What would happen if I search “Rap Is Crap CDBaby” on YouTube
I hate to continue to make this a newsletter about how we don’t have a podcast anymore, but it is kind of interesting that we put all of our… context eggs (?) in one basket for so long. So now that there are presumably people reading this newsletter who didn’t listen to the inner workings of my subconscious for over half a decade, I’m presented with these contextless and extremely valid questions. I could explain, or I could just be honest to myself and just cut straight to the point: Yes. Yes I am.
Also, speaking of the internet becoming real life, I finally made it:
Here’s some stuff we’re listening to this week.
Creeper “Shadows of the Night”
Sam: Great news for me and horrible news for haters who co-author this newsletter - Creeper have released a deluxe or expanded (I just checked and it’s actually “special”) edition of their most recent album, as all artists are legally required to do now under Stream Law. I debated including “Count Dalgula's Queen Of The Night Extended Mix” of “Cry to Heaven,” which we’ve already celebrated in these pages, but really it’s this Pat Benatar cover that made me say “sick” the most emphatically. This is one of a few types of music I genuinely like and am not just trying to enjoy for one tortured reason or another.
Jos: Now that we seem to write this newsletter on Wednesday afternoon, it means I’m so deep in the work-week and really at the peak of my existential malaise. I’ve had so many 1:1s and syncs and huddles, I’ve seen the same Slack debates about whether or not pineapple belongs with pizza so many times, I’ve had to make small talk with so many tech bros about music and whether or not I’ve seen Fallout. I’m really on the precipice of a breakdown. And now this fucking guy is making me read about something called “Count Dalgula's Queen Of The Night Extended Mix” and taunting me to hurt his friends’ feelings. Okay wait this is a cover, I finished the blurb. Yeah this sounds pretty cool actually, because it’s so corny. But there’s absolutely no possible way someone could write a song like this now, could they? There’s no way their songs called like “Gauntlet of Rawr” would be this good.
David Bowie and Brian Eno “Get Real - Sounds Right Mix (feat. NATURE)”
Sam: Surprising no one, I saw and loved the Brian Eno doc last weekend and have been on a related kick since. So how perfect is it that there’s a new David Bowie single, which is just a b-side from Outside that I’ve never heard with animal sounds layered on top. Yes, the “NATURE” being featured here is simply: nature. Apparently this is a whole thing tied to Eno’s environmental charity. “Along with the ‘Get Real’ remix, Sounds Right has released a full compilation featuring new versions of songs by V of BTS, Mick Jenkins, MØ, Ellie Goulding, and London Grammar — all crediting Nature as a featured artist.” This is like those old viral Chrome plugins that would allow you to browse the internet while listening to nonstop vuvuzela sounds. I love it.
Jos: The fact that Sam put the PR blurb in quotes, and didn’t pass it off as his own writing, is a sign that he is pure of heart and not an evil music writer drone. Listening to field recordings and nature sounds is some pure Jos shit, so of course Sam would do it via a Hot Docs promotion. Unfortunately I think David Bowie songs like this suck. It sounds like watching Much More Music while at home on a sick day and realizing you’re actually feeling sick, not just skipping school. Also these nature sounds are so self-aware and over-the-top ahahaha. Brian Eno goofing around with freesounds.org. This is so fucking stupid lol.
Bianca Scout “Passage” (ft. NWAKKE)
Jos: Gonna be honest with you. There’s four things I want to put in here this week. I’ve been listening!! So I gotta start with the most inaccessible in the hopes that Sam might actually press play. Bianca Scout is an experimental dancer and sound collagist, and I’ve been listening to her new album Pattern Damage all day while shuddering in Slack. It’s immersive and strange and difficult in all the right ways, but this song with chopped up monks is the standout for me so far. Listen to the whole thing Sam. There are more treats that await.
Sam: Come on, man. As Josiah already revealed, we’ve started writing this on Wednesdays because when I left it to Thursday I would somehow get super stressed and leave it until the very end of the day and decide that THIS was the week we just wouldn’t do it. I had the same thought this week. I have not one but TWO big premieres tomorrow (yesterday) - the feature documentary about the socio-political roots and legacy of disco that I’ve been developing for five years and actively in production on for two, and also an episode of This Exists about cybergrind and the nu metal revival that is equally good and important. Between that and some ~*~personal stuff~*~ I was like “that’s it, my brain isn’t going to cooperate this week, I’ll just tell Josiah I have failed him once again.” But look at us, we did it. Someone started texting me about tickets for tomorrow (yesterday) while I was writing and now the song is over. Didn’t really notice.
