OPE! Mixtape #22: Chicken sausage with sweet chili sauce
Haiku Hands, Odetta Hartman, Mo Troper, PinkPantheress, Leonard Cohen and more
Well, hello there. How are you?
Here are some links and tunes for the week.
LINKS
Similar to The Town’s breakdown of the winners and losers at the end of the writers strike, I like the podcast’s new breakdown of the end of the actors strike.
Advertisers don’t want sites like Jezebel to exist. (404 Media has been breaking some key media and tech stories in the past few weeks; this is a publication to put on your radar if you’re not already reading.)
The peculiar rise of the Vanity Biopic.
Martin Cooper, the “Father of Cell Phone,” reflects on making the first cell phone call 50 years ago.
California’s third-largest city is a (literal) forgotten dream in the desert.
How to stand out on LinkedIn, from a recruiter’s perspective.
The jungle gym is now 100 years old. It has a weird and delightful origin story.
Little Orphan Cassidy. (One of the better SNL skits I’ve seen in years; SNL is always at its best when it avoids pop culture and just gets weird.)
THIS WEEK’S MIXTAPE
Haiku Hands - “Cool For You”
I had the honor of writing the bio for the excellent upcoming new Haiku Hands album, which I really really really like, even as someone who doesn’t listen to a lot of electro-dance albums in their entirety. Only cool people are allowed to listen to this song!
Odetta Hartman - “Dr. No”
I also wrote the bio for Odetta Hartman’s new album, which is also fantastic and quite spooky. (As always, if you need someone to write your next bio, see the end of this newsletter to see how we can get in touch.)
Mo Troper - “Citgo Sign”
Hey, Mo Troper, please take all my money and lottery tickets and Heat DVDs with your gorgeous jangle power-pop take on Jon Brion.
Wishy - “Another Night”
I was listening to Wishy again (so so so good) and found some new-to-me older EP tracks that are now up on YouTube. This further confirms my “MBV unplugged” hunch about Wishy in the best way possible. Seriously, go listen to more Wishy. I won’t say it again. Please listen to more Wishy. They released another new song this week.
Teethe - “Us Boys”
I gave Teethe a shout-out in a past newsletter, and they’re back at it again with a new track. This one is much quieter, like how Mogwai used to trick us into total silence until they unleashed a wall of noise. No such noise-face this time. Maybe they’re saving it for the album.
Resavoir - “Sunset”
This sounds like the voice in The Weeknd’s head asking him to make better music.
Moon Bros. - “Fine Time”
Leave it to Aquarium Drunkard to find great music that I wouldn’t find anywhere else.
Empty Country - “Pearl”
Earlier this year, media types who live on the East Coast and who can’t find Indiana on a map declared North Carolina’s Wednesday to be the best heartland rock band of 2023. I’m getting the same vibes from those same people talking about Empty Country. At least Joseph D’Agostino is staying in his New Jersey lane and making me sad for the right reasons. It’s fine to my ears. I also was never a big Cymbals Eat Guitars fan. If a guy comes up to you at a party wanting to talk about Empty Country, you should stop going to parties.
The Smile - “Wall of Eyes”
My favorite Radiohead member is Ed O’Brien, so of course I find The Smile painful and unpleasant.
PinkPantheress - “Nice to meet you”
The reviews for PinkPantheress’s long-in-the-works debut haven’t been too kind, but I like most of what I hear. PinkPantheress also works best in a few chunks at a time, so maybe a longform LP isn’t the best medium for a songwriter who originally became famous on TikTok.
Dua Lipa - “Houdini”
Dua Lipa is a great vessel for one specific pop sound that sounds great today and in a few years will make me go, “Dang, early 2020s production was trying way too hard.” Kind of like how the Barbie movie was trying to do too much. Both succeed in their goals and make me feel OK before making me feel empty. This lesser version of that pop sound is a hard sell unless I hear it in a club, which, in that case, would sound perfect.
The 1975 - “About You” (Live)
An excellent live version of my favorite song off the last the 1975 album I did not like at first. I’ve since grown to love the whole album. However, I knew right away that “About You” was special. The irony is that I don’t love how their new MSG live album is mixed. Having seen this tour in-person (one of the best shows I’ve seen in recent years) this performance is maddening but still gets the job done.
Luke Combs - “Fast Car”
This came on the radio and I thought, “Yeah, still a good cover of a classic song.” Then a part of me wanted to think of something contrarian and snarky and I …. just couldn’t do it. It’s so aggressively fine and inoffensive, like yelling at some Swiss cheese.
Foo Fighters - “Under You”
Another song that came on the radio randomly and made me pause. I spent zero time on this year’s new Foo Fighters album (I gave up on their albums years ago) and was pleasantly surprised by “Under You.” Dave Grohl is my favorite musician who writes some of the most perfectly generic rock lyrics ever. If ChatGPT and Grohl got into a fight to see who could write the more generic rock lyrics, Grohl would destroy ChatGPT, so I guess that’s a win for humanity?
Led Zeppelin - “Stairway to Heaven”
We now know the real identity of the man on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV. Somehow his name is more heavy metal than thought possible.
Leonard Cohen - “In My Secret Life”
I’m officially “Maybe I can get into 2000s Leonard Cohen” years old.
And that’s it!
Until a future Wednesday, as always.
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