cardi B
a single, 2021
According to Urban Dictionary, "it's up then it's stuck" means: There is an issue with someone/ somebody and it's gonna stay that way until the beef is settled. The general internet says it's a southern phrase. Cardi B said on Jimmy Fallon that it's when you're trying to poop but the poop won't come out. I've never seen Up the movie, so I can't make some clever comparison about how something in that movie was up AND stuck. I don't know if I will ever see it, because apparently it makes people cry. I am a huge movie crier. It takes a LOT out of me. So, I think the movie would be too much of an emotional ride for me to be willing to subject myself to. My stubbornness: if it's up then it's stuck. —Galia
"Hummingbird" by Wilco
from A Ghost Is Born, 2004
Getting back into Wilco these days, stay tuned for more. Apparently Hummingbird is a movie with Jason Statham. It's probably bad.
A friend told me recently that going to the movie theater by himself is his therapy. I agree with him. There's nothing like the dark theater, a place where smartphones are largely off, where conversation is at a minimum, where you can be alone with your own thoughts without trying to focus on your own breath. Instead, you get lost in a story that's separate from your own life. I hope theaters remain, even in the age of the internet and AI. —Zach
"Dazed and Confused" by Led Zeppelin
from Led Zeppelin I, 1969
A quintessential start-of-summer watch. It's wild to think that if a similar movie were made today, it would be set in our high school time frame. Are there any movies that tap into the nostalgia for that time coming out? What do you think would that even look like? —Gloria
"Magnolia" by Gang of Youths
from The Positions, 2015
I went to a new barber shop this week. Most male-oriented barber shops have similar aesthetics: Tommy Lee posters, Suavecito ads, mini-fridge with Hamm's and/or High Life, Norse and/or Gaelic wall art, maybe a TV playing prestige TV, maybe a motorcycle on a dias. In this instance, we had an extremely jacked BJJ-practicing barber, a 42-inch playing The Sopranos "To Save Us All from Satan's Power," and a pitbull somewhere in the back barking every so often. This barber is one of the talker types, and in no time he's equivocating on the work of PT Anderson. Boogie Nights had to sit with him, but he loved it, ultimately; he thought One Battle was good, and Benicio is brilliant, but overall a bit too long, and like us all There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece—for DDL if nothing else. But Tom Cruise man? This guy, c'mon... —Sunny
"Heat" by 50 Cent
from Get Rich or Die Tryin', 2003
I do the whole "I've never experienced this art and so now I'm going to make an effort to experience it and see what I think" thing for music too. It's a lot easier for music. I can listen to music while I'm doing other shit. I can't with movies. It's gonna take an effort to watch Heat. I'm going to have to make sure I download it, and I'm gonna make sure I set aside time in my week (after bedtime, on the bus, whatever) to give it my full attention. Whereas with Get Rich or Die Tryin', I can listen to it 20 times in one day if I wanted to. Seventeen of those would be slightly in the background, and three listens would be almost full attention, approximately. That's enough to get a sense of the album, I think.
What is Heat about? It's a mid-'90s action flick, starring one of the action stars from that era, a Bruce Willis type, and he's getting heat from the cops about something that he did wrong, or has been doing wrong for a while, and now it's all catching up to him, he's feeling the heat, as they say. —Joe
"HEAT" by SG Lewis and Tove Lo
from HEAT EP, 2024
I recently listened to a podcast episode that detailed the making of Michael Mann's classic crime drama Heat. Fun Fact: Though this is the first movie to feature Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro on screen together, this is actually the second movie they co-starred in. Another Fun Fact: Al Pacino intentionally played his character as a cokehead even though he never uses cocaine on screen nor is this habit mentioned in the script. Yet another Fun Fact: Michael Mann wrote a prequel/sequel novel that is currently being prepped to be adapted into a movie that might star Leonardo DiCaprio. —Batts
"The Great Escape" by BOYS LIKE GIRLS
from Boys Like Girls, 2006
I am probably tough to give recommendations to. I'm mostly talking about movies here. The way my life is structured, I don't really have that much time to watch film. I make time, but I gotta stretch it sometimes. The aforementioned bus rides being something that I've been leaning on in the past year or two. If you tell me to watch a movie, most likely I am not watching that movie. I have a whole fucking list of 400 movies that I'm working through with a Film Club! I can't be adding shit to that. That's why I feel uncomfortable when we watch a movie in Film Club and someone is like "if you liked this, you gotta watch the sequel!" I don't have time for that. My bad!
