2022 week 10 | heaux tales by jazmine sullivan

I’m using this week to break ground in an area of the pop cultural zeitgeist that I have heard about in passing many times but have missed up until this point: jazmine sullivan and the deluxe edition of her 2021 album, Heaux Tales. this album had everything i could have imagined and more. her voice is huge and full of nuance, her ideas are excessively specific to modern culture with undertones of timeless female experience, and the poetry of it all is astounding. I’m all ears for this woman’s career going forward.

2022 week 9 | DYE by together pangea

the gang is stoked on this album this week. long time spotify wrapped top artist, played their music during our wedding ceremony, and all together too excited to be seeing them live in portland at the end of april, together pangea has put out another just plain fun album. as always, they are pumping out the “blazing, surfy garage punk” to my ears ever-welcome delight. i don’t have much else to say but get the fuck into it!

2022 week 8 | aja by steely dan

this week we are going pure, unadulterated 70s jazz-pop nostalgia with steely dan’s Aja, a cassette tape that lived and died in my dad’s white 90’s toyota forerunner, and then heavily rotated in our living room 6-cd changer upon the changing tech. As someone born in 1992, I can’t say if this album is or was underappreciated. Pitchfork gave it a posthumous 10/10 review in 2019 and I’m not here to argue. It feels like anyone I talk to about it over the age of 40 (1) is surprised I’m familiar with it and (2) loves it or tells me their favorite steely dan album is actually Gaucho. Fair enough. I know several huge steely dan fans my own age (who are actually going to see them on tour this May) and I’m here for it! This album fucking rules and I know it backwards and forwards already, but man I needed this week.

2022 week 7 | to pimp a butterfly by kendrick lamar

this week, in honor of the super bowl halftime show (a tribute to LA rap history - snoop, dre, mary j blige, eminem, 50 cent, and this week’s artist, kendrick lamar). it was an amazing show (maybe one of the best halftime shows of all time) and kendrick’s performance was one of the coolest and best choreographed.

Kendrick has always been just on my periphery. I know bits of this album and pieces of his career, but I don’t often sit down and listen to a full rap album, or use it as my walk or commute music. I have friends who have been obsessed with him forever. And every time I do pick one for album of the week, I don't regret it. Obviously, we know Kendrick is an amazing artist, everyone loved this album, and this is one of my favorite songs of the 2010s. anyway, here we go.

2022 week 6 | if i can't have love, i want power by halsey

I’ve never given much of a hoot about halsey, I know they’re around, they’ve been pretty good on SNL, and i’m obsessed with Evan Peters, so obviously the twitter dating saga of all that was hot on my radar. But I’ve never taken much time to listen and explore the tunes, and seeing pitchfork’s assessment that it’s their best work to date, here we are and here we go!

2022 week 4 | daddy's home by st. vincent

ooooh la la, this week’s album, y’all! i listened to a few of these songs when this album came out last year (“Melting of the Sun” gives me all of my life), but i needed to deep dive it to see, to know, to realize how much i continue to dig St. Vincent. what a dream, what a ride, what a groovy time. I’m obsessed. not much more to say.

2022 week 3 | licensed to ill by beastie boys

this week’s album was inspired by Mitch showing me this 30 minute video from 2011 of “Fight For Your Right” revisited, chock full of weird cameos, goofy visuals, and honestly just a lot of fun being had in celebration of the group, this song, and the culture around it. I realized, (1) that this album came out in 1986 (!) which blew the mind of this 90s baby. the first song on the album samples led zeppelin (who have been near and dear to my heart since high school) and their final album came out only 4 years before Licensed to Ill! in my mind, these two groups were so far away from each other in the musical landscape, but the reality is that the way we are all introduced to certain music is shaped and formed by the culture or counterculture itself. the people listening to led zeppelin’s final album weren’t necessarily the same as those discovering newcomers like the beastie boys.

