Stupid Is

Wow! What is this? Four times in a row? I know I say it every time now but it always feels like it's only been a week since the last one and then it turns out it's been twice that .

As it goes, supply might have been a bit thin this time and I might have stretched it to three weeks if I hadn't happened across a link in a piece about 2Hollis at Stereogum by Danielle Chelosky. That took me to a very interesting new-to-me blog called Chasing Sundays, which is now in my Feedly.

Reading a post there got me to check out The Femcels, a band whose name I'd seen plenty of times before without ever bothering to click through. My bad, as no-one says any more. And once I was on YouTube going through their back catalog a whole bunch of intriguing options opened up, thanks to the YouTube algorithm, and suddenly I had a full dance card. 

And that's how you find new music. Well, it's one way. Or you could just go to every club in Brooklyn every night like Jarrett Wolfson...

I guess we ought to start with someone I've already mentioned. 2Hollis is another one of those familiar names I keep skipping past. Not surprisingly, I figured he'd be a rapper of some stripe, which he only sort-of is. Danielle's piece, that I already linked, didn't really tell me anything that suggested otherwise but in something else she wrote about 2Hollis a few days before she talked about "industrial techno" and "EDM-infused pop bombast", which sounded a lot more interesting.

The first of those tunes was Warhorse, which I like a lot but which really reminds me very strongly indeed of something else that I can't quite place, which is always annoying. The other was this one

Sex - 2Hollis

Now that's what I call a title. No messing around, just straight to it. I imagine the video's NSFW but I'd be lying if I said I'd watched it carefully enough to be sure. There's a lot of extremely fast cutting and it's all a bit too bitty for me. 

Nothing bitty about the chorus and the hook, though. If I'd programmed it at the end you'd have "Sex with me" in your head all day. Luckily, I've got plenty more earworms lined up to push it out. See how considerate I am?

 She Seems Kind Of Stupid - The Femcels

Yeah, well, maybe she is but she can't be anywhere near as stupid as me for not catching on to The Femcels faster. First time on the blog and it is not going to be the last, I'll tell you that right now.

This is the finest example of telescoping I've heard for a while. Time just folds when you listen to something like this. There's a lot of people doing other eras like they're copying old masters but not as many magpieing the shiny bits and gluing them together with spit and string. Not enough.

I hear the Shop Assistants and Fuzzbox in there somewhere but really I hear the culture elided. Plus, great video! So cheerful and bright! Makes you happy to hear it and see it. And I'll tell you this, just in case you're one of those who worries; AI will not be making any songs like this any time soon. I mean, I like what I've been doing with the tools and all but I'm not stupid enough to think I'm going to make anything like that. That's organic, that is. All the way down.

Stupid Song - Olivia Rodrigo

And so is this. I thought we'd had the original before but I just checked and we haven't so that's good because look how well it programs! If this was radio I'd be pretty much obligated to run Garbage next. 

I just love the way this builds. She's a genius when it comes to relentlessness. It's such a talent.

Thanks to Robert Smith's imprimatur amongst other things, Mrs Bhagpuss is now sold on Olivia, too. Girl got reach.

 Danceteria - Madonna & Charli xcx

Charli's universally accepted in this house as A Good Thing, too. Madonna, Mrs Bhagpuss keeps claiming not to know much about but she bought Ray of Light when it came out, that I do remember. Ray of Light is a great album.

This one goes everywhere. It's all club beats and name-checks, which is a combo that never stales, you ask me. The nod to Lou's Factory faces takes it to another level, what with Madge's unimpeachable Warhol cred. Charli would have been a shoo-in at the Factory, naturally.

Wannabe - CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso (Spice Girls cover)

Okay, anyone wanna volunteer to unpack this one? If we're talking drop-ins, these guys have it all figured out. 

So, I have never heard of them but I'm going to guess they're Dutch. I'll check in a minute to see if I'm right. Also, how you're supposed to pronounce a name with the number 7 in it I have no clue. 

The reason I think they're Dutch is because not only do they interpolate Focus's freakish yodeling, brilliantly, towards the end there but they preface it with the riff from Golden Earing's Radar Love. Welding one Dutch hit from the 70s onto the Spice Girls' 90s classic could be considered an idiosyncratic indulgence but two is making a statement.

Aaand... they're from Argentina. So much for theorizing. Also, now I check, that's not exactly the riff from Radar Love, either, although it's close. What is it from? It's from something...

 Hello - daine (Martin Solveig and Dragonette cover)

It's been a long time since I did a covers post. Looks like we're going to get a mini-edition in the middle of this, right now. 