But then if you check out the blog, all you'll see is hundreds of thousands of words about movies and music. And some of it, like Boys Like Girls, will be... a recommendation from someone I've never even met? A "recommendation" only because she gave me a list of her favorite music like five years ago? And this was based on another blogging bit? Joe, you have time for this, but you don't have time to watch the sequel to the great movie we just spent an hour talking about on Zoom?!
I guess they are escaping from something in The Great Escape. I think they have to escape from the jungle. There is a monkey chasing them, and they need to get out of the jungle as soon as possible before the monkey make a banana out of them. The monkey might have red eyes, in a feat of good special effects. —Joe
"Edge of Seventeen" by Stevie Nicks
from Bella Donna, 1981
I've never seen this movie, but I know it exists, and I like this song. The movie is really well-rated on Rotten Tomatoes—like 94%, but only 7.3 on IMDb. Curious. Have you seen it? Google tells me that it is a "very good, relatable, and realistic modern coming-of-age film." —Gloria
"Rent" by Pet Shop Boys
from Pet Shop Boys, actually., 1987
It's rarely ever that I've never seen any single part or portion of any of these movies. Sometimes, I've seen a few minutes here and there. Maybe it was on at the mechanic or something, and I got five minutes with it. I have a lot of theater friends and so I'm familiar with RENT and it's probably been on the TV at a few parties I've gotten blasted at back in the good ol' days. There was actually one party specifically that didn't have any theater kids at it (well, no theater kids from the theater shows that I was doing, anyway). It was post-prom, and we were at my date's house. Her parents were there. I ended up hooking up with someone else under a blanket, pretty conspicuously, and it was a whole thing. I was an asshole, in the general sense that maybe you should spend time with your date when you're at her afterparty at her house instead of making out with another woman in full view of your date's mom. I was not a good person then. I don't know if I'm a good person now.
I don't know if anyone in RENT is a good person; I clearly didn't watch any of RENT that night. But I know it's about a group of friends in New York who don't pay rent and are dealing with STIs out the wazoo. —Joe
"Coffee" by Aesop Rock ft. John Darnielle
from None Shall Pass, 2007
Coffee is a 2022 Indian Marathi-language film directed by Nitin Kamble and produced by Tanvi Films (Wikipedia).
I started working at a coffee shop/bakery this week. It's called Siti Boulangerie. Their bread pudding is amazing. Some people have dreams to become CEO of their company. I have dreams like that, but they're more about giving a TED Talk, or releasing a novel to critical reception. I could care less about being a CEO. One of my more recent dreams? Working in a coffee shop. And I've realized it. It wasn't hard to achieve, even though I deferred it for a long time. How easily do all the fears in our minds hold us back! I wonder when I'll start to smash through the barriers. Maybe soon. Maybe never. This is my life. —Zach
"Fame" by Deeper
from Careful!, 2023
Hoping that no one picks the David Bowie song, because that one is way overrated. Speaking of Bowie songs, we watched the movie Troop Zero a couple weekends ago, and it was fucking great! A pivotal and very moving and very funny scene heavily involved "Space Oddity," which is totally overrated in every sense of the word. As usually, the best movies can launder the worst songs. I was excited enough about the movie that I played "Space Oddity" for the girls the next morning, prefacing it by saying "you know this one now!" They were... unimpressed. I'd like to think that's because it's an unimpressive song, and not because they were unimpressed with Troop Zero, which, again, was fucking great, especially the ending, which knocked it out of the park, the final ten minutes basically moving it from a 3/5 to a 4/5 grade, even though it included two cliché Bowie songs ("Starman" too).
Oh lord, what is Fame about? Probably a person who obsessively seeks it, fame, and when they find it, they go insane, or get really mean about it, and become the villain in their own story. It's an Icarus tale, don't fly too close to the fame or else you'll plummet to the earth. Am I anywhere close? Don't answer that. —Joe
"Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter Group
from They Only Come Out at Night, 1972
I think somewhere else on the blog, I talked about how the 1931 version of Frankenstein was just kind of on our TV a lot growing up. It's such a classic film. The mood and atmosphere that it creates with such minimalism is outstanding. I love the cinematography of the last scene with the windmill and the emotions that you can see play across the actors' faces. —Gloria
"La Dolce Vita" by Sparks
from Nº 1 in Heaven, 1979
I'm almost there with the AFI Top 100 Films of All Time list, maybe 20ish more to go (I've counted recently, but forget the exact number, and will not be counting again). I am nowhere near even a sliver of a fraction of the way through the BFI Top 350 Films of All Time list from 2022. I wonder if that is because that BFI list (which is about fifteen years more recent, to be frank) puts more of a focus on international features, especially non-English-centric ones. I think this is a good thing, because a good movie can come from anywhere. Film Club watched Tokyo Story last week, which was in Japanese. I was surprised to see Tokyo Story at #4 on the BFI list! Not surprised in that it wasn't good, because it was fucking great, so great that it totally makes sense that it would be up that high. More surprised in that I've actually seen three of the top four movies on that list now. I have just been operating for so long under the conditions that I haven't seen ANYTHING on that list that it feels discombobulating to make tangible progress on it.
