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?
The big highlight of this week was being disappointed by the Shogun finale. What a tease of a season. I miss Game of Thrones, flaws and all. I also finally started playing Hollow Knight, so goodbye free time.
Anyway, let’s get to the dang thing. Here are this week’s links and songs.
MY FAVORITE LINKS OF THE WEEK
Snippets of this speech went viral a few weeks ago, but I’ve been trying to track down the clip of Larian Studios’s CEO Swen Vincke (aka the guy who made Baldur’s Gate 3 aka what’s already considered one of the greatest video games ever made) summing up the current paradox of the modern gaming industry in one minute … a speech that means the same thing for what’s happening in the tech industry, the media industry, and what feels like every other industry right now. But hey, I found the speech! The speech starts at the 52-second mark but the whole video is worth watching.
The death of the tastemaker. (This whole essay is great; it’s worth even just reading the first two paragraphs.)
Reskilling in the age of AI. (Sharing this because I bet money that “reskilling” will be the new buzzword that takes over “synergy.”)
THIS WEEK’S MIXTAPE
Nia Archives – “Silence Is Loud”
4/4
Another entry in OPE! ever-growing “I’m very very very late to the party but I still love it enough that I want to talk about it” catalog. What a song. I’m mindful that I’m coming across as the same 40-year-olds who thought Wet Leg were the next Beatles. Whatever. Nia Archives has my attention. To these American ears who don’t go to DJ or dance clubs anymore, I can’t think of anyone else making music right now that’s as good as “Silence Is Loud.” Makes me feel young again, which is a scary threat.
Noé Socha – “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room”
3.5/4
My buddy Adam turned me on to Noé Socha, who’s making the rounds on the Internet for his very seductive John Mayer cover that replaces Mayer’s vocals with a railroad harmonica that literally made me go “holy shit.” A quality blues player. A nice cheat code too for listening to Mayer The Musician (who has always been more-or-less a strong songwriter) without the baggage of Mayer The Dude. [Insert a joke about his debut EP including a song titled “My Stupid Mouth”.] Excited to see what else Socha cooks up.
3.5/4
Ben Seretan felt like a great open secret in 2020 until I realized this past week that every single other music critic also loved “Power Zone.” You can be talented in music and in picking the right publicist. Or maybe the music was just good? Worst case, Allura turns Seretan into Faye Webster and makes boring music while making actual money from playing festivals. “New Air” and its opening jam do not strike me as “worse case.” The Seretan songs I love the most are also so lowkey that his flavor of boredom is closer to sublime or meditative, like listening to all the fuss in your head while attempting to pray. I want to give “New Air” three stars but the opening jam—which again sounds like a Seretan prayer—is so fun that I can’t deny it.
Fontaines D.C. – “Starburster”
2.5/4
Oh no, Fontaines D.C. discovered bright colors and drum machines and novels published after 1922. The music videos get better while the songwriting gets lazier. Or am I using “lazy” as lazy criticism for a band that wants to try new tricks after spending the past few years living in the shadow of their debut (and still best) album? The half-star is for pulling a Final Fantasy buster sword move in a Trainspotting fantasy. If you understand half of that last sentence, you’re the ideal OPE! reader. Throw in another half-star if this is your first Fontaines D.C. song. I credit the song’s outro for catching my attention, at least in a “this might sound better within the whole album” sort of way. We’ll see.
Taylor Swift – “The Tortured Poets Department”
.5/4
Yesterday I was walking past The Grove in Los Angeles and saw a dog urinating on deluxe vinyls of Joni Mitchell’s For the Roses, Michelle Branch’s The Spirit Room, and Mitski’s Laurel Hell, and I thought well, at least that dog didn’t write the lyrics to The Tortured Poets Department. To be fair: I don’t hate that Taylor Swift reengineered the sound of a boygenius cover album of the first couple The 1975 EPs. I’ve never hated the sound of Taylor Swift albums. I will always be a sucker for the sound of lonely and lovely city lights. This half-star is for Swift still being a professional when it comes to crafting all the glow that hums in the background of her songs (Broken Social Scene were also good at this). These are also the worst lyrics I’ve ever heard in pop music. Taylor, we get it: you dated Matt Healy, instead of Matt Healy dating you. This album makes Lana Del Rey look like Scott Walker. How pissed do you think Matt Berninger is right now that he allowed Swift to ruin his band for this. At least reputation had messy music to match the illusion of messiness before ending with an actual song (“New Year’s Day,” still lovely). The Tortured Poets Department is all hum yet no song. This album stinks.
And that’s it!
Until next Wednesday, as always.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
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Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. Stock photos by Substack unless credited. Animations made using FlipaClip and EZGIF. All typos are intentional.