I just spent a week in Kansas City (Kansas not Missouri) visiting my cousin Nikki and cosplaying as a denizen of the Midwest and it was honestly thrilling. Low-key fuck Europe, it’s all about a Midwestern summer. There is so much parking. The barbecue is transcendent. Every drink comes with ample ice, and in the case of Sonic, the best ice on the planet. (I did make my cousin take me to Sonic nearly every single day I was there and she kindly obliged).

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Issy Wood is a painter, musician, and vintage ceramic salt-and-pepper-shaker aficionado. She is known for her “perverted realism” (or so says Artforum), her “canny, sophisticated pop music” (so says Pitchfork), and her brave friendship (so says me, the person whomst she accompanied for a dip into the 4-degree-Celsius women’s bathing pond at Hampstead Heath on New Year’s Day this year). I love her sardonic, slyly vulnerable, almost violently honest lyrics (listen to last year’s “IHS”), her Instagram stories (she truly sees things differently, reminds me a bit of Jerry Hsu’s), and the fact that she regularly picks up my raw dog FaceTime calls (are you thinking wow you’re really making this about you? To you I say: this whole Substack is about me, honey). I’ve also never met a person who loves The Book of Mormon more than her - a truly charming trait.

She’s smart as hell, funny as shit, and has excellent taste which is why I am thrilled to have her contribute a Monday Mixtape for this little rag.

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Issy Wood
Capricorn
London

How do you find/discover music?

I was a very musically adventurous teen, but have become progressively lazier over the last decade and a half. Instead of going digging, I mostly wait for word-of-mouth prompts from trusted loved ones. Two things happened in the last year that changed the status quo, however. The first is that I began dating a music- and playlist-obsessed man with whom my tastes mostly align. He has introduced me to (and reminded me to revisit) so much. The second is that I have been spending a lot of time in Los Angeles, and can never get my phone to reliably connect to my rental car. This led me to Loyola Marymount’s college radio station KXLU. I love what they’re doing over there.

What was the first song you put on when you woke up this morning?

Shaad d’Souza asked me last night to name my “summer anthem” for his magazine1, so I listened to the two candidates (“2SIDED” by Arlo Parks and “Taxi” by Bryan Ferry) trying to decide which to pick. I let Shaad pick in the end.

What song have you listened to more than once this past week?

“The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room)” by Flight of the Concords. I loved this show when it first aired. It satisfied my weakness for musical theatre while still being somewhat NME-friendly.

What is a recent song you think everyone should know about?

“MY NAME IS NIGHT” by Nirosta Steel (ed note: whole album so fucking good).

A song off your work out playlist:

“Rock Music” by Charli XCX, though it’s over too quickly to build any kind of muscle mass

What is a perfect London bike ride song?

I cannot publicly condone biking with headphones on. But : “Did You See” by J Hus. Wear a helmet!

Podcasts don’t exist anymore. Do you listen to music while you paint or total silence?

Currently, total silence. That’s how bad my podcast habit is.

What song can you do at karaoke without looking at the tv screens?

“That Don’t Impress Me Much” by Shania Twain, but it’s in a surprisingly bad key for me.

Song you associate with being 13 years old:

“Naive” by the Kooks.

What song do you listen to when you want a lobotomy?

“Money Is Everything” by Addison Rae.

What song do you use to indulge your wallowing?

“Why I Cry” by the Magnetic Fields.

What song do you use to renew your spirit?

“Ice Melts” by Drake and Young Thug.

What is your favorite cover song?

There’s a live cover of D’Angelo doing Prince’s “She’s Always In My Hair” from 2015 I think about often.

What song would you like to hear just before you die?

“Angeles” by Elliott Smith

All the songs on Issy’s Monday Mixtape live HERE

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Heather Jewett is a musician, writer, comedienne (you heard me), podcaster, and soundboard auteur. Her podcast Planet Heather regularly makes me cramp up with laughter and I find myself reacting to real life situations with particular phrases from her incredibly rich and poignant sound board (what IS popping Dr. Phil?). She is a founding member of seminal electroclash (are we just saying “indie sleaze” now like that’s a thing because I give up) outfit Gravy Train!!! and recently debuted her new music project Heathers, including the god-tier disco-y earworm of a banger “Jealous”, which is definitely one of my songs of the summer even though I am of course not jealous of anyone as my spirit is tranquil and god fills my cup daily and I want for nothing (certainly not a new neck or pink satin Versace pumps or a single day without the wet cold blanket of existential dread draped over my shoulders).

You can catch Heather and her band the Hot Guys in Oakland opening for Josie Cotton this Friday, July 17th at Eli’s Mile High Club as part of the excellent Mosswood Meltdown Festival (hosted by John Waters!!). Get tickets here.

Heather has excellent, exquisite, and often surprising taste in music (I think she might be one of the world’s foremost Aerosmith lovers) so of course I had to ask her to contribute a Monday Mixtape:

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Heather Jewett
Pisces Sun, Taurus Moon, Capricorn Rising
Los Fefe, California

How do you find/discover music?

To quote Dan Allegretto, new music scares me. I tend to listen to the same songs from at least 14 years ago over and over. BUT I regret to inform you, lately I’ve been finding some bops via Instagram reels :( It’ll be a 12-year-old girl doing therapy-speak about “avoidant attachment styles” with 50k likes and in the background she’s bumping some compelling “new music” that I then somberly add to my Spotify favorites. :(

What was the first song you put on when you woke up this morning?

“White Freckles” by Ariel Pink. I can’t get enough — it’s both the most euphoric AND annoying song to have in your head all day. “FRECKLES, FRECKLES, WHERE’D YOU GET THOSE FRECKLES?!?!” is a lyric I long to have written.

What song have you listened to more than once this past week?

“Astronaut” by Versus, “Coffin Nails” by MF Doom, “Stratford-on-Guy” by Liz Phair, and a lot more Ariel Pink (lock me up) especially “Fright Night,” “Lipstick,” and “Beverly Kills.”

What is a recent song you think everyone should know about?

I love “What Love is 4” by my House of Feelings label mate, Pisha! It’s very Goldfrapp-coded. Also, a NOT recent song I’d love for everyone to discover is “Your Love Been So Good to Me” by Ruth Copeland. It’s the 70’s woman banger that should have been as big as “White Rabbit” or “Barracuda” but the good news is it’s finally available on streaming — RUN DON’T WALK.

A song off your workout playlist:

I have two workout playlists: “Stripper Metal Workout” and “Beastmode Workout Crusher.” A standout from the former is “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” by W.A.S.P., which I consider to be the greatest hair metal song of all time. A staple from the other playlist is “I Can’t Get No Sleep” by Masters at Work — slow burn house diva heaven with a big finish that will CRUSH your PR (that’s “personal record” folx, I’m a bit of an athlete)!!!!

Do you listen to a song before you go on stage to get in the zone? What song?

“I Love Sex (And Rock and Roll)” by The Plasmatics is so empowering in terms of stage presence. Also, at one of Gravy Train!!!’s reunion shows, Kate Mosher-Hall DJ’d “Tangerine Rose” by Angelyne right before we went onstage and it was so soothing, sensual and perfect… so that’s also on the playlist now!

What song can you do at karaoke without looking at the tv screens?

Well I bodied “Walk This Way” by Aerosmith at Sam Buck’s local KFM Country Karaoke Night, which was a huge accomplishment because it’s SO hard. I practiced for weeks and flopped every time, but I didn’t miss any words when I actually got onstage. Is there a division of the Nobel Peace Prize or even just the MacArthur Genius Grant that awards this kind of thing??