La dolce vita is on there, tied at #60. This movie is on the Film Club list because it's on the BFI list, and basically no other reason, at least not one that I can remember. So I have no idea what it's about, beyond the fact that it's probably in Italian. I know "dolce" means "sweet," so it's probably about someone who is sweet but they keep running into challenges and obstacles, to the point that they are questioning whether it's even worth being sweet in this life, but then they have a dark night of the soul and realize that they can only escape the darkness by being sweet, and so that is what they consciously choose to be, for permanent this time—sweet. There's probably also a monkey in this one too. —Joe
"Mommie Dearest" by Marco Beltrami, Dennis Smith, Jongnic Bontemps, and Marcus Trumpp
from Carrie (Original Score), 2013
I wanted to pick one movie from Film Club to put on here. This is one of the hardest MMMs to choose songs for, to be honest. Most movies have unique titles, and most songs with those titles are already about the movie itself. I don't think this song is particularly compelling, but I'm running out of ideas over here. —Zach
"Deliverance" by CHVRCHΞS
from Love Is Dead, 2018
John Boorman's 1972 film Deliverance is not an easy watch, in my opinion. In fact, I'll admit that I've never sat down to watch the full movie, since I'm aware of its controversy and infamous "squeal like a pig" scene. However, I am aware that at least two notable directors love the movie: Bong Joon Ho and Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino even wrote a whole chapter about Deliverance in his book Cinema Speculation. But despite, or because of, its desire to push the envelope, this movie is still referenced and talked about by the modern public. (Geez, that sounds like I'm writing a book report...) —Batts
"Five Easy Pieces" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
from Some Loud Thunder, 2007
I've only ever been conscious of a film called Five Easy Pieces because I was hyperaware of the existence of the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song called "Five Easy Pieces," being one of the world's maybe Top 50 Some Loud Thunder defenders. You don't really ask yourself why a song is called what it's called unless something else draws your attention to it. I saw the film title somewhere in the wild in the past eighteen years or so, and always wondered. Then I was watching Easy Rider and doing some post-film reading and saw something along the lines of Nicholson doing Five Easy Pieces afterward and solidifying his rep as Hollywood leading man. So I know that Five Easy Pieces stars Jack Nicholson. It's probably about a man who does drugs.
My pal and PoYB Contributor Mandy B. has promised me that she will eventually bring me to Open Mic Night at Fergie's Pub. She has told me that the drummer (former or current, I haven't looked it up yet so I'm not sure) for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is a regular at Fergie's on Open Mic Night. I told Mandy that I have so many questions him. She was like, oh yeah, I forgot that you love Some Loud Thunder. I haven't heard from Mandy since, so I'm assuming that she is too worried that I'm gonna hound this poor drummer dude with all my questions about CYHSY's sophomore album and my theory that it's one of the saddest albums of all time.
My opinion on the movie? To be determined. Someone should choose it for Film Club. —Joe
NEXT WEEK: "Calling All Etsy Witches: This Mixtape Is a Curse" — Songs that have "dead" or "death" or "die" in the title, all of these songs put together on a mixtape, on President's Day, as we think about our current president, though there's not really any connection between the theme and the president, no, no, there is not (chosen by Joe)
I want to start by saying I love SZA. She rose to popularity while I was in college. Her dreamy ethereal-like voice blends with the Miami palm trees in my mind when I think back to the days that were much much easier than now.
