Fluxblog 438: 94 songs I'd play for Kurt Cobain if he came back to life
Plus new music by DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ, Electric Six, and Laufey
This week’s playlist is 94 SONGS I’D PLAY FOR KURT COBAIN IF HE CAME BACK TO LIFE. It’s all music that was released after he died and it’s a mix of stuff I think he’d like, stuff I’d want him to know about, and some stuff I’m just curious what he’d think. This was a fun exercise and I think the real fun of this is making yourself listen to some arguably over-familiar music from the POV of someone who has little to no context for most of these songs. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
Most of my life this week was swallowed up by seeing Pavement four nights in a row at Brooklyn Steel. It ruled. I have two Pavement treats for you all this week:
• My color-coded spreadsheet of every setlist Pavement performed on the 2022/2023 tour, which concludes this weekend.
• Flux Picks Vol 1, a collection of some of my favorite live recordings from 1994-1999, which is available as a public post on the Fluxblog Patreon.
Let Me See What You Got
DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ “Honey”
DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ’s new album Destiny is an incredibly bold body of work, even beyond its epic but somehow not entirely exhausting four hour run time. The general tone and structure of the record is similar to the luxurious party vibe of The Avalanches’ classic Since I Left You, but with most of the nostalgia-button-smashing musical references and textures coming from about 1997 through 2002. (That Avalanches album came out in 2001, so it’s one more reference to the era.)
Destiny sounds like a paradise constructed specifically for people born between 1978 and 1985; an older Millennial’s imaginary world in which 9/11 never happened and the later Clinton-era boom years extended into infinity. It’s also like having your brain flooded with a thousand happy memories at once, overlapping and bleeding into one incomprehensible but ecstatic song. “Honey” is basically the overture of Destiny, establishing the tonal palette, musical themes, and general ironic-yet-entirely-earnest sensibility of the record within eight minutes. It also acclimates your ear to Sabrina’s skill for building dense layers of sounds, often to such an extent that the music becomes overwhelming and it feels a bit like you’re listening to four different songs at once that share the same beat.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
The Eyes Of Society
Electric Six “Born to be Ridiculed”
The characters populating the lyrics of Electric Six songs are mostly creeps, rubes, charlatans, and losers. In this respect they’re like a Steely Dan for the 21st century, but with the noble and romantic loser archetype replaced by a more pathetic and deeply uncool version. “Born to Be Ridiculed” is from the POV of one of those guys, a hapless fool who’s come to realize they can’t avoid putting themselves in situations that bring them humiliation and/or the disdain of strangers. But as far as E6 characters go, this guy isn’t that bad and the appeal of the song is how the rockabilly energy of the music and Dick Valentine’s vocal performance make him seem very accepting of his fate. He sounds like he’s owning it. He sounds like he’s almost unafraid.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Driving Down Sunset’s A Terrible Sight
Laufey “California and Me”
Laufey is at the center of an interesting musical venn diagram – a songwriter and performer with roots in classical who mainly writes jazz vocal song with the lyrical POV of a contemporary indie singer-songwriter. “California and Me” is a song at the dead center of that diagram, a jazz ballad with old Hollywood orchestration and a vocal that laments the end of a situationship with great sadness but also a little humor in the more clever lines. I admire the elegance of her craft, she’s so precise and economical and she tugs on a listener’s heartstrings in a way that’s very gentle but highly effective. “California and Me” is calibrated to make you feel the exact flavor of loneliness she’s feeling, but it’s nuanced enough to get that as sad as she is about feeling left alone part of her feels optimistic about whatever may come her way in the wake of this. Close a door, open a window…
Buy it from Amazon.
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• Andy Richter’s interview with Steve Albini is a good listen, particularly if you’re like me and had no knowledge of Albini’s very interesting family.
• I was very moved by Sasha Frere-Jones’ contribution to Luke O’Neil’s newsletter article in which people share their favorite Elliot Smith songs.
• Chris Ott returned to podcasting with a long-awaited Head on the Door episode of his series about The Cure.
• I enjoyed Josh Terry’s post about Vampire Weekend’s body of work today and was thrilled to read something by another writer who loves Father of the Bride as much as I do.
You know what? I'd also like to play "SICKO MODE" for Kurt Cobain. I bet he'd love it; it's a great song!