Song you associate with being 13 years old:

Oh my God, well it was 1994, my PEAK year of music obsession and alt rock excellence, I mean Live Through This came out and sooo many others… but if I had to pick 3 (not what you asked) that really feel like time travel, I’ll say “Your Favorite Thing” by Sugar, “Interstate Love Song” by Stone Temple Pilots, and “Low” by Cracker (ed note: DEF had this cassingle and bumped the fuck out of it).

What song do you listen to when you want a lobotomy?

“Love Gun” by KISS or “Horny” by Hot n’ Juicy… any song about sex from a simple, dog-like perspective.

What song do you use to indulge your wallowing?

Gracie Abrams “That’s So True” lol, “Cherish” by the Association, “Little Earthquakes” by Tori Amos, and above all, “Recording 15” by Shannon Lay, who has been my dear friend for over a decade and is now playing bass in my live band, Heather and the Hot Guys… in which her backup vocals have ALSO made me cry. If you come see us, you better bring a damn hanky!!!

What song do you use to renew your spirit?

“Needle in the Camel’s Eye” by Brian Eno, “Cherub Rock” by Smashing Pumpkins (best alt rock song of the 90’s imho), “Head On” by Jesus and Mary Chain, “6’1”“ by Liz Phair, “Catch Me I’m Falling” by Pretty Poison, “Thunderkiss ‘65” by White Zombie (the OTHER best song of the 90’s… don’t @ me!!!)

What is your favorite cover song?

“Burnin’ Up” by Mike Watt/Sonic Youth or Ciccone Youth or whatever covering Madonna!!! It’s so raw, menacing, and sexual, but you can really hear the warm California sun in it too, San Pedro to be exact!! I keep waiting for another cover to eclipse this and it just hasn’t happened, BUT I also love “Nights in White Satin” by Giorgio Moroder (Moody Blues), The Gories “There But for the Grace of God Go I” (a primal, stripped down tin shack version of an obscure disco song by Machine), and “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” by Aerosmith (Shangri-La’s).

What song would you like to hear just before you die?

Carmina Burana “O Fortuna.” I’ve been stomping along to it on my little rage-walks around Los Fefe… really hits the spot when you’re craving drama and wanting to feel like your life is a movie. Since death is the ultimate main character moment, I think it would really help me go out with a bang!

All of the songs on Heather’s Monday Mixtape live HERE

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Speaking of summer - I wrote a short piece about my experience at Lollapalooza 1995 for the excellent The Print Edition (thank you !) and now I am somehow published in the same issue as Graydon Carter. I love physical media, I love print, I love collecting things to stack on tables in my home, and I love The Print Edition. Get the issue at their website or at select newsstands.

This morning the thought occurred to me in a particularly languid moment that cherries are certainly proof of god, and that’s when it hit me: it’s definitely summer now. Driving home from hot yoga I ate the complimentary electrolyte popsicle I was given (thank you Silver Springs) with the windows down, cranked the volume on the Subaru, and listened to what is revealing itself to be if not the song of the summer, certainly my song of the summer, “When I’m Not Around” by Deep Heaven, five times in a row. Yes this song did come out in the fall of 2025, thank you for asking. You gotta kill the cop within, babe.

The thing about a perfect summer song is that it needs to be buoyant and life-affirming but also have woven into it a thin, gossamer thread of sorrow, because this is also what makes summer so wonderful (and the bowl of cherries transcendent). It’s the knowledge that it will all soon enough be over. It will once again be dark at 5pm, the stone fruit will disappear from the farmers markets, and people will have to pack up their nap dresses and off-the-shoulder poplin peasant blouses and come back home.

Obviously the threat is less serious when you live in Los Angeles, but even though we don’t suffer from particularly punitive winters here (though I maintain that a cold January night in LA is somehow more bone-chilling than one in Minnesota, for example), it’s about the tenor of the season. The carefree mood will always give way to something heavier. And for my two cents, that impermanence needs to be hinted at in the music that carries you through the season, sun on your face, wind at your back while you bike a little drunk off white wine spritzes, or slip your bare arm out the car window and make little waves with your hand up against the thick air. There has to be a tiny bit of mourning undergirding the joy. Lana Del Rey obviously snapped with “Summertime Sadness,” a particularly overt example of this. “Pumped Up Kicks” is about a homicidal teenager! You see what I mean.

A few other songs of MY summer include:

• Fiddlehead “Baby I’ll Change”

• Heathers “Jealous”

• Nirosta Steel “BOSS TRIX”

• HEKT ft Smerz “Forever”

• "Rock Music” (I am the #1 “Rock Music” truther, I love it so much)

After the jump, I have for you a playlist of 40 gorgeous summer songs (contemporary). There’s like 25% overlap with my top songs of 2026 because I am HONEST and I like what I like. But most of it is new (to you, via me at least). There’s also an old playlist I made but never shared that I called “Goth at the Beach” for some reason (no Growlers). It’s 3 hours long and has songs from four decades and is kind of fab? Hope you like them both:

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Jess Cuevas is a wildly talented mixed media artist, creative director, and art director. He is the art director for Willy Chavarria (one of my absolute favorite contemporary designers) and has worked with Freshjive, Nike, Converse, and a little artist called Madonna, amongst others.

We first connected through Madonna fandom (in turns out when you make a 22 hour long podcast series about an incredibly beloved pop icon, you make a lot of amazing new friends) and Jess quickly revealed his excellent taste, not just for visuals but also in the breadth and depth of his musical taste. And you know what that means.

Here is Jess’ Monday Mixtape:

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Jess Cuevas
I am a deep Pisces. Moon in Scorpio. Rising in Virgo
City of Angels

How do you find/discover music?

I am constantly looking back to discover something new. I also have some amazing friends with impeccable taste that keep new music flowing to me.

What was the first song you put on when you woke up this morning?

When I woke up this morning I listened to Bjork’s “Venus as a Boy” and Flea, the track called “Frailed”.

What song have you listened to more than once this past week?

“One Step Away” by Madonna on Confessions 2 on major repeat. I mean the whole album honestly.

What is a recent song you think everyone should know about?

I really love Flea’s new jazz album and the track “Traffic Lights.” (ft Thom Yorke). It’s such a nice mellow vibe and so beautiful.

A song off your work-out playlist:

A song that makes me feel crazy psycho good and go hard at the gym is “Bring the Noise” by Public Enemy (ed note: this is also on my work-out playlist except it’s the Anthrax version). “Can’t Truss It” by Public Enemy and Eli Escobar’s “Something Inside Of Me.”

Is there particular music that you put on when you are looking to summon creativity?

When I want to get in the zone creatively I tend to listen to Massive Attack, Portishead, Mexican Bolero music, or deep 90’s house music. I guess it depends on what I am creating. My taste is all over the place.

Any song in particular that opens up your mind in that way?

Primal Scream “Higher than the Sun”. The lyrics to that track really move my mind.

What song can you do at karaoke without looking at the tv screens?

I don’t do karaoke. It feels intimidating.

Song you associate with being 13 years old:

There are a lot, too hard to pick just one: Cypress Hill “Latin Lingo”, Deee-Lite, “Power of Love” (ed note: the fucking best), Stereo Mc’s “Connected”, Madonna “Justify My Love”, Nirvana “Come As you Are”, Neneh Cherry “Buffalo Stance”.

What song do you listen to when you want a lobotomy?

Mr. Fingers “Cerebral Hemisphere”.

What song do you use to indulge your wallowing?

Tricky “Hell Is Round The Corner”.

What song do you use to renew your spirit?

“I Want To Thank You” by Alicia Myers. If that doesn’t do the trick I don’t know what will.

What is your favorite cover song?

Kali Uchis “que te pedi//”. Her voice is like an angel’s.

What song would you like to hear just before you die?