I can now continue by saying: I was bored by this album. I was drawn in with the strong and pleading vocals of the first song. She made a statement: she is here, she is strong, she has powerful emotions, and her ass is, indeed, NOT real. She didn't hide anything with that first track. But as the album went on, one song blended into another in a way where, in moments, I actually forgot I was listening to an album as my mind drifted elsewhere. The songs became background music. This could be good. Always nice to have a chill blendy album to play during a car ride when you wanna just zone the fuck out. But, it didn't suffice for me for the brilliance that is SZA. When she tried to switch things up with genres, I was not impressed. "F2F" made me cringe and "Nobody Gets Me" sounded like a Taylor Swift song. The features were okay. I really loved "Used" with Don Toliver, but really didn't love the insane autotune that Travis Scott used in "Open Arms."
I truly don't think this album was a flop though. There are great hits that made the charts and that I enjoy like "Snooze" and "Kill Bill." Also, I reflected a bit about why this album didn't really hit for me, and I came to the conclusion that this isn't a SZA problem, but a me problem. And not even a me problem but more of a me thing. It's a "it's not SZA it's me" deal. I think I would have eaten this album UP if I was in a sadgirl phase. But lately I haven't been feeling like much of a sadgirl. I've felt these days more like a madgirl. So the in-your-feels about relationships moods that it seems like this album is about doesn't feel like it applies to me at this time of my life. In a way, I feel very lucky that I'm bored by the album. I'm in a stable and awesome romantic relationship, and my big friend breakups are mostly behind me now. And when I slip into feelings it's, as I mentioned before, anger. I'm working on it with my therapist. Which, maybe if I listened hard enough I'd see that, maybe, SZA is angry too. But I was too uninterested to search. Maybe I should talk to my therapist about that too.
In the end, no songs from this album were entered into my "liked songs" tab of Spotify, and I will go back to my equilibrium and continue listening to "Love Galore," "The Weekend," and "All the Stars." But I will look back on SOS fondly, as it brought me out of my PoYB drought. Thanks SZA.
The word that I feel best describes this album is "raw." The songs covered a range of unedited emotion and admissions, and spared no details. Doechii came at us with everything hanging out, and said "take me or leave me bitch, I don't give a fuck either way." And people seemed to really eat that shit up, me included. I want to take one sentence to pat myself on the back for—in a rare change of events—being culturally relevant, because the week for reviewing this album is the week Doechii became one of three women to win for Best Rap Album at the Grammys. I didn't even know she was nominated for a Grammy!
I appreciate how much Doechii was so herself, but also how I could hear the influences that she has wrapped into her music. I heard a combination of artists mixed into her style. I started noticing the sampling in the album when, in "DENIAL IS A RIVER," she sang "I ain't a killer, but don't push me / Don't wanna have to turn a n— guts into soup beans," and I was instantly transported to Nikki Minaj's verse in "Monster" by Ye Who Shall Not Be Named. That growling singing that I can't even describe will always be Nikki's, but Doechii nailed it in that song and in "CATFISH." It made sense to me to read that she toured with Tyler, the Creator and SZA, because Doechii's slower tracks like "WAIT" very much sounded like SZA, and Kali Uchis in "See You Again" by Tyler. Moreover, "HUH!" screamed Doja Cat, and not to mention the epic nod to Doja Cat’s "MOOO!" in "GFTO." The list could go on and on of the artists that she nodded to, and even I'm sure goes far past my musical knowledge.
And lastly, I have to acknowledge the absolute twerkable radio banger "NISSAN ALTIMA."
I had a great time listening, and I plan to have fun listening many more times over. I predict that this will be an album in which I will connect with more the more times I listen, as the messages of the songs and the emotions behind them will reveal themselves over time.
Fun fact about the album to end: Five of her songs, three from this mixtape ("BULLFROG," "CATFISH," and "BOOM BAP," plus "FLORIDA WATA" and "SUNDAY'S BEST") came from a challenge of sorts that Doechii did called "Swamp Sessions," in which the wrote the songs in under an hour and then posted whatever she wrote on YouTube with a music video. Really fucking impressive. So much talent. Can't wait to see what she continues to do.
Did y'all hear about this petition that the youts are petitioning, trying to replace Dora Jar as the opener for Gracie Adams' upcoming European tour? I, an old, have heard about the petition, but I have never heard of either artist, so my stakes in the debacle are low at best. Still, here's one part of this so-called petition that I found kinda funny: "We are perplexed as we do not recognize her, and with less than two weeks till the tour, it’s virtually impossible to familiarize ourselves with her slow-paced songs." I know that there have always been some concerns about the fact that we here in Record Club only have six days or so to consume an album and synthesize some intelligent thoughts about it for a "review." But c'mon. A week is long enough. Two weeks is certainly long enough, and I have no idea what the writer of this petition was thinking when they thought that was a valid concern. You can't listen to an album in two weeks? We've been going double that pace for six full years now.
