I must say, I hit a slump with this challenge and this newsletter, however, like most things, if you persevere through the bad you find your self cycled right back into the good — I have a newfound, or newly restored, joy and excitement for this newsletter. I have found myself beginning the writing process days in advance. Drafting and editing and tweaking, which hopefully produces a better, more enjoyable experience for the reader. It has 100% made the experience more fun for me. I’ve actually wanted to read back my own newsletter because I liked writing so much.
It’s fun to commit to something and then watch the cycles of feeling towards it. Endurance and perseverance are so good and so underrated. In a tik tok world, I want to have a BBC Pride and Prejudice attention span. ya know?
(Good things are worth waiting for)
aaaaaaaaanyway, how bout that album???
This week I listened to
Combat Sports by The Vaccines
And I had a great time. I am pro-vax.
That was dumb.
But the album was not. I really already knew I enjoyed The Vaccines because of their song “If You Wanna” which is a certified bop. And Combat Sports was real fun too.
There was nothing revolutionary or particularly outstanding about the album, however, I don’t assume that was the goal. I think they were making fun music for people to enjoy and I most certainly did.
What this album mostly did was send me into full-on summer music mode. I’ve been waiting for the summer music bug to kick in and for whatever reason it hadn’t, which is shocking because to know me is to know that I LIVE for summer. I am a summer girl and one of my most favorite aspects of summer is the absolute vibe shift in my music consumption. I go full on lo-fi surf/grunge rock and nothing else will fill the need. I am the very best version of myself in the summer.
This album made it finally feel like summer.
And for that, I thank The Vaccines.
In other news:
Let’s talk ☀️summer music☀️
One of my faves, Beach Bunny, dropped a new single this past week and I was filled with delight. Tbh the song isn’t that great, but it did Marie Condo¹ and thereby found its way onto my Summer ‘24 playlist.
A few other fun, summer finds are:
Jinx by Lia Pappas-Kemps
Drain Me! By Towa Bird
adios by JAWNY
And finally, if you are unfamiliar with the lo-fi surf rock scene i strongly encourage you to *not just a book by it’s cover* and check out the Spotify curated playlist Surf Rock Sunshine. The title of the playlist is major choms², however, the playlist itself is a personal favorite - it transports me to my dream life of living in a beach bungalow and own a teeny little boutique and am always a little salty and sandy.
I got sick as a dog early this week and my first issue, after the obvious issue of illness, was not knowing what to watch. Day 1 of sick I was conscious for max 6 hours and all I wanted to watch was Disney movies ??? *cue me crying in my bed to Encanto*. Then on day 2 GOD ONLY KNOWS WHY, I felt so inclined to watch not one, not two, BUT THREE X-Men movies (New Mutants, First Class³ and the OG X-Men) ((I’ve never been big on super hero movies, but something about the x-men has always done it for me. idk send help)) but after this steep decline into nostalgia, I chose to venture into a more age appropriate option: Bridgerton. My thoughts are as follows:
I could not tell you one fact about Daphne, or Simon for that matter.
Worth watching for the set design and costumes alone.
Knowing that season 2 was going to be about Anthony kept me fully invested.
Season 2 is gas. Everything about it is perfect EXCEPT FOR this one scene where the green screen editing is SO heinous that I nearly had to jump ship.
My only qualm with the show is that in both seasons 1 and 2 the male leads both have extensive story building by way of flashbacks, that give you picture into their trauma and thereby makes them sympathetic and serves to “explain away” all of their bad behavior. Now this is fine. but I think it bothers me that the same is not afforded to the women — i could go on, but this is a music Substack, so i digress.
Please tell me to shut up.
FINALLY WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THIS SHOW IS JUST REGENCY ERA GOSSIP GIRL????? Perhaps I will write my dissertation on the parallels.
New music that came out this past week? Gracie Abram’s album dropped on the 21st. I quite like it. Her song with Taylor Swift is good, but also sounds like a Taylor Swift song, which isn’t bad, but to me feels a little out of place, stylistically. Whatever, they didn’t consult me, so.
This week I’m starting “The House in the Cerulean Sea” by TJ Klune, it feels like a slight deviation from my normal reading taste, but I think that potentially this music challenge has caused me to challenge myself in other areas as well. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Me taking myself seriously:
OK!
This week I’m in Colorado, so we’ll see how the listening goes….
Also, speaking of challenging my taste. This weeks album comes by recommendation from my dear friend and college roommate, Amy. Now a little thing about Amy is, she loves Lord of the Rings. A lot. At least once a week I would come back to our apartment to find her doing homework and watching one of the LOTR films. Which is great and fine. I however, do not particularly like the movies (says the girl who just watched X-Men, so grain of salt)
Anyway, obviously Amy recommended one of the soundtracks. I have seen its title spinning on my wheel of albums every week and just wondered when it’s time would come. It feels right that it’ll be while I’m in the mountains.
Amy, this one’s for you.
Also, this album is 3 hours long, so I repeat:
send help.
See you next week✌️