Los Panchos, “Bésame Mucho.” The song is about someone asking their loved one to cherish the present moment with an intense kiss because they fear they may never be together again.

All of the songs on Jess’ Monday Mixtape live HERE

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I was sad when Bandsplain’s Madonna month was over but then I realized it’s kind of always Madonna month if you choose to be about that life (though I am still recovering from the fact that Garren laid his holy eyes upon a social clip in which I had my worst hair day in months).

Back to Confessions II - I cried more than once while listening to it today, moved not only by the incredibly personal, reflective lyrics, but also by the accomplishment of proving the relentless doubters wrong at an age where most women are barely allowed to publicly exist (the pink pussy hat is ON babe).

I think my favorite track right now is “School” but I’m losing it at so many others - “One Step Away”, “Love Without Words”, "The Test (ft. Lourdes Leon)” (when she calls Lourdes “Little Star”!!!2), and of course, her Lou Reed moment,“L.E.S. Girl”.3 I keep hearing new things on each listen through and will be spending a lot more time with it this weekend, contemplating whilst throwing ass (as we do).

and I are toying with the idea of maybe “going live” on Instagram on Sunday to discuss our thoughts on the album, will try to provide a reasonable heads up but also will maybe throw it up as a video, here or on IG. In the meantime, Shaad D’Souza’s review for Pitchfork is excellent.

Other fun Madonna stuff: Library180, a free (by appt only) vintage magazine reference library (aka heaven?) has recently acquired a massive collection of Madonna media and went to rifle through it and report back over at Neverworns, this oral history of Danceteria in Vanity Fair (ft. musings from Debi Mazar, Marc Almond of Soft Cell, Fab 5 Freddy, and more), and these gorgeous little images Willy Chavarria creative director Jess Cuevas made to celebrate the launch of the new album.

In other “women who shaped my life and entire personality” news, I interviewed Courtney Love about her film career for the Criterion Channel45, who currently has a curation of six of her movies available to stream on the site. It’s a great interview if I may say so myself: she speaks about her friendship with Joe Strummer, pushing for Paul Rudd to be cast in 200 Cigarettes, and the iconic music biopic role she turned down. Here are a few of my favorite bits that didn’t make it into the piece, on The Pogues, Peckinpaw, Kevin Bacon, the Atkins diet, and more.

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is an art and music critic who has recently entered my important gay guy canon™️ on the strength of his impeccable taste, fantastic writing, and also some well-timed (ie while I was luteal) flattering words pointed in my direction (it’s really that easy folks). Harry writes for Pitchfork, The Guardian, Paper, and more. He’s one of the few music writers who regularly puts me onto stuff I love (another of course being former Monday Mixtape subject Shaad D’Souza) and now that we regularly dm, he’s teaching me about the world. For example, the day before Madonna name- checked Raffaella Carrà1 in her interview with Mel Ottenberg for the Summer 2026 Interview Magazine, Harry was sending me videos of that queen and educating me about her game. Maybe I’ll finally learn something (anything) about “art” next.

A few things we agree on are: the band ear, the importance of Erotica, and that almost all men look amazing with dark-rooted bleached hair.

Here is Harry’s Monday Mixtape:

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Harry Tafoya
Pisces, which I’m told explains *Everything*
Scenic, Rustic Bushwick

How do you find/discover music?

Oh God... I sort of just let it waft over me... I have a lot of opinionated gay men in my life (many of whom identify as heterosexual) and they love to tell me what to listen to.

What was the first song you put on when you woke up this morning?

“Ef“ by Chanel Beads.

What song have you listened to more than once this past week?:

I’ve been playing John Errol’s forthcoming album obsessively, it is one of the most painfully beautiful records this year but ALSO “lao shi 老师“ by Helena Gao, who I’ve admired ever since she made Zara Larsson listenable to me / “soulless cycle” by L’Rain fucking RIPS, the most brilliant woman in New York / “LOVE + WAR” by B0YG1RL & NOVAGANG goes just as soft and hard as the title suggests.

What is a recent song you think everyone should know about?

I’m biased because I love him but I think Clarke Sondermann’s latest album as Pleasure Systems is so gorgeous, especially “Singing In My Sleep“ (Ed note: this song is so beautiful def cannot handle whilst luteal)

A song off your work-out playlist:

The Squire of Gothos - Forest Gateaux Mix - the profoundly stupid build and release of bass line makes it the perfect genre for cardio.

Do you listen to music when you go to view art? If so, what is a good art viewing song?

I do not, lamely I try to see it in the most neutral conditions possible. If anything, taking in too much art makes your brain explode, which requires a mental palette cleanser. After I haul my ass to galleries, I usually like to listen to the most stripped down folk or the most woozy tranq’d out ambient music possible. Lately Dagmar Zuniga hits that sweet spot.

What song can you do at karaoke without looking at the tv screens?

I’m a karaoke performance artist - I need lighting, a fog machine, and multiple costume changes but I do not need a screen. My go-to is to perform in Spanish (namely this), but lately all I want to do is sing “Isolation“ by Joy Division.

Song you associate with being 13 years old:

“Hong Kong Garden (Marie Antoinette Strings Version)“ by Siouxsie Sioux, the first song I ever bought for my iPod (Ed note: had to put the regular one on the playlist sorry just imagine the strings version)

What song do you listen to when you want a lobotomy?

Either “Bad Song” by CFCF featuring Cecile Believe (the dumbest song this year) or “Train“ by Goldfrapp. There are many delicious flavors of pop stupidity, but few have channeled glam rock’s distinct lobotomy tang so perfectly.

What song do you use to indulge your wallowing?

The funny answer is “Child Psychology” by Black Box Recorder, the actual answer is “Marble Lions” by Saint Etienne.

What song do you use to renew your spirit?”

“Justified & Ancient” by The KLF :) (Ed note: hell yes brother)

What is your favorite cover song?

Right now it’s “Breathe Kullawada Caporal E DJ Edit” by Chuquimamani-Condori, which recasts Faith Hill as an ecstatic seeress on the cusp of revelation.

What song would you like to hear just before you die?

“Corporeal“/”You and Me In Time“/”Where Youth and Laughter Go“ by Broadcast, It’s almost a joke how obsessed I am with them but I’m endlessly fascinated by Trish Keenan and I can’t think of another band that so consistently captures the mystery, sadness, and weird beauty of whatever might be on the other side.

All of the songs on Harry’s Monday Mixtape live HERE

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• This Madonna interview/photo spread for the cover of Interview by the one and only Mel Ottenberg is phenomenal. Shot by Nadia Lee Cohen and styled by Mel, it’s such a nice reminder of Madonna’s incredible ability to inhabit new looks and hair styles (and characters, here she is as “Dee Dee”) after a currently press cycle of a lot of sameness. Of course she trusted Mel, because Mel’s an absolute artist. Also the fact that he learned all this information (such as the tidbit about Madonna plying Danceteria DJ Mark Kamins with cocaine to get him to play her first single “Everybody”) BEFORE appearing on episode 1 of Bandsplain’s Madonna series and did not mention any of it shows breathtaking restraint. His playlist of his top Madonna songs is also excellent. Mentally I’m still here.1

• Death Cab For Cutie covered one of my favorite Husker Dü songs “Green Eyes” (RIP Grant Hart) for Sirius XM.

• Olivia Rodrigo announced her Daisy Chain Fields festival which will take place in Irvine in August (it sold out in 30 minutes). It’s sort of a modern day Lilith Fair, with a line-up that includes Stevie Nicks, Chappell Roan, Garbage, Rodrigo herself, and the originator of Lilith, Sarah McLachlan, amongst others. It’s cute! I’m glad she’s directing her fans towards these acts and also using her power and platform to do something cool like this. I do however remain perplexed at her citing artists like The Breeders and Bikini Kill (both playing the festival), as well as Courtney Love and PJ Harvey, while making music that sounds like…that. Anyway you should watch last year’s excellent Lilith Fair doc on Hulu.

