After the abominations that were “Wood” and “CANCELLED!”, the last thing I needed was more “The Life of a Showgirl” songs. But it’s not so hard to kill a Swiftie, even when her albums get progressively worse, so when Taylor Swift announced “The Life of a Showgirl” deluxe album on Friday, which includes four newly recorded songs, I knew I was going to tap in.

Swift has made some of her best work when she believes everyone hates her, so I was hopeful the criticism would be good for her. Maybe her pen would improve, honed and sharpened by the relentless criticism fans like me lasered TLOAS with.

The answer is: kind of??

Swift’s TLOAS deluxe tracks are better than the original album (but still not great), largely because most of them aren’t actually “Life of a Showgirl” songs. There’s only one song that really fits the tone and theme of TLOAS, which is probably why fans overwhelmingly agree that it is the worst of the bunch.

I’ll walk you through the eras each song really belongs to, in ascending order of how much I like them.

Cleveland! = The Life of a Showgirl

I get scared whenever I see a Taylor Swift song with a special character in the title. After the absolute bombs of “CANCELLED!” and “Wi$h Li$t” on TLOAS, the last thing I needed was suburban OHIO propaganda.

I actually don’t think this song is as bad as the ones mentioned above, but it falls into the TLOAS trap of shallowly singing about your happiness in a way that’s meant to be a flex but just ends up being cringe. Much like “Wood” and “Wi$h Li$t,” her happiness doesn’t go deeper than, “Hey all you haters, here’s a laundry list of everything bad you said about me but guess what? My man doesn’t CARE and we’re in LOVE so stay mad!!”

I don’t think that artists have to be tortured to write good music. Olivia Rodrigo and Phoebe Bridgers put out albums this year that are full of happy love songs, but contain an emotional complexity that encompasses the feelings of anxiety and hope that live within that romantic joy. Swift’s own catalog proves she’s more than capable of pulling out these themes: the woman who wrote “Treacherous” and “State of Grace” some 15 years ago understood that to love is to be vulnerable, to accept that any day you could lose what you have. That’s part of what makes it worth it.

Unfortunately, “Cleveland!” gets none of this. It’s marred by the biggest problem on TLOAS, which is that Swift is so wrapped up in her own mythology that she’s failed to find the universal within her specific. That’s why this song, so baldly about Travis Kelce and her own public perception, is the only real TLOAS track in the deluxe set and by far the worst of the bunch.

Patient Zero = The Tortured Poets Department

If this is your favorite song of the deluxe tracks, I’m willing to bet The Tortured Poets Department is your favorite Taylor album (or at least top three). I’m not there with you, but I see it. “Patient Zero” is clearly a TTPD song to me, both because it’s perfectly mid and because it draws on some of the hallmark conventions of that album.

Lyrically, the speaker of “Patient Zero” feels a lot like the speaker on TTPD. The clinical language of “toxins” and “fever” of “Patient Zero” mirrors the language of gothic madness invoked on TTPD: See the “miracle move-on drug” of “Fortnight” and, yes, even the memetic clunker of “the asylum where they raised me.” Taylor is also singing in retrospect, reflecting on the relationship after it’s concluded, a major aspect of TTPD that stands in contrast to TLOAS, in which she sings about her relationship as it’s happening.

I find this song a little boring and monotonous, but it’s not downright unlistenable.

Pink Clouding = 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)

There are several viable arguments for this song’s placement. It’s got the synth-forward production of Midnights, the upbeat tone of Lover, and a narrative theme similar to “Getaway Car” off Reputation. However, I think this track really belongs as part of the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) vault. It’s reflective and regretful yet packaged in a sunny pop tune that fits neatly alongside 1989 vault tracks like “Say Don’t Go,” “Now That We Don’t Talk,” and “Is It Over Now?”.

Unlike those 1989 vault tracks, “Pink Clouding” still suffers from the overly metaphorical purple prose (or, in this case, pink) that’s afflicted Swift’s pen in the last few years. The song opens with “Met the magenta sunrise/ Fuchsia forever intertwined/ Threw the rosewood on the fire” like Swift was trying to pack as many shades of pink as possible in the first few bars. Girl we get it! I’m getting lyric-induced rosacea from these ham-fisted metaphors.

The song also doesn’t get as specific as the 1989 tracks I’ve compared it to. “Is It Over Now?” is tinged with bitterness and paints a picture of the unraveling of a relationship (situationship?) in which both sides introduce some ambiguous infidelity before they can commit to calling it off. “Pink Clouding” doesn’t really have that same bite, and its reluctance to wade into the specific reinforces the “Lobotomy Swift” allegations she’s faced since TLOAS.

I think this is perfectly acceptable background music. You’ll enjoy it if you like 80s-style pop synths like me. It gets points over “Patient Zero” because the beat is at least fun and she isn’t singing it like she’s bored.

Babylon = Red

The only truly good song of the deluxe drop, “Babylon” gives us a glimpse of the Old Taylor. This one is a mix of two of Taylor’s best albums, Red and Evermore.

On Evermore, Swift excels at creating narratives about characters that don’t seem to correspond to her very public personal life at all. She does that again here. For Swifties who have spent the last two mega albums listening to Swift wax poetic about her reputation and the size of Travis Kelce’s weiner, “Babylon” is a breath of fresh air. Swift gets to show her skill as an artist, not just a pop star.

“Babylon” has the string-forward country production of the best of her Red songs, which is why I think it fits squarely in that era. (Disclosure: Red is also my favorite Swift album.) It reminds me a lot of “The Lucky One” in the way that it laments a whole life changed by Hollywood. Sure, there’s the chance that Swift is singing about herself when she’s describing how “You hate this song/ But you wake up on the train with your headphones gone,” but there’s nothing in that to suggest we are speaking about the life of Taylor Alison Swift and nobody else. This chorus finds the universal in the specific that anyone could relate to, which is the quality that marks the best of Swift’s music.

And that’s the Taylor Swift that I miss so dearly. To be a woman in America is to have a complicated relationship with her, and while the TLOAS deluxe drop isn’t necessarily satisfying, it does give me hope the old Taylor is in there somewhere. I’m begging her to come to the phone.

Today, I’m writing about why the medical drama “The Pitt” deserved its Best Drama Emmy, and why you should watch it now if you haven’t yet.

HOLIDAY WATCH LIST

As the child of physicians, I grew up consistently anti medical drama. A common criticism from my parents is that they’re either distractingly unrealistic — doing surgery without face masks, ew! — or that they teach patients to communicate with providers by yelling at them.

HBO Max’s “The Pitt” is different. It follows an E.R. doctor and his staff of nurses, residents, and med students through one hectic day at an underfunded Pittsburgh hospital, with each episode covering one hour of that day. It deals with the administrative challenges of running a hospital, like the ever-present chance that you could be bought out by private equity, as well as the systemic challenges that keep wait times long and patients needy, like the country’s nursing shortage and the prohibitive cost of healthcare.

“The Pitt” is as much a social policy drama as it is a medical drama. Large-scale sociopolitical problems — the opioid crisis, the loss of abortion rights, anti-vaccine misinformation, and the spectre of gun violence — are seen through the perspectives of the people who must often treat the symptoms but aren’t always able to treat the causes. There’s no steamy affairs here, but there are very real storylines about how the doctors and nurses have to check their own baggage when they’re treating patients. It’s intense enough to keep my dad, a notorious late-night TV dozer, awake through each 50-minute episode, though it’s not as anxiety-inducing as “The Bear” on Hulu.

“The Pitt” is still one of the best dramas on streaming right now. It deserved its Emmy more than “The White Lotus” and yes, even “Severance,” because it’s about an emergency room but it’s also about today. It addresses the crises that intertwine with America’s systemic healthcare problems — a story about the entire country, not just the doctors and nurses it follows.

CATCHING UP

One of my favorite things about coming home for the holidays is that I get to see hometown friends who have also moved away. I’ve been in New York nearly two years now, and here are some of the things I’ve written that you might’ve missed:

• Why I’m breaking up with Taylor Swift after her latest album, and what I think she should do next.

• What I saw at a no-phones party hosted by Andrew Yang.

• Why the Coldplay kiss cam scandal reminded me of high school cheerleading.

• Why Belly isn’t the villain of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” — it’s Conrad and Jeremiah’s daddy issues.

• Proof the Gen Z stare is a millennial psy op.

Happy holidays.

It’s not surprising that Hulu’s reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” closely follows the fertility and infertility journeys of its Mormon-ish stars. They are the influencers collectively known as MomTok: nine mostly white women between the ages of 23 and 33, many of whom had their first kid before they could legally drink.

To hear the women tell it, MomTok is about “sisterhood.” It’s for “women supporting women” and “modernizing the church.” That’s why, despite being loosely connected to the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, they’re skinny dipping, going to strip shows in Las Vegas, and throwing orgasm-themed parties. (The show exists because of the Mormon swinging drama exposed by its star, Taylor Frankie Paul.)

Going against the Mormon church’s stances makes up much of the show’s airtime, but there’s one issue that remains taboo: abortion.

In the fantasy world of MomTok, abortion doesn’t exist at all. No other issue related to sexuality is so obviously shadowbanned. Being queer comes a close second — some speculate there’s at least one lavender marriage in the cast — but it is at least acknowledged on the show, as in Taylor’s admission that she’s “kissed a lot of girls, actually,” including fellow MomToker Miranda McWhorter.

“Secret Lives” can wander into narratives about women who want to be pregnant but aren’t; it must tread carefully around women who are pregnant but don’t want to be. Mayci Neeley’s journey with IVF is televised. The camera goes into the hospital room where Whitney Leavitt delivers her third child, showing the birth behind some choice blurring. There’s a high-drama moment during a “pregnancy roulette” game, which ends with Demi Engemann in tears over her own infertility struggle.

Twenty-five-year-old Jen Affleck is the closest we get to broaching the abortion danger zone in season two, but the A-word isn’t on the table for her. The pregnancy happens with cosmically bad timing: Jen’s mustering up the courage to divorce her controlling husband, who she says has a gambling problem. Marital problems spill over into friendship problems when two of her friends believe her husband’s version of the story instead. That leaves Jen feeling deeply anxious, depressed, and alone when she finds out she’s pregnant.

“I’m not the person I want to be before bringing in another child,” she says tearfully during a confessional. Her unplanned pregnancy triggers a spiral into depression, which gets so bad that production has to cut her storyline halfway through the season, as she literally fights for her life behind the scenes. It’s hard to watch Jen’s despair without feeling like the pregnancy is a trap — she gets so close to divorcing her husband, only to stay for the sake of their next child.

She also isn’t the first cast member to face the baby-trap situation: Taylor, the one who confessed to swinging, is pregnancy-trapped in a plummeting relationship in season one, prolonging her misery as she’s expected, by both friends and family, to stay despite her partner’s cheating and lying.

The elephant in the room is that there was a solution. But for Jen and Taylor, whose unplanned pregnancies underpin much of the drama of the first two seasons, abortion isn’t even considered. With all the talk of “fighting the patriarchy” and “modernizing the church,” it’s easy to forget how deeply ingrained the abortion-is-murder argument is for women who have pretty much broken all of its other rules.

Birth control itself is not off-topic for the Mormon wives, and they all seem to have varying views on it. Whitney says her husband will be getting a vasectomy after the birth of their third and final child. When the rest of MomTok finds out Jen is pregnant despite her separation from her husband, one of them says disapprovingly, “It never is planned, but they don’t protect at all.”

Different attitudes toward birth control, coparenting, and childcare set up some climactic fights. Demi and Jessi Ngatikaura confront Jen about her “lies” about her husband, then Jen dishes up Demi’s own extramarital flirtation. In the penultimate episode, amid a broader fight over perceived social media slights, Demi confronts Taylor about how she treats the father of her child. She attempts to shame Taylor by bringing her son into the conversation, a move seen by the rest of the women as a step too far. Most of the drama happens between the women, but the presence of the men in their lives is always felt.

The fact that the show is organized around these conflicts reveals its true underlying tension. It’s the secret lives of Mormon wives, not women. Though many of them are no longer married, they are still tethered to men through their children. Too often, they end up siding with each other’s errant husbands — and therefore with the patriarchal church they were raised in, even if some of them are no longer active in it. That tees up the question that lives between the lines of “Secret Lives”: Can you have true female empowerment, the “sisterhood” MomTok is always talking about, when your entire womanhood is based on relationships with men?

The show doesn’t seem interested in answering that. So I’ll ask a simpler one: What does womanhood that doesn’t rely on men look like? For me, watching, the answer is easy: full bodily autonomy, the chance to have a child when you want one and to end a pregnancy when you don’t. MomTok isn’t there yet.

Sinners follows a day in the life of notorious twins Smoke and Stack as they return to their hometown of Clarksdale in the Mississippi Delta in 1932. After seven years in Chicago where the twins two-timed both the Italian and Irish mob organizations, Smoke and Stack are looking for a fresh start by opening up their own juke joint called “Club Juke.” Following a day of reconnecting with their little cousin “Preacherboy” Sammie, the iconic Delta Slim, estranged partners Mary & Annie, and old friends Grace & Bo, their juke joint is ready to go and immediately jumping during their grand opening.

Club Juke is the main location of the film, so the audience knows that music is not just a theme, but a main character in the world of Sinners. The viewer is informed of the prominent role of music at the beginning of the movie, when we hear the following quote from Smoke’s estranged partner and hoodoo practitioner, Annie:

There are legends of people with a gift of making music so true, it can conjure spirits from the past and the future. This gift can bring fame and fortune, but it can also pierce the veil between life and death.

When Sammie sings his first original song of the night “I Lied to You,” unbeknownst to him and everyone at the juke, he brings this statement to life. In the most beautiful movie scene I’ve ever seen, as Sammie’s velvet voice sings the blues, spirits from across the African diaspora join in to play music and dance with him. Spirits performing African tribal dances, rock-n-roll, classic hip-hop, trap, etc. all commune at the juke joint. However, along with conjuring these benevolent spirits, Sammie pierces the veil between life and death and attracts those stuck between the two worlds: vampires. And these vampires made the viral TikTok phrase, “when you’re Black you’re never really alone…” come to life. Sammie’s incredible musical abilities attract the deadly attention of three vampires: leader Remmick, and KKK couple—now turned/ “delivered” vampires—Bert and Joan.

Attracted to Sammie’s time-piercing vocal abilities, the world’s worst proclaimed allies begin to kill the partygoers and resurrect them as undead vampires. Remmick’s main goal is to kill as many people as it takes to eventually turn Sammie into a vampire. By adding Sammie to his undead crew, Remmick can use his musical conjuring abilities to commune with his ancestors whom he hasn’t seen in centuries.

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The most salient themes within Sinners for me were music, faith, and how they intersect with culture and identity. What was interesting to me was how lead vampire Remmick posited vampirism as a savior, and how his thinking influenced everyone he turned throughout the movie. Now living away from his homeland in Ireland, Remmick has accepted vampirism as a way to practice “fellowship and love,” and a way where integration —even with members of the Ku Klux Klan hate group— can be possible. As the head vampire influences the thoughts of everyone he kills, all of the partygoers spew the same talking points. In theory, sure! Why don’t we all just love each other, dance, and have a good time?! Why don’t we create a heaven here on Earth? Both Remmick and Sammie have a complicated relationship with religion, specifically Christianity. Christianity —although providing solace and comfort to both Remmick and Sammie—serves as a tool for oppression for their communities. The British used it to justify their colonization of Ireland, and American slave owners used it to justify slavery. Sammie’s father also considers his love for the blues to be sinful and antithetical to his Christian faith telling him that if “...you keep dancing with the devil, one day he’s going to follow you home.” If Sammie bites and leans into Remmick’s religion, it hypothetically would be a way for him to achieve that heaven on Earth, and still be able to sing the blues.

But, Remmick’s proposal of “fellowship and love” is a heaping load of rank bullshit. We get hints of this when we see peeks of what this fellowship and love look like:

• Step One: Getting violently murdered when you were just trying to have a good time with your community.

• Step Two: Waking up with countless memories that aren’t yours, and an inability to think for yourself.

• Step Three: Becoming separated from your loved ones and ancestors for eternity.

• Step Four: Doing an Irish jig and having all of your desires dictated by a man who claims to be all about equality in theory (but in practice, his desires reign supreme to yours).

Although on the surface, Remmick presents himself as a very progressive vampire (lol), he is just another person trying to kill and consume Blackness for his benefit. He presents himself as a savior as he reveals that the KKK has plans to kill Smoke, Stack, and any remaining partygoer in the morning as the sale of the juke joint to the twins was all a set up. He offers vampirism as a way to avoid impending racial violence to the remaining partygoers. So, it's either be killed into “fellowship and love” or be murdered by the KKK. Sweet options! On top of presenting their murder by him as salvation, Remmick tries to present his cult as a place where everyone is equal, but the audience is able to quickly see how false that is. Whenever the growing mass of vampires sings, they sing songs from Remmick’s culture like “Will Ye Go, Lassie Go”/ “Wild Mountain Thyme” and “Rocky Road to Dublin.” We witness the immediate prioritization of Irish folk music over the Blues that the partygoers just enjoyed mere steps away at Club Juke before being killed. Remmick sees equality and freedom as people from every culture uplifting his own as opposed to cultural understanding and appreciation.

Remmick further advertises himself as a Jesus-like savior for Sammie and the fellow partygoers by literally “baptizing” Sammie into vampirism before he is about to kill him. He dunks Sammie three times in the pond by the twins’ juke joint as he recites the Lord’s Prayer back to him. Thankfully, Sammie is saved just in time as Smoke plunges a wooden stake right into Remmick’s heart as the sun rises and kills all the remaining vampires outside of the juke joint. However, Stack and Mary were able to escape before the sun rose after this life-changing evening.