I like to think I have some level of knowledge surrounding music history, but having not lived during most eras of music, the contextual Venn diagram can so easily slip through the cracks. and I love to learn about it! I could spend days watching any and every music doc, Behind the Music episode, even a good E! True Hollywood Story (taken with many grains of salt). so this week is a first time visitor revisiting this major moment in music history.

2022 week 2 | juno by remi wolf

week 2! we made it! so this week’s album is another that I’ve already dabbled with a bit (shouts to my bud Jessi for the intro via the videos for Sexy Villain and Grumpy Old Man). and it’s rad. Remi is fucking rad. and weird and cool and fun and just kind of exactly the wild hallucinogenic chaotic energy I need pulsing through me right now. let’s get funky with Remi this week.

2022 week 1 | valentine by snail mail (AKA I'M BACK BB!)

there it is again, that funny feeling/blog that hopefully no one reads probably. since I only made it to week 6 last year (2021 was a shitshow blur following the shitshow tornado of 2020), now here we are in 2022. and i’m at it again, hopefully for the long haul this time. I need it. my brain needs it, my heart needs it, my whole being needs it.

and I’m kicking off with a classic, one of the very earliest OG albums of the week (2018’s Lush by Snail Mail) back at it with the 2021 album, Valentine, which I dabbled with in the interim, but hadn’t gone deep. and once more, I’m not really here to full-on review, but I am here to listen and be delighted and feel things and rock out and enjoy. which, thus far, I have :)

2021 week 6 | live forever by bartees strange

this week, I’m taking a dive into an album I saw on almost every “best albums of 2020” list, live forever by bartees strange. it was praised and acclaimed and supported and played over and over. and it’s not getting much of a different response from me. it’s cool, it’s fun, it’s jittery, it’s a ride I don’t want to get off of.

2021 week 5 | oil of every pearl's un-insides by SOPHIE

I’ve been meaning to give SOPHIE and this album, in particular, a listen for a while now, and sadly I’m arriving at the party under rather heart-breaking circumstances. the experimental and revolutionary artist/producer tragically passed on january 30th 2020. while sophie was rather mysterious and reclusive in identity for a long time, this album was sophie’s debut as a solo artist in 2018, but sophie’s legacy lives on in the music of so many others, charlie xcx, vince staples, kim petras, madonna. not only was sophie an unmatched original, the artist broke boundaries for the trans community through music, grammy nominations, and so much more. i can’t wait to learn more about sophie and keep the art alive through her brilliance.

2021 week 4 | wedding season by the sunks

This week, we’re (I’m) listening to a new album from some of our (my) buds in Omaha, NE, The Sunks! This album y’all. Even if you haven’t been hearing these songs at dive bars around Omaha for the last 5 years, it’s still for you. I may be biased but it truly is a great album. Here’s their bandcamp and IG — check em out!

2021 week 3 | introduction, presence by nation of language

Indulging in some nostalgia-driven synth-pop this week courtesy of a suggestion from Mitch and a few end of year best of 2020 lists. Right out the gate, it gives me an if-Orville-Peck-was-the-lead-singer-of-CHVRCHES vibe. Which, needless to say, I am absolutely here for. Let us carry on in this overwhelming joyous lonely challenge of a relieving yet mediocre week.

2021 week 2 | arlo parks

This week, I went into the handy-dandy “songs you might have missed” Spotify playlist and clicked randomly on “green eyes” by Arlo Parks. I was very immediately struck. I then began to notice her and her name on a lot of indie lists, her songs all over best-of lists and indie playlists I had definitely listened to before. There is no definitive album of hers on Spotify, so I just listened to the “This Is Arlo Parks” playlist. And what an artist, phenomenal melodic intention, such moving lyricism, the perfect backdrop to any chill dinner party or afternoon lounging in a sun-filled room. “Hurt” and “Caroline” and not to mention, I just found a small series of videos of her and Phoebe Bridgers collaborating on Radio 1. What a dream. Listen to this artist. Now.

