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The Needle Drop •

I Wanna Feel It: Mitski's 'Puberty 2' at 10

Mitski is at her best when she's trying to make you uncomfortable. Discomfort and jaggedness are the hallmarks of her most inspired musical moments: the offbeat glitches and droning synth in Be The Cowboy opener "Geyser," the percussive stomps and wretched screams of "Drunk Walk Home," the Tiny Desk performance of "Class of 2013."To be honest, I don't know how much of that Mitski we have left. It shows up in bits and spurts on her latest record, Nothing's About To Happen to Me, but with age and...
water runs clear •

I need to talk about katseye for a second

American life under fascist oligarchy is draining even without paying that close attention. For reasons that oscillate between masochistic and “to best serve my communities” I try to keep my ear to the ground. It’s gotten to a point recently that the news feels quite cyclical. We have the investigation into a once-in-a-lifetime pedophilic cabal to distract from geopolitical crisis, and geopolitical crisis to distract from the once-in-a-lifetime pedophilic cabal. Zone flooding is the name of the...
water runs clear •

the real worst song ever

Despite what miserable people on Twitter want you to think, the worst song ever is not “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, a song that’s only stood the test of time because of how many ad agencies vie to license it for synch. Is it indicative of a time of misguided fluff and hopefulness that has aged in a way that is now more difficult to stomach? Sure. Neither is “Sweet Caroline” (which To Me, is a good song that plays its cheesiness well) or “Brown Eyed Girl.” The worst song ever,...
Paste Magazine •

We Nibbled Our Butter Cookie Rings to the Knuckle: Cap’n Jazz’s Shmap’n Shmazz Turns 30

My hometown is always on the precipice of completion, and the people there hold their cards quite close to their chest. I went home for the holidays this past winter, and as I passed by the remnants of the now defunct Sam Ash I grew up across the street from—the one that Mike Kinsella recalls to have purchased his first guitar at—I thought of how many remarkable things come from being surrounded by what feels inherently unremarkable. The town in question—Buffalo Grove, Illinois—is a part of a ha...
The Needle Drop •

She Tastes Like The Real Thing: Radiohead’s ‘The Bends’ at 30

Radiohead as it exists today is not simply the band composed of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and co., but instead the bands that have started and thrived from their influence. Yorke and Greenwood continue to make music together as The Smile, but the output of that band has proven that the two are a bit past their prime. Their music as The Smile still has that Radiohead je ne sais quoi, but they have certainly lost much of their edge with age. That being said, there is still a reason why Radiohead...
water runs clear •

'beast games' is a mark of the end times

I do not like that Jimmy Beast. I do not like him one bit. I do not like his empty grin, I do not like his lazy tricks. I do not like his chocolate bars, or when he gives out fancy cars. I do not like him on my screen, it pisses me off when I see his stupid fucking face at 7/11.Friday afternoon I sit around the living room of my childhood home with two of my dear friends from high school, and my friend jokingly suggests we should watch Beast Games, and our collective morbid curiosity of the show...
water runs clear •

on fandom

Everyone is looking for someone to save them – a God, a partner, a friend, and sometimes, a celebrity. Jenson’s “Fandom As Pathology” takes a look at the socioeconomic contexts through which people engulf themselves into fandom and parasociality. The stereotype of the fangirl and alternatively, the fanboy does not lie unfounded. People that are rejected by the groups that are propped up in their society often find themselves in some kind of online fan community, most commonly teenage girls, LGBT...
water runs clear •

"coworker music" and judgement of taste

The concept of “coworker music” has been making its rounds on social media (particularly Twitter) over the past few months, and I feel as though it directly ties into Bordieu’s critique of Judgement of Taste and Fiske’s musings on the “Cultural Economy of Fandom.” The relatively recent boom in democratization of music taste in the wake of the streaming era has certainly broken up the monoculture that once was, but as long as we live in the United “work until you die” States of America, the pocke...
Paste Magazine •

As Fall Approaches, Brat Summer Readies Its Exit

It takes a certain je ne sais quoi to be the driving force of a cultural moment and having your album cycle’s visuals co-opted by every brand, organization and Trader Joe’s chalk art in the West. The age of monoculture has become fleeting over the past 10 years, as state-of-the-art social media algorithms have turned the wet dreams of shareholders into reality. Not only does this reality incentivize artists to extract their niche from the context of elemental consumer culture they feel would bes...
Paste Magazine •

Untangling the Unique, Private and Meteoric Rise of Mitski in the Age of TikTok

Mitski’s meteoric rise over the past year of her career has been nothing short of an anomaly. Last September, the former indie darling garnered her first Billboard-charting single with “My Love Mine All Mine,” peaking at #26. It doesn’t seem like Mitski (or her team) did anything in pursuit of this song becoming the hit that it is—it just sort of happened, which is even more confounding, considering that “My Love Mine All Mine” wasn’t even one of the album’s three pre-release singles (“Bug Like...

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