In the first post-credits scene, we see Stack and Mary in 1992 living a seemingly peaceful life together. Released from the Remmick-led vampire hive mind, we learn that vampires (at least in this world) don’t need to kill to survive. Remmick presented himself as the one who saves, but in reality, just like the KKK he really just wanted to kill and possess Blackness for his pleasure. His desire to kill wasn’t for necessity but out of selfishness. He wanted to access and possess Sammie’s powers for himself, forever.

Instead of traditional faith or vampirism saving Sammie and Smoke, traditionally demonized forms of music and faith—the blues and hoodoo— saved them. Blues music saved Sammie as he was able to smash the guitar (with silver parts) into Remmick’s head which delayed him long enough for Smoke to get there and kill him. Additionally, choosing music saved Sammie from a life where he couldn’t use his voice to sing the songs where he could speak his truth. Without Sammie’s music, he wouldn’t have had a way out to make it big in Chicago. Annie’s hoodoo practice also provided a fortress of protection for the partygoers, but especially for Smoke as she gave him a mojo bag years prior. According to rootwork, tarot, and religion scholar Tayannah Lee McQuillar in her 2003 book Rootwork: Using the Folk Magick of Black America for Love, Money and Success, “[a] mojo bag is a tiny bag made of flannel, silk, or leather that includes herbs, stones, and other ingredients, combined to achieve an objective.” The objectives can be for protection, passion, luck, money, etc. The mojo bag that Annie gave Smoke protected him for years, and even protected him from his own brother, Stack, when he attempted to turn him into a vampire. Smoke only died after taking off his mojo bag before his triumphant yet fatal face-off with the KKK at the end of the film. Blues music and hoodoo—which are often demonized in traditional Western religious spaces—were the true saviors throughout the movie. They were sources of knowledge, autonomy, individuality, community, and freedom of expression. Without Annie’s hoodoo knowledge, the remaining partygoers wouldn’t have known that they were dealing with vampires.

Sinners is distinctive, ambitious, and so impactful in everything it sets out to do. The foundation of music throughout this film emphasizes the integral and transcendental role of music in Black heritage, history, and community. It is a way that we connect with our own cultures, and it is how we can connect and understand other cultures as well. It’s the universal language that connects us throughout space and time. It is a tool for community, but also a tool for expressing individuality. To try to hijack something as powerful as the liberatory role of music within the Black musical tradition throughout time? A futile and nefarious pursuit by Remmick.

Appreciation over appropriation, always.

I am so excited to witness all the incredible stories Coogler will bring to life in his future films. In the process of writing this review, I watched Sinners for the third time, but this time in IMAX 70mm (BOWWW)!!! And trust that I’ll be watching this movie again and again and again and…you get the gist!

With genuine fellowship and love,

V

Based on the snippet she teased on April 9, fans speculated that the song would recall the sound and feeling of her sophomore album, 2017’s Melodrama. The full version she soft-launched in the park confirmed those predictions — which, of course, means we’re returning to the lore about her rumored affair with producer Jack Antonoff.

“What Was That” reflects on the making of Melodrama and Lorde’s later teenage years, but from the vantage point of her late twenties self. Running with the Antonoff affair, it could also reflect on her relationship with the producer, who was at the time in a relationship with writer and actor Lena Dunham.

Below, see the lyric evidence from “What Was That” pointing toward a Melodrama revisit on Lorde’s upcoming fourth album.

MDMA

The first verse starts in the present but ends with a backward glance into the past, setting up a choral segue into “all the things we used to do”:

MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up

We kissed for hours straight, well baby, what was that?

I remember saying then, "This is the best cigarette of my life"

Well, I want you just like that

Lorde begins the chorus with an image of doing drugs with a past lover. MDMA (aka molly or ecstasy) is the first Melodrama reference she makes in “What Was That”; famously, it’s the drug she was taking while writing her sophomore album. In a 2021 interview, she told Vogue her albums could be distinguished by the substance she was using at the time: Pure Heroine was alcohol, Melodrama was molly, and Solar Power was weed.

We don’t necessarily know if or what drugs Lorde was taking to make her upcoming fourth album. But the fact that she references past MDMA use is a glaring callback to the Melodrama era.

Coachella and being 17

The chorus continues with a clear reference to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, where Lorde performed in 2017, two months before the release of Melodrama:

Indio haze, we're in a sandstorm, and it knocks me out

I didn't know then that you'd never be enough for me

Lorde also went to Coachella the year before, in 2016. There, she and Jack Antonoff developed a significant portion of Melodrama’s “Sober” and “Sober II,” as she explained on the Song Exploder podcast in 2017.

The chorus of “What Was That” concludes with the section Lorde teased in her April 9 snippet:

Since l was seventeen, I gave you everything

Now, we wake from a dream

Well, baby, what was that?

A bit of context: Lorde and Antonoff met when she was 17 in early 2014, when she was in the early stages of writing Melodrama. (He was 30, btw.) Antonoff later became the lead producer on the album. Lorde often recorded at his home studio in Brooklyn Heights between July 2015 and early 2017.

Neither Lorde, Antonoff, nor his former partner Dunham have ever confirmed that the singer and producer had a relationship. A lot of the “evidence” they did is neatly summarized in a furiously composed and impressively meticulous PowerPoint that’s basically become fan legend by now.

The gist of the theory is: they were creative partners, she was living in his house, she was enamored with him but he had a girlfriend. And so she wrote Melodrama about their relationship, disguised as a house-party metaphor.

Now in the blue light

Obviously, this isn’t 2017. Lorde was 20 when Melodrama was released, and she’s 28 now. “What Was That” revisits her life at 17, but she’s looking at it now much older and wiser.

After a post-chorus full of the electronic production that formed the core sound of Melodrama, the second verse continues:

Do you know you’re still with me

When I’m out with my friends?

This is Lorde recognizing her past lover — or her producer, who was so instrumental to her musical achievement — remains with her even though they’re physically and emotionally apart. It’s also a reference to how the rumors of the affair follow Lorde when she’s out in public, and how the success and fame she now has is tinged with Antonoff’s touch, since he was a key architect of it.

The line also has an older sister in “Green Light,” Lorde’s lead Melodrama single:

But honey, I'll be seein' you 'ever I go

But honey, I'll be seein' you down every road

“Green Light” has two whole slides on the PowerPoint arguing why it’s about Antonoff. Recall it’s about longing for something (or someone) so badly and waiting for a sign to act on it — the proverbial green light.

In “What Was That,” there’s a line that suggests how far Lorde has moved past that time in her life:

You weren't feeling my heat

When I'm in the blue light, down to be myself right

I face reality

The “blue light” here is key. Lorde is no longer waiting for that green light, having moved beyond it into something new of her own.

What was that?

Lorde has put a lot of distance between the teenager who wrote Melodrama and the adult she is now. “What Was That” reads as the moment you wake from a molly-induced hallucination — or finally realize the silliness of a teenage crush on a 30-year-old dude (with a girlfriend!!!), the result of a frontal lobe not fully formed yet. “I didn’t know then, but you’d never be enough for me,” Lorde sings on the track.

There are signs Lorde has started to move on from Antonoff musically, too. Antonoff produced Solar Power, Lorde’s 2021 acoustic follow-up to Melodrama, and he’s been producing just about every main pop album since then. Little is known about Lorde’s new album, including its title, but the producers who appear most attached to the project are Jim-E Stack and Blood Orange.

As with all media, I like an open-and-multiple approach interpreting this song. I think it’s about Jack Antonoff and Lorde’s relationship to her craft and her breakup with first boyfriend. And whatever else other listeners have gleaned from it.

“What Was That” is out tonight at midnight EDT.

On that last Friday — which, in later years, I would think of as the last of my childhood in San Diego — college was only an unrealized future, a question hanging over our heads. We knew everything would change, but in the moment, we had each other. The sky burned lilac and the water was cold when we dove beneath the waves at sunset. We had to coax Katie to come in; like the shy blond child she was in years before I knew her, she lingered at the water’s edge, unwilling to shed that red Wisconsin hoodie and swim with us. Come in, we beckoned. It’s not that cold at all.

At some point that summer Corie gave us each a letter. I never saw what went into the others, but in mine, she reminisced about our hijinks, she told me all the things she loved about me. I still have it pinned to a cork board in the room that I grew up in. It was unimaginable that we could ever not be that close, that we could ever be as distant as we became.

But everything was different in less than a year.

Ten months later, our friendship crumbled in the space of a text. I hadn’t meant to look, but I saw it — a flash of light in the fraction of a moment my hand passed over the screen. It was a message on Ali’s phone, from Corie, in a group chat that also included Katie. It was a group chat between the three of them — a group chat without me.

We were one year in college, the first Covid summer, and we’d taken a road trip to my family’s cabin in Lake Tahoe. It was there, in the twin bedroom I used to share with my sister, that the end of our friendship began.

Or maybe it was already ending by then. I had a hard time pinpointing exactly when it all changed. There was no explosion, no big fight, no definitive moment in which we decided we were done. Instead, we slowly drifted — not in four cardinal directions but asymmetrically, the three of them in one way, and me in another.

These were the people with whom I clicked so naturally that I can’t even remember an origin story. One day I was 15 years old and bumbling through high school and the next, I had Ali, Corie, and Katie. I was no longer a mere “I,” but part of a “we.” I had people who wanted to have lunch with me. I had friends I could text on the weekends without worrying that I annoyed them. In a room full of people I only half-knew, I would always look for them first.

So much of our friendship developed in the four miles between high school and the beach, the four of us piled into Corie’s two-door Mini Cooper or Ali’s Jeep, rushing off to bagels or pho or California burritos. There was the surf at Tower 4, the CVS on Coast Hwy where we bought liquor with a fake ID, the taco shop we’d frequent after football games on Fridays. Years later, deep in my twenties, I’d return and find these places looked no different but felt askew. In youth, I’d never visited any of them alone. 

Recently I listened to a review of my favorite book, My Brilliant Friend. In it, the journalist Greg Cowles comments, “Any great literature of friendship is a story of adolescence,” because adolescence is the time in which our identities are informed by our friendships. It comes after the formation of self which is based on family and before the formation of self that’s based on romance, Cowles explains. In these teenage years, we discover and define who we are by how we relate to our friends.

My friendship with Ali, Corie, and Katie was the friendship that I trusted to hold me through school dances without dates and lonely nights I was left uninvited from parties. They were the people with whom I shared a first taste of alcohol. They taught me how to behave around boys I liked and boys I didn’t. They told me when I was behaving badly and made me change my behavior — their opinions meant the world to me.

Over the years, we’d gone through flare-ups, fights, ice-outs, the dramatic transition from high school to college. The seasons turned, we grew taller, and always we found our way back to each other.

In the spring of 2020, I needed them. I was losing connection with school; San Diego and the life I had there seemed the only point of light in my periphery. That semester, I’d been unceremoniously dumped by a would-be roommate. I was dealing with the breakup of my freshman-year friend group.

Then the pandemic came and stuffed us all back in our parents’ homes. To others it was a curse; to me, it was a godsend. I hadn’t made lasting friends in college. But at home I had Ali, Corie, and Katie. In June we gathered in my backyard with our laptops before us, planning our summer road trip. A perfect escape from the world crumbling outside.

And yet: the group chat. Ours had fizzled out almost a year ago, but theirs hadn’t. The veneer of safety I’d built around that road trip collapsed around me. We were in my family’s house. I was hosting, and yet I was left out.

I never brought it up to them, but I agonized over it for months. In San Diego again, I could feel that things had changed. I could feel them drifting away from me. When the pandemic ended and we went back to school, spreading out over the four corners of the country, I watched through digital windows as their friendship, which I had once been wrapped in, hurtled on without me.

There were moments I thought I could save it. When they invited me to Bruges with them two years after the Tahoe trip, that semester we all studied abroad, I thought I might make my way back to them.

Instead, I blew 200 euro on a shitty cigarette-reeking hotel room two floors below the one the three of them crammed into. It was clear I had been a last-minute addition. Ali, out of pity or compassion or a mix of both, came down and slept in the room with me.

“I didn’t want you to be alone,” she said. Her kindness cut like a knife.

The invites stopped coming by our senior year of college. Though by then I knew it was over, I still felt a pang in my ribs whenever I saw them together on social media. At Halloween, Ali and Katie had flown from California to visit Corie in New York. It wasn’t the distance — I was in D.C., I could’ve made the journey even more easily. But I hadn’t been asked.

Every post I saw cut a little deeper, like a bruise I kept pressing on. I had this feeling I shouldn’t be watching their friendship through these perfectly curated windows. But I couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like if I was there, too.

I turned over the reasons why I’d been left behind so many times over the years. I knew I wasn’t the best friend in high school. I was selfish, self-conscious, insecure, and unsure of who I wanted to be. But as teenagers, aren’t we all a little self-obsessed and cruel? Could I be blamed for not being a great person because I was 16 years old?

I thought that maybe our friendship had all been smoke and mirrors. I started second-guessing every moment, going back to the start. But that wasn’t true, either — at one point we had really been inseparable. I still have the letter Corie wrote me after our high school graduation, the one where she told me all the things she loved about me. It’s a reminder I was there. I was a real part of that friend group, once. I hadn’t always been on the outside looking in.

Over the years I continued to reach out, but it was humiliating when they wouldn’t do the same. I reached out to Corie four times before I gave up. Katie came and stretched out beside me on the beach, but she never asked me first. I see Ali from time to time, and she calls me once a quarter, but we’re no longer in each other’s lives. We’re just telling each other about ours. 

It’s been five years since I was a real part of their circle. We’ve seen each other every year since we graduated high school, but for the most part, the ease and familiarity we had is a memory. They live in San Diego now, three thousand miles from me. They don’t read what I write.

I still feel some sadness when I see them all together, but I’ve stopped tearing myself apart for not being there. We share a history, if not a present. I’ve let go of the old belief that I’ll be at their weddings, a pretense I’d clung to even as we grew apart. When you’re a kid and so deeply in love with the friendships you have, it’s impossible to imagine they could one day float away.

The hardest part of letting go has been giving up the search for a reason why. In my career and in my studies, I’ve been trained to always ask why. I was taught to think deeper about a phenomenon, to examine its causes, to uncover the forces beneath it. Accepting that some things have no real explanation — that life moves us apart or together, and that we might not have a say in it — is antithetical to the way I’m used to thinking about this world. I can’t pretend it wasn’t painful to see a relationship I was once privy to continue on behind barriers of glass. But it’s getting easier. 

And that’s the other thing — I’ve come to believe there isn’t really a reason I was left behind. I don’t think any of my old friends bore me any malice, I don’t think they thought about why they no longer wanted to hold me close. Corie invited me to her party in December. Katie lit up when she saw me there, and she wanted to hear about my life. Ali calls and I answer, even if it’s just the highlight reel broadcast over heartlands or oceans. What I feel for them now is the ember of old friendship. I’m waving at them across a chasm, over a distance none of us will close.

At core, I’m not a different person than I was when we first met. But I am different. I won’t blame myself for drifting away from a friendship that is now between three adult women, not four teenage girls.

Besides, they’re different too. Through all of the heartbreak and trials of their early 20s, I wasn’t there to comfort or coach any of them. I wasn’t there to celebrate their victories. I only learned about the heavy decisions, the incandescent moments long after the fact, when the ink had dried on everything.

I can’t get back what we had, but I’ll continue to root for each of them. I’ll follow Corie’s photography and Katie’s writing. I hope Ali gets to save lives like she wants to. I hope they go to all the places we once dreamed of seeing together. I’m okay with knowing I won’t be there with them. I’ll still be there when they need me.

If there is a lesson in the loss, it’s that it makes the friendships I have now even more precious. I see how thinly we’re all held together; I approach my relationships with the knowledge that they may not last. Through no fault of our own, we may drift until the line goes silent. And that awareness, of the delicateness of friendship, makes me cherish the people I know and the intimacy we have even more. The moments we share, the people we are now, and what we mean to one another — inevitably those will change. But what is a friendship if not a willingness to be changed by others?

I come to you with my tail between my legs. It’s been about nine months since the last time I posted on our substack. And it has been almost a  year since my first (and only lol) “V’s Post-Grad Diaries” post. Since then, I started my first full-time job, exited my bald era (for now), and turned 23 years old (shout out to the Geminis). One year has officially passed since I got my degree and moved back home. Although a good amount has occurred since the last time we convened, I’ve found it extremely hard to put my pen to paper. Even though there are many things that I have wanted to write about, no amount of brainstorming or rough drafts have felt right. In all honesty, I’ve been trying to write this piece since December 2023. I knew I was really in the writer’s block trenches when I couldn’t even write about the masterpiece that is COWBOY CARTER (happy belated birthday, Beyoncé). 

But I come to you today humbled with the next installment of V’s Post-Grad Diaries. I come to you all with a couple of discoveries, and reflections — nothing groundbreaking, but something that I want to share: 

Writer’s block is a bitch. And not a bad bitch, but a BITCH bitch. 

I have not been able to complete a writing project since December 2023. It is September 2024. It has almost been nine whole months. In that time, babies have been conceived and have taken their first breaths. In the period where the miracle of life could have and did occur for some, you could find me opening up and staring at a new Google Doc in our shared b*tchfork folder. I have lost count of the new documents with abandoned one-liners collecting digital dust in my notes app. 

I am working through the most intense writer’s block that I have ever experienced. Frustration has been in an unfortunate situationship with confusion in my mind, fueling failed attempt after failed attempt. As the empty documents pile into my Google Drive trash, one question hasn’t left my side: why?

Why haven’t my usual tricks of thought outlines and stream of consciousness writing dumps worked like they used to? 

Why isn’t talking through it with my people working like it used to? 

As the “whys” continued to populate in my mind every time I momentarily felt inspired—more little anxieties were popping along hand in hand with them. 

Why does anyone care what I have to say? 

 Is my writing not good enough to cover this? 

Why am I even doing this in the first place?

While attempting to push through these thoughts, I’ve slowly begun to realize that these thoughts are not just coming up in my attempts to write. Everywhere from work to the activities I would often find solace in, the “whys” would find themselves a seat at the head of the table. 