2021 week 1 | future nostalgia by dua lipa

alright, y’all! kicking off 2021 (jesus fucking christ - we made it, i guess?) with some late-to-the-party honestly-thought-it-was-too-cool-for-me millenial pop realness here. i didn’t know i knew so many of these songs until i started this week, but apparently, my pop-cultural sphere has been bumping up against dua and this album all along, i’m just finally getting around to giving it the time and praise it deserves. before this, my best point of reference for dua lipa was her appearance on SNL in december, and those precious bois on las culturistas bringing this internet gem to my attention (wendy williams is truly the gift that keeps on giving). i loved this album and it will be in the absolute rotaish from here on out!

2020 final week | year-end WRAP-UP

welp, looks like we made it once again, this time a bit more broken down, with many more falls off the figurative music blog update wagon. what a meteoric start we had at the beginning of 2020! kicking it off with the fugees was the move. moving on to weyes blood, popping around the pop scene with aly&aj and harry styles, seeing what grimes’ new shit was all about, and reaching one of my faves of the year, marine girls, just as the pandemic became very real stateside and everything shutdown.

and then what a continued momentum we had at the beginning of quarantine-times. we got indie, into some oldies, jumped on the fiona bandwagon, swooped on the new gaga/chole&halle asap, continued to adore sault, and by the time summer was nearing a close and tayla graced us with folklore, my propulsion shifted into lethargy.

as the good weather waned, wildfires took over the west coast as well as the political climate, my maintenance of this blog became an unhinged sporadic shell of itself. time really disappeared there. since i don’t think a single soul pays attention to this baby in real-time, it won’t matter that i really had to think back and piece together what i listened to each week from september until now (and i can tell you, it’s undoubtedly inaccurate). but I still listened to the tunes, even if I wasn’t regularly documenting it. and perhaps that’s a lesson for us all, be accountable where it matters, give yourself a break where it doesn’t.

so to wrap-up year two of album-a-week blog world, here are my top 10 albums that I listened to in 2020. a note: this is not reflective of my spotify year-end wrap-up which, let’s face it, shows some truth of what guilty-pleasure-style aural nourishment our souls might need at any given moment, especially such a raucous a time like this shitshow of a year. so, here goes:

1. lazy ways/beach party by marine girls

2. punisher by phoebe bridgers

3. the score by the fugees

4. titanic rising by weyes blood

5. untitled (black is) by sault

6. saint cloud by waxahatchee

7. ungodly hour by chole x halle

8. folklore by taylor swift

9. fine line by harry styles

10. i’m wide awake, it’s morning by bright eyes

most of these came at just kind of the perfect time this year. marine girls fueled backyard lazy spring days with the dog in early quar. phoebe saved almost all of our lives this year in one way or another. the fugees kicked off the year strong (lauryn hill’s voice can make you feel literally anything everything you might need). weyes blood continues to be the go-to chill sad girl vibes. sault is sault is sault, and so far they’ve done no wrong. this album set the reality for a summer of racial reckoning around the world. saint cloud was a foundational album in the spring that stayed in the rotation all year, just pure good tunes. chloe x halle were the ethereal saving grace in the painful and confusing summer days. folklore was some beautiful basic-bitch cottage-core early0fall escapism. fine line feels like ages ago to be honest, but those were the days of 2020 weren’t they? and finally, old school bright eyes gave me hope in early quar when all i could do was bike in circles while blasting those shaky-ass emo conor vocals.

it’s always tough to narrow it down so here are some honorable mentions:

• rtj4 by run the jewels

• women in music pt. iii by haim

• staunch honey david nance

• miss anthropocene by grimes

• kiss yr frenemies by illuminati hotties

• two hands big thief

i guess another lesson with this blog is that, i’m not listening to bad music? because most of what i picked throughout the year emerged from friend recs, end of year/decade best-of lists, and albums from artists i already love but don’t know their discography all that well. or maybe i’m just not critical enough :) here’s to another year of music-ing over here all over my oops it’s a blog space. may 2021 bring us more peace, justice, joy, and truth. and if not, at least we’ve got the music to keep us company as we bike in circles.