The Useless Critic 2.0

Hi! Sorry for the long hiatus between posts - something something John Lennon "life happens when you're making other plans" blah blah blah. TL;DR I've been busy with not a lot of time for hobbies, except for today when I'm consciously carving out a little bit of time to do some light music writing (and if I'm feeling esp. daring, creative writing, but let's not get CRAZY). And what perfect timing, as two of my favorite singers - Annie and Lana Del Rey - have new projects bubbling. I try to highlight lesser-known artists when I can on this blog (I have tried for years) but sometimes you must feature well-known artists that you nonetheless love. So here we are.  First up, the new Annie single is actually a collaboration with Alan Braxe. I honestly had no clue who Alan Braxe was until "Never Coming Back" dropped about a week ago. He is a French electronic musician responsible for plenty of remixes over the years, such as one for Annie's arguab...

You'd quite literally have to be owning a compound under a rock to miss the nonstop constant saturation of Taylor Swift's "Midnights" the past week. Hell, I'm a Taylor fan, and even I was overwhelmed! And of course by now most pop music fans have either streamed it nonstop ( testifying to the recent streaming records ), listened to some of it out of spite, or skipped over it completely. "Midnights" showcased a return to Taylor's penchant for strong power-ish pop mastery, like the kind she made explicitly known on "1989" (another collaboration with "Midnights" producer Jack Antonoff, who has gone on to work with Taylor numerous times, the Chicks, Florence and the Machine, Lorde, St. Vincent, and Lana Del Rey on my favorite album of all time "Norman Fucking Rockwell!")  Speaking of Lana, there was a much-hyped (and anticipated definitely for me) collab with her on the album. Titled "Snow on the Beach," the lyrics...

 It's truly the little things in life that make a world of difference. And for me, that means my summer playlist! Behold, I have put together 2022's edition. It includes cuts from artists like: - Mitski - Uffie - Johnny Orlando - Kylie Minogue + Jessie Ware - Florence and the Machine (who put out a fantastic album this year after a long dry spell of kind of "meh" records. Her pairing with Jack Antonoff worked out quite well!)  - Bilal - Harry Styles (he has some catchy music!)  - KATE BUSH DUH - And of course, Lana. It's also available on Apple Music, but since I recognize a lot of folks use Spotify, here's that link. Enjoy!

There have only been a handful of albums in my life I've loved as much as "Norman Fucking Rockwell," Lana Del Rey's 2019 magnum opus produced by wunderkind producer and fun/Bleachers musician Jack Antonoff. To give you an idea of how much I fullheartedly loved that album, I really had stopped paying attention to LDR at this point. The period between "Honeymoon" and "NFR" Is a lost time for me. I've since gone back and revisited it, but while it was actually happening, I could have cared less. "NFR" was this album that BLEW me away on my first listen. I hadn't heard an album so cohesively good in a minute. I spent the rest of 2019 listening to "NFR," on bus trips and plane rides and nights at home, and half of my first quarantine listening to it, too. It powered me through that phase of my life - it just hit home with me, on a deep level where music rarely resonates anymore. And I would classify it as my favorite album of...

First of all, what a year it has been to be a Lana Del Rey fan. I don't mean this in a positive way - it's the same sort of feeling I have about enjoying ice cream from time to time while having some latent lactose intolerance going on. I remember some moments around the "Ultraviolence" era felt a bit eyerolly, but nothing quite at the level like what she's been up to since "Norman Fucking Rockwell" positioned her at a career high. From "question for the culture" to the mesh not-really-a-mask ... there has been no shortage of frustrating moments lately. I'm not sure what else to say here - I'm a fan, but the music and the person are at odds for me.  I haven't really dug into "Violent Bent Backwards Over the Grass," but what I have read/heard has had some promise. Largely speaking though, I think her songs outshine her poetry dramatically.  Anyway, let's just get to the music. "Let Me Love You Like a Woman" is...

I think I promised some Lana-related blabbing, so here it goes. I've been traveling a lot these past several days, which has left me quite some time to enjoy music. And by music I mean 90 percent "Norman Fucking Rockwell." This and "Cinnamon Girl" are, to me, the standout tracks off this album. There's really not a dud among the group - some songs are a little more subdued than others, I will say - but the songs that stand out are like, shit people will be listening to in 20 plus years.  Now, for "Mariners Apartment Complex," there's two reasons it is - without a doubt - one of her top tracks. First of all, it's a classic throwback ballad dressed up in modern production (the help of Jack Antonoff.) This sounds like something that emerged directly for radio play in the '70s. Without the production that is undeniably contemporary - imagine a stripped-down acoustic version - "Mariners" would not be out of place in the singe...