Reading? Going too slow. 

Dancing in the bathroom? Not good enough. 

Not getting the substantive tasks you want at  work? You’re not good enough. And if you had the chance? You’d fuck it up. 

Study for a grad school admissions test? You’ll never get the score you want. 

After feeling these insecurities permeate not just my writing, but nearly every aspect of my life, I realized something: I’m not just experiencing writer’s block. I’m experiencing a life block.  

The voice of insecurity has acquired a megaphone in my mind since the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Day. When I look for an origin point, I realize the weight of these insecurities bubbled to the surface as soon as  my main insecurity of 2023 was addressed: my unemployment. 

After getting a job, I shifted my focus from my LinkedIn profile to how I felt about myself at my job. As the months progressed, feelings of inadequacy and unimportance in what I do ran rampant on a taunting carousel in my mind. Instead of feeling unsettled about not having a job, I began to feel the weight and creeping doubts that I have become stagnant in my position. These feelings have been hard for me to reconcile as this is the first time in my life where I’m not receiving constant feedback in the confines of educational achievement. There is no distinct life or career path set out for me and I have to be the one to lay the groundwork with consistent trial and error. And I’m scared of the latter! The yearning for more responsibility is strong, but so is that fear that I’ll mess it up once I have it. 

But in sifting through the feelings of stagnancy and imposter syndrome, I have come to a few realizations. The first is that I have been putting too much pressure on my job to catapult me into this next stage of life. My growth should not be dependent on one sole external factor. If I really want to feel the growth that I desire, I must take that responsibility and locate the desire and motivation in myself again. By recognizing my agency and decentering external factors such as a job or a degree in my growth journey, I can put myself back in the driver’s seat and dictate where I want to go. It’s not fair to myself to let one thing dictate my perception of my abilities!  Although I’m not learning as much as I had wanted to at my job, that does not mean I can’t grow and learn at all! It’s sad to say, but I forgot that I can learn and grow without institutional structure. I can do it myself! Opportunities to grow and learn are everywhere and simply can’t be confined within the four walls of my cubicle or of any academic institution. 

It may be silly, but my “life block” and writer’s block realizations made me remember that I do have power. I have done shit and I can still do shit! As I have slowly but surely begun to work through my life and writer’s block, I’ve started to  center  memory work. I remember that I’m the one who got myself this job after months of unemployment. I remember that I started a blog with my friends. I remember that I’ve helped build community spaces. I remember that I have earned a black belt.  I remember that I’ve taught! I remember that I’ve learned and am still learning! And I remember that each of these things I’ve done did not happen in a second, but happened through my commitment to the journey, my commitment to honoring my goals, my commitment to honoring my community, and my commitment to finishing what I started.   Growing and learning thrive in the peaks and valleys of trial and error. Through remembering what I have done, and remembering my capacity and ability to make change, I recognized that my  life block hurdle is not a tangible one, but one in my head. A hurdle that can and will dissipate upon remembering my agency. These are the moments where I conquer my fear—by looking it in the eye, as opposed to avoiding it in totality. I’ve gotten shit done before, and I will do it time and time again!

So…what now? Well, I’m happy to have finally been able to articulate these reflections enough to get them on a page! I’m still experiencing some imposter syndrome while trying to write, and in planning out my next steps in life. But now, I go back to my memory work and know that my accomplishments, my drive, and the shit I’ve done is not just relegated to the past. Through remembering and taking it one step at a time (instead of my bad habit of attempting to do it all at once), I slowly but surely make progress. The only way out is through, and I’m committed to making it through despite the blocks that I face. 

Well, hopefully publishing this is the beginning of the end of this bout of writer’s (and life) block. Even though it’s still kind of TBD when I publish my next piece (hopefully soon), I’ll keep pushing through. I’ll keep trying to combat doubting myself. I’ll remember to trust the process and not to rush the process. As long as I depend on myself instead of putting my eggs in an external motivation basket, I know that the growth, clarity, (and word count) I desire will come into focus.

The growth might not all happen in a day. But that’s okay. As Glorilla said on CNN this year, “at the end of the day, the day gotta end.” And that’s why we love tomorrow!!

Here’s a big cheers to trying and loving tomorrow!

With love and words on a page, 

Veronica

At the Love Island USA season 6 reunion, producers aired a sizable segment addressing the cyberbullying and online hate certain members of the cast were facing.

The message was pretty standard: even reality TV stars are real people, and nobody deserves to be buried beneath mountains of hate comments on their personal social media accounts. They even included a cyberbullying helpline number before the reunion cut to commercials.

Yet as soon as the one-hour special concluded, fans flooded the airwaves with takes on the fresh drama that unfolded from the reunion. Most of it circled around the very tearful and emotionally charged fight between Nicole Jacky and Kendall Washington, who finished in fourth place during the season. Jacky had used the reunion special to call out Washington for lying to her about the origin of an intimate video of him that had leaked online shortly after the season finale.

Both Jacky and Washington were clearly speaking through trauma. Jacky’s lip trembled the whole time and Washington stuttered and froze, so that he seemed worlds away from the generally happy, lighthearted hype man he’d been all season. The whole interaction made me feel ill as a viewer — I thought I shouldn’t be watching this, it was too private, it wasn’t meant for me and the rest of the world to see. 

Producers deliberately choose what to show viewers, picking bits and pieces from a much longer length of film. The one-hour Love Island reunion special was filmed over eleven hours on August 14, then cut and edited before it aired on TV five days later. Producers chose to air a conversation between two people who, upon leaving the villa, were thrust not only into a sudden spotlight but were also forced to deal with a deeply violating revenge porn shock as soon as they took their relationship to the real world.

The online discourse has largely chosen to villainize Jacky. The general view is that after ignoring Washington’s private calls and texts to her, she chose to air their dirty laundry on national television and centered herself in her partner’s trauma. I’ve seen countless comments begging Jacky to get a sense of “nuance” — she was primarily mad about Washington’s lie to her, telling her the video came from an ex he trusted, when she later discovered it was sent to someone he met on a dating app right before the show. I find these comments to be unwittingly ironic, since they overlook Jacky’s known history of trust issues stemming from infidelity in a previous relationship. My personal feeling is that Jacky’s trust issues and Washington’s abandonment issues were a ticking time bomb waiting to happen.

I’ve seen comments suspicious of Jacky’s intentions. These have claimed her feelings toward Washington were never genuine and theorized that she was waiting for any possible moment to break up with Washington after the cameras stopped rolling. I’ve seen tinfoil hat theories about Washington’s sexuality, about the “real reason” behind Jacky’s anger.

All of this discourse is extremely focused on the wrong thing. Instead of attacking Jacky’s behavior at the reunion, fans need to take a step back and seriously re-examine just how deep their parasocial relationships with celebrities have gotten. That message about cyberbullying and online hate? It’s easy to sidestep if you believe that hate is just a side effect of signing up to be on something like Love Island, where the true prize is understood to be internet fame, brand deals, and influencer notoriety. It’s a tradeoff. 

But it’s also possible that none of these people understood just how hollowing that deal would be until it was too late to go back.

The argument between Jacky and Washington should’ve never been aired. They should’ve been left to deal with that in private, the way most people would. Love Island was clearly not equipped to deal with conversations about sexual abuse — and yes, revenge porn is a form of sexual abuse — and to air that argument for the sake of views and drama is fundamentally dehumanizing to both Jacky and Washington.

I can hear the objections coming — Jacky chose to use the reunion to make their fight public, it’s her fault they have to deal with it. Yes, it’s true that she made a choice to air her grievances publicly. She isn’t blameless in all of this. She took it too far by using her platform to put a spotlight on her partner’s trauma and center herself as a victim. 

But she’s also a person who is just now learning to deal with this newfound fame. She was struck with fame at the same time the revenge porn video rocked her relationship, and her reaction is informed by own traumatic past relationship. If it’s true that Peacock insisted on filming a confrontation with Washington over the video and the lying, as Jacky claimed on the Viall Files podcast, then the network has shown how much it’s willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of its stars for views and comments.

Jacky clearly hasn’t figured out how to handle her sudden fame. She should be extended some grace for making a move she may well come to regret later.

Of course, that doesn’t take away from the pain she has undoubtedly caused Washington by making his mistakes public, and by centering herself in his trauma. I can’t begin to imagine the pain and hurt he must be going through, to lose and feel betrayed by someone he clearly cared very much for. 

But viewers need to let go of this whole practice of “taking sides” and attacking individuals. Jacky and Washington need to heal on their own, “without hella outside opinions, without the internet, without the social media” involved, as season 6 winner Serena Page put it.1 It would be better for both of them if the fans just dropped it, if we gave them less of the attention they thought they wanted. At the end of the day, it’s the sudden stroke of fame, not just the “real world,” that torpedoed their relationship.  

Someone on Substack wrote that to go on Love Island is to sacrifice yourself on the altar of pop culture.2 You agree to sign your life, name, and image away for public consumption in exchange for money, fame, and brand deals. I’m not going to tell you to approve or disapprove of the rich and famous, but I do think some compassion should be reserved for those finding that the deal — your personal life in exchange for fame and money — isn’t worth it at all.

The social contract of fame has always stipulated that the rich and famous give up a little of their privacy in order to be famous. But the goalposts on what is an acceptable amount of privacy to surrender are changing, because almost everyone has given up some of their privacy in some way. 

Social media and the internet have made it easier than ever to find out where someone lives, what their family members look like, what they looked like as a child, and the embarrassing stuff they did in youth, to give just a few examples. For celebrities, that feeds fans’ parasocial attachments to them because it makes fans feel even more confident that they know them. Those obsessions can put celebrities in physical danger — it was that kind of attachment that cost singer and former reality contestant Christina Grimmie her life in 2016.

Unlike in any other age, people can now be quickly inundated with a barrage of negative comments about them. Social media has conditioned us to put all of our feelings online, because why not? The strangers we’re talking about will never see it. Except sometimes, they do. 

Putting yourself out there in any way is an invitation to some type of criticism. There’s a difference between that and straight hate mail, which often comes too. As a reporter, I’ve dealt with a fair share of hate mail for the things my job required me to write. Most of the hate mail I get is poorly written, overly emotional, or irrelevantly and inaccurately attacks my character. I know that these words shouldn’t mean anything to me; still, they take a toll.

I don’t like being the person defending the rich and famous. I don’t believe anyone should be a billionaire and I think critique of influential people is often warranted. But when valid criticism and public accountability start to look a lot like public shaming, people’s lives can be put at risk. That’s no longer about wanting someone to behave better. That’s just bullying.

Three decades ago, the media’s incursion into the private life of a famous person caused a infamous car accident and a tragic death. It wasn’t until after the death of Princess Diana that the UK instituted stricter privacy laws and restrictions on the media. We’re at a similar inflection point, in which the culture we’ve created around celebrity and the technology we use to engage in it has real potential to ruin lives. It shouldn’t take another Diana to make the culture change.

She appeared in the last breath of September, the end of the beginning of our senior year of college, on her very first trip to the East Coast. In the daytime we walked the jagged brick and cobblestone, gossiped over glasses of tea and champagne, and watched the autumn leaves float down around us. That Friday night, while the rain pattered outside, we flicked on the pilot episode of Sex and the City in the pint-sized living room of my D.C. townhouse.

I was only half-watching. It was Emily’s choice, not mine, not something I would’ve watched on my own. But by the end, I was invested in the brilliant, witty, and wonderfully messy women figuring out love and friendship in Manhattan. And just like that, a 25-year-old show about four white Gen Xers became my newest binge-watch.

Sex and the City follows four friends in late-1990s New York. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), our narrator, is a 30-something newspaper columnist who writes about sex, love, and relationships. Her three best friends are the redhead Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), a no-fuss lawyer with a sardonic edge; the blonde Samantha (Kim Cattrall), a femme fatale who values sex but disdains romance; and the brunette Charlotte (Kristen Davis), a hopeless romantic who, despite her naïvete, sometimes imparts the greatest wisdom of all. Carrie frames each episode with a particular theme (e.g., threesomes, kinks, being with younger men, being with older men) as the women navigate New York’s dating scene. The show is beautiful to look at: The women move through the vibrant streets of Manhattan in unrealistically high but admittedly tasteful heels, decked in designer outfits that rival Emily in Paris in imagination.

One of the most striking aspects of Sex and the City, however, is how accurately it captures relationships. The toxic men of the 1990s are the same toxic men of the 2020s: men with commitment issues, men that can’t take a hint, men that ask for too much too soon. In 2023 we call these red flags and categorize the men as male manipulators, pick-me’s, players—labels that didn’t exist for Carrie and her friends in 1996. They navigated New York hookup culture in its adolescence, asking how well we really know the people we sleep with, and two and half decades later, I was asking the same thing.

Some aspects of the show certainly haven’t aged well. Its handling of interracial dating, body image, and queer relationships leaves much to be desired. Many of these issues revive old, essentializing tropes that made this modern viewer cringe: Carrie and Charlotte each have stereotypical “gay best friends,” and Samantha and Miranda each have an arc with a Black love interest that rehashes racist tropes about Black aggression. The women are haunted by traditional anxieties associated with white femininity, like the fears of ending up alone, of growing old and ugly and therefore worthless. But in spite of this, the show’s core depictions of female friendship are what anchor it.

A few weeks after Emily’s visit, my roommate, Lea, asked me who I thought she was most like on the show. This question has captivated generations of viewers: Are you a Miranda, a Samantha, a Charlotte, or a Carrie? For the women I knew in real life, though, I could only come up with half-answers. Lea had Miranda’s tenacity, Charlotte’s persistent optimism, and Carrie’s wit and charm. She wasn’t a perfect match for any of them. But by observing the fictional women onscreen I could better appreciate the things I loved most about her and the parts of our friendship I was most grateful for.

There’s something reassuring in seeing Carrie and her 30-something friends lead lush, exciting lives in the city. It’s what I needed to see at 22 to understand that the end of college is not the end of youth. When Emily visited in our penultimate semester, I’d begun to feel my age as I never had before—the rooms I used to frequent filled with more unfamiliar faces, time at Georgetown slipping away like sand through the space between fingers. The end of college started to feel like the beginning of real life, which was terrifying. But in seeing the disordered swirl of city life onscreen, I started to believe there was beauty in all that future unknown.

It’s said that college is the biggest dating pool you’ll ever have in your life. But if you’re like me and you haven’t had a serious relationship in college at all, it can feel like you’re running out of time. Watching Sex and the City as a college senior, I saw women more 10 years older than me still fumbling through romance and dating. They don’t have relationships figured out, and that’s okay. They’re still complex, successful, and beloved. Over six seasons and two movies, they learn that it isn’t about finding the right partner so much as it is about finding the right friends.

I saw Emily last week. We spent Easter together in Arizona, where she lives now. Over the holiday we threw a dinner party, swam in a waterfall, and sang Taylor Swift songs down the speedway in the 90-degree heat. One night, sitting by the fire pit under the Tucson stars, we talked about our old friends, our last ill-fated situationships, what life next year might look like for each of us. She asked me if there were any new men (“boys,” actually) in my life, and then she asked me what episode of Sex and the City I was on.

The truth: I was watching the last season slowly. I was trying to make it last as long as possible. Over the past few years, my friendship with Emily has existed mostly in these short conversations over text and FaceTime and in the memes and TikToks we send back and forth. Watching the same shows, reading the same books—it’s our way of saying I see you, and I know you’ll understand this the way I do. In the media that connect us, in the space of a question about Sex and the City, we are saying I’m here, I miss you, and I remember this about you. I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe the real, enduring magic of Sex and the City is what we learn about our friends along the way.

This essay was originally published on April 18, 2023.

If the slow creep of neon green across your Insta feed is any indication, brat summer is in full swing. You may know that the cultural phenom derives from Charli XCX’s breakout album Brat, which I previously declared my personal album of the summer. But, um, what exactly is brat summer?

A friend of b*tchfork, Emma Ginsberg, has a few ideas. As she correctly points out, brat summer goes much deeper than the lime green hard-partying aesthetics of the album. “It’s about way more than white tank tops, skinny cigarettes, and clubbing,” Emma writes.

Emma identified six ways to have a brat summer, which includes, but is not limited to: hyping yourself up, questioning conventions of womanhood, and working out old beef on the remix. At the heart of all of this, though, there’s an overwhelming desire for presence. Brat summer is about living in the moment as it is, past be damned.

As a sonic experience, Brat is the equivalent of having an existential crisis in the club. I’d argue that’s the epitome of presence: the club is one of the few places left where it’s socially unacceptable to be on your phone, and one of the few places we go for the primary purpose of uninhibited fun. Remember all those aughts and early 2010s songs about just wanting to “feel this moment” and live it up in the club as an escape from the woes of real life? That’s what Brat is channeling.

It’s also a place to reexamine your life’s decisions and overthink your relationships with the people around you. Should you have a baby? Does that convenience-bestie secretly hate you? Brat is anchored in the present and in a struggle to understand the present amid the noise of the club (in this analogy, the club = life).

Even Brat’s self-hyping aspect is a celebration of the present. When we’re thinking about the past, we’re always thinking about it in relation to the present, like looking back at the climb from the point of view of the summit. “Rewind,” Charli’s song reflecting on the way things used to be, is told with an implicit contrast to the way things are now. “Girl, so confusing,” a song that rehashes beef from the last decade, buries the hatchet on a remix that revives Melodrama-era Lorde. “Apple,” which deals with familial and parental relationships, is not strictly about mom and dad but about how they affected the person Charli has become.

And “So I,” arguably the most emotional Brat track, is fundamentally rooted in presence even when its subject is gone. Written as a tribute to longtime friend and collaborator SOPHIE, who passed away in 2021, Charli insists, “Your sounds, your words, live on, endless,” bringing her late friend into the now.