• posted another edition of his Substack magazines where he goes through an old magazine (or in this case, a 1992 Village Voice) and muses about journalism, culture, the past, the future, and more in his signature (Pulitzer Prize winning) voice. I love it so much.

• Mannequin Pussy and Wednesday announced their co-headline tour, the Bitch Cabal (perfect name, no notes) starting October 30th in Asheville, NC. I will be following them like people used to do The Grateful Dead.

• did his roundup of best songs of 2026 so far (it’s 288 songs, 16 hours long) and while we have some crossover a lot of it is very different and of course, very good.

• Also this is 300 years in advance but I will be in the UK from roughly mid October to mid November if you’d like to invite me to things/have me host something/have me screen a movie/take me to the pub/propose marriage to me.

And now here are my top 50 songs (if the release its on came out this year I counted it) of 2026 so far. Obviously this is bent around my personal tastes. Justice for “Rock Music” (the song and the genre). This post isn’t paywalled because I want more people to know about these artists and derive joy from these tunes.

In alphabetical order because I famously hate ranking things:

• Accessory — “Sunshine”

• Angel Du$t — “Pain Is A Must”

• Badvril — “Golden”

• Basement — “Time Waster”

• Basement — “The Way I Feel”

• Blondshell — “Heart Has To Work So Hard”

• Cardinals — “Masquerade”

• Charli xcx — “Rock Music”

• Cola — “Hedgesitting”

• Dari Bay — “We’re Gonna Be Okay”

• Dazy — “BIG Problem”

• Death Cab for Cutie — “I Built You A Tower (a)”

• ear — “Ne Plus Ultra”

• Fiddlehead — “Baby I’ll Change”

• Greg Mendez — “I Wanna Feel Pretty”

• Hekt — “Beautiful”

• horse — “gloss”

• Hovvdy — “Try Try Try”

• How Much Art — “XO”

• Iceage — “Star”

• Joshua Burnside — “It’s Not Going to be Okay”

• Joyce Manor — “Grey Guitar”

• Kelela — “linknb”

• Kurt Vile — “Zoom 97”

• Lambrini Girls — “Cult of Celebrity”

• Lifeguard — “Appetite”

• Lightris — “Up Down”

• Lime Garden — “Cross My Heart”

• Mackeeper — “Pieces Of Yours”

• Madonna — “I Feel So Free”

• Man/Woman/Chainsaw — “Nosedive”

• Midrift — “Reaching For You”

• Morgan Nagler — “Hurt”

• Nation of Language — “Tougher Than The Rest” (Bruce Springsteen cover)

• Nine Inch Nails, Boys Noize — “Me, I’m Not - Nine Inch Noize...”

• Nothing — “never come never morning”

• Porches — “SPRING”

• Real Lies — “A Land Beyond”

• Ringing — “incandescent”

• RIP Magic — “Screwdark”

• Rostam, Clairo — “Hardy (feat. Clairo)”

• Slayyyter — “CRANK”

• Slow Pulp — “Better Man”

• Station Model Violence — “Leisure”

• supermodel* — “blue monday”

• Tiberius b, Power Snatch, Hayley... — “Great”

• Tigers Jaw — “Head is Like a Sinking Stone”

• Turnover — “I See You And Realize”

• 2charm — “no pressure”

• underscores — “Tell Me (U Want It)”

And on a playlist for ease.

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Anyway let’s get into it:

ALBUM

This is a small preview of next week’s Bandsplain episode about our favorite music of Q2 (I have an MBA so I’m allowed to use that word) but an album I’ve been listening to nonstop is Forever by the Danish producer, DJ, and songwriter Hekt (real name: Jesper Nørbæk). Between this and the new Iceage album, I don’t know what the fuck they’re putting in the water in Denmark, but babe, it’s working.2

Forever is a big, beautiful, vibrant electronic dance record (I just learned what IDM means but I won’t be using that word). The exquisitely sequenced tracks move through a myriad of emotions (anticipation, yearning, romance, balls to the wall LFG, and more) and it all just makes me desperate to hop on a Lime bike3 and speed through the London night (this is not LA music) with it blaring in my corded headphones, a heat-seeking missile aimed toward what might be the best night of my life. (Inside me the wolf who goes to sleep at 9:30pm and wakes up with the sun to go to hot yoga is having its ass beat by the wolf who wants to slam a Celsius, put on a halter top4, and hit the fucking streets).

BOOK

sent me her new novel Lovers XXX a while ago but I was balls deep in Madonna month and precluded from reading anything that wasn’t work related but I’ve finally read it and it’s so engrossing and juicy and page-turny. It’s also largely set in 80s Los Angeles, and as a sort of LA native (famously from Torrance) I will read any book that deals with past (imo better) eras of the city5. The LA Times called it “the definitive literary Valley porn novel” I’m sorry but what more do you need to hear.

SHAMPOO

I’ve been on sort of an endless hair improvement journey since I was a teenager but it ramped up in intensity after I lost a bunch of hair after the fires (this probably calls for a larger violin but let’s keep moving). My hairdresser Rosie recommended this line Najeau - she mentioned another of her clients was using it and her hair was noticeably thicker. So of course I was like - say less babe. I went straight to the website and ordered…everything? The shampoo, the conditioner, the copper sequence scalp spray, the Sunday scalp mask, all of it.6 I’ve been using it all pretty religiously for a few weeks and besides the fact that the bottles are beautiful and the product, in particular the shampoo and conditioner, smell incredible (not not important), the quality of my hair after using all this stuff is noticeably better? My curls are naturally softened, my hair feels way less dry. I don’t know if new hair has magically popped up on my scalp but I’ll keep you posted, though to be honest it will be impossible to tell which intervention (the products, the HigherDose red light hat I use a few times a week, the Celluma Nova I use most nights, the DHT blocker pills I take, the stem call scalp micro needling I’m doing next week with the Beverly Hills Skincare Muse) will be the cause. I’m not a woman in STEM okay.

PODCAST EP

Remember I said I love fashion? Well if you love fashion you probably already listen to Lauren Sherman’s podcast Fashion People but in case you don’t, I can’t recommend the latest episode where she interviews legendary fashion photography duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. The talk is so rich with ideas about art, fashion, partnership, collaboration, as well as incredibly fascinating memories and details from their work with other fashion icons. I think anyone who makes any kind of art will find some stimulation/inspiration in here somewhere. I loved it so much I listened to it twice.

FURTHER READING/LISTENING/WATCHING

• posted her first Substack and of course it’s fabulous because she’s brilliant and funny and a true journalist. She teaches us how to make a perfect Negroni and shows us her RealReal searches, because she knows what the people want. (Maybe next week I too will divulge my RealReal searches or even, more hallowed, my Gem.app ones).

• did an incredibly fun and funny interview with John Early around his new film Maddie’s Secret, which I am dying to see.

• Everything writes makes me smarter, including but not limited to this essay about our modern society’s baffling addiction to being outraged.

  • “When someone disturbs, confuses, irritates, offends, or terrifies me—especially if they terrify me—it’s not my instinct to lash out or decry them. I look closer and ask why. I unfailingly find comedy in the experience. I love people who appear to operate much differently than I do. I love to scrutinize what drives them to have the ideas they have and behave the way they do. Sometimes I simply indulge in the spectacle.” He tore with this.