Yes, that's right! Happy Sixth Anniversary, Record Club! Week 1 began on Super Bowl Sunday in 2019, but now it's not on Super Bowl Sunday anymore because the NFL added an extra week to the regular season schedule. So now our anniversary is always during Pro Bowl Weekend, which cuts the irony down like 80%. To celebrate, Record Club alumni the Philadelphia Eagles are going to attempt to win the Super Bowl next week. (Actually, I'm just realizing that tonight is the Grammy Awards, which isn't irony at all. I don't give a shit about the Grammys, except for RC alumni up for awards.)
Thanks for being here, friends. It's been a good six years. Let's go another 60.
GALIA'S COMMENTS: "I recently stumbled upon her song 'DENIAL IS A RIVER' and loved it. I thought it was really clever and compelling. I'm not a huge album listener, so I would not have listened to this album in full otherwise, despite being curious about the other songs. So thanks for joining me on this ride to get to know Doechii!"
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ALBUM DETAILS
GENRE: Southern hip hop, boom bap, trap, conscious hip hop, alternative R&B, hardcore hip hop
PRONUNCIATION: "DOE-chee," which doesn't seem as complicated as I originally thought it would be
PRONOUNS: she/her/hers
ABOUT: Jaylah Ji'mya Hickmon was born on August 14, 1998, in Tampa, Florida. Her father was also a professional rapper. She started writing in high school, and released her first song in 2016, called "Girls." Wikipedia states that she went "viral" "on TikTok" "in 2021," with the song "Yucky Blucky Fruitcake." She was signed as the first female rapper under the Top Dawg Entertainment label in 2022. She performed at Coachella in 2023, and received three Grammy nominations in 2024-25. Her rise has been slow and steady, and it feels like she is currently on the precipice of fame.
DISCOGRAPHY: Doechii has yet to release a proper studio LP. Alligator Bites Don't Heal is her third mixtape, and she has also released two EPs.
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ADDITIONAL INFO
READING SOME SHIT: a 2024 feature in Gay Times magazine
WATCHING SOME SHIT:Tiny Desk Concert, December 2024, with seven songs from this album
RECORD CLUB CONNECTIONS: Her very first song, "Girls," shares a name with the band Girls. She has toured with SZA, who is touring with Kendrick Lamar and featured heavily on GNX. She has featured on recent songs by Katy Perry, Janelle Monáe, and Tyler, the Creator, and co-featured on a song with Missy Elliott. Killer Mike recently interviewed Doechii. Just last month, she was a guest judge on RuPaul's Drag Race (the Doechii song for the lip sync was not from this album).
Doechii is nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys tonight. She is up against Khruangbin (who has been a band for fifteen years and is still nominated for Best New Artist) and Chappell Roan (probably gonna win). "Nissan Altima" is nominated for Best Rap Performance, where she is going against Kendrick Lamar and Future. This album is also up for Best Rap Album, also against Future. Kaytranada is nominated for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical, for mixing Doechii's song "Alter Ego" (that's the song that was featured in the Drag Race lip sync). Plenty of RC alumni nominated tonight, but which RC albums (or their songs) are nominated? Here is what I could find by scrolling through: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, Bando Stone and the New World for Best Progressive R&B Album, "I Am Not Okay" by Jelly Roll (from Beautifully Broken) and "The Architect" by Kacey Musgraves (from Deeper Well), both for Best Country Solo Performance (the former song for Best Country Song too, the latter album for Best Country Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, too), Tigers Blood by Waxahatchee for Best Americana Album, and "b i g f e e l i n g s" by WILLOW (from empathogen) for Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals.
Most importantly: Uproxx just released their annual Music Critics Poll, which comes extremely late this year (who the hell gives a shit about 2024 lists by the end of January 2025?!). Still, worth mentioning for a couple reasons. First, because Puke on Your Birthday, for the fifth year in a row, is a contributing critic. I'm not going to link to our entry because it has my full name, which I try to keep off of this blog, but you can easily find it if you navigate the website. Second, because Alligator Bites Don't Heal is #3 on the Top 50 Albums list, which is kinda crazy, and makes me think that I am a terrible critic, if I've never heard of the damn thing until this week. Other RC albums on the list: GNX (#2), Manning Fireworks (#4), Tigers Blood (#5), Imaginal Disk (#18), Deeper Well (#31), plus a bunch of other RC alumni with their newest albums.