Brat summer can also be understood as a reaction to last year’s Barbie summer. Beneath the hot pink and gingham of 2023 there was an underlying sadness about the demands of contemporary womanhood, a longing for a bygone girlhood, and a healthy dose of ennui — think Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?”. America Ferrera’s climactic speech in Barbie lamented the exhaustion of being a woman taught to please everyone. Brat summer says, fuck that. The only person I’m pleasing is me.

Just like Barbie summer, there is a kernel of nostalgia at Brat’s core. The brat is longing for an age that predated smartphones, both an expression and a continuation of the Y2k-mania we’ve seen sweeping the youth. This is most clear in its aesthetics; I previously called it the “indie sleaze revival” album because it calls back to the last time being messy at the club was in fashion. 

Lastly, there’s the fact that otherwise, this summer is pretty bleak. We’re heading into a tumultuous election season with two candidates most people don’t want. The summers are hotter than ever, the hurricanes are earlier than ever, and we might be witnessing the decline of our democracy. When we’re anxious about the future and exhausted by the past, what is there left to think about but where we are right now? Maybe a little dissociative dancefloor me-time is exactly what’s missing.

That said, it’s time to put the phone down. We’re having brat summer.

The indie sleaze revival: BRAT by Charli xcx

“When I get to the club, I wanna hear the club classics,” Charli xcx declares in track 2 of the electro-hyper-Brit-pop masterpiece brat. And brat is certainly poised to become a club classic in its own right. Its thumping beats and catchy hooks (I can’t get “Von dutch” out of my head) are perfectly suited to an all-night dance party. It’s the soundtrack to a no-thoughts-head-empty summer — almost. The album avoids a pounding headache by balancing clubby hits with introspection, an order that gives the impression of an existential crisis-slash-dissociation on the dancefloor. Plus, who else can say they revived Melodrama-era Lorde with that iconic feature on “girl, so confusing”?

• b*tchfork’s picks: “Von dutch,” “Apple,” “B2b,” “Talk talk”

The American classic: COWBOY CARTER by Beyoncé

The genre-defying Cowboy Carter is the second installment of an ambitious three-part artistic project, and it is easily my pick for album of the year. We thought we were getting a country album, but instead we got a philosophical monster that asks, “What is the point of a genre, if not to be defied?” Cowboy Carter is the kind of album made both to be studied in a college course and to be trumpeted in a sellout stadium tour. It’s an art-object that can be dissected on a historical and political level, but is also a straight banger to listen to.

• b*tchfork’s picks: “TYRANT,” ft. Dolly Parton, “II MOST WANTED,” ft. Miley Cyrus, “LEVII’S JEANS,” ft. Post Malone

The Healed-Place album with no lore: Radical Optimism by Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa’s third album didn’t make the splash that its smash-hit pandemic predecessor Future Nostalgia did. But it’s hard to follow a magnum opus, and Radical Optimism, while not as strong as that second album, can certainly stand on its own. Anchored by the catchy, 80s-inspired singles Dua’s known for, Radical Optimism is the kind of sun-soaked, good-vibes album meant for a European summer on a beach or a calm sea somewhere. It flows cohesively from start to finish, but aside from the singles, it can be difficult to differentiate the tracks from one another.

• b*tchfork’s picks: “Houdini,” “Training Season,” “End of an Era”

The bildungsroman with a lot of lore: HIT ME HARD AND SOFT by Billie Eilish

Billie Eilish found her footing with HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, her third album, which debuts a more mature, self-assured sound for the 22-year-old artist. A lot’s changed since the release of 2021’s Happier Than Ever: Billie came out as bisexual, dated a rock star 11 years older than her, and won two Oscars for Best Original Song, “No Time to Die” and “What Was I Made For?” HIT ME HARD AND SOFT is about a lot more than liking girls and dealing with fame, though. Sonically, it’s a satisfying blend of the pioneering horror-pop that launched Billie to fame and the bossa nova stylings of her sophomore release.

• b*tchfork’s picks: “CHIHIRO,” “BIRDS OF A FEATHER,” “L’AMOUR DE MA VIE,” “BLUE”

The recovery albums: Deeper Well by Kacey Musgraves and eternal sunshine by Ariana Grande

Deeper Well and eternal sunshine have very, very different vibes, but the ethos is the same. They’re both about moving on, reflecting on a past chapter, and embracing self-discovery in a new era. They’re both about growing up, in a sense. Kacey Musgraves’ album is a quieter, acoustic, progressive country work that evokes lakeside retreats, rustic cabins and meadows, while Ariana Grande’s is full of high-energy dance pop peppered with synths and orchestral stylings. Both are a breath of fresh air.

• b*tchfork’s picks (Deeper Well): “Anime Eyes,” “Dinner with Friends,” “Moving Out”

• b*tchfork’s picks (eternal sunshine): “the boy is mine,” “we can’t be friends”

The one you can skip: The Tortured Poets’ Department by Taylor Swift

Go girl, give us less. Capitalism’s poster child is proving that she needs a break. Tortured Poets was not ready for its release, full of half-baked songs that feature some of Swift’s most embarrassing lyricism yet (“Kiss me while your boys play Grand Theft Auto”??). Its main sound is one that I’ve grown bored of; many of Tortured Poets’ tracks feel like rough draft versions of more developed songs that made it onto other albums. More is not always better, and it’s clear Tortured Poets would have benefited from some extra attention. Swift, who’s been busy leading a historic world tour for two years, has probably spread herself too thin.

• b*tchfork’s picks: “The Black Dog,” “So Long, London”

As the second song on the highly anticipated Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé’s cover of the Beatles song “Blackbird” sent heads rolling as soon as the tracklist was revealed. In the two weeks since its release, “BLACKBIIRD” has pushed the envelope as a cover. With featured artists and a wide audience, the song has platformed emerging Black artists of the present while elevating Black histories of the past. By sharing the history of a Black story in a white band’s hit, “BLACKBIIRD” has the potential to bring listeners to the Black musicians who recognized the struggle in the song and brought their voices to it, even just two years after the Beatles' original. 

Shortly after Beyoncé announced Cowboy Carter’s tracklist, the BeyHive and greater music community quickly took to socials—see TikTok—to relish in Beyoncé covering a Beatles song, and for many, it seemed Beyoncé’s inclusion of the 1968 track introduced them to the history behind its lyrical messaging. And for those of you who don’t know, allow me to introduce you.

Famously, Paul McCartney wrote “Blackbird” as a response to the U.S. civil rights movement in the ’60s and the young women in the Little Rock Nine. In his book The Lyrics, McCartney shares that “Blackbird” was written a mere weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. “That imagery of the broken wings and the sunken eyes and the general longing for freedom is very much of its moment,” McCartney wrote. It was specifically the rageful and vitriolic response to Black youth and the racial integration of education in many parts of America that moved McCartney to write “Blackbird.” In 2016, he met two of the Little Rock Nine. And with “blackbird” meant to translate to “Black girl” (“bird” being English slang for “girl” at the time), Beyoncé singing the track, joined by four Black female country artists, was a homecoming of sorts for the lyrics. 

If you’ve read anything I’ve written for b*tchfork, you know I’m a bit of a music history fan. But “BLACKBIIRD” goes beyond bringing this slice of the past to a much broader audience––it introduces up-and-coming Black country musicians Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell, and Tiera Kennedy to a massive new audience. The cover also honors the history of McCartney’s composition by staying faithful to its arrangement and allowing the lyrics to shine. “BLACKBIIRD” is doing what music released by a mega-star can do best: elevate, expose, and, of course, entertain. 

“BLACKBIIRD” has incredible potential within the context of musical legacies. The song is singular on Cowboy Carter as a complete and straightforward cover, and the reaction to “BLACKBIIRD” animates the impact a cover can have. When done right, a cover of a song illuminates the lasting relevance of its lyrics and elevates a song to timelessness. Beyoncé is the kind of once-in-a-generation artist whose projects have the power to alter a music ecosystem—she already has—and “BLACKBIIRD” is emblematic of how her sphere of influence ensures her music does transformative work. Beyoncé is not the first Black woman to make “Blackbird” her own, but by releasing this cover and starting a conversation, “BLACKBIIRD” can highlight an otherwise largely-unknown history of Black musicians. “BLACKBIIRD” advances Beyoncé’s legacy and lights a fire under those of emerging artists, while also guiding listeners to the legacies of Black musicians who came before. 

Legacy is critical to the concept masterpiece that is Cowboy Carter. In “16 CARRIAGES,” Beyoncé sings about leaving her home behind for the sake of a legacy: “if it’s the last thing I do / you’ll remember me.” Through the featured veteran artists, Beyoncé honors the legacy of the country genre, and lyrically pulls on legacy through themes of place and family. Is “BLACKBIIRD” a historic, beautiful full-circle moment for a poem rooted in the history of Black women? To quote a new song I don’t like that much: yes, and it’s also more. 

We must give the women on “BLACKBIIRD” their flowers. The five voices on “BLACKBIIRD” are absolutely angelic and blend like they were always meant to be together. Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell, and Tiera Kennedy—a Fab Four in their own right complete with matching tattoos—are all new country artists with debut albums that, for most, are barely a year old. Baltimore-born Spencer released her debut album My Stupid Life only a few months ago, and its lead single name-drops musical icons, including Queen B herself: “you should know you're gonna want a little bit more / To put your love on top like Beyoncé.” Tanner Addell’s title track on her 2023 debut album Buckle Bunny does the same, as the country-pop darling describes herself as “lookin’ like Beyoncé with a lasso.” Reyna Roberts’s debut album Bad Girl Bible Vol. 1 dropped in September last year, and Tiera Kennedy has only released singles and a self-titled EP. (I am kinda digging the rock country thing Kennedy has got on her latest single, “Jesus, My Mama, My Therapist,” and the TikTok video of her reacting to hearing herself on “BLACKBIIRD” is too sweet not to watch.) 

By including Spencer, Roberts, Adell, and Kennedy on what could’ve easily been a solo venture, Beyoncé helped catapult the careers of Black country artists while issuing a “fuck you” to anyone who’s breathed a word against their place in the genre. Spotify News posted on April 4 that the featured artists on “BLACKBIIRD” saw dramatic increases in first-time listeners on Spotify: Spencer saw a 170% increase in new listeners, Adell 125%, Roberts 125%, and Kennedy 110%. On April 5 Billboard shared photos of a billboard in L.A. listing those artists along with Shaboozey and Willie Jones, accompanied by another billboard reading: “HATS OFF TO THE TRAILBLAZERS FEATURED ON COWBOY CARTER.” If this was all “BLACKBIIRD” did, I think including it on Cowboy Carter would have been more than worth it. The fact that it’s become a 20th-century music history lesson is a bonus.

I am an unabashed Beatles fanatic; The band has been one of my top five artists ever since Spotify Wrapped started in 2016, and “Blackbird” was my number-one song in 2021. 

And to be a true fan of the Beatles, and rock music in general, is to understand that Black musicians have always been at the heart of the genre. McCartney and John Lennon’s biggest inspirations were Black American musical icons—Chuck Berry in particular, who also made it to Cowboy Carter with Beyoncé’s shortened take on Berry’s “Oh Louisiana”—as well as the Black musicians they saw growing up in Liverpool. The narrative parallels between white and Black rock musicians in feature films like Elvis (2022) represent what has been a slow, overdue, and often inadequate collective reckoning with the racial history of rock and roll and how the Black artists who nurtured the form were, and often remain, consistently sidelined. The same is true in country music and folk1; the legacy of Black musicians in these spaces has, more often than not, been unsung. With Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé takes a swing at this cultural and industry-driven injustice, and her cover of “Blackbird” takes a stand for Black rock and country musicians alike by elevating Black history.

On April 4, McCartney took to Instagram to share his excitement over Beyoncé’s cover and his hopes for the song’s impact today. After praising Beyoncé’s version and its reinforcement of the messaging that moved him to write it in the first place, McCartney wrote:

 “When I saw the footage on the television in the early 60s of the black girls being turned away from school, I found it shocking and I can’t believe that still in these days there are places where this kind of thing is happening right now. Anything my song and Beyoncé’s fabulous version can do to ease racial tension would be a great thing and makes me very proud.”

To repurpose and reinvent sounds via covers and sampling only proves the interconnectedness of the form, and how, as I will continue to say for as long as I live, music grows in and around each other, and no song exists without another. As a Beatles fan—a task which is often full of mourning—what’s so touching about “BLACKBIIRD” is that McCartney is still alive to see his poem revived into a new life, and found that the message penned almost 60 years ago was still universal. 

All this being said, the most compelling part about Beyoncé’s inclusion of “BLACKBIIRD” is not that now more people know a Beatles song is about young Black women in the ’60s. With “Now and Then” and the Sam Mendes biopics recently announced, the Beatles don’t exactly need more press. The most compelling aspect of “BLACKBIIRD” is not just that it amplifies the voices of young, Black country singers but that the cover builds on a legacy of Black musicians who have released their own renditions of “Blackbird” since it came out. Just as Cowboy Carter sparked a reckoning with the real history of Black cowboys and country musicians, Beyoncé reminds us that embedded in a song by one of the most popular white rock acts in the history of music is the legacy of Black musicians. “BLACKBIIRD” not only formally inducts Beyoncé into this rich history, but it also brings the following artists and their stories to the forefront of music appreciation. Inspired by the thread of legacy woven throughout Cowboy Carter, I want to take the moment “BLACKBIIRD” has graciously given us to spotlight eight potentially lesser-known covers. 

Sisters Love (1970)

The first “Blackbird” cover I’d like to highlight is my favorite and from the ’60s funk and soul group, Sisters Love.2 Per Discogs, Sisters Love released their cover on the B-side of a single in 1970—just two years after the original. In my humble opinion, it’s impossible not to love. And listening to the lead vocals on this track, I have to believe Janis Joplin was a Sisters Love fan. 

Billy Preston (1972)

It feels like cheating to include Billy Preston here because he is far from “lesser known.”3 Like Sisters Love, Preston released “Blackbird” on the B-side of an A&M single. While Sisters Love (beautifully) rips their way through the track, Preston’s arrangement follows a similar pacing but is a bit softer and groovier. Released four years after the original, Preston’s version fitted “Blackbird” to a classic funk ’70s sound. 

Roslyn Sweat & The Paragons (1973)

In an entirely different tune, Roslyn Sweat & The Paragons4, a Jamaican ska group, released a reggae cover called “Black Birds Singing” in 1973. This may be one of my favorite unexpected finds because I would’ve never guessed a reggae rock-steady rendition of “Blackbird” existed.

Sarah Vaughan (1981)

With jazz vocalist and pianist Sarah Vaughan’s cover of “Blackbird,” we’ve entered the jazz-adjacent portion of this run-down. Vaughan sang the track on her album Songs of the Beatles (1981), and it keeps the iconic guitar pattern before shaking up the traditional cover with a funk break between verses. What I love about this particular cover is how it tricks you, just for a second, into thinking it’s a straight-forward cover before Vaughan makes the arrangement hers.5 

Bobby McFerrin (1984)

Another jazz-influenced singer-songwriter and expert vocalist, Bobby McFerrin, recorded an eclectic “Blackbird” in 1984. McFerrin6 is well-known for his improvisational vocal experimentations and his mastered vocal technique is especially evident in his “Blackbird.” We are not meant to throw around the words “authentic” and “original” in music writing, but you have to admit that you’ve likely never heard a version of “Blackbird” quite like this one. 

Dionne Farris (1994)

Dionne Farris, the R&B and hip-hop singer-songwriter, released a laid-back and stripped-down rendition of “Blackbird” in the ’90s. 7Farris shimmers on her “Blackbird,” and I adore how she took the song and let her voice glisten with it. The guitar is also very cool.  

Herbie Hancock and Corinne Bailey Rae (2010)

Jazz legend Herbie Hancock and vocalist Corinne Bailey Rae performed “Blackbird” at the White House at a 2010 tribute concert for Paul McCartney. Their rendition is a beautiful one and worth opening up YouTube once again for. Bailey Rae is transcendent, and Hancock’s piano is gorgeous (especially his riff just over halfway through the performance).8 

Bettye LaVette (2020)

To round out our non-exhaustive list9, we have Bettye LaVette’s “Blackbird.” One of her most recent studio albums, Blackbirds (2020), was inspired by hearing McCartney’s “Blackbird” for the first time later in life. LaVette performed the song at the 2010 Beatles concert after her husband suggested it and played it for her. LaVette recalled in an interview that upon first hearing “Blackbird,” she thought, “I wonder if people know he’s talking about a Black woman?” Blackbirds closes on a “Blackbird” shifted to first-person and is otherwise full of songs originally popularized by Black women, including “Strange Fruit.”10 

Throughout Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé pays tribute as much as she reinvents and charts a path only she can take. She makes her cover of Dolly P’s “Jolene” entirely her own, and reinterprets classics like “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” and “Good Vibrations” on “YA YA.” These beautiful interpolations and manipulations of other songs make “BLACKBIIRD” stand out on the album; Beyoncé left the lyrics untouched and made the act of singing it with four other Black, female, country artists speak for itself. 

By elevating artists past and present, “BLACKBIIRD” gets at the heart of what a cover can add to an album and an artist’s musical legacy. The rendition has already skyrocketed the exposure of its featured artists, giving the modern-day trailblazers of Black artists making country music a place at the table. The trailblazers who came before Beyoncé, those featured on the album like Linda Martell and those listed above, have a place in this conversation of legacies, too; Their stories are woven into the history and sounds of “BLACKBIIRD.” As what is arguably the thematic crux of Cowboy Carter, it is essential we do not forget to honor the legacies of musicians who made an album, and a cover, like this possible. By explicitly acknowledging the Sisters Love and Sarah Vaughans of music history, we acknowledge the genre-bending work and sharing that built the mountain Beyoncé stands on today.

After all, imitation is the highest form of flattery.

What makes a good reboot?

I’ve had plenty of space to think about this over the first few months of the year. Every week there’s a new remake of an old classic from my childhood or teenage years — Mean Girls, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, then Avatar: the Last Airbender. Critics have bemoaned that we’ve been running out of new content for years now, but like most general audiences, I was happy enough to revisit the things I loved so much as a kid. I was wary of the results, lest we forget the M. Night incident or the first ill-fated Percy Jackson movies, but I kept an open mind.