• Criterion has curated a collection of six movies starring Courtney Love that went up this month and will be up I believe through the summer. I was thrilled at the opportunity to rewatch 200 Cigarettes, the best New Year’s Eve movie of all time, and of course, Love’s brilliant performance in The People Vs. Larry Flynt, but it was Beat, which I had never seen, that I found most compelling. It’s not a great movie by any standard but it’s certainly interesting, especially because it centers Joan Vollmer (played by Love), a woman whose murder at 28 years old has been minimized by history to just a crucial plot point in William Burroughs’ artist development story. This is extra cool because…(spoiler) he killed her! Anyway she was actually a complicated and highly intelligent woman who inspired pretty much everyone around her and whose writing career was stupidly cut short (much like Courtney’s acting career tbh). Watch this space because maybe somebody interviewed somebody else for this and it will be up on the Criterion website soon…

• Speaking of Dobb Mobb, I went on The Big Picture podcast with and Amanda and Adam Nayman to talk about one of my greatest loves, the films of Mel Books.

• And finally, last week week we kicked off Bandsplain’s 80s Movie Soundtracks series with a 3 hour rumination on what is probably the greatest soundtrack of all time, Purple Rain.

See you next week xx

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I have to google this every single time

Jago Rackham is a London-based cook and writer, and also genuinely one of the funniest and most interesting people I’ve ever met. He recently wrote his first book, To Entertain: Instructions for a Dinner Party, which I believe (in the way you believe in god or aliens, sight unseen) is fabulous, though annoyingly it’s not yet available in America (something to do with Brexit probably? I don’t know a lot about international trade).

Even though I haven’t read the book per se, I HAVE attended dinner parties that Jago has helmed, eaten his incredibly delicious food (I’ve thought about this trifle he made for our friend Issy’s birthday every day for the last six months) and most crucially, spent time delighting in his warm, inviting presence and acerbic wit. When I was in London with my family over the holidays, he came over for Persian food and brought my mother some sort of artisanal preserves from his hometown of Cornwall (okay charm overload), and my brother still brings up a joke he made about how they don’t allow Northern people on TV (a testament to his delivery as obviously my brother does not actually understand centuries old regional British prejudice).

Anyway, one thing I actually didn’t know much about was his music taste, but you know what, I had faith, and it paid off.

Here is Jago’s Monday Mixtape:

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Jago Rackham
Gemini
London

How do you find/discover music?

What Spotify recommends...catchy Gen Z Instagram reels…occasionally a movie.

What was the first song you put on when you woke up this morning?

I listen to an audio book first thing, when I wash up, make coffee, feed and water my wife. Today it was the 14th John Rebus book1, but the first song I listened to today was “Tusi” by Judith. It’s very fun.

What song have you listened to more than once this past week?

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by The Rolling Stones.

What is a recent song you think everyone should know about?

“did i tell u that i miss u” by adore (ed note: okay I love this)

A song off your work-out playlist:

“Big Strong Boss” by Swans2

What song can you do at karaoke without looking at the tv screens?

“Tequila” by The Champs

What’s a song you like to put on when you’re cooking?

I don’t like listening to music when I cook. I have to watch TV or listen to a podcast - I find cooking quite boring.

Song you associate with being 13 years old:

“Helena” by My Chemical Romance. I also associate it with being 32 (my current age)

What song do you listen to when you want a lobotomy?

“Starship Hyperdive White Noise” by Relaxing White Noise

What song do you use to indulge your wallowing?

“Organ Concerto in G Minor” by GF Handel

What song do you use to renew your spirit?

“Frog on the Floor” by 100 Gecs. It’s really sweet.

What is your favorite cover song?

There’s a cover song of “Brown Eyed Girl” by Green Day I must have downloaded from Limewire circa 2009, but I can’t seem to find it. (ed note: okay so actually as far as I can tell Green Day never covered “Brown Eyed Girl” but Lagwagon did in 1994 and I think people wrongly attributed it to Green Day during peak filesharing/mislabeling days)

What song would you like to hear just before you die?

“Overture to the Barber of Seville” by Rossini, obviously. (ed note: obviously)

All the songs on Jago’s Monday Mixtape live here

Because even though the doors are wide open, I cannot leave Madonna jail. Here for your pleasure, are my five favorite arcane little stories that emerged from my weeks and weeks of Madonna research:

1. Madonna (most likely) dated Michael Gira of Swans

And I’m going to prove it here! Let’s get into it:

Thurston More told The Guardian in 2018: “We were neighbours. We knew each other, by sight. She would say hi to me and I would say hi to her. She was dating a friend of mine for a millisecond, so we were introduced that way and then, through the years, when we’d cross paths on the street, we’d nod heads and smile.”

Per Thurston Moore in this article: Madonna was briefly in the Spinal Root Gang with Dan and Josh Braun who were in a band called Circus Mort with Michael Gira (Dan Braun would go on to play in Swans) “Nobody really knows about that part of her history; she was in a pre-Swans no wave band!”

“There was a building called the Music Building and our band Circus Mort rehearsed there…we were in 901 and the the band in 906 that moved in was called Emmy with a singer named Madonna. She came and knocked on our door one day…everyone immediately had a crush on her And she suddenly became a friend of ours…you know, another kindred spirit musician.”

He goes onto talk about how they realize after a bit that she is randomly living with his dad Saul Braun (at 270 Riverside Drive) in the room he and his twin brother grew up in. (Her manager at the time Camille Barbone knew Saul Braun and had put Madonna there).

The Spinal Root Gang was actually a Braun family band, in which Saul Braun played sax, and with Madonna now in their lives, he wanted to start it up again with her as the singer. Madonna and Dan Braun had written two songs together, and they recorded one as a demo while Saul was out of town.

The song "We Live in a House", written by Josh Braun, Janis Galloway and Madonna in 1982, was sent for US copyright registration (# PAu-1-843-482 if you need the receipts). That’s a misspelling of Janice Galloway, who was Madonna’s friend and maybe briefly her roommate? In Mary Gabriel’s book she is mentioned as the friend who Madonna arranged for her brother Christopher to stay with when he first came to NY. Anyway apparently Madonna had asked if Janice could be in the band too, hence the writing credit.

Sample lyric: "We live in a house, and people just don't care. We live in a house, they don't go anywhere." Madonna screams at one point: "You can't come into my house." This demo existed but is completely lost as far as I know. They never recorded the second song because Madonna got signed to Sire.

In 2018, Jonathan Tessler, percussionist for Swans in 1982, was interviewed for the book Sacrifice And Transcendence: The Oral History of Swans by Nick Soulsby, and he mentions Gira and Madonna’s relationship (as well as his insane-sounding apartment):

“Mike’s apartment had been a Spanish Iglesias, which the local Puerto Rican or Dominican immigrants used for Sunday services and Bible meetings… When Mike took it over it was stripped of furniture – the only things left were lighting, power sockets, then all four walls were covered in shipping blankets and large old commercial egg cartons for soundproofing… When he was dating Madonna I remember the two of them, for at least a couple of weeks, living in that part of the space – there was a bedroom alcove made by the addition of a hanging curtain.”

In 2019, Gira was interviewed and asked about Madonna:

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Natalia Mantini is a New York based photographer and director, and someone I’ve known for a long time. She’s shot photos for The New York Times, i-D, Vogue, Paper Magazine and so much more. I’m such a fan of her visual sensibility, her general vibe, and of course, her music taste (she’s a deep head who once very briefly played in a Flipper cover band as a teen how cool is that).

Here is Natalia’s Monday Mixtape:

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Natalia Mantini
Scorpio sun, Scorpio moon, Gemini rising
NY

How do you find/discover music?

Close, heady friends, Malibu’s NTS show- united in flames,

What was the first song you put on when you woke up this morning?

I woke up with “YES GODDD” by Slayyyter in my head. I think that says a lot about me.

What song have you listened to more than once this past week?

