OPE! Mixtape #35: Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
When we treat music like Marvel films
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?
I attempted to review some of the Drake and Kendrick songs this week, but by the time I got to my computer to write, more music and news would come out! I’m very tired. At least these new songs are more interesting than most 2024 albums so far.
Anyway, let’s get to the dang thing. Here are this week’s links and songs.
MY FAVORITE LINKS OF THE WEEK
My Dua Lipa review is below, but I really like Mikael Wood’s LA Times review of Lipa’s new album. I’m fascinated by this push and pull between pop stars oversaturating the market with a lot of “homework” that treats music like Marvel extended universe films (Taylor Swift, Beyonce) and the pop stars swinging the total opposite way and embracing their lack of personality and promoting their vagueness as radical relatability (Dua Lipa). I don’t love Madonna but this year’s lineup of mediocre pop albums makes me appreciate her whole vibe of “I’m super horny and faking a British accent but here’s a pop jam your mom likes.”
How recruiters are trying to fight AI application overload. (Folks, it’s rough out there, and AI is making things much worse.)
A Unity tutorial for complete beginners. (Game Maker’s Toolkit is one of my favorite YouTube channels and I’ve always been fascinated by Unity. I don’t have enough space on my laptop to download Unity [because I’m weird and have a lot of coding stuff on my computer already], but if you want to pick up a new hobby and build your own video game, this might be the best place to start.)
THIS WEEK’S MIXTAPE
Jessica Pratt – “The Last Year”
3.5/4
Is Jessica Pratt the indie Adele? She pops up every few years, dominates the year with her incredible voice and better-than-average songwriting, somehow unites music critics and fans, and then disappears again for several more years. Unlike Adele, I couldn’t tell you a single thing about Pratt, which fits and benefits her ghostly folk-pop. Part of me wants to dock “The Last Year” and pretty much every song on her new album because they sound like most Pratt songs … yet we get so little of her that I’m just glad to have it. Let’s savor this moment before a shitty Netflix airquote original airquote movie ruins “The Last Year” in some airquote romcom airquote.
3/4
This bass singer deserves a raise. Beautiful harmonies. Forgive the bad wordplay even by my standards, but listening to The Joy gives me … joy. These lads could be singing about chicken tenders and I would still be in love.
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – “Yeah x10”
3/4
Are we so desperate for sex and human connection that the Internet is losing its panties over a movie with hints of a threesome and a Trent Rezor & Atticus Ross score that’s solid but reminds me of better club music from a time when we all went to clubs? Cue up that LCD Soundsystem song about misremembering the past to believe we were more attractive and hip and could play tennis. Yes, I’m annoyed by fun and competent music because I’m not good at tennis.
2/4
I mean, I guess Lady Gaga and 2018-era The 1975 are cool again. Did Charly Bliss record their keyboard in GarageBand? I’ve never been more consistently disappointed by a band I still really like. At this point, it would be more interesting if a guitar band didn’t have a saxophone.
2/4
Dua Lipa, by nature of being a pop musician who isn’t Taylor Swift, almost compelled me to bump the clunky “Illusion” up to 2.5 stars, even 3 stars. Dua’s new album also starts off pretty well. Until “Illusion.” And by the time I started writing this review, the Drake and Kendrick beef got heated and I remembered what interesting music news and interesting music was. It’s a tough time for pop stars. Whether you reveal too much or not enough, you’re at the mercy of soundtracking an Erewhon full of adults who already spent their parents’ 2024 concert money on Swift. I miss the era when pop stars focused on their craft as musical performers instead of being celebrity podcasters who happened to sing. The most timeless pop music needs to be compelling and vague, and Dua forgot to be compelling.
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. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.