Welcome to OPE!, the ranch dressing of music blogs by Brady Gerber. OPE! is a daily blog, but this weekly newsletter includes more song reviews, my favorite links of the week, and exclusive essays. All typos are intentional.
Well, hello there. How are you?
Programming note: I’ll be out next week for travels that will keep me away from my laptop, so no newsletter next Wednesday. This also means a mini-break on daily song reviews on the blog. We all must find a way to [My Chemical Romance voice] carry on.
I hope you all had a lovely time watching the Oscars and that your favorite film(s) won their respective awards. I still love Oppenheimer but am glad we can stop talking about Oppenheimer vs Barbie. I still don’t like Anatomy of a Fall, but hey, what do I know?
Anyway, let’s get to the dang thing. Here are this week’s links and songs.
MY FAVORITE LINKS OF THE WEEK
RIP Akira Toriyama. (This was such a giant loss; Dragon Ball Z was a major gateway into anime for me and many of my friends and colleagues. We lost a generational talent. This week’s newsletter title is a tribute to Toriyama and what may be his signature catchphrase.)
Even monks have trouble focusing—yet they understand that minds are always moving.
“You can always tell who in Hollywood has family money by their Instagrams.” (Another reason why I’m more inclined to defend Sydney Sweeney than other movie stars.)
Fifteen perfect seconds from The Godfather. (I’m reading some screenplays for the first time and have gone down some deep Godfather holes after reading its incredible script.)
Amelia Dimoldenberg Reporting at The Oscars. (She’s the best!)
MatPat’s final theory. (The Game Theorists’s final YouTube video feels like the end of an era for YouTube. This also feels like a fitting final message on where YouTube might go from here, for better or worse.)
THIS WEEK’S MIXTAPE
Sheer Mag – “Tea On The Kettle”
3.5/4
I reviewed the new Sheer Mag album for Pitchfork. It was a hard assignment to write about a solid band writing solid enough music that sounds like every past album they’ve released. Playing Favorites felt like the turning point when “consistency” turned into “repetition.” I did at least want to spotlight “Tea On The Kettle,” which I think is one of Sheer Mag’s better songs. In my review, I described it as “pretty with its power ballad twinkles and some actual lyrical imagery (‘The old dog cried behind the bus/You stopped the car cause you hated to see him alone’).” It is indeed a gorgeous song and a side of Sheer Mag I wish I heard more.
Margaux – “DNA”
3/4
What a dreamy dream of a tune. Or maybe it’s a dreamy tune of a dream. Margaux sounds like someone I’ve been listening to my whole life, soundtracking those private intimate moments in which we realize how lucky we are to be alive and be around people who hurt and love us for reasons we can’t or won’t understand. How timeless. How lovely that “DNA” actually builds into an interesting bridge and breakdown. Someone email needledrop [at] hulu [dot] org and demand that they put “DNA” in an upcoming prestige miniseries starring the janitor from Euphoria. I’ve never seen Euphoria and don’t know if the janitor gets a subplot. Ain’t life grand.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Wild God”
3/4
Like most artists I like, Nick Cave walks the thin line between sublime and silly. “Wild God” once again leans into Cave’s laziest tendencies as a poet who happens to be a rock star for people who don’t like rock music (or pretend that they don’t like rock ‘n’ roll). Yet at this point, it’s impossible for The Bad Seeds to sound bad. Most Nick Cave songs start too slow, so I like that “Wild God” gets right to the point and crescendos into a massive singalong that leans into Cave’s strengths as a secular preacher for music listeners like me who either 1) grew up religious or 2) don’t have the stomach to be religious yet wish to believe in some kind of faith or higher power. I’m assuming the new album will once again be six songs too long and gorgeous. Can’t wait.
Ryan Gosling – “I’m Just Ken (Oscar’s Version)”
3/4
Two stars for Slash. One star for Ryan Gosling for doing the bare minimum of being an entertainer who is entertaining. And yet, reader, I am indeed human, and like most people, I enjoyed this performance from an overall enjoyable and brisk-feeling Oscars. Trying to take on “I’m Just Ken” as just a song and not a performance is a fool’s errand. At least I can say that “I’m Just Ken” takes a truck-full-of-mediocre-Barbie-thinkpieces-load more creative risks than anything Billie Eilish has done in the past few years. So does The Zone of Interest‘s “let me make the point of this movie so clear that you don’t have to do any work” sound design. So did Robert De Niro’s face. So did Al Pacino “acting” like a person. My review of “I’m Just Ken” is the same review I give of Barbie: It probably defeats the purpose and messaging of the film that its best part was Ryan Gosling. But again, Slash.
Ariana Grande – “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)”
2.5/4
I wonder how Robyn feels about Ariana Grande. Maybe it’s a complement to Robyn’s Honey (still great) that Grande felt like she could Disney-fy Robyn’s melancholic disco frisbee and use it as a tribute to a sad movie about a creepy Jim Carrey falling in love again with falling in love, heartbreak and warts and all. I think Grande is a boring pop star with an excellent voice, so I like “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” in which the song’s focus is a compelling vocal melody. The missing half-star is my feeling that somehow, Robyn got robbed by not performing this song. At least the outro is pretty. For the love of God, can we stop with all the lowercase song titles.
And that’s it!
Until next (next) Wednesday, as always.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
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