Porter Robinson “KNOCK YOURSELF OUT XD”
Jos: I gotta keep going hard for Porter Robinson. I missed the first half of his career, but I fell in deep on Nurture and now I’m obsessed with these new songs, where he’s crafted some kind of hyper-aware post-irony that is so cloyingly earnest and corny that it’s impossibly cool. Is this white-boy K-pop? Is it post-IDM? Is it just pure lamestream pop and I’m a victim of marketing? All I know is this man is making Owl City/Passion Pit-core and dancing around like the most punchable lil dork while wearing an arm sling on his head (?), yet he has the unimpeachable swag of like Scott Vogel or something. He’s just unstoppable.
Sam: This one is harder to ignore, but the same person is still texting me. It’s my fault, I have a tendency to overwrite in all my communication (this is likely shocking to anyone here) in a way that often obscures the simple point I’m trying to make (I have no tickets, for example). Part of it is my reliance on the “shit sandwich” rhetorical device, which everyone immediately recognizes anyway which renders it useless at best and insulting at worst. Part of it is just that I’m always doing banter. What’s worse is that when I sometimes let it slip and decide to be myself - I recently told someone on a job that we didn’t have to be polite to Jehovah’s Witnesses because they killed Prince - I end up having to apologize for being a dick. Woe is me. This song rocks.
Niko B “it’s not litter if you bin it”
Jos: Usually when I post something British and popular, our resident Geordie DMs me to tell me all the details of why that person sucks. And I’m definitely expecting that again here. But as a Canadian who loves British culture, I really love this song that is comedic but not comedy. It sounds suave as hell, the music video looks like a BBC Three comedy miniseries that I would go through great pains to torrent and barely enjoy, and there’s really funny lyrics like, “I'd buy more shit from the States if it weren't for the customs charge” and “I don't wanna be rude but me and this girl got opposing views / She just loves starting feuds with random dudes and it's half past two / And now I gotta fight some guy that I sort of like, 'cause I think he's nice.” Maybe this is annoying if you are British but it’s great if you’re Canadian. We basically only have Classified here filling that niche.
Sam: This is Killed By Simon erasure. What was actually name of that band? They were obscenely popular for a year and half but no one outside of a specific band of underage kids has ever heard a single one of their songs. Profoundly white rap rock, but even less cool than that sounds. Down With Webster! They really forced this band on us for a grim minute. Do British people have a Down With Webster equivalent? Bin For William? Bog The Lorry? This is cool, though. There is nothing Down With Webster about this.
John Casolary “Rap Is Crap”
Jos: I heard Niko B when I was listening to the new Kendrick Lamar Drake diss track. For some reason I’ve been listening to all of these diss tracks, even though I hate them and can’t be bothered to watch some 17-minute YouTube video breaking down what each sneak diss means. Who gives a shit! So then that got me thinking, I wonder what would happen if I search “Rap Is Crap CDBaby” on YouTube, and I found this incredible and eviscerating power-pop song about how everyone who listens to hip-hop is stupid. It sounds like a terrible Randy Newman song or a great Tim Heidecker solo song. Make sure you listen all the way through for the turntables.
Sam: Incredible. We should start the pod again. I was so annoyed when I saw how much you had written here, but shame on me. I should know better by now. Even more than hearing claire rousay last week, this makes me wish we were doing the pod again. I’m going to play this tonight (your tonight, not my tonight, which is Wednesday).
Sam: Chayne and I have once again been gifted the first Friday of the month to keep doing this dumb thing designed to amuse mostly ourselves, but it IS fun and I DID play some Blink last time and it felt very freeing.
Jos: Dude it’s actually a crazy week for Sam! DJ night, new This Exists ep dropped, and his doc is debuting at Hot Docs!* He might not even see this, but shoutout Sam. Love that guy. Even though he has terrible taste.
*I’m now seeing he mentioned all of these details in his blurbs on my songs. I thought he was exercising tasteful restraint, and that this nice little closer would be a nice little reward for his humility. Life is just so disappointing sometimes.