“Throw Yourself to the Sword” by Die Spitz- the cutie redhead really channels Lemmy. It’s so relieving to see, God bless those girls. “American Porn” also goes crazy. They switch off on instruments and vocals and this one feels a little bit like Distillers / L7- ish. They give me hope.

What is a recent song you think everyone should know about?

“Don’t Need You” by Luster - beautifully pure shoegaze. (ed note: shout out Luster in this house we love Luster)

A song off your work-out playlist:

I always think about the fact that most studios don’t play great music, respectfully. When I’m in class I often fantasize about what I’d play as a teacher. I think a goth hot pilates class would be so cute. Maybe “Head Like A Hole” (by NIN). Imagine doing squats to Skinny Puppy. Would that not slay. (ed note: yes, and I do listen to Skinny Puppy when I work out).

What song do you put on first at a photoshoot?

It definitely depends on what we’re making. I’ve been playing a lot of SOPHIE. If it’s an intimate vibe, I’ll put on “Cherish the Day” by mother Sade. obviously “Human Nature” (by Madonna) is always fun for the girls.

What song can you do at karaoke without looking at the tv screens?

Quite a few because I’m obsessive. The discography of Depeche Mode and Björk. I usually open up with “I Wanna Be Adored” (by The Stone Roses).

Song you associate with being 13 years old:

That’s hard because that’s around when I started getting really immersed in punk and going to shows nonstop. I guess my first thought would be “Jerk Off” by F.Y.P. I very poorly played bass covering that song with my friends during a Halloween backyard show. It’s a sacred core memory.

What song do you listen to when you want a lobotomy?

What song do you use to indulge your wallowing?

“So Broken” by Björk orrr if i really want to lean in, “I’m So Depressed” by Abner Jay.

What song do you use to renew your spirit?

“Bull in the Heather” by Sonic Youth :) One of my favorite music videos. that or “Funeralopolis” (by Electric Wizard).

What is your favorite cover song?

“Goin’ Blind” by The Melvins. I positively do not listen to KISS however thank God they made that song. I’ve cried to it multiple times.

What song would you like to hear just before you die?

“All Is Full Of Love - Strings” by Björk on the craziest speakers ever. I hope to be in nature, preferably a forest with lots of moss.

All the songs on Natalia’s Monday Mixtape live here

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is the front woman and main creative engine (beep beep) of one of my favorite contemporary bands, Wednesday. I’m fairly certain if you read this newsletter you already fuck with Wednesday, but if not I implore you to correct that for your own life’s improvement. She’s like Flannery O’Connor with blue lipstick and an electric guitar (and more use of interiority) - her detail-rich lyrics about the bars, ticks, and smoking weed out of a Pepsi can, her sharp observation of her Southern existence braided through with her universally resonant expressions of pain and heartbreak make for some of the best albums (last year’s Bleeds and 2023’s Rat Saw God especially) I’ve heard in a long time.

Karly is not your typical band t-shirt collector - she’s not out here dropping $350 on a singular t-shirt (dragging my own ass to hell here). Instead she transforms new shirts into something new through actual artistry and craft.

Here is her Tee Time:

KH: Almost all of my fave band tees are modern ones where I cut out the graphic and sew them on vintage shirts myself. I’m very picky with fit and comfort level of my tees. I can’t wear modern Gildan or any of those type of brands really. I’ll pick up 70s-00s blanks for the sole purpose of making them into these tees.

I think it’s really really cool to find and buy original vintage merch from the 90’s and aughts bands I love but I can almost never rationalize paying the prices the go for. I appreciate the value of t-shirts as archival items but like .... defo don’t tolerate some of the price gouging I see on sites like Grailed.

Usually I will buy the modern merch directly from the band unless their shit is totally out of print.

KH: I wear the Unwound tee, the Belle & Sebastian, Drop Nineteens and Swirlies tanks constantly....

The Swirlies one is especially exciting to me right now cause the shirt I cut the graphic from was sent to me by the original bassist of the band, along with some other really sweet memorabilia. His hand writing is tattooed on my arm cause he wrote some text on one of their covers and I ripped it for the tat on my wrist!

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On the day, I took a morning swim at El Matador beach in Malibu with my friend Issy, followed by a lunch of crab cakes and fries at Neptune’s Net (where I procured some absolutely phenomenal Dali-ass sandals courtesy of Issy), followed by a trip to my favorite designer vintage store in Los Angeles, Replika, where I did a small amount of damage that we don’t need to discuss in detail here. (Should I do a round up of all my go-to vintage spots in LA? Does anyone want that? Or just RAWK music?).

I closed out the big Tuesday with a dinner of Goop Kitchen and Taco Bell (everyone always asks so my order is: Crunchwrap Supreme sub beans for meat, Mexican Pizza, and if it’s my birthday, Nachos Bell Grande) with some Vueve with a few of my girls. I finally finished filming all the Madonna month content (I hope you’ve been listening/enjoying) and while I probably needed to check into hospital, this was a good salve in the meantime.

I also accidentally went on a press tour this past week? It was an absolute thrill and honor to be featured in the LA It-Girl Index (no longer an LA It-Girl, not yet an LA It-Woman) where I share my LA essentials for beauty, repairs, groceries, and more, plus my dream LA date. I was also featured in one of my other favorite Substacks, , where I got to talk about some of my favorite things: food, spirituality, and going to bed at 9:30pm. As if that wasn’t enough (embarrassment of riches/that’s enough please go away I’m sick of your fucking face/voice/existence) I got to list out my loves and hates for and gab for two hours with one of my favorite podcasters Dan Allegretto, who is on here as .

And lastly (sorry! SORRY), the incredible Miranda Sawyer wrote up Bandsplain and our Madonna Month programming for The Observer (!!!!) getting me every so slightly closer to my goal of becoming England-famous so that I can finally move there and find my toothy husband, eat Gregg’s once a week, and very slowly develop the Madge accent. I’ll be honest as much as I love attention (and I really love attention) after doing any interview I feel absolute full beat clown make-up and tend to spiral for days :) Anyway now I need to not be perceived for three full weeks/shoot my phone.

Also whispers: a reminder that I’m chatting with my friend, the brilliant author Mary H.K. Choi at the LA stop on her book tour for her fantastic new book Pool House. It’s at Skylight Books on 6/11 and you can get advance tickets HERE.

Okay here are the seven things I loved this past week (besides TALKING ABOUT MYSELF apparently):

A SONG

I feel like I haven’t talked about Badvril, a San Francisco based band with a backwoods Washington State sensibility that was seemingly custom made in a lab to suit my exact musical sensibilities - floaty, lush, narcotic, sludgy perfection. (Have you ever taken a lot of Klonopin, but in a beautiful way not a dark way? No me neither). If you’ve ever ordered a custom playlist from me, chances are high I’ve included a Badvril song on there. They have a new album called Lethal coming out soon (not to be a bitch but I’ve heard it all and it’s truly wonderful). The latest single, “Push It Down,” came out the day after my birthday (thank you Baddies) and I’ve had it pretty much on repeat all week as I attempt a single seven day period of bohemian layabout cosplay. Bliss!

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Shaad D’Souza is one of my most favorite music writers working right now (the list is THIN babe). He’s brilliant, insightful, perfectly droll, and has fabulous taste (an increasingly rare currency these days). He’s also one of two people who consistently puts me on to new music I actually like (the other of course being ).

His Shaad Magazine on Instagram is the most inventive use of the medium I’ve seen (annoyed I didn’t think of it!!!), and is honestly way too good to be available for free but that’s between him and god. He’s also one of the rare writers who is also an excellent talker - you might have heard him on an episode of Bandsplain earlier this year about the music we were looking forward to this year. And lastly, we both love “Rock Music” by (which is honestly the correct opinion sorry).

