Fluxblog 507: some recommendations

I'm sharing the things I know and love with those of my kind.

I approached The Name of This Band is R.E.M. with some skepticism, as I was dubious about how much the book had to offer someone who has been steeped in R.E.M. lore as long as I have. I’m pleased to report that Peter Ames Carlin did an excellent job putting this biography together – there’s lots of information in this book that was new to me, and I think the book makes a very good case for why this band was excellent, interesting, and unique. Carlin places a lot of emphasis on R.E.M.’s stubborn insistence on doing everything their way and general refusal to do stuff they thought was uncool. I agree that this is an essential aspect of them at every step of their career, and it’s probably the thing about them that would be most inspirational and instructive for younger musicians. I highly recommend this book if you’ve been curious about R.E.M. but don’t know a lot about them.

Episode 1 is extremely funny and incredibly special. The standard premise of the show is that every episode is a different podcast, but they’ve deviated from that set-up over time to present several full-length audio movies with original soundtracks, an expansive mythology around the city of Three Pumpkins, California that rivals The Best Show’s world building around Newbridge, New Jersey, and an episode containing an extremely long comedy rap song that’s on par with the best of The Lonely Island. I have no idea how Alex Branson, Charles Austin, and Andrew Hudson maintain this level of quality with two episodes every week.

Here are some highly recommended episodes from 2024. I’m linking to the Patreon, but you can find most of these on any podcast app.

• The Silly Guys Go to War
• The Ballad of Brewer Grouse
• Slow Mafia: History in the Making
• Forever Young Adults
• The Post-Campaign Fundraiser for Kamala Harris
• The FlexCast

There’s no other podcast quite like Seeking Derangements. It’s hilarious, it’s wild, it’s strange, it’s formally inventive, and everyone involved has excellent taste in music. I’ve previously described the core hosts as like queer Seinfeld – gay George, trans Elaine, pansexual Kramer, and a gay Jerry who isn’t around that often. I particularly love Hesse Deni, a cinephile with an extremely sharp wit and a strong Columbo impression, and Jacques Gonsoulin, a lovable but deeply strange Cajun who swings unpredictably between being quite clever and extremely dumb.

A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs has been around for quite a while now but I didn’t dive into the show until this year, largely on the recommendation of Kieron Gillen. Andrew Hickey is an excellent storyteller and meticulous researcher, and I quite enjoy his droll English wit. He’s also an exceedingly kind-hearted person, to the point that nearly every episode is preceded by a content warnings that cover all the usual horrors, but also things like “this episode may be upsetting for retail workers traumatized by listening to too much Christmas music.” Hickey’s essential decency and high moral standards can also be quite amusing when he can barely mask his contempt for selfish, prickish rich kids like David Crosby. The show is currently entering the end of the 1960s, and I’m very excited to hear how he covers 70s icons like David Bowie, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan, and Parliament/Funkadelic looming on the horizon. I’m even more excited to hear how he covers a lot of 80s music, but he probably won’t get there for another decade or so at the pace he’s moving.

Here are some other newsletters on Substack I think you should be reading:

• Nicstalgia - Nicole Tremaglio writes about pop culture ephemera largely from the late 90s and 2000s with the passionate intensity of a fan and the analytical mind of a cultural theorist. I love the way she can write about mass culture from the not-too-distant past in a way that feels like explorations of deeply esoteric subjects. She’s also really good at coining new critical concepts, like her “paintball theory” of how algorithmic culture accelerates nostalgia and revivals: “what was once a tiny little ball in the distance grows in speed and velocity. It looks larger and larger as it gets closer and closer, until it goes SPLAT!!!”

• Many Such Cases - Magdalene Taylor writes about contemporary culture as a way of understanding how people are currently thinking about sex, relationships, and loneliness. She's very thoughtful, and you can tell that even when she's approaching dark subject matter and people who are probably broken beyond all repair, she's always rooting for everyone to have a better, happier experience with intimacy, love, and their sexuality.

• ANTIART – Ryan is one of my favorite music critics, and he’s only gotten sharper since moving to Substack after years of focusing on Instagram. Ryan is full of love for a lot of music, but I think he’s at his best when he’s ripping into (sub)cultural moments he finds tacky and lame, like present-day Kanye West, The Dare, or Sophie’s posthumous album.

• Grace Spelman Music Project - Grace is very funny and has great taste, and is a very skilled curator of playlists. She's also a musician, so her perspective on music curation is totally different than mine – whereas I focus mostly on history, she's more about pulling together a lot of songs that all do the same musical trick.