OPE! Mixtape #11: Welcome to LA
OPE! is officially on west coast time
Well, hello there. How are you?
Friends: I’m now in LA! I took some extra time off to get more settled into my new place, and as of this week, I feel more at home. So far so great. If you live in LA: send food recommendations, and let’s say hey. Being on the west coast also means that going forward, OPE! will come out a little later on Wednesday mornings around this time, since this is now my early morning.
But no time zone can keep us away from the tunes. Here are some links and tunes for the week.
LINKS
The New York Times on Fall Out Boy’s cover of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (this was me!)
“They’re just like you and me. Actually, they are you and me.” (I’m a big fan of Kara’s newsletter if you haven’t checked it out yet.)
When looking for a new job, don’t say “Do you know of any open positions?” (This is something I do too much.)
Pop Stars, Middlebrow Intellectuals (“A list of the five best vintage stores in New York City appears next to a piece arguing for the need to decolonize western health-care systems.”)
The Points Guy on popular travel questions (I feel validation for sticking with Google Flights!)
Megadeth’s drummer hears “Mr. Brightside” for the first time and comes up with his own drum pattern on the spot
THIS WEEK’S MIXTAPE
Listen to this week’s mix on Spotify.
Adam Melchor - “Garment Bag”
I had the honor of writing Melchor’s new bio ahead of his new EP out later this year. (As a reminder, I’m available to write your next bio; send me an email if you wish to connect and talk more.) I’m a fan of Melchor, and this new EP is the best thing he’s done yet. He described the EP to me as “Leonard Cohen wearing a suit on the beach drinking a warm PBR.” Which is amazing. He’s a Tobias Jesso Jr. and Fleet Foxes nerd and I think that comes through nicely on “Garment Bag,” which is less Leonard Cohen PBR and more Topo Chico summer bummer.
Fall Out Boy - “We Didn’t Start The Fire”
While I was away from the newsletter, I was interviewed by The New York Times to talk about Fall Out Boy’s cover of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” This was technically my New York Times debut, and it felt appropriate that I was defending Fall Out Boy and Billy Joel with an appropriate amount of side-eye. I stand by what I said. This is a goofy cover of a goofy song.
Blur - “Goodbye Albert”
“The Narcissist” aside, I wasn’t loving most of these new Blur singles. Luckily, they all sound wonderful together within the context of the very good new album. I’ve written in past newsletters about my love for The Great Escape, and this album feels like Blur looking back on that album now as husbands and fathers well into middle age—when time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds, and all the years bring a different, more permanent and consistent kind of tiredness. Even their album covers seem to be in conversation with each other. A good life is still a life, and it feels like Blur are reaching out and making peace with music that very much feels middle-aged, but in a content “we’re acting our age” way.
Yard Act - “The Trench Coat Museum”
I reviewed the first Yard Act album for Pitchfork last year and am happy with the new single. We’ll see how the new album plays!
Olivia Rodrigo - “vampire”
I miss Lorde’s good albums. “vampire” is a boring song that borrows most of the Radiohead “Creep” chord progression before it borrows the Lorde “Green Light” trick of waiting to add the drums until after the first verse and then moving on. I genuinely thought this was Billie Eilish singing when I first heard it on the radio.
I get Rodrigo’s appeal. I believe that her fans genuinely love her and can relate to her lyrics, more so than the creepy Gen X dudes who are still sprinting to praise Rodrigo as the future of music because of her built-in Disney pop-adjacent audience. Still, I’m baffled by all this praise from my peers as if Rodrigo is the first person to ever write a moody piano ballad. This album cycle for her new album already feels like the “how do you do, fellow kids” meme. Remember my joke that the music industry is just 26-year-olds trying to impress 16-year-olds? It’s worst here because I think “vampire” is a weaker song. At least with “good 4 u,” I can still sing back its chorus melody.
An earlier draft of this newsletter included more complaints. I then remembered that a few years ago, Julia Gray for The Ringer already said everything that I wanted to say. She’s right: I’m less annoyed by Rodrigo herself than by all the nostalgia-driven writing about her. I’m mindful that I’m a rock critic in his 30s who is not Rodrigo’s target audience, and that someone who’s getting more into music through Rodrigo has likely not heard as many moody piano ballads as I have. But appreciating what music can mean to other people does not mean pretending a song is more interesting than it actually is.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra - “Perpetuum Mobile”
Because we’ll never escape ‘90s nostalgia, let’s extend our fascination to ‘90s classical music.