No matter how much I wanted to love these remakes, though, I was left disappointed every time. Besides the terrible costuming and questionable casting choices in the Mean Girls adaptation, I felt that it had no idea whether it wanted to be a musical or a movie, leaving a haphazard mess in the middle. It isn’t really delivering anything the movie or the musical didn’t do better. If it’s true, as the movie advertised, that this is “not your mother’s mean girls,” then the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

With Percy Jackson, my main gripe is that it stayed too true to the book. Turns out, it’s hard to pack in monster-of-the-week action into eight 35-40 minute episodes and still build appropriate momentum. The show completely killed suspense by explaining away much of what was surprising in the book, breaking the number one rule of storytelling: show, don’t tell. The few changes that were instituted had no real payoff or effect on the overall plot.

In Netflix’s live-action Avatar: the Last Airbender, again the issue is that it delivers little more than a correction of M. Night’s mess from 14 years ago. It’s delightful to see the beloved cartoon brought to life, but even the much-improved CGI can’t scratch the same itch that the whimsy and fantasy of the original did. And the most annoying adjustment: Katara has all the fire taken out of her in the remake. Her rage, which quite literally set the original series into action by breaking Aang out of the iceberg, is completely watered down in this version (no pun intended).

Individual mistakes aside, the throughline is this: none of these remakes, however much they may delight the inner child, are really delivering anything meaningful. They are not achieving anything the original material could not do. If you’re going to make an adaptation, you have to have a driving reason for doing so—a reason that isn’t just to make more money off your subscribers.

As it happens, the best remake I’ve seen all year is one that wasn’t even on my radar. Of all the remakes I’ve seen in the first two months of 2024, not one comes close to Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane’s revamped Mr. and Mrs. Smith. That’s because it isn’t trying to rehash old thrills. It is nothing like the Brangelina venture of the early 2000s, and that’s exactly what makes it worthwhile.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2024) follows a pair of spies in a business partnership that doubles as an arranged marriage. They’re posing as a married couple—mellow software engineers in the 2020s version—who also happen to be tasked with highly dangerous missions. Transporting bombs, kidnapping hostages, all in addition to the typical spy work of bugging phones and infiltrating galas—these are the familiar motifs of the spy genre which link it to the Brangelina version.

 But whereas the appeal of Brangelina’s Smiths hardly went deeper than the skin, Glover and Erskine’s is all about heart. The thrust of the series is not the sexual tension between Hollywood-hot spies but the real emotional connection that inevitably forms between them. In a way, the honesty of Glover and Erskine’s Smiths reminded me of the often-cringey but always riveting clarity of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag. Both are unafraid to be intimate and even less scared to be brutal.

What makes the new Mr. and Mrs. Smith stand out from the rest of the middling reboot pack is that it has something new to say. It uses our cultural moment in a way that makes it seem timely: you couldn’t imagine Mr. and Mrs. Smith talking to their couples therapist about being in an interracial relationship in the 2005 Brangelina version. (And yes, that actually happens in 2024’s rendition.) Mr. and Mrs. Smith are spies, yes, but beyond that it isn’t hard to imagine that they are like any other modern couple. Their predecessors drew audiences in because of their superhuman hotness. But Erskine and Glover are just like us.

That difference in message is precisely what’s missing from the likes of Mean Girls, Percy Jackson, and Avatar: the Last Airbender. You can’t just slap the latest iPhone in the characters’ hands or dress them in Urban Outfitters to make them relevant. You have to think about how the culture has changed, yes, but more importantly you need to have something to say. That’s why the Smiths rise above all the other remakes that have cluttered 2024’s release calendar. Instead of trying on old styles and hoping that the pieces fit, they’ve taken apart and restitched something that feels completely new.

The scene caused a flurry of social media reactions and launched the song back into the mainstream with the campy ending sequence to a movie that divided audiences, largely along gendered lines. Critics, usually male, panned Fennell’s work as superficial, claiming that it used cheap tricks purely for shock value (bathtub scene, anyone?).1 They lobbed personal attacks against Fennell, citing her upper class background as a reason the story, in which a middle class poser schemes his way to the bedside of an upper class family, is so vapid, so utterly devoid of class consciousness.

Those who rushed to defend the film were mostly women, both in the critical and popular spheres. Women on social media pointed out the double standard that Fennell was held to, sometimes arguing that it was a piece about class, and that critics had missed the point of its satire. It’s not hard to imagine this is the case in a field notoriously thought of as an old boys’ club, lest we forget how they panned Karyn Kusama’s horror flick Jennifer’s Body and booed Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette at its Cannes opening.2 Both films have garnered cult classic status in the years since, especially among teenage girls and young adult women –– the same audience that seeks to save Saltburn from what they perceive as the undue criticism of old white men.

I knew about the discourse surrounding Saltburn’s quality long before I watched the movie. I was prepared to be thoroughly engrossed, disgusted, bewildered, aroused by this strange minotaur of a film. One thing I agree with critics on: it is visually stunning, with an appropriate use of the color red and sprawling shots of mazelike features around the Saltburn property. And as many a film influencer has pointed out, the story feels highly Greek and allegorical, with heavy allusions to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. 

Do I think it is a story about class? No. Do I think it is a bad movie? No.

If the primary criticism of Saltburn is that it is all style, no substance, then perhaps we ought to take a deeper look at the material it is comparable to. This is, of course, a criticism that has been lodged against many a Sofia Coppola or Greta Gerwig film, so I’m not surprised to see it deployed here. Saltburn reminded me a lot of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Killing of a Sacred Deer, which also stars Barry Keoghan as a shadowy outsider who psychologically terrorizes a well-to-do family in a somewhat absurd, highly allegorical story. Whereas Killing focuses more on divine justice, Saltburn leans more into the themes of obsession and self-destruction, not unlike Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray. Not a moral book, not concerned with didacticism; but art for art’s sake.

The critique that Saltburn failed to make a political or class commentary also rang hollow to me, not because it was wrong, but because I am not convinced that the ability to make a political commentary is the mark of a quality film. Perhaps we expect that kind of timeliness from Fennell, since her other film, the satisfying revenge-feminism drama Promising Young Woman, burst onto the screen just after the crest of MeToo. Saltburn is not quite an eat-the-rich Oscar-fodder drama we’ve seen so many of lately, although it is delightfully incisive of the rich. It does not critique class hierarchy as a whole, but treats its aristocracy as a group to be usurped rather than destroyed. For anyone who has ever felt out of place at a prestigious school or persistently rich institution, the film rings especially true in its depiction of how striving middle-class students learn to treat social hierarchies like ladders.

Saltburn is strange, revolting at times, but also impossible to look away from. And although the movie fails to make a real Message stick, it is an excellent example of the kind of escapist, referential material the vibe-conomy loves. It’s couched in aesthetics –– Y2k meets dark academia meets some kind of remixed country cottage core –– and heavy in symbolism that would delight any English or classics major. Blood, sex, comedy.

Yes, critics have a way of trivializing that which is beloved or produced by women. They’re not altogether wrong in their criticism of Saltburn. Neither are the women who see something memorable in it––even if it’s a scummy bathtub, or a naked dance montage.

The Playlist

1. “Too Much Heaven” by the Bee Gees

“Too Much Heaven” was the fourth of six consecutive number-one hits from the Bee Gees during the peak of their career in the 1970s. This record tied the group with the likes of Elvis Presley and the Beatles. Included on the Bee Gees’s thirteenth album Spirits Have Flown, “Too Much Heaven” was the LP’s first single, followed by “Tragedy.” 

Right off the bat with “Too Much Heaven,” we’re neck-deep in the late ’70s Bee Gees sound that was very orchestral, dramatic, and layered in harmonies. Notably, “Too Much Heaven” is not a strict disco track, the genre with which the Bee Gees had become practically synonymous by 1979 after the success of Saturday Night Fever (1977). The track is, however, a love song, with the trademark falsetto from Barry Gibb, and it exemplifies the advanced recording techniques the Bee Gees were well-versed in: “Too Much Heaven” utilizes 27 vocal tracks for nine different layers of three-part harmonies from the Gibb brothers. 

“Too Much Heaven” was originally the group’s contribution to the Music for UNICEF fund, promising the royalties from the track to UNICEF. As of 2022, the song had raised over $10 million for UNICEF. The Bee Gees performed it at the Music for UNICEF Concert: A Gift of Song (yes, they are lip-syncing).

I’m a little weird about my obsession with the Bee Gees, as a Bee Gees documentary inspired my entire undergraduate thesis. I could go on and on about the Australian-born trio of brothers and their songwriting prowess and multi-genre success—but I won’t. Instead, I will highly recommend the HBO documentary The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (2020). 

Fun fact: Chicago’s horn section was featured on this track. We talked about Chicago a few weeks back. 

2. “Le Freak” by CHIC

A staple funk and disco track released in 1978, “Le Freak” was CHIC’s first number-one hit, and was at the top of the disco charts for seven weeks. “Le Freak” was also the first single released from the band’s second album C'est Chic (1978).

I wrote about this track in my thesis, including it in my analysis of self-referential disco songs that solidified disco culture in the American mainstream (outside of the underground dance scenes the genre grew up in). “Le Freak”’s dominating presence on the Billboard charts indicates disco’s chokehold on the music industry of the late 1970s. Billboard named “Le Freak” the number-three song of 1979. 

What makes “Le Freak” such a stand-out song from the era, besides being a great dance track, is how it incorporates disco into the lyrics, with disco name-drops like the famous Studio 54. “Le Freak” also presented disco as a dance craze for everyone, pointing to a level of popularity the genre was reaching across the U.S. There’s plenty of disco lore attached to “Le Freak,” but my favorite fun fact is the original lyrics opening the track were “Fuck off!” instead of “Freak out!” 

3. “My Life” by Billy Joel

“My Life” was the first single from Billy Joel’s 1978 album 52nd Street, and would peak right here at number three on Billboard’s Hot 100. 52nd Street followed the success of Joel’s breakthrough 1977 album The Stranger and won two Grammy awards for Album of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. The 1978 album was also Joel’s first LP to top the Billboard album charts.

This track highlights Joel’s storytelling lyricism. “My Life,” being a keyboard-driven pop-rock classic, includes hints of a jazz-rock sound, a trademark from 52nd Street that led to apt comparisons between Joel and Elton John. Similar to “Too Much Heaven,” members of the band Chicago joined Joel on backing vocals. The opening riff to “My Life” that follows listeners throughout the song is probably the most recognizable part of the track, save for the chorus. The song, while uptempo and infectious, features lyrics that are defiant, bordering on defensive, though still jubilant. The asserted independence and individuality feel characteristic of an NYC attitude: you do your thing, I’ll do mine (“you can speak your mind / but not on my time”). 

We’ve reached a point in our LWT time traveling during which so many of the charting artists have had an indelible impact on the music industry. The Piano Man is one of those artists who, like many LWT appearances before him, has cemented himself as one of America’s best solo acts with a string of hits and albums that defined an era. Similar to icons like Stevie Wonder, Elton John, or Aretha Franklin, listing Joel’s accolades is not nearly as powerful as just listening to his music for yourself. 

4. “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” by Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond

“You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” with Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond peaked at number one on the Hot 100 for two weeks in December of 1978, and was still kicking at the start of 1979. It was the third number-one hit for both singers.  

As a song mourning the change in love between two people, the track has an incredibly different tone from what we just listened to. “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” is a piano ballad with Streisand’s vocals leading the way, and in moments it feels like she’s more accompanied by Diamond than dueted. In all fairness, it’s hard to make a ballad with Streisand on it anything but a Streisand song. First-time listeners to this duet would likely never have guessed it was a Diamond song to begin with. 

“You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” was written by Neil Diamond with the Bergman songwriting duo. Diamond released it as a solo on his 1977 album I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight, and Streisand covered it on her 1978 album Songbird. After popular makeshift duets were made by radio stations splicing the two solo recordings together, Diamond and Streisand teamed up in the studio for an official duet of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” While their voices complement each other very well—the song suits them both—the format of the song as a duet makes a bit more sense in this context; There aren’t many moments in “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” where the duet seems necessary or intentional, save for when they sing together around the 2 minute 30-second mark. 

Diamond and Streisand are both musical legends in their own right and together created something pretty special. Watch the pair perform the duet at the Grammy’s in 1980 with this video from Facebook. Thanks, Facebook, I guess. 

5. “I Love the Nightlife” by Alicia Bridges

Alicia Bridges’s “I Love the Nightlife” from her debut album Alicia Bridges (1978) peaked right here at number five on the Hot 100. A celebratory disco track in the same vein as “Le Freak,” this was Bridges’s big hit of her career. For all my disco talk, I hadn’t heard  “I Love the Nightlife” before. 

On “I Love the Nightlife,” Bridges almost sounds like she’s trying to imitate a popular vocal styling, one featured on disco songs at the time. While the song may fall a little short of a home run in that effort, “I Love the Nightlife” was a very popular track with international charting success. In the context of 1979, “I Love the Nightlife” feels reminiscent of the plug-in disco hits from the end of the 1970s that utilized the reliable disco rhythm to ensure a hit. While the track certainly maintains a reputation as a disco track, it may be unfair of me to categorize and critique the song as such; The producer on the track, as well as Bridges, saw “I Love the Nightlife” as an R&B and soul hit, not a disco one. 

Like many disco songs that came out of the 1970s, “I Love the Nightlife” would go on to have a legacy within the gay community. Besides Bridges being gay herself, the song was used in the 1994 Australian comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which revolves around drag performance. The popularity of the track in the film led to it being re-released and remixed. 

6. “Sharing the Night Together” by Dr. Hook

Dr. Hook’s recording of “Sharing the Night Together” peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at number six. The soft-rock yacht twang with a touch of R&B proved to be a cross-genre hit, also charting on Billboard’s Easy Listening and Hot Country Singles. “Sharing the Night Together” was originally recorded in 1976 by two different artists before Dr. Hook recorded their version, which was released as a single from their album Pleasure & Pain (1978). 

To be completely candid, I had never heard of the band Dr. Hook before this week. Dr. Hook—formerly known as Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show—was a consistent easy listening hit-maker in the 1970s. By the time we come across Dr. Hook in 1979, the band is towards the tail-end of their run; Dr. Hook would have three more international hits before their last in 1980. The story of Dr. Hook is full of really funny and interesting lore, but the most fascinating to me is that they would often collaborate with Shel Silverstein, performing songs by the poet along with their original work. Unfortunately, “Sharing the Night Together” was not one of those songs. 

Fun fact: T-Pain recorded a cover of this song for his 2023 album On Top of the Covers. Watch his live performances of some of the tracks from the album here (I’ve got it rigged to start with him singing “Tennessee Whiskey,” but all the covers are great). 

7. “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People

What a time to be alive when “Y.M.C.A.” was a brand-spanking-new hit on the charts. “Y.M.C.A.” was the sole single from the group’s third album Cruisin’ (1978), and that’s all they needed. The hit peaked at number two on the Hot 100, kept from the top by two other disco tracks, “Le Freak” and Rod Stewart’s infamous “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” While “Y.M.C.A.” didn’t top the pop charts in the U.S., it did in multiple countries abroad. 

With a relentless beat and stand-out horns, “Y.M.C.A.” was a massive dance hit, and remains as such. As for the iconic dance itself, exactly 45 years ago this week the sports-arena-singalong-staple dance originated on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand.” On the Jan. 6, 1979 episode, Clark showed Village People lead singer Victor Willis the show’s audience dancing along to the chorus. The band promptly included it in their routine, and you can see the moment it all happened here. 

“Y.M.C.A.” is at the center of many pop culture and historical moments, breaking records of people dancing together and even being included as a wake-up song for NASA’s Space Shuttle. As for the contents of the lyrics, there’s certainly a thesis somewhere about the actual YMCA of the 1970s, the men who gathered there, and what they got up to. 

Perhaps my favorite commentary on the track comes from the Library of Congress, which, in  preserving the track in the National Recording Registry, noted that “Y.M.C.A.”’s enduring popularity was “evidence that, despite the naysayers, disco has never truly died.” Hear, hear. 

8. “Hold the Line” by Toto

With “Hold the Line,” we go from disco back to rock in 1979; the in-playlist genre shifts have become one of my favorite parts about doing this project, specifically when examining the Hot 100, as these playlists act as a microcosm for the various genres that together created the sonic atmosphere of the seventies. 

The debut single from Toto’s debut studio album, “Hold the Line” was certainly the way to start a rock career. “Hold the Line” is one of my favorite classic rock songs (I cheat and often include it in my ’80s playlists), but its break-out popularity for the band speaks for itself. “Hold the Line” would peak at number five on the Billboard Hot 100. 

As described by the band’s drummer Jeff Porcaro, “Hold the Line” blends a heavy and hard rock sound with a Sly and the Family Stone groove (see the Sly track “Hot Fun in the Summertime” for the acknowledged inspiration). The result is effortless; I’ve been listening to and loving this song for years and didn’t know “Hold the Line” was the intentional meshing of different musical stylings until now. You probably know the Grammy-winning, multi-genre Toto from their hit “Africa,” but I challenge you to widen your horizons (not too far, just to “Hold the Line” and one of their other hits, “Rosanna”).  

9. “(Our Love) Don’t Throw It All Away” by Andy Gibb

The Gibb dynasty continues on our LWT installment with this genre-whiplash from “Hold the Line.” A soft rock, falsetto-ridden ballad from Andy Gibb, “(Our Love) Don’t Throw It All Away” peaked at number nine on the Hot 100, part of a stretch of hits for the young singer. 

Andy, the youngest of the Australian Gibb brothers, launched a solo career after his brothers' massive success in the Bee Gees 1977. Unlike the Bee Gees, Andy started out recording disco hits, and his first three singles all hit number one with a string of Top 10s (including this one) that followed. 