I’m extremely pleased to present Shaad’s Monday Mixtape:

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Shaad D'Souza
Leo
London, England 

How do you find/discover music?

Through friends, on youtube, from PRs, by trawling nina/bandcamp

What was the first song you put on when you woke up this morning?

“One Fine Day the Sun Admitted She Was Just a Shadow” by Sergeant, and then “Choosin Texas” by Ella Langley

What song have you listened to more than once this past week?

“Someday” by Hekt and Valeria Litvakov (ed note: this song is so fucking good)

What is a recent song you think everyone should know about?

“Life’s A Party” by Prophetic Justice Ministry

A song off your workout playlist:

I don’t work out lmao

What song can you do at karaoke without looking at the tv screens?

“Leave A Light On” by Belinda Carlisle

What’s a song that gets you in your LAD-bag?

I kind of don’t understand the question1, but I guess I liked “450” by Bad Boy Chiller Crew during their moment, if we’re talking like what I was churning and gurning to in high school it’s “How Deep Is Your Love Chris Lake Remix” by Calvin Harris yassss

Song you associate with being 13 years old:

“It’s Real” Real Estate or “Video Game” by Lana Del Rey

What song do you listen to when you want a lobotomy?

I always want a lobotomy, but I guess “Passionfruit,” which always makes me feel good always (ed note: same re: lobotomy, though not same re: Drake)

What song do you use to indulge your wallowing?

Not much of a wallower, maybe “In Us” by Lexie

What song do you use to renew your spirit?

“Passionfruit”

What is your favorite cover song?

Weird choice but I love Avalon Emerson’s very faithful cover of “Long-Forgotten Fairytale”

What song would you like to hear just before you die?

“Passionfruit” (ed note: never loved anything as much as this man loves this Drake song, respect)

All of the songs on Shaad’s Monday Mixtape live HERE

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Also I’ll be in conversation (love to converse) with my longtime, brilliant friend for the LA stop on her book tour for her excellent new book Pool House. It’s at Skylight Books on 6/11 and you can get advance tickets HERE.

What else? Did some Madonna cosplay (need hospital), spent an undisclosed sum on The Real Real in a fugue state, and was in a Weezer promo video “playing” a massive bitch (see below).

I’m sure you know by now that has the best newsletter about Los Angeles, and this week she interviewed the owner of one of my favorite LA eateries (half the year anyway) with one of the best vibes in the city, Sal’s Place.

Speaking of gay interests, I like the new Charli XCX song “Rock Music.” I like the glitchy guitars and the 90s alterna-pop sensibility put through the Charli prism, I like how short it is, and I really like the video. And yeah I love power chords. Sue me! Shaad D’Souza’s review in Pitchfork is a great read though in general, I feel like a lot of you guys are overthinking it.

It’s not the song I love this week though. But I do like it. Anyway, enough edging. Let’s get to it:

SONG

In “We Are So Back” news, Ceremony put out a new song called “Other Hells” and it fucking rips. It’s got like an 80s hardcore punk feel (return not to form per se, but next door to form?) with some tastefully places synths and a real slam your body down and wind it all around energy. It’s two minutes long and I have listened 200 times? I love it, I love it, I love it.

A FILM

I was lucky enough to attend the premiere of the new film Backrooms, directed by 20 year old (!!!) Kane Parsons and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, and Mark Duplass. It’s a horror film (sort of). I wasn’t super familiar with the very popular web series Parsons did under the same name, but I had seen the original creepypasta image floating around the internet and was definitely into those liminal spaces memes (were they memes?) that were a thing for a while.1 Probably because, much like the film, they echoed something chilling and nauseous about the world we live in. The film is excellent - it has just enough plot to create a cohesive and engaging experience but not so much that you’re not able to let your mind spin out all kinds of meaning from the incredibly rich metaphor of an endless series of antiseptic but increasingly uncanny and bizarre rooms. I love a movie that doesn’t hit you over the fucking head with what it’s about. To quote my own Letterboxd review (calm down Roger Ebert), it’s: “a real Rorschach test of modern misery and dread, both personally and socioculturally, with measured deployment of levity and blood pressure blows.” A kink of mine is when my thoughts are provoked. The sound design is AMAZING and there’s a brand new, fucking sick Boards of Canada song over the credits. It it officially out in theaters May 28th.

SKINCARE PRODUCT

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Chicago indie band Ratboys have been around for a minute, and it’s my bad that I only recently got into them, because they’re really, really good. Their latest album, Singin’ To An Empty Chair is both vulnerable and earnest and also calming and soothing at the same time (album as Xanax). It’s cornballs to say, but there’s something about listening to it that lulls my nervous system into remembering that actually not only is it okay for me to be earnest goes to camp myself, it’s actually what creates a more emotionally expansive and rich life (echoing their emotionally expansive and rich music). Anyway I’ll be heading out now to meditate atop cringe mountain.

Here’s lead singer and guitarist Julia Steiner’s Monday Mixtape:

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Julia Steiner
Virgo Sun, Leo Moon, Sag Rising
currently on tour, but Chicago is home

How do you find/discover music?

Stereogum, newsletters like this & Josh Terry’s , r/indieheads, my bandmates putting on records in the van, a Music League I’m in (that’s been going for 5+ years now!), buying random cassettes at record stores

What was the first song you put on when you woke up this morning?

“Jacking the Ball” by The Sea and Cake.. and then let the whole album ride. Every Sea and Cake record is excellent. Great for long drives

What song have you listened to more than once this past week?

“Lose Control” by Missy Elliott ft. Ciara & Fatman Scoop. We’ve been playing this as our “walk-off” song each night when we finish our set.. it feels like the perfect exclamation point at the end of a rockin show. It blows my mind that Missy produced this, she’s such a genius

What is a recent song you think everyone should know about?

“The Sound It Made” by Robber Robber. One of the most compelling “Track 1’s” I’ve heard in a long time.. The whole record is really cool & I’m excited to get to know it more

A song off your workout playlist:

I wish I worked out :( But back when I briefly belonged to a gym in 2012 it was “Blodtørst” by Kvelertak

What song can you do at karaoke without looking at the tv screens?

Being radically honest here, “Where Is The Love?” by The Black Eyed Peas. I’ve tried to forget the lyrics after all these years, but alas… it’s the cross I bear. (ed note: Here’s the thing…BEP have bangers)

Song you associate with being 13 years old:

“The Mixed Tape” by Jack’s Mannequin. I used to listen to Everything In Transit every single day on the way to 8th grade. God bless my mom for putting up with me

A good lake song:

“People’s League” by Fishplate. This whole album! Absolutely essential summertime record outta NOLA. Honorable mention goes to “At Least There’s Beer”

What song do you listen to when you want a lobotomy?

“Sympathy is a knife” by Charli XCX. That chorus vocal melody straight up alters my brain chemistry. Alt option (I guess I’m getting two lobotomies): “I Want to Be Well” by Sufjan Stevens. Listening to this song feels like pulling apart my heart and brain and putting them back together again (a good thing). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ll be ready when it’s time for the Sufjan Bandsplain. Bang my line. (ed note: You’re on the shortlist)

What song do you use to indulge your wallowing?

“It’s Okay” by Land of Talk. Nothing else like it.

What song do you use to renew your spirit?

“¡Que Llueva!” by Juana Molina. This whole record, all of her records! Juana gives me life!

What is your favorite cover song?

“Poor Poor Pitiful Me” by Linda Ronstadt. Linda took the god awful third verse in Warren Zevon’s original and not only rewrote it to make it better but made it the best part of the whole song. Well except for all those fuckin roto-tom hits, which get me hyped like nothing else. I wanna drink a beer with this cover. Love you Linda.

