February 26, 2026

Cover Collector – February Reds

February 26, 2026/ The Swim Team

I don’t know about you guys, but I love a good album collage. One of the first things I do every Friday is head over to tapmusic.net and render a 4x4 chart of the albums I listened to most over the past week. At the end of each month, I do the same thing with a 5x5 that recaps my previous 30 days of listening. By the time December rolls around, I look forward to recapping the last twelve months with a gigantic 10x10 grid in an unwieldy encapsulation of the 100 albums that defined my year.

Is it a little self-aggrandizing? Sure, but it’s also a fun way to see a quick snapshot of what my last week, month, or year has sounded like. At its best, this practice has led to fun conversations and solid recommendations going back and forth with friends as we bond over specific albums. Sometimes it’s that shared love over a deep pull from years gone by, other times it’s just noticing trends with a recent fave that seems like an unshakable presence week in and week out. At the very least, I suppose it’s satisfying to see a bunch of records that I feel an affinity toward lined up and embodying a specific stretch of my life.

At some point near the tail end of last year, I conceived of a more communal way to bring this love of album collage to life. Because, sure, getting a live readout of your listening history is cool, but this is also about album art, an essential part of the experience and something us nerds can fixate on just as much as the songs that sit beneath the cover. As such, I’m excited to welcome you to the second edition of Cover Collector: a monthly installation where the Swim Team discusses some of our favorite albums based on album color. For February, we’re writing about amorous reds.

Tinted Windows – Tinted Windows

We can stop making pop music. We already reached pop perfection in 2009. Oh, you don’t remember? That’s okay — do the names Adam Schlesinger and James Iha ring a bell? What about Taylor Hanson and Bun E. Carlos? Does Josh Lattanzi mean anything to you? Well, it all should. It’s 2026, and I am demanding a cultural re-evaluation of Tinted Windows by Tinted Windows.

I would go so far as to say that this supergroup released the best pop album of the 21st century. This is the kind of confidence I have to maintain if I am fulfilling my duty to defend this forgotten band’s honor. But this is an easy task to maintain when I’m dealing with an album that has “Kind of a Girl,” “Can’t Get a Read on You,” “Doncha Wanna,” and “Take Me Back.” All of these songs are loud, goofy, tight, and perfect — a knockout Schlesinger combo uplifted by Hanson’s sheer excitement to Not Be A Hanson along with a litany of power pop veterans. The song nearest and dearest to my heart is “Messing With My Head,” which has been my favorite song for almost 20 years. It’s all about the guitars; the incessant riff chugging under the song, the squeal of the strings replying to Hanson’s pleas, the guitar solo before Hanson’s pronunciation of “you” in the bridge. Pitchfork unfairly gave this a 3.5, but with your help and a $5 subscription, we can get that reader score up to a 10.

– Caro Alt

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Nonagon Infinity

Nonagon Infinity is a rare album whose title and cover art mirror its structure. Nine songs, each represented by one vertex of the nonagon on the cover art, are designed to be looped infinitely, with the last track seamlessly connecting to the first. Each vertex of the nonagon connects to every other vertex of the nonagon, instructing the listener that you're supposed to view every song as being connected.

Nonagon Infinity marked a shift for the seven-piece Australian multi-genre experiment, as eight albums into their career they departed from the psych, jazz rock, raja rock, dream pop, and garage rock that they were known for, taking a mishmash of those elements that defined the albums prior to