“(Our Love) Don’t Throw It All Away” was written and vocally backed by Andy’s older brother Barry, who originally wrote and recorded the track during the famed Saturday Night Fever sessions. The Bee Gees’s recording wouldn’t hit the market until October of 1979, but Andy (with some help from Barry) released his version in September of 1978 as the third single from his album Studio Dancing. The track fits Andy’s voice well, just as tender and soft as his vocals. 

Despite a strong start, Andy’s success was not as enduring as his brothers’, and a potential comeback with the Bee Gees was cut short. A cocaine addiction led to Andy’s tragic death at the age of 30 in 1988. If you want to cry, here’s the Bee Gees performing the song in concert in 1997, mixing their passed brother’s vocals with theirs. 

10. “Ooh Baby Baby” by Linda Ronstadt 

“Ooh Baby Baby” was the second single released on Linda Ronstadt’s popular album Living in the U.S.A. (1978). I am obsessed with the saxophone. 

Ronstadt’s hit was a cover of the 1965 classic by The Miracles, co-written and produced by Smokey Robinson. While many artists have covered the track—my personal favorite being Ella Fitzgerald—it’s fascinating to hear the multi-genre legend known for country and rock on a staple soul track. Ronstadt’s cover and its popularity is a lesson on multi-genre appeal and chart history, the track and artist combined being a meshing of genres and the single emerging on the pop charts victorious. Further, Ronstadt’s “Ooh Baby Baby” also charted on soul, country, and Easy Listening charts. 

“Ooh Baby Baby”’s listenability and opportunity to allow a voice to shine makes it a perfect song to cover, and Rolling Stone has included The Miracles’s original on their list of 500 greatest songs of all time. Ronstadt has an incredible voice with a lot of character and texture, even in its softness, that is brilliant on “Ooh Baby Baby.” Like when any popular artist covers a hit song, it’s great to hear Ronstadt’s take on this classic.  

Here’s a clip of Ronstadt singing the hit in a medley with Smokey Robinson on a 1983 television special celebrating 25 years of Motown Records. 

Check out the issue of Billboard I used for this playlist here!

Tune in next week for another time travel adventure into music history. Thanks for groovin’ with me :)

~Annie

This marks the last LWT edition set in 1973 because, in the new year, I’ll be starting a new time jump with Last Week Tonight (45 Years Ago), where we’ll be investigating the top hits from 1979. So, for now, we’re bidding farewell to 1973. We’ve got some iconic vocalists in the goodbye line-up, so I really hope you enjoy it because this might be my favorite playlist to date. Follow along on Spotify here. 

The Playlist

1. “Living for the City” by Stevie Wonder

“Living for the City” is yet another stand-out track of the ’70s coming from Stevie Wonder’s groundbreaking and award-winning album Innervisions. This track was the second single from the album, the first being “Higher Ground” which appeared in the first LWT installment. “Living for the City” peaked at number eight on the Hot 100, and of course, topped the Hot Soul Singles.  

“Living for the City” is one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs, not just because of the flawless vocals and incredible hook, but because the arrangement is phenomenal. The synth on this track is great and the horns could not be better, but what most notably sets “Living for the City” apart is the minute-break of dialogue during which a young Black man arrives in New York, is promptly framed for a crime and sent to prison for 10 years. This moment in the song, while not a tonal shift from the message of the lyrics, grounds the track’s uptempo rhythm in the reality of racism and injustice in America. In this way, “Living for the City” is a feat of both instrumental and political ingenuity, uniquely blending sounds of the street into a recording mix (a newer technique), and inserting commentary not just in lyrics but direct dialogue and action. 

2. “Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)” by Aretha Franklin

“Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)” was originally recorded by none other than Stevie Wonder in 1967, but he wouldn’t release it on an album until 1977. In the meantime, the Queen of Soul took “Until You Come Back to Me” to the charts. Aretha Franklin’s rendition, which was the lead single from her 20th album Let Me in Your Life, topped the soul charts and got to number three on the Hot 100. 

While “Until You Come Back to Me” starts with that piano opening, it quickly jumps into a steady drum-driven groove with horn embellishments. A lot like “Living for the City,” this track is equal parts breath-taking vocals and remarkable instrumental arrangements. The quality of production across the arrangements is thanks to legendary producer Arif Martin, who did the horn and string arrangements on this track. “Until You Come Back to Me” is full of sound, but the arrangement still allows Franklin’s voice to effortlessly move and shine through. 

This is the Queen of Soul’s first LWT appearance. Like other music titans who have passed through these humble blurbs, Aretha Franklin’s legacy is near-impossible to adequately summarize. Of her many awards, one that stands out to me is being the first female inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As a critically acclaimed, highly-awarded, and commercially successful recording artist, Franklin started something for women—specifically Black women—in the music industry that paved the way for generations of artists to come. 

3. “Come Get to This” by Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye’s voice just does something else. When I grow up and am a better writer, I might be able to encompass the sheer power of his vocals, but today, all I know is that whenever a song by Marvin Gaye starts to play, all I can do is hold my breath because I know something special is about to happen. 

Just like Wonder’s track at the start of this playlist, “Come Get to This” came from a 1973 landmark album of Gaye’s (and one that initially appeared in the first LWT installment). The second single from Gaye’s sex-positive and sex-forward Let’s Get It On, this song followed the massive success of the LP’s iconic title track. “Come Get to This” peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100 and number three on the soul chart.

There’s a lot of Motown influence on this track in particular, and it occupies a space between pop and soul throughout the song that has a real ’60s Motown Sound throwback thing going on. Over time, Gaye would play with different styles and genres when performing this track, but I appreciate his homage to the foundational soul sounds of his roots on the original recording of “Come Get to This.” 

If you’re new here, I love live performance videos. So, without further ado, here’s a video of Gaye performing “Come Get to This” on Soul Train.

4. “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)” by The Staple Singers

The second single from the soul and gospel group’s album Be What You Are, “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)” was a gold-record hit for the Staple Singers. The track fared much better than the first single released—the album’s title track—and “If You’re Ready” topped the soul chart for three weeks and peaked at number nine on the Hot 100.

What first stood out to me about “If You’re Ready” was the grit in the lead vocals. The track is a little more folksy and uptempo than what I’m used to from the Staple Singers but still manages to sound rooted in early R&B and soul. The choral gospel harmonies the Staple Singers perfected are one of the only aspects of this track that make it a “classic” Staple Singers song to me. 

In comparison to some of the other massive arrangements we’ve come across, “If You’re Ready” has some moments where it strips those instrumentals back; One of the best moments in this song is at the 2:03 minute mark when the vocals cut out and the instruments slowly build on each other into a great crescendo at 2:43. “If You’re Ready” also joins the ranks of our songs with political messaging buried into the groove: If you listen closely, the lyrics are politically-charged, calling for “No economical exploitation / And no political domination.” 

This is the Staple Singers' first LWT appearance, and I hope we get to listen to them more. If you aren’t familiar, they’re a gem of a soul and gospel group. 

5. “Stoned to the Bone” by James Brown

“Stoned to the Bone” is a James Brown I am happy to bring to LWT, especially considering his last LWT appearance wasn’t nearly as successful (sorry “Sexy, Sexy, Sexy” fans out there). Released as a two-part single from Brown’s 1973 album The Payback, “Stoned to the Bone” peaked at number four on this chart and broke into the top 60 on the Hot 100. 

The Payback was Brown’s 37th studio album (woah) and was originally supposed to be the soundtrack for the Blaxploitation film Hell Up in Harlem. The producers rejected the album, and it went on to be one of the high points in Brown’s recording career and is considered a foundational album for funk music. 

“Stoned to the Bone” is a track that is drenched in funk, and while a tad lyrically repetitive, that inherent cyclical groove makes this song unique and builds the overall character of The Payback. I’ve included the 10-minute version from the ’73 LP instead of the single because I thought it would be interesting to contextualize the track in The Payback, as a treat. If you want to be true to this project, though, go ahead and listen to Part 1 (it’s just the first 3-ish minutes of the long one). 

6. “River” by Joe Simon

“River” is a bit of a mystery to me. What I can’t seem to figure out about “River” is why, despite the traction on the charts, the track wasn’t one of the big tracks from Joe Simon’s 1973 album, The Power of Joe Simon. “River” was included in the 2000 reissue of Simon’s eighth studio album, but this song was originally released in 1973 only as an A-side single, not on the original release of The Power of Joe Simon. 

“River” is a smooth and gospel-inspired song, with lyrics that are meant to unite everyone (like its titular river) and flute embellishments and choral backings. The soul singer born in Louisiana started as a gospel artist before turning to recording secular music in 1959, so it makes sense that, more than a decade into his performing career, there are hints of that influence in his music. 

Despite being tied to legendary recording duo Gamble & Huff, Simon feels a little overlooked in the history of blues and soul in comparison to some of the other major artists on this list today. When investigating the sonic spaces of the past, however, Simon certainly influenced the soul sound of the ’70s and beyond; Between 1964 and 1981, Simon charted 51 pop and soul hits, including “Power of Love” from The Powre of Joe Simon, cementing himself as a consistent presence on the U.S. charts. 

7. “This Time I’m Gone For Good” by Bobby “Blue” Bland

The lead single from Bobby “Blue” Bland’s critically acclaimed blues and soul LP His California Album, “This Time I’m Gone For Good” is bluesy, filled with soul, and that guitar on there hints at rock. Bland’s voice is full of so much emotion, grit, and soul—his vocals, and this track, are anything but bland. 

His California Album came towards the end of Bland’s career as a critical figure in the blues and soul scene in the ’50s and ’60s. Bland was a frequenter and staple of the famous Beale Street as part of the “Beale Streeters”, which was a collective of aspiring R&B musicians in Memphis that included the legendary B.B. King. When Bland was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, Bland was described as “second in stature only to BB King as a product of Memphis's Beale Street blues scene.”

Bland’s vocal ability has earned him spots in the rankings of best vocalists of all time, was inducted into various halls of fame, and earned a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. While he may not be as well-known today, his legacy can be heard in the music that has grown out of the rhythm and blues. I think Bland might be one of my favorite artist finds from LWT. 

8. “Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up” by Barry White

Oh, Barry White. I’ve provided disclaimers for White’s song openings when I’ve played his stuff on the radio, and somehow in this moment, I’m at a loss for words. 

“Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up” is classic Barry White, both in how he opens the track and in the style of the song’s arrangements and lyrical themes. “Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up” was the lead single from White’s second studio album Stone Gon’, and he let us all know real quick what he was about. Impressively, White wrote and produced the track along with recording it, and the song peaked at number two on the soul chart and number seven on the Hot 100. 

“Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up” features classic vocal harmonizing that I can identify as White’s sound the same way we all know exactly what Bono sounds like. There’s a smoothed-over groovy sound with White’s vocals on the track, but it’s paired with an invigorating arrangement featuring enlivening drums and cinematic strings. 

Interestingly, I’ve seen Stone Gon’ classified as not just soul and rock, but also disco, a genre that was just beginning to get airtime in 1973. Given White’s dominance in the emerging disco scene, this classification makes sense. To me, “Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up” doesn’t sound too far off from White’s early disco hit “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” from June of 1974 which features a genre-signature Latin-ized hustle beat. 

9. “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” by Gladys Knight & The Pips

The faves are back with a song that isn’t “Midnight Train to Georgia”! Don’t get me wrong, “Midnight Train to Georgia” will always be one of my favorite songs, we’ve just heard it quite a few times since our very first LWT installment, and it’s about time we let Gladys Knight & The Pips sing a different tune. 

“I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” was the third single from the group’s album Imagination, following in the footsteps of the landmark hit that was the album’s second single, “Midnight Train to Georgia.” Compared to that track, “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” is more drum-driven, with a consistent and pulsing cadence that brings a funk feel to the song. The rhythm and horns in particular are really something, and in a couple of moments when The Pips come in strong, the track reminds me of The Temptations’s “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone.” In many ways, “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” is almost a completely different sonic landscape than “Midnight Train to Georgia.” I bring up these comparisons because, especially in the context of their much-discussed hit, “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” demonstrates Gladys Knight & The Pip’s range and enduring popularity; "I've Got to Use My Imagination" topped the Hot Soul Singles and peaked at number four on the Hot 100. 

Fun fact: Bobby Bland famously covered this song on His California Album. Listen to his bluesy rendition here. 

10. “Livin’ for You” by Al Green

I couldn’t ask for a better artist to round out 2023 with. The title track of Al Green’s 1973 album, “Livin’ for You” would be Green’s fourth single to top the Hot Soul Singles chart, and it also broke the top 20 on the Hot 100. 

Livin’ for You was Green’s seventh album, coming after a string of career-defining albums like Gets Next to You (1971) and Let’s Stay Together (1972). The album is perhaps a more modest showing in the grand scheme of Green’s discography, but “Livin’ for You” on this chart demonstrates Green’s consistent success as a soul icon. And, all that being said, Livin’ for You was still certified gold, and “Livin’ for You” is considered one of Green’s hits. 

This is Green’s first LWT appearance and I’m sure it will not be the last. Green is one of my favorite vocalists of all time, with a profound impact on soul music with hits like “Let’s Stay Together” and “Tired of Being Alone.” Like the Queen of Soul, Green is decorated in accolades and is a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner (plus 10 other Grammys), BMI Icon, and Kennedy Center Honor recipient. 

Even with its string arrangement, “Livin’ for You” is a little more understated than some of the other tracks on this playlist, but I think it fades us out of this week’s sonic trip to the ’70s well. We started out living for the city, now we’re living just for each other. 

Check out the issue of Billboard I used for this playlist here!

Tune in next week for another time travel adventure into music history. Thanks for groovin’ with me this year, I’ll see you in 2024 :) 

~Annie

Annie’s Picks 

• Theater Camp, dir. Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman (2023)

I saw this movie three times this summer, twice in theaters. This movie is objectively hilarious, but as a reformed theater kid I got a very personal kick out of the whole thing. With all the Barbenheimer buzz this summer I think Theater Camp got a little overlooked, which is a shame because it is truly a gem. Yes, the theatre references are niche-perfection if you get them, but the movie makes as much fun of the theatre community as it caters to it (in fact, it probably does more of the former). While Noah Glavin steals the show as the underappreciated and absurdly talented camp technician, the kid’s performances are worth seeing the movie for. Theater Camp was a surprise favorite for me this year, and if you need a buddy to watch a movie where the premise revolves around theater kids, I volunteer as tribute. 

• The Empire Strikes Back, dir. George Lucas (1980) 

While the fanfare of Barbenheimer Day—dressing up for both films with my friends, getting drinks in between—made for an excellent viewing experience, I think my favorite “in-theater” experience of 2023 was seeing The Empire Strikes Back at the AMC. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back was re-released in theaters, and I went to go see it at the Georgetown AMC. There were maybe 10 of us in the theater that night, and it was awesome. I love Star Wars and had never seen an original trilogy film on the big screen before. Watching The Empire Strikes Back in a huge theater with surround sound (we come to this place for magic) and people who were into it was really special.2 Also, it’s the best Star Wars film, no question.

• “Jury Duty,” on Prime Video (2023- )

What convinced me to start “Jury Duty”? Clips of James Marsden in it, of course. And not only was he fantastic in the series, as was the entire cast of misfits thrown together in “Jury Duty” (shout out Ronald). “Jury Duty” is a Truman Show-style series where everyone is an actor except one guy—the aforementioned Ronald—who has no idea what’s actually going on. If you like to laugh, or smile, or even feel an ounce of joy, you should watch this show. While Theater Camp was my film gem of 2023, “Jury Duty” is my TV gem. This was so quirky and fantastic, and I loved it so much more than I thought I would. As I’m writing this, I feel the urge to watch it again.  

• Young River Phoenix double feature: Stand by Me, dir. Rob Reiner (1986), and Running on Empty, dir. Sidney Lumet (1988)

This double feature was part of an emotional group viewing my friends put ourselves through. If you are not familiar with River Phoenix’s filmography, this is your sign that you should be getting on that ASAP. Both of these films are stand-out coming-of-age stories and document boyhood (and childhood in general) in unique and powerful ways. Plus Stand by Me is based on a Stephen King novella from his collection Different Seasons, which brought us another great film adaptation: one of my favorite movies ever, The Shawshank Redemption (1994). The tragedy of River Phoenix’s early death is only made more heartbreaking by the talent he demonstrated at such a young age—he was only 14 years old when Stand by Me started filming. Both of these movies are great, just bring a box of tissues. 

• “The Summer I Turned Pretty” on Prime Video (2022- )

My friends and I started watching the first season as a joke in May, and we ended the summer obsessed. Is “The Summer I Turned Pretty” the best thing you’ll watch any time soon? No, probably not. However, it is the show that will make you ask things like How can one girl do so much damage to a New England family with a beach house? and Why do we have to listen to Chris Briney sing like that? and Did they use the entire show budget on music? (Why didn’t they play “Snow on the Beach” when it snowed on the beach??) I eat the ridiculous teen sibling drama on this show UP for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Also, if you’re a “Vampire Diaries” fan, you just gotta watch this.

Amanda’s add: If you want a “TSITP” winter dupe, check out “My Life With the Walter Boys” on Netflix. While there are technically eight adopted brothers in “My Life,” only two of them form the love triangle with the main girl, who is, of course, their live-in family friend.

• Almost Famous, dir. Cameron Crowe (2000), and “Daisy Jones & the Six” on Prime Video (2023)

I’m putting these two together because they kinda did the same thing for me this year, which was fuel my deep desire to be a rock band reporter. And also no one can convince me that Billy from “Daisy Jones” wasn’t named after Billy Crudup, who starred as THE guy in Almost Famous. If you care about the music of the 1970s at all, I suggest you treat yourself to watching Almost Famous; it is a fantastic ride, Kate Hudson and Billy Crudup are at the top of their game, and Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Lester Bangs which is just… yes. Once you watch that movie, start “Daisy Jones & the Six” because that show has everything: the vocals (ft. Elvis Presley’s granddaughter), the costumes, the original songs, the setting (Laurel Canyon in the ’70s, are you kidding me?) and a plot that is PLOTTING. If Daisy Jones & the Six ever go on tour, you best believe I will be making some unwise financial decisions.