Attentive readers and listeners may remember the original of this one cropping up in a previous collection after I heard it on that episode of Ted Lasso where, as I put it at the time, "they do After Hours, only with Coach Beard in the Griffin Dunne role." Anyone seen the third season of Ted Lasso, by the way? Is it any good? I don't have an AppleTV+ subscription any more so I wouldn't know.

I'm listening to the original Dragonette version of Hello as I type this and it's a lot heavier than daine's. Weirder, too. And longer. I wouldn't have thought daine would straighten anything out but she has this.

dreams - the booyah! kids (Fleetwood Mac cover)

I'm just gonna come right out and say it. I like Fleetwood Mac. Alright? Satisfied?

Always really liked this song, too, even if I was far too cool to admit it. And this is a great electro version. Really thrums. Can't say I'm taken with the band's name, although it might be one of the best bad band names I've seen in a while. It's memorable, for sure.

 Spilled - swell foop

Talking of bad band names, I almost didn't click through on this one because of how awkward the name landed but then I couldn't leave it alone. I watched half a dozen other videos and I kept thinking "I wonder what a band that thought that was a good name would sound like?" and finally I couldn't stand it any more.

So I guess that means it's a good bad name. And as we all know, once a band gets successful, whatever it calls itself turns into a noise no-one hears any more. So maybe all that matters is picking something that gets attention, good or bad. It's not like they told you in school.

Oh, as for what they sound like? They sound good. 

 easy rider - untitled (halo)

I was, as I tend to do, searching my mind for who or what this reminded me of and I wasn't coming up with anything much and then I saw in the comments on YouTube someone pegged it as Stereolab meets Drugstore. Nailed.

We all know what happened to Stereolab but whatever happened to Drugstore? I always thought they were fearsomely underrated.  

Stone Fruit - Blondshell

Blondshell's third album, Violins, is out now. This is from it. Soon I shall have my own copy, assuming someone's checking my wishlist. The whole album is up on YouTube and Amazon Music so I could listen to it for nothing but I want to own it because I'm a fan and that's what fans do.

This isn't my favorite track. I don't know what my favorite track is because I haven't listened all the way through yet. I only found out it was there last night. This is the song with the video, though, so that's what we're going with. Hell of a video, too. Disturbing. Does it make you worry about all those peaches going to waste, though? It does me and I don't even like peaches all that much.

Expect more tracks here when I find out which I like best. Videos or not. (I'll say now that Sea Legs and New Age Trojan Horse are in the running. Sea Legs even has a fucking tune!)

Woof - Esme Emerson

When I first heard this yesterday, I thought it sounded quintessentially '70s. It could be one of those wonderful, folky one-hit wonders that occasionally lightened up the Top 40 when I was still at school. Something like Brian Protheroe's Pinball or Duncan Browne's Journey. 

And it does have something of that lost, singer-songwriter, afghan coat, lava lamp, roll a joint on the back of your battered copy of Blonde on Blonde vibe about it, sure, but on a re-listen it feels more nuanced. More '90s. Which means it's only thirty years out of time, not fifty, I guess.  

Chemicals - Always Bethany

No, wait a moment... it wasn't Esme Emerson that sounded so seventies. It was this one. I mean, they both do but Chemicals could be a Lyndsey de Paul B-side. And that's a compliment. I love Lyndsey de paul. Well, the hits. Can't say I ever heard anything else but Sugar Me is a stone classic. I have a great cover of that lined up, too. Maybe next time.

Is Love Real - Aimée Fatale 

Aimée occasionally gets a little too authentically sixties for me but this is how I like her, doing her absolutely exemplary Lana. A lot of people do Lana but no-one does her better. 

Aimée has the writing chops to back it up, too. Hell of a lyric on this one. I particularly admire anyone who can write

"Now I’m stood here singing these songs 
And I don’t even really like them that much 
but I don’t got nowhere to go but here" 

and then have the nerve to really do it.

Oh, and that ending:

"Is love real? 
Is love mine? 
Is love just a fucking waste of time?"  

She's a good time, that's for sure. 

Okay, enough soft play. Let's go hard to the end. 

Hello Again, Jim - Caroline Rose

I clicked through to this because I saw it was from an upcoming album called "Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall".  I mean, you'd have to, wouldn't you? I was expecting some brand of country. That's not what I got.

In the endless spirit of claiming everything sounds like everything else I'm getting Angel Corpus Christie with notes of Jim Carrol. I think we talked about wheelhouses last time or the time before...

Wish You Luck (feat. kid on air) - 1tbsp

Not much to say about that one. And this has run really long. Better wrap it up. I got almost everyone in (Sorry Troy Sivan and RIP Magic) although several people had to make do with one song where I'd bookmarked two or more.

Never mind. Come back in a couple of weeks and we'll do it all over again.