MENTIONS ON THE BLOG: I've never heard or read the name even once before Galia picked this album, but I have a feeling that's all about to change.
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OTHER ALBUMS TO CHECK OUT
LAST WEEK'S ALBUM: The Vandalist by Noga Erez, and check out the reviews if you want more info!
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 Speed Kills by Chubby and the Gang.
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 The Vandalist was a disco rap album (some of the songs, anyway). We're listening this week to Kurtis Blow by Kurtis Blow.
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 Dream Fist by EVE 6!
taking on too many clients at work, not cooking dinners anymore, not doing my therapy homework, caring too much about whether I impress my colleagues, relying on alcohol in group settings with people I don't know, nickel, interrupting my partner when he tells stories, not tracking my coffee intake, beating myself up for not keeping my room clean, lack of morning routine, letting anxiety control me.
In with the...
sending short video updates to my long distance friends, cooking dinner one night a week, trying new/novel Philadelphia activities, walking to the trolley portal some mornings of the week, visiting my clients more often in custody like I used to do, hosting a karaoke party, going to more karaoke nights, taking healthy risks, using soap that doesn't wreck my eczema hands, nose piercing, drinking lots of tea, sending cards for holidays.
Keeping it going with the...
reading regularly, trying new recipes, calling family, scheduling necessary doctor appointments, keeping my email inbox from overflowing, texting friends for their birthdays, wearing clothes that make me feel confident, trips to Chung Dam Spa, going to the dentist, strength workouts.
This song definitely is a cliffhanger. Jason Derulo goes through his thoughts on how he messed up, and then the chorus kinda indicates the sarcastic questions the partner in question is asking, but whether the partner will stay with Jason is not addressed. And, if they do stay together, Jason does not really offer HOW he will make things better and reestablish the broken trust. He just whines and says some of the stupidest music lines and fake rhymes "I know what I did wasn't clever, but me and you were meant to be together" and “I don't want you to leave me, though you caught me cheatin'." What I can only hope for Jason is that either way, he works to be a better partner to this woman or any future partner. And, if said woman and Jason stay together, I would hope that they would be more honest with one another and really address the root problems within Jason or possibly within the relationship.
Going into the new year, addressing how to make my relationships better, especially with my partner, is a high priority. I am very happy in my relationship, but there are major things within myself that I need to take a hard look at in order to be a better long-term partner. I can only hope that whatever has been left unsaid (whatcha say???) can be said in 2025.
Prompt: "A song you regret has not been chosen yet by anyone during either iteration of the Song Challenge, because, damn, you have such a good reason to choose this song"
Spillage Village with Benji and EarthGang, ft. Mereba and Big Rube
Spilligion, 2020
Shortly after writing the prompt for the best song on Jan. 3rd, I regretted not choosing this song, though I stand by loving "My Sweet Lord." My brother showed me this song. I think "Hapi" is truly a work of art. It is gritty and emotional and has multiple different parts that flow together in only a way that I have heard in "Bohemian Rhapsody." It makes me happy and sad and angry and inspired and guilty all at one. I also love EARTHGANG, as some diehard PoYB peeps (or maybe just Joe) might know from Record Club. I hope someone scrolls down the late submissions section enough to see this, and gives this song a listen!
I'll start this off by saying for the record that I'm a huge T-Pain fan. I think over time I've become more and more of a fan. I loved when I found out that even though he notoriously used autotune that he actually has an amazing voice. He also just seems like a dude I'd like to sit with over beers, though I'll admit that I don't stay super up-to-date with celebrity drama, so maybe he has already done some questionable shit already. If so, then I take my request for beers with T-Pain BACK.
I felt like I had to start off this way because I have nothing good to say about 1UP. I was mostly just BORED when listening to it. The album was boring. Most of the songs sounded exactly the same, and there was no one song that stood out as the successful hit. His topics were old and used, and his lyrics were not clever. I don't have a lot of patience for the rap songs that are all about how the person is better than all the other rappers out there and gives better dick than all the other rappers out there. This theme is common within rap songs. I tolerate a verse or two about this topic, but 1UP was kinda a whole album dedicated to this theme. And ironically, the opener seems like he is trying to be humble and say things like "We in the same race... we end up in the same place," but then goes ahead the next line to say he's got 1UP on them?? It don't make no damn sense.