Veronica’s Picks

• “The Bear,” on Hulu (2022- )

COUSIN! If you haven’t watched “The Bear” yet, you most likely have seen plenty of memes of Jeremy Allen White looking stressed as hell in a kitchen. A comedy-drama following the prodigy chef Carmy as he tries to save his late brother’s Chicago restaurant, this series is full of delectable acting, writing, and food. And lots of yelling. “Yes, chef” has been permanently added to my vocabulary, and my love for these characters has been permanently added to my heart.

• “Fleabag,” on Prime Video (2016-2019) 

Based on a one-woman show of the same name, “Fleabag” is a comedy-drama series that follows a woman only known to us as Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge)  as she learns to navigate life after the death of her best friend. Through consistent fourth-wall breaks, Fleabag narrates her life for us with her wittingly dry humor as she attempts to find footing in her job, and her relationships whether they be romantic, sexual, or familial. At the end of the day, you should watch because she’s so real. 

Amanda’s add: If you make it to Season 2, I have two words for you: hot priest.

• “The Golden Bachelor,” on ABC (2023)

A refreshing addition to “The Bachelor” franchise, “The Golden Bachelor” follows 72-year-old Gerry Turner as he attempts to find the second love of his life after the passing of his wife six years ago. The show has the traditional structure of “The Bachelor,” but its departure from centering the love stories of younger adults is extremely impactful. It shows that youthfulness and a jovial nature in love is not restricted by age. To read my full review of  the show, click here.  

• Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse, dir. Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, and Kemp Powers (2023), available on Netflix

Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse follows our friendly neighborhood Spiderman, Miles Morales, over a year after the events of the first film in the trilogy. We see the return of Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman,  Peter B. Parker, and the introduction of other Spider-People living in a Spider Society. The Spider Society works to ensure that all “canon events” happen in each spider-person’s life and universe to keep these universes stable. Encountering a villain created by the events of the first film, Miles and his fellow Spider-people come together to defeat this multiversal threat. However, these “canon events” become contested by Miles, leading to another major conflict within the plot. I won’t spoil it, but this is a film that you have to see. The enticing plot on top of the alluring animation makes this an incredibly enjoyable watch, and it's arguably the best multiverse movie out there.

• Barbie, dir. Greta Gerwig (2023), available on Max  

I had to put Barbie on the list for three reasons: the set and hair design, the soundtrack, and Ryan Gosling exclaiming “SUBLIME!” in the film. Margot Robbie leading the star-studded cast, the Barbeheimer effect, and Gerwig’s direction all helped position Barbie as one of—if not the—most highly anticipated movies of the year. The movie follows “Stereotypical Barbie” becoming disillusioned upon discovering what the real world is like outside of Barbie Land. Although more surface-level and white-women-centric in its analysis on what it’s like to be a woman in the real world, Barbie is a solid movie that is guaranteed to make you laugh and immediately add more pink to your closet. 

• “Big Brother Reindeer Games,” on CBS (2023)

 “Big Brother Reindeer Games” (BBRG)  is a six-episode series where nine former legends from “Big Brother”’s past return for some more excellent social strategy, competitions, and backstabbing. But this time, there’s a little more holiday cheer, of course. Unlike the regular format of “Big Brother,” “BBRG” utilizes a series of competitions per episode which determine who stays and who goes, as opposed to houseguests voting to decide who gets evicted from the Big Brother House. Although this spin-off is more competition-based, the types of competitions on this show (in addition to the icons playing) fostered some excellent social strategy and drama that have been lacking from recent seasons of “Big Brother.” If your version of a holly jolly Christmas is some good old-fashioned reality TV backstabbing, tap into “BBRG.”

Amanda’s Picks

• “Yellowjackets,” on Hulu (2021- )

“Yellowjackets” has the kind of gore that I hate mixed with the psych thriller, survival epic, and searing commentary on girlhood that I love. Split between two timelines, the show follows a high school girls’ soccer team whose plane goes down on the way to a championship, stranding them in the Canadian wilderness for 19 months. In the present, a handful of the surviving women, now in their forties, start receiving cryptic messages that threaten to expose their secret: pushed to the brink of starvation, the girls killed and ate one another in the woods. Though “Yellowjackets” might be described as “Lord of the Flies, but with girls,” it’s really so much more than that. Its true horror is not the gore or the cannibalism, but the fact that these women returned to the dullness of suburbia, as though none of it happened in the first place.

• May December, dir. Todd Haynes (2023), available on Netflix

Psychological thriller May December follows a TV actress (Natalie Portman) who spends a week studying a soft-spoken sex offender (Julianne Moore), now married to the man she groomed twenty years earlier (Charles Melton). Loosely based on the story of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau, the film explores and exposes the insidiousness of white women’s victim complexes and has genuine concern for its male victims of color. It critiques the way that the media mines real people for their scandalous stories yet abandons victims once the shock value wears off. Silver screen vets Moore and Portman deliver stunning performances but they’re still outshined by Riverdale alum Melton, my bet for an Acting win at the next Academy Awards. Read my full review here.

• “The Afterparty,” on Apple TV (2022)

“The Afterparty” is a Clue-like whodunnit with a twist: every episode is shot from the point of view of a different character, who each have a motive and a role to play in the death of their former high school classmate. The episodes are shot through alternating film styles that fit each character’s personality––we get a rom com from a hopeless romantic, a musical from a wannabe rapper, an animated special from the art teacher, and a spy flick from her divorced husband, to name a few. Eagle-eyed viewers are sure to be engaged by the subtle differences in each actor’s performance per episode, as they attempt to piece together the mystery alongside Tiffany Haddish’s cheeky Detective Danner.

• X, dir. Ti West (2022), available on Max

I’m the kind of person that shrieks into the pillow when there’s too much blood on screen, and during this movie, I constantly covered my eyes and had my boyfriend tell me when it was okay to look. X is a slasher film about a group of people who want to make a porno at an old couple’s farm in the 1970s, but things start to get bloody when the old couple realizes what’s going on in their backyard. In an excellent twist of casting, Mia Goth stars both as the film’s young actress protagonist Maxine and as Pearl, the old woman gone murderous. X is gory, raunchy, and gratuitous––it’s also got something serious to say about women’s self-worth, fame, and ageism. After all, they probably would have avoided all that murder if they’d just let granny do a scene.

2013

• Lorde, Pure Heroine

I think I’ll be hearing the intro to “Ribs” in the waiting room of the afterlife. Lorde’s debut album stands the test of time in capturing exactly the feeling of growing up in the suburbs: the turmoil of your teenage years, dancing and crying in the same breath. This is the kind of album that has transportative power. When I listen to Pure Heroine, no time has passed at all –– I’m still 13 in my parents’ house, with my wire ear buds and my iPod Touch. Obama is president and everyone’s getting on this new thing called Instagram. My crops are watered, my skin is clear, and I have not yet known the touch of sorrow.

• Kanye West, Yeezus

Rolling Stone called Kanye’s sixth studio album “the darkest, most extreme music Kanye has ever cooked up” upon its release in 2013. A boundary-breaking mix of electro hip-hop and “industrial gear-grind,” Yeezus was Ye’s most experimental release yet. Ten years ago, the album was praised both for its eccentricity and its provocative lyricism. Now, it’s a bit difficult to enjoy songs like “Black Skinhead,” “New Slaves,” and “Blood on the Leaves,” which samples Billie Holiday’s protest ballad “Strange Fruit,” without recalling Ye’s anti-Blackness, antisemitism, and unequivocal support for former Misogynist-in-Chief Donald Trump.

Although Ye’s politics aged like milk, I’d argue that Yeezus remains a testament to his true artistic genius. As a cultural document, there is value in its most polarizing aspects, especially in the context of what Ye has become. In 100 years, maybe our grandkids will look back, listen, and think, damn, some people really believed this.

• Arctic Monkeys, AM

I have a playlist called 2014 tumblr girl shit and this entire album is on it. The chill electronic mad sounds of Arctic Monkey’s AM remain their magnum opus after all these years. Representing a departure from the higher energy hits like “Fluorescent Adolescent” and “505,” which were released in the aughts, AM is a simmering, seductive record that sometimes sound like it’s playing on vinyl in another room, wafting from the upstairs window of someone’s Venice Beach house in the heat of the summer, 2013.

• Sky Ferreira, Night Time, My Time

Sky Ferreira seemed like one of those 2010s pop stars that was going somewhere… but she never went. Her debut album Night Time, My Time now registers as a musical forebear to the sad girl bedroom pop by the likes of Billie Eilish and Clairo. The album is concerned with teenage embarrassment and unrequited love, and the production at times has the quality of singing underwater. It’s one of the most honest indie pop records I’ve heard. Ferreira was only 21 years old when Night Time, My Time debuted, and had already faced a string of personal and publicized issues, which makes the record’s genuine maturity even more remarkable.

• Childish Gambino, Because the Internet

Annie writes: This album may have come out in 2013, but we were all losing our minds to “3005.” And whenever that track (or “IV. Sweatpants”) gets queued up today, 10 years later, I can’t help but get into it. Because the Internet was Childish Gambino’s sophomore studio album, and it propelled him to stardom. The musical alter ego of Donald Glover, Gambino received Grammy noms for Best Rap Album and Best Rap Performance after its release, as well as a place in every Gen Z/Millennial’s heart with 2010s house party staples “3005” and “IV. Sweatpants.” Since then, Gambino produced more decade-defining music: The R&B-inspired funk in “Awaken, My Love!” (2016)  included the Grammy-winning hit “Redbone” and the (also Grammy-winning) politically potent “This is America.” Glover has proved to be a creative force beyond music, with writing, acting, directing, and producing credits on shows like “30 Rock,” “Community,” and “Atlanta.” And since we mentioned Ye earlier, I’d be remiss not to link Glover’s 2018 SNL sketch “A Kanye Place.”

Childish Gambino has had a monumental decade since Because the Internet, and based on 3.15.20 and other recent creative projects, I have a really good feeling about the next 10. 

• Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City

Annie writes: I really loved this album when it came out. Does it beat Vampire Weekend’s eponymous debut in 2008? Personally, I don’t think so: “Oxford Comma” and “A-Punk” go too hard for that. Be that as it may, Modern Vampires of the City was a huge and successful step in Vampire Weekend’s musical development, and produced some great songs like “Unbelievers,” “Diane Young,” and, my personal favorite, “Hannah Hunt.” The LP was Vampire Weekend’s second consecutive album to top the U.S. charts and won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album. Rolling Stone ranked it at number 328 in its 500 greatest albums of all time. If I had to pick an artist who introduced me to the 2010s alternative sound, I think I’d have to give most of the credit to Vampire Weekend. So thanks, Vampire Weekend, for making me like this. 

• Beyoncé, BEYONCÉ

Veronica writes: The world stopped, and in fact did not carry on after Beyoncé released her self-titled album on December 13th, 2013. Beyoncé objectively changed the music industry upon release of this album as it set the new standard to release new music on Fridays instead of Tuesdays. A deeply personal album exploring romantic, parental, and self-love, BEYONCÉ explores a new era both sonically and personally. The epitome of a trendsetter, the release and overall quality of self-titled demonstrates that in the realm of being That girl, Beyoncé has always been one of one. I mean hey, you can’t spell Beyoncé without the number one. 

2014

• Lana Del Rey, Ultraviolence

“He hit me and it felt like a kiss.” Lana Del Rey’s image was already controversial by the time her sophomore album dropped in 2014, but it was after this release that she was accused of glorifying domestic violence. And although Lana’s politics haven’t really improved (lest we forget the much-memed tribute to Prince Phillip and Queen Elizabeth’s tempestuous marriage, the “question for the culture” Tweetstorm, or the cringeworthy Blue Banisters song about being a Black Lives Matter protestor), Ultraviolence remains culturally significant. It gave us masterpieces like “West Coast,” “Brooklyn Baby,” and “Pretty When You Cry,” and succeeded tremendously in creating and maintaining an atmospheric longing for a bygone New York.

• Taylor Swift, 1989

Taylor Swift is the undisputed queen of 2010s pop, and 1989 is the pivotal album in which she went full swing into the genre. 1989 is a sunny, catchy, upbeat pop record that seems made for radio hit, opening with producer Jack Antonoff’s signature synths to pay tribute to the decade in which she was born. It’s also the first time we see Swift address her haters through satire (a la “Blank Space”), a tactic she’d repeat with later records (“Anti-Hero” on Midnights, “The Man” on Lover). 1989 is also the last album released before it became cool to hate Taylor Swift––before the highly publicized drama with Kanye West and then-wife Kim Kardashian. Post snake-emojis, Taylor’s Versions, and a record-breaking world tour, Swift has only gone up since then.

• Nicki Minaj, The Pinkprint

Delivering a few good gems (“Feeling Myself”), a few novelty hits (“Anaconda”), and mostly forgettable songs, Pinkprint isn’t my favorite of Nicki’s releases. But in 2013, it may have been her most authentic, and certainly constituted a turning point in the rapper’s career. Back then, Nicki was viciously held to the double standard of rap’s worst misogyny, constantly forced prove herself a serious rapper and performer. It isn’t easy to be the first of your kind; if you shatter glass ceilings, you’re bound to get cut, and Nicki’s frustration is all over Pinkprint. Yet since the close of the 2010s gave us a fresh class of female rappers to ride for, including Megan Thee Stallion, Saweetie, Cardi B, Doja Cat, and Rico Nasty, it’s clear that Nicki walked so they could run. Onika Maraj, you will always be famous.

• Ariana Grande, My Everything

It’s amazing to see how many artists had smash albums in 2013-14 and how many of them have since been canceled in some form or another. My Everything is arguably the album that broke Grande out of her child star image and launched her respected music career, delivering chart-toppers like “Break Free,” “Problem,” and “Bang Bang.” Unfortunately for her, those hits also preceded a string of media debacles, from 2015’s #donutgate to her alleged race-baiting to this year’s cheating scandal with the guy who played Spongebob on Broadway.

But the last decade also put Ari through the wringer personally. She dealt with a string of high-profile tragedies, including a fatal bombing at a 2017 concert and the death of her former boyfriend, rapper Mac Miller, a year later. During these tumultuous 10 years, Ari continued to grow as a musician, especially with the intimate and experimental R&B/trap pop releases of Thank U, Next (2019) and positions (2020). And now, we can credit My Everything as the record that catalyzed her rise.

• Sia, 1000 Forms of Fear

Veronica writes: In an era where she was famous for not showing her face in public appearances or performances, Sia let the spotlight shine on her incredibly vulnerable album. 1000 Forms of Fear delves into Sia’s mental health journey and struggles with addiction. The album spawned hits such as “Chandelier,” “Elastic Heart,” and “Big Girls Cry,” along with the iconic music videos that catapulted former Dance Moms star— now actress—Maddie Ziegler’s career. This album was on repeat for thirteen year old me, and I was deep in my Dance Moms era, it was very exciting to see the show help launch the girls’ careers! 

• Hozier, Hozier

Annie writes: If 2014 Hozier had a million fans I was one of them. If 2014 Hozier had one fan, I was it. If 2014 Hozier had no fans, 13-year-old Annabella did not exist. Don’t get me wrong, I am a 2023 Hozier fan, but I was at the mercy of Hozier and his debut studio album back in 2014. I lived and breathed “Like Real People Do” and “Cherry Wine.” And I am certain “Jackie and Wilson” was one of my most-played tracks of that year, and the one that followed it. Hozier is a phenomenal album and easily one of the strongest debuts from an artist in the 21st century. “Take Me to Church” sent shock waves through the music industry—what a way to start a career. No more words for Hozier and Hozier, just gratitude. 

Wanna listen to some of our selections? Here’s a playlist with hit singles from each album. 

This week we return to my favorite genre: 1970’s country music. Today’s songs (mostly) come from Billboard’s Hot Country Singles for the top 10 charting hits the week ending December 22, 1973. Follow along on Spotify here. 

The Playlist

1. “If We Make It Through December” by Merle Haggard

Our first country track this week was the title track of Merle Haggard’s 1974 album. It was originally released in October 1973 as the lead single from Merle Haggard’s Christmas Present. I think it’s a bleak Christmas song; The premise of the song hinges on the fact that we could not make it through December.

“If We Make It Through December” has a pretty uptempo arrangement for Haggard’s lyrics centered around unemployment and loneliness. While the vocal backings and guitar embellishments on this track are pretty solid, I personally love the strings that come in at the one-minute mark. This track was a huge hit, topping the country charts for four weeks and breaking into the top 30 on the Hot 100. 

Born in Depression-era Oklahoma and raised in California, Haggard was a main figure in the Bakersfield country sound, and successfully released music from the 1960s and into the 2000s. Haggard had 38 number-one hits on the Billboard country chart, received several awards at the end of his career including a Kennedy Center Honor, and this year Rolling Stone ranked him in the 200 greatest singers of all time. 

Phoebe Bridgers released a cover of this song in 2020 that I’ve loved ever since. That song has over 10 million streams on Spotify—just about a million more than the Haggard original. So, there’s that. 

2. “Amazing Love” by Charley Pride

“Amazing Love” was the lead single from Charley Pride’s 17th studio album of the same name, and was his 13th single to top the Billboard country chart. Pride was an absolute force in the country music scene and one of just three Black American members of the Grand Ole Opry. 

Pride is the first person of color to be featured in an LWT country installment—along with Johnny Rodriguez who was included in last week’s selected singles LWT with a country hit. Pride was often referred to as the first Black country star, and though other Black country singers performed before him, Pride was the first Black country singer signed to a major label. In the early to mid-1970s, he was one of RCA’s most successful acts, winning the Entertainer of the Year award at the CMAs in 1971 and the Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 1972. His CMA award is currently on display at the National Museum of African American Culture and History in D.C.—as is his Texas Rangers baseball jersey. 