What song would you like to hear just before you die?

“Shade and Honey” by Sparklehorse. I’ll die happy.

All the songs on Julia’s Monday Mixtape live HERE

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Whenever I’m not here as much it means I am in the Google Doc trenches fighting for my life, eyes burning from screen time, Post-It book flags blanketing my desk and turning up in the most unexpected places (in my bed, attached to multiple items of clothing, on my dog’s paws). The official announcement of the next mini-season will be on Monday but I think that if you haven’t gleaned it from my obsessive IG story posting, the content of this letter will give you an idea of what’s to come.

In general I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a Pop Star™️, both these days and in the past. It’s been an interesting and unplanned mixture of casually taking in some but certainly not all of this month’s Coachella performances from my couch, my Work, a special trip to The Abbey, and a blockbuster film that I had to see for podcasting purposes.

Here are some stray but bullet-pointed thoughts on Michael, what it means for Madonna to continue to feel free, and the limits of the theory of the Imperial Phase:

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I realize whenever I sit down to write this that it sounds like I’m exaggerating the excellence of the subjects, but the truth is I only feature people on here that I think are excellent. This includes , the coolest person in the beauty space, bar none, and also the most exceptional. She is the brand strategist and product developer behind many of your favs and recently launched her Substack . She has a level of discernment and instinct around skincare and wellness that makes her pretty much the only person I look to for guidance in this area, and I suggest you do as well.

She’s also funny as hell and has exquisite taste in music, which is why I’m so happy to have her Monday Mixtape:

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Alexis Page
Libra Sun/Virgo Moon/Libra Rising
East Village, Manhattan

How do you find/discover music?

I’m not so great at keeping up with this like I used to. The fanatical research part of my brain has shifted to other things, but mostly I end up hearing about new music from friends. If I see a name enough times, eventually I’ll bite. Months later it will make its way into some version of my content consumption. Anything that you or Patrik post I’ll look into, and then of course I’m always being bombarded with new names of new stars via Greg. More often, my “discovery” is me going down a rabbit hole of old music I just don’t know enough about.

What was the first song you put on when you woke up this morning?

“That’s the Way Love Is” by Ten City. This is Sunday morning music to me, while I fold laundry and do my little chores.

What song have you listened to more than once this past week?

“Closer to the Heart” by Rush. I’m currently at my parents’ house and my mom is a huge Rush head. I dug out her old records and it’s all Rush this, Rush that. They’re distinctly a band for men, but she’s been to like a million shows and I was raised on Rush. Maybe explains a lot, I don’t know.

What is a recent song you think everyone should know about?

I’ve been listening to variations of the same music for over 30 years...

A song off your workout playlist:

“Head On” by The Jesus and Mary Chain (ed note: same)

What song can you do at karaoke without looking at the tv screens?

“Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode

Song you associate with being 13 years old:

“Sunday Morning” by No Doubt. It was illegal to be a 13 year old American girl in 1995 and not idolize Gwen. I can only imagine what it felt like for you in Torrance. I understood but didn’t fully get on board with “Just A Girl”. I really loved “Sunday Morning”. (ed note: yeah maybe I hot glued rhinestones to my bra strap in the 8th grade and what of it)

What is a song that makes you feel beautiful?

Have developed a taste for surprise, so I’ve been utilizing the “Alexis Page’s Station” on Apple Music. I do not understand the interface of Spotify and never will. The other day, “These Are Days” by 10,000 Maniacs came on in the car and - 1) Didn’t even know this song existed on my phone? 2) Inexplicably broke down in tears? I listened to it over and over because it mysteriously appeared in a moment of spiritual crisis and makes you remember that life is really weird and really beautiful. When you are driving, and crying, and the sun is shining, and somehow Natalie Merchant is singing, you are alive! (ed note: god definitely lives inside this song)

What song do you listen to when you want a lobotomy?

“Anemone” by The Brian Jonestown Massacre. I don’t participate in drugs anymore but this song fulfills that feeling in some way.

What song do you use to indulge your wallowing?

Trick question, I have so many. I feel really sure that if I were ever hired for an acting role, I’d be able to cry on cue by listening to one of these songs - “Norman fucking Rockwell” by Lana Del Rey, “Save Me” by Aimee Mann, “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones, “Sunny” by Morrissey, “Let Down” by Radiohead, “On Some Faraway Beach” by Brian Eno, “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica.

What song do you use to renew your spirit?

“The Cutter” by Echo and the Bunnymen. When I’m ready to wrap up the wallowing, this song shows up to feel both yearning and hopeful. The last fifty seconds gently usher you back into the world.

What is your favorite cover song?

“Please Don’t Go” by KWS

What song would you like to hear just before you die?

“Asleep” by The Smiths, the most dramatic of exits.

All the songs on Alexis’ Monday Mixtape can be found HERE

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Like most of the best people, it’s sort of impossible to describe . He has like, Mensa level IQ and unimpeachable taste, the kind of self-respect and integrity Joan Didion wrote essays about, wit like a razor-blade, and (and here’s the real magic) is one of the most caring and thoughtful friends one could dream to have. In his own words: “I am, unfortunately, a writer. I was born a writer and I will die a writer. Of this, I’m painfully aware.”

His recently launched Substack is an absolute gift. He’s also one of the only people on earth whose taste in music I both connect with and respect (Sorry! You either have taste or you don’t, as Patrik likes to say).

Here is Patrik’s Monday Mixtape:

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Patrik Sandberg
Sagittarius sun, Aries rising, Libra moon
Hollywood, where it all happens

How do you find/discover music?

Obsessively, religiously, and continuously. As a medium-elder millennial, I started with the bulk CD purchases from the Columbia House catalog that came in the mail, graduated to saving my allowance and buying CDs at the Wherehouse, then came Napster, Limewire, and finally the greatest music discovery machine ever invented, which was MySpace. Once MySpace ended and before streaming took off, there was a dead zone during which Pitchfork and other indie music sites were integral to the culture but something was lost. We had to go to forums to talk about music and learn about artists. I think we’re finally back on track now with the often-too-maligned “algorithm.” I love mine deeply. We are in a toxic codependent relationship. You have to invest in it to get the results you want.

What was the first song you put on when you woke up this morning?

“Drugs in my Body” by Thieves Like Us

What song have you listened to more than once this past week?

“OLD FLING$” by Slayyter

What is a recent song you think everyone should know about?

“Hijacked” by Odonis Odonis (ed note: Patrik put me onto this band and I am SO into them)

A song off your work-out playlist:

“Playgirl” by Ladytron

What song can you do at karaoke without looking at the tv screens?

“China Girl” by David Bowie was my go-to for a long time. I did it at Pieces Bar and they 86’d me for being racist? I thought that song was about heroin.

Song you associate with being 13 years old:

“Blue Monday” by Orgy. The real answer is actually “Malibu” by Hole, but considering that song has been with me in my life at every age, it’s less thirteen-specific to me now. But I was thirteen when Celebrity Skin came out and it was nothing short of seminal.

What song do you listen to when you want a lobotomy?

Less lobotomy-coded but I do like to zone out and listen to beautiful psych rock, goth rock, and shoegaze while driving down California’s Highway 1, so I’ll say something like “Rosaries” by Weekend.

What song do you use to indulge your wallowing?

“Boys Don’t Cry” by The Cure.

What song do you use to renew your spirit?

“Dreams Never End” by New Order.

What is a song that you find genuinely sexy?

“Human Nature” by Michael Jackson. I’m gonna get crucified for that one.

What is your favorite cover song?

“Better Off Alone” by SALEM (ed note: god tier)

What song would you like to hear just before you die?

“Ceremony” by New Order

All the songs in Patrik’s Monday Mixtape can be found HERE

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