Furthermore, I get that rappers love to talk about their penises, and I like a good amount of songs when this topics comes up (no pun intended), but T-Pain talks about his penis WAY too much. I couldn't even get through 30 seconds of "Here It Comes" without shuddering and hitting the next button. Calm down, dude. Talk a little about the clitoris, then maybe I'll be interested in what you have to say about pleasing women.
As for the breakup songs on the album, "Be Your X" and "Keep This from Me," I think if I was in the throes of a breakup and in a really low moment, I'd get satisfaction from screaming these lyrics:
"Your mama and your daddy ain't shit
When you see 'em, tell
Both of 'em I said fuck 'em, yeah"
I got a good laugh about that lyric.
I was hopeful about "Goat Talk." I was thinking that that could be the redeeming song of the album, but then Lil Wayne had the worst verse ever. I'm not mad, Lil Wayne, I'm just disappointed. I had to double listen to make sure I heard correctly that he used "pap smear" in his lyrics. He indeed did. LEAVE PAP SMEARS OUT OF IT, WAYNE!
I will circle this out again by expressing my love for T-Pain. I chalk this all up to 2019 not being his year. This album has not marked the end of his career, because he has since come out with an awesome covers album. Additionally, either he got new songwriters or he has been through some shit, because he recently came out with one of my favorite songs of 2024 AND—circling back to breakup songs—a very hard-hitting, deep, and clever breakup song, "On This Hill." So he has it in him.
My dear grandmother died this morning (or yesterday morning for all y'all reading this). She was such a fucking awesome person. Lived until 93 like a badass. Everyone loved her and felt her love. Her favorite restaurant was Legal Sea Foods in Newton, so tonight we went there to eat, and waiter she and my mom regularly had came over, and when my mom told him the news, HE cried. A 30-year-old guy who was the waiter for my grandmother maybe a handful of times was brought to tears and had to step away because that's just who my Bubbie was to people. One of her favorite pieces of music was Beethoven's 3rd Symphony, so in honor of her, I'm adding this so it can be in all our June playlist. Not something I'd personally wanna crack a cold one open to, but maybe some time down the line when I'm ready, I will try for the hell of it.
Tonight for dinner, we had something called "vegetarian mess." At a pizza shop in my hometown of Needham, Massachusetts, they serve dishes called messes, which are everything-but-the-kitchen-sink pasta bake type meals. It's served in a tin serving pan and can feed like fifteen people. There are different types of messes which include veggies and meats. In high school, we would get messes for sports team dinners. What's in the veggie mess is spaghetti and penne with tomato sauce mixed in with heaping amounts of breaded eggplant, mushrooms, peppers, and onions. All of this is topped off with cheese. I'm with a lot of family right now, and when I plopped the pan on the table, the first reactions were ones of half-serious disgust due to the overindulgent-looking heap of food. But once everyone started eating, all I heard was sounds of good eats. Another point goes to the mess!
I felt SO cool when I was in elementary or early middle school when I could say all the States in alphabetical order. It was my party trick before I was old enough to go to parties. I will say that memorizing that song has still helped me in adulthood. No, I do not sing it to show off to others, but somehow situations arise when I need to know the alphabetical order of states, or know how many states start with a certain letter (now that I think of it, I don't know what these situations could be... maybe all the crosswords I do) and I NAIL it. So yeah, what I'm saying is that I'm still cool for knowing this song.
The most memorable album I've done yet for Record Club. And a memorable writing moment. I was visiting my grandparents in Florida and taking some very needed rest from grad school. I was in the pool with my phone on the side of the pool, chilling and listening to this album in order to write a review later that day. It was a very nice experience. I am much too lazy in this moment to go find what I wrote about it but for the heck of it I will tomorrow (today). Right now I'm not in a relaxing time, so thinking of sun, pool, and family is very pleasant.
I'll just keep going with the diss tracks this week. I didn't know that this song was a diss track until very recently. Knowing that this is a diss to Eminem makes this song that much better, because I think alone this is a great song, but this song as a diss track is plain SAVAGE. I don't know much about Eminem's personality, so I can't speak to whether he is an ass, and it seems that whether Mariah and Eminem were in a relationship is still up to debate, but she really portrays him as an ass in this song. I wanted to at least be a little creative with this prompt instead of putting one of the million of songs about shaking ass that I have in my Spotify shuffle. I'm excited to see where other people take this prompt... could go so many ways. Will there be songs about butts? Donkeys? Dickheads? Some other association to the word ass??