Jamie Cullum - “What A Difference A Day Made”
If we trust Cullum’s Wikipedia page, his third album Twentysomething was the fastest-selling jazz album in UK chart history. It amazes me how many records like Twentysomething (and artists like Cullum) fly under my radar: music totally ingrained into a different country but barely registering here in the United States outside of those who intentionally seek it out. I like “What A Difference A Day Made.” It’s quaint and nice. I can picture it playing in the background in some cute scene cut from Love, Actually.
Take That - “Back for Good”
Speaking of the regional popularity of certain pop music: The last time I visited England almost a decade ago, I stayed with family friends just outside London and we talked a lot about US vs UK differences over lovely home-cooked meals. (The English do have good food, you just won’t find it at Pret A Manger.) One of the big takeaways: Everyone at the table was baffled that I, a self-proclaimed music nerd, didn’t know who Take That was. I quickly learned who they were and realized how massive they were. In this recent age of poptimism eating up the indie world—in which the smartest music critics of my generation are crawling over each other to praise Taylor Swift as if she’s still a misunderstood underdog, which is different from just praising her as the brilliant songwriter and mythology calculator and not attaching additional victim mentality to justifying listening to her very popular music—I’m shocked that there isn’t a Pitchfork Sunday Review yet about Nobody Else. If it sounds like I hate pop music from the likes of Rodrigo, Swift, and Take That (I’m definitely giving old man yells at clouds vibes this week) I want to make it clear that a lot of this music can be fantastic, and “Back for Good” is a great pop song.
Phish - “Harry Hood” (Live)
I know, I know. I keep threatening to do that deep dive on Phish soon. I will one day. I’ve now come around to being an actual Phish fan after I navigated their popular live albums and cherry-picked my favorite jams. I think this specific live version of “Harry Hood” does a good job summarizing the Phish conundrum. I don’t think “Harry Hood” is a great song. I do think it’s a fantastic live performance. This specific live take also has one of my favorite guitar solos of all time. Go ahead and skip to the nine-minute mark, turn the music up really loud, and just … enjoy. These ending six or so minutes are what converted me into a Phish fan.
Bryan Adams - “One Night Love Affair”
This is the first song I played in my car while driving around LA at sunset, which is annoyingly on-brand for me I know. The recent remaster of Reckless sounds fantastic—it’s the Bryan Adams album that also includes “Summer of ‘69”—but this YouTube video sounds a little thin to me. It’s also a really goofy music video. In this video, does Adams look like a weird mix between Kevin Bacon and David Spade?
Matchbox Twenty - “Push”
Yes, I saw Barbie this past week.
Spiritualized - “Broken Heart”
I also saw Oppenheimer this past week. “Broken Heart” doesn’t play in the movie, but this is what it felt like to walk away from that movie after seeing it in IMAX. If you haven’t done the whole Barbie/Oppenheimer double-feature yet, I thought both movies were great for different reasons. Try to see Oppenheimer in IMAX if you can.
Arctic Monkeys - “There’d Better Be A Mirrorball”
I’ve written about “There’d Better Be A Mirrorball” in this newsletter, but like Bryan Adams, the more recent Arctic Monkeys albums feel right at home while driving around LA in the early daylight. This makes sense as the band technically moved from the UK and has called LA home for a bit. I can’t think of another recent album where I absolutely love its opening track (this song) and absolutely hate the rest of the album. I gave it a few more recent spins in good faith and was still disappointed by this shallow album from a band I’m still rooting for. I’m not even one of those Arctic Monkeys fans wishing they would go back to making loud and fast guitar music—Alex Turner seems way over that, and I applaud him for following his muse. At least we have “There’d Better Be A Mirrorball.”
Wilco - “Reservations” (live)
I’m saving a bigger Wilco deep-dive for a future newsletter for paid subscribers. For now, I wanted to share that this live version of “Reservations” has slowly crept up into my top favorite Wilco songs ever. If you know me and have been a long subscriber, you know it’s a big deal when my top Wilco songs list changes. More to come.
And that’s it! Until next Wednesday.
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-b
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OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. words and cartoons by yours truly. all typos are intentional.
Thanks so much for the shoutout - and for bringing me back to my Jamie Cullum fandom! I vividly remember buying the Twentysomething CD at Best Buy and playing it all through college.
I will be sharing on social media!