“Amazing Love” is just the first of many country love ballads we’ll be listening to today. Pride’s vocals are clear and pure, and the strings and vocal backing fit right into what we’ve learned about early mid-1970s country music so far. And if there’s anything this project has taught me about country music, it’s that men sang a lot about love in the 1970s. 

3. “Sure Thing” by Freddie Hart

I’ve misled you. The number three charting song on the country charts this week 50 years ago was Freddie Hart’s “If You Can’t Feel It (It’s Ain’t There)” from his 1973 album. Neither the song nor the album are on Spotify. In fact, Hart’s sole crossover pop-country hit “Easy Loving”—which won the CMA Song of the Year award twice in the early 1970s—isn’t on Spotify. None of Hart’s most notable hits from the 1970s are on Spotify! Which brings us to what we’re listening to now: “Sure Thing,” a top 20 hit of Hart’s from 1980.

The production clarity on Hart’s “Sure Thing” is so ’80s; it’s really hard to get a grasp on Hart’s 1973 music from this track. Listening to “If You Can’t Feel It (It’s Ain’t There),” you can hear the 1970’s Bakersfield sound influence. Hart’s vocals bring a lightness to the track, with his own little riffs and accents. His band, The Heartbeats, fills out the song by complementing Hart’s lyrics without overpowering the track. 

Hart started out in a California honky tonk band in the early 1950s, and got his first charting hit in 1959 with “The Wall.” In the early 1970s he was consistently releasing top 10 country hits with The Heartbeats, and by the latter half of the 1970s that would shift to top 20s. His success in the early 1970s earned Hart numerous awards from the ACAs and CMAs. 

What I really like about Hart’s earlier music, especially in comparison to his 1980 release we’ve been forced to listen to (thanks Spotify), is how it calls back to a traditional country sound. When he turned to gospel music later in life and released some CDs, he would return to this, the music where he came from. 

4. “Somewhere Between Love and Tomorrow” by Roy Clark

Another pretty country ballad? I’m shocked. This track does have a little twist of infidelity, though, so that’s spicy. 

“Somewhere Between Love and Tomorrow” was released as a single from Roy Clark’s 1973 album Come Live With Me. Clark started recording as a country artist with Capitol Records in the 1960s after touring with a rockabilly act. He found a lot of success in the music industry in the ’70s and won Entertainer of the Year at both the ACAs and CMAs in 1973. His only Grammy came in 1982 when he won Best Country Instrumental Performance. 

While Clark’s music brought him to the forefront of the country scene, his legacy lies in his success on television. Clark made several appearances on Jimmy Dean’s TV program in the ’50s, and again on “The Tonight Show” in 1960 and in the ’70s with Johnny Carson. He also had recurring guest spots on sitcoms like The Beverly Hillbillies. In 1969, he, along with Buck Owens, debuted the sketch comedy program “Hee Haw” which aired for nearly 30 years. “Hee Haw” propelled Clark into fame, platforming his music and popularizing the genre. 

Here’s a short video clip from “Hee Haw.” Speaks for itself. 

5. “The Most Beautiful Girl” by Charlie Rich

After including this song in three other LWT installments, I am sorry to this man but I’m a little over “The Most Beautiful Girl.” If you’re new here, you can read about this song from the first time I wrote about it way back in October. It’s really starting to feel like “The Most Beautiful Girl” was the song of late 1973. And maybe that’s beautiful?

6. “The Last Love Song” by Hank Williams, Jr. 

Oh yes, a spoken intro. 

“The Last Love Song” is from Hank Williams, Jr.’s modestly successful album of the same name. The son of legendary honky tonk singer-songwriter Hank Williams, this song is not exactly the cream of the songwriting crop—I’m thinking of the lyrics “What do you suggest / to take the place of your breasts / breasts against my chest / oh how I’ll miss your tenderness.” 

Hank Williams, Jr. started out in the 1960s as a glorified Hank Williams impersonator, covering his dad’s songs and imitating his voice. Despite the success of this work, Jr. got tired of it and quit in the mid-70s to find his own sound. Following a near-fatal accident while mountain climbing in 1975, Jr. rebuilt a career as a country-rock singer. By 1976, he was already producing acclaimed mainstream country music and had a prolific recording career through the 1980s; He won the Entertainer of the Year award from the CMAs and AMAs several times in the late ’80s You can’t really hear it in “The Last Love Song,” but Jr. would make his name on edgy, rock-influenced country anthems. 

In 1989, Jr. released “There’s a Tear in My Beer,” a duet with his late father who had written and recorded the song before he died in 1953. The song won the Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration, and the video is pretty sweet.

7. “Let Me Be There” by Olivia Newton-John

In a stark comparison to the last LWT country installment, this track features the only woman on our playlist this week.

We learned about “Let Me Be There” and Olivia Newton-John's career in the LWT installment two weeks ago. “Let Me Be There” was part of Newton-John’s foray into country pop music in the U.S., and won her the Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Let Me Be There also included Newton-John’s covers of other country songs, including John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and a 19th-century country murder ballad, “Banks of the Ohio.” 

It’s definitely a framing thing, but somehow “Let Me Be There” sounds a lot more country now than it did two weeks ago. Maybe it’s the gospel influence on the chorus or the very country guitar, but I’m seeing (or hearing) the country sound in Newton-John’s song. 

8. “I Love” by Tom T. Hall

This sweet and simple song, written by Tom T. Hall, came from his 1973 album For the People in the Last Hard Town. Also known as “The Storyteller,” Hall’s “I Love” shares simple snippets from a life well-loved and well-lived. Personally, I love the fun moments the strings have on this track. And as the proud driver of a 2004 Tacoma, I also love old pickup trucks. “I Love” was Hall’s most successful single, crossing over into the Hot 100 and reaching number 12 on the pop chart. 

Hall got his start as a songwriter in Nashville, and starting in the 1960s would write for country icons like Johnny Cash, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, and Waylon Jennings (of #10 on this list). Over his career, he won a Grammy for Best Album Notes, was a member of the Grand Ole Opry, and had several hits from the late ’60s and into the ’80s. Though he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008, it’s been said that his proudest achievement was being inducted into the Songwriter Hall of Fame in 2019. 

Personal fun fact (aka Annie lore): One of my songs of the summer was Hall’s “That’s How I Got to Memphis”—I played it several times driving from Nashville to Memphis in May. 

9. “My Woman, My Woman, My Wife” by Marty Robbins

We once again have a DSPP (Digital Streaming Platforms Problem). The charting song from Marty Robbins this week half a century ago was “Love Me/Crawling on My Knees,” the A side and B side of his 1973 release. Neither of those songs are on Spotify—classic DSPP—so right now we’re listening to Robbins’s Grammy-winning 1970 hit “My Woman, My Woman, My Wife.”

Robbins’s woman in “My Woman, My Woman, My Wife” is so real; I am also always doing work that never gets done. Going back to the tracks that charted from Robbins this week, “Love Me” fits right into the slow-paced, waltz-y, country ballads we’ve listened to so far. And, unsurprisingly, “Crawling on My Knees” does the same thing. I can see how they fit into the country music trends at the time—the only flaw at the time would’ve been having to pause to flip the LP over for the other track. 

Robbins was the Western country music man in the 1960s: the Academy of Country Music named him the Artist of the Decade in 1970. Robbins, who also had a NASCAR racing career, started his music career in the 1950s releasing rock ‘n’ roll and pop. He pivoted to Western music with Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (1959), which would be his highest charting album with crossover hits like the Grammy-winning “El Paso” which topped the country and Hot 100 charts. Over a nearly four-decade music career,  Robbins recorded more than 500 songs and 60 albums, along with being elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Johnny Cash apparently once said that there was no greater country singer than Robbins. 

Call me basic, but my favorite Robbins track has to be “Big Iron.” I think it is a banger. 

10. “You Ask Me To” by Waylon Jennings

And now we arrive at our last track of the week, “You Ask Me To.” The track was the second single released from Waylon Jennings’s album Honky Tonk Heroes. I like Jennings’s voice on this track, and the song, though not very riveting, is pretty sweet. And the guitar solo that ends the track is kinda funky (fresh).

Honkey Tonk Heroes is considered a central album in the outlaw sub-genre of country music, which rebelled against the country pop of the 1970s with honky tonk tunes and old rock and roll. The fact that “You Ask Me To” was recorded by Willie Nelson and Elvis Presley points to those influences on Honky Tonk Heroes. Jennings started out performing and DJing in the 1950s and eventually found success with RCA in 1965. During the 1970s, Jennings was a pioneer of the outlaw genre; he was part of the force behind country music’s first platinum album Wanted! The Outlaws (1976), featuring Jennings alongside Willie Nelson, Tompall Glaser, and Jessi Colter. Later, Jennings joined the Highwaymen with Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson. What a lineup. 

Jennings stopped performing at the end of the ’90s as his health declined. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001 and was posthumously awarded the Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award by the ACA. Watch Hank Williams, Jr.’s touching tribute to Jennings here.

Jennings lore: Jennings’s first recording session in 1958 was arranged by Buddy Holly, who he also played bass for on tour, and Jennings gave up his seat on the doomed 1959 plane that crashed and killed Holly, J. P. "the Big Bopper" Richardson, and Ritchie Valens.

Check out the issue of Billboard I used for this playlist here!

Tune in next week for another time travel adventure into music history. Thanks for groovin’ with me :) 

~Annie

Veronica’s Picks

• Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays

In a year where I’ve finally been finishing books that I bought years ago, I simultaneously wish I read this three years ago, but am so happy that I read it now. Professor, sociologist, writer, podcast host, and so much more, McMillan Cottom puts together a collection of essays covering various topics at the intersection of race, gender, and class. If you love to laugh, and you love to learn, pick up this book expeditiously! 

• Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

Part-mystery, part-comedy, and 100% tearjerker, Backman tells the story of a failed bank-robbery turned hostage situation. Through shifting POVs, we get to know more and more about the lives of the hostages and the bank robber, further cementing this character-driven story as a tearjerker. I’d 100% recommend it if you want a laugh and a story that will assuredly warm your heart. Perfect for the season. 

• Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

The mystery-thriller that reignited my reading for fun era! In The Silent Patient, we follow along with Theo Faber who is a therapist with an interesting affinity towards Alicia Berenson. Alicia is a woman who randomly murdered her husband by shooting him blank, and has not spoken a word since that day. Hellbent on knowing why Alicia killed her husband, Theo does everything in his power (both inside and outside of the confines of the hippocratic oath) to figure out her motive and break her silence. 

•  bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Although published in 1999, hooks’ thirteen chapters on love are still revolutionary to dominant narratives and beliefs on love in the United States. Cultural critic hooks engages her audience to be imaginative and radical in their understanding of love, and see it as dynamically as a verb as opposed to a noun. This is definitely a book that I’ll be revisiting constantly as it has already been ANNOTATED annotated by me. Some of the most common annotations are “damn,” “DAYUMMM,” and “damn, Damn, DAMN!!!”

• Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, Ace of Spades

In Ace of Spades, Àbíké-Íyímídé creates a universe reminiscent of a mash-up between the Get Out & Gossip Girl universes. This was my first time tapping into an audiobook through Spotify, and I can’t lie I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This coming-of-age story follows the only two Black students (Devon & Chiamaka)  at a predominantly white high school as they become the sole targets of a school cyber stalker. 

Amanda’s Picks (@amandapyen on Goodreads)

• Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Quartet #1)

A bildungsroman spanning 60 years and split into 4 novels, Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet is one of my all-time favorite series. My Brilliant Friend is the first installment, which follows best friends Elena and Lila in their rough neighborhood in 1950s Naples from ages 6 to 16. The Neapolitan Quartet gets the good, the bad, and the ugly of female friendship, motherhood, relationships with fathers, husbands, and neighbors –– all set amid the ever changing political, social, and economic climate of 20th century Italy. And like any good Italian story, the mafia makes an appearance, as do the Amalfi Coast, Fiat, and a whole lot of extramarital affairs.

• Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The prequel to the bestselling Hunger Games series tells the origin story (not the redemption arc, as some feared) of the trilogy’s villain President Snow. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is even more brutal than its predecessor. It sees Snow in his ambitious teenage years, scheming to climb the social ladder and monetize a Hunger Games that even Capitol citizens don’t want to watch. You can read my review comparing the book to its film adaptation here, and my analysis of the book and its real life political analogies here.

• Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown

Charles Yu’s postmodern journey through the film set of Chinatown is the artsiest book on my list this year. At times it was a bit ham-fisted in its messaging, but it was also funny and thought-provoking, the stuff that feels made for Asian American Literature classes but is engaging on a purely entertainment level. I ate it up in a weekend.

• Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died

All wannabe-influencer parents should read this book. McCurdy’s memoir is funny and brutal all at once, an important cultural and historical text that makes an honest picture of child stardom in the aughts. It follows her relationship with her controlling mother, which spiraled into eating disorders, substance abuse, and finally rehab. When I read this, I could only think of all the TikTok and Instagram influencer moms who use their children’s images for profit. Bonus points for the extra features about Mormonism.

• Hua Hsu, Stay True

A memoir that reads like a novel, Stay True is about a first-generation Asian American and his friendship with a late generation Asian American, but it’s also about growing up in the nineties, family, and grief. Hsu writes about not only the events that happened to him and the feelings he had, but about the music, books, and art he consumed and created to help him through all of it.

• Patti Smith, Just Kids

Someday I’d like to love someone the way singer-songwriter Patti Smith loved late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith’s memoir Just Kids is part eulogy, part love story, and part history of New York’s underground art scene in the 1960s and 1970s. The relationship she draws between herself and Mapplethorpe is one of the most complex I’ve ever witnessed, and one I’m grateful to be privy to through her pages.

Annie’s Picks

Follow me on Goodreads, I dare you.

• Hanif Abdurraqir, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

Abdurraqir’s collection of personal and historical essays won the “I picked this book solely based on vibes” award this year. Of all the books on this list, I truly recommend this book to anyone and everyone. A Little Devil in America is unlike anything I have ever read for pleasure and is probably the most American Studies book I’ve come across. I cannot properly describe what this book is and, more crucially, what it does, so I think you should simply add it to your 2024 to-read list.

• Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

This was a tough call, but I think Murakami’s brilliant After the Quake was my favorite collection of short stories I read this year (George Saunders’s Tenth of December and the anthology of dark fiction from Indigenous authors I’m currently reading, Never Whistle At Night, are tied for second). This was my first Murakami, and I hate to be that person but I do get it now. I picked this book because it was written in response to Japan's 1995 Kobe earthquake, and as someone who basically lives on a faultline, I was intrigued. I found this collection so compelling, and when I get through my lengthy owned-but-unread list of books in my room, I will return to After the Quake.

• George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

This book takes the cake as my favorite recommended read of the year. I admit I’m a little late to the Saunders train, but now I’m fully onboard and desperately trying to get into the first-class car. Lincoln in the Bardo is nothing short of masterfully crafted, and I loved the way it made my mind work. The blend of historical quotes and an imagined reality was incredibly well-done and I recommend this book to anyone who is fascinated by the thin veil between the living and dead. Honestly, I feel like there’s something for everyone in this book (especially if everyone is a death-obsessed Lincoln stan like myself). What I wrote for my Goodreads review at 2 a.m. when I finished this book in D.C. remains true: “Too sleepy to have better thoughts, but I read 200 pages of it in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down.”

Amanda’s add: For those of us who know Georgetown, Lincoln in the Bardo is like a welcome walk home since it takes place in R St.’s Oak Hill Cemetery. I used to live around the block from Oak Hill and I’ve taken a walk through the cemetery before, strictly because I had read Bardo. Thankfully, I didn’t run into any ghostly hitchhikers… I think.

• Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

One thing about me is I love a multigenerational family epic, and Pachinko definitely satisfied that need for me. I didn’t write a Goodreads review for this book—it was early March and I was unwell—but it deserved glowing reviews then and it deserves them now. Beyond being a beautifully written saga, as someone wholly unfamiliar with the Japanese colonization of Korea I feel like I learned a lot reading this book. Given the wide range of years and characters, I felt surprisingly tied to each story in the novel. If you choose only one long, epic book to read in 2024, I humbly suggest you pick up Pachinko. 

• Seishi Yokomizo, The Inugami Curse

I love a good mystery, and The Inugami Curse was definitely my favorite murder mystery of the year. I discovered Seishi Yokomizo because the cover of The Honjin Murders is hard—and quickly learned that not only does every English translation of the Japanese mystery master’s books have a banger cover, but the content of each is simply amazing. I love Yokomizo’s style and his detective Kosuke Kindaichi is such a quirky guy. This is top-rate mystery writing, with classic tropes and surprising twists, many of which are deeply embedded in Japanese traditions and histories. Don’t get me wrong, I love an Agatha Christie read, but this was a fun break from the mystery mold I’d been stuck in.

• David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

David Grann’s book was my favorite nonfiction read of the year—not including Abdurraqir’s masterpiece as it beautifully blends personal narrative and history. Killers of the Flower Moon had been on my list long before it was announced that Scorsese was doing an adaptation, and it did not disappoint. I especially appreciated how the words of the Osage people were brought to the page. If you watched the movie and found yourself wanting to know more (specifically more of the story from the Osage), I recommend Grann’s investigation. These are the kinds of stories that need to be taught in all American history classes.

You can read Amanda’s commentary on the film adaptation here.

• John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Honorable mention because how can I say I love multigenerational family epics without mentioning the fact that I read East of Eden this year? I’ve said it before, I’ve said it again, and I will keep saying it: I will pick up anything that has to do with California. East of Eden was sweeping and breathtaking and the 600 pages flew. 

That’s it for b*tchfork’s year in books. We’ll see you soon for the next installment of our 2023 culture roundup: b*tchfork’s best watchlist, featuring everything we saw on TV, in theaters, and through streaming.