I might be WAY in over my head with bringing the Drake and Kendrick beef into Song Challenge —especially because I did not pay nearly as much attention to it as many others did— but I couldn't help it because of how much of a DUD thing song is. I don't know what song is a more true-to-form lemon, because what was supposed to be a diss ended up being an embarrassment, and not to mention CREEPY. I think I was in the minority of people who actually thought Drakes diss tracks were better than Kendrick's. That changed though once I heard this.
What I think is interesting about myself is that I love gossip, but I actually am not moved by diss tracks in the same way as other tea-spilling. I feel kinda meh about it, and don't care to interpret every meaning behind every lyric. The references in this beef were pretty crazy, I'll admit, when I was told about them by people, but I didn't necessarily seek out the info like I do with drama happening to a friend of a friend. Any Normal Gossip fans here??
Anyway, the last thoughts I'll say about this beef is that I was pretty sad about how deep they went and how many accusations of domestic and sexual violence were made. Sad if the accusations are true, and sad if they are not and just spewed to get people roused. Like, goddamn, maybe put all that effort used for the diss tracks into something productive and not just to try to destroy each other! Sheesh.
My high school Spanish teacher incorporated Spanish songs into grammar lessons to help us learn whatever tense / other grammar thing we were learning. I can't remember what we were learning at the time, but "Limón y sal" was the song to help us, and it has been burned in my brain for how many times she replayed this song during class. I'd say this is a "core memory" song. I can't even tell if I like it anymore. Julieta Venegas might say I like it with lemon and salt. Ha ha. That's all I gotta say about this song, so happy June and happy Pride Month everyone!!
Matoma with the Notorious B.I.G. ft. Ralph Tresvant and Ja Rule
Hakuna Matoma, 2015
When I was in high school, I did distance running for all three school sport seasons. I did cross country, and then winter, then spring track. Looking back, I'm amazed at how in-shape and dedicated I was. I ran six days a week and could on any of those days just get up and run six miles like it was basically nothing. But the crazy part was that, in my years in high school, we had a particularly good distance team. Like, there were girls my years that ended up running for D1 schools. So all that time I wasn't even the top seven on the team, and that led me to believe that I wasn't that great or fast or in-shape. Quite the tragedy. I still like running and on occasion running a 5k race. I haven't been running over the past few years because I think city running just doesn't motivate me as much as suburb running did. But I think the wish to run will always be a part of me. I have since reached back out to my high school self to tell her many things, but one of them being that she was actually an impressive athlete but was in a bubble that messaged to her that she was not. Not that being an impressive athlete is important in the long run, but that was my community at that time: my friends, my mentors, and what I spent most of my time planning around and taking care of myself for. Galia has since diversified, but now the question is, what will future Galia need to soothe current Galia about or gas her up about?
I don't prefer country, but sometimes the moment CALLS for it. I have to be FULLY relaxed and it has to be sunny. The fully relaxed part doesn't happen often. But when that rare moment of silence in my brain happens and the sun shines through my windows and I've got some time to spare, nothing gets my endorphins like this song!! What a wholesome sentimental tune that just brings you down to earth. Along with a jail playlist, my summer goal is to manage my stress better, so maybe you'll hear country out of my speakers a bit more. The eczema and stomach issues that stem from stress/anxiety has gotten to the point where I'm like "okay Galia, you gotta get your shit together, because you don't have that tough of a life!!" After years of Dillon trying to get me to participate in a meditation app, I listened to my first meditation on a short walk today through the 10% Happier app. The meditation from today was "Self Kindness for Stress," which was actually helpful. If I remember, I will record in a month how many I've listened to for accountability purposes.
Today I am revealing myself as an Obama-list-lover. COME AT ME, PEOPLE!! I am a big fan for all things non politically that Obama does, especially his lists. I'll even go as far to say that he is a DILF. I wait every year to see his March Madness brackets, and love reading his music and book lists. I found one of my favorite authors Bryan Washington from Obama's reading list. Do I realize that he himself probably doesn't hand pick the songs/books on his lists and that a lot of input from other people goes into compiling this to help him stay relevant? Yes. Do I still fall into the trap of thinking he is relevant and fun? Yes. I actually think his lists are a good way to find music and books because of the thought that is probably put into listing a diverse array of genres and authors/musicians. However, I do recognize that many of the songs especially are basic to appeal to the masses like me. I'll be waiting on him to release this year's summer song list like the fool that I am. The haters/non-fools are still missing out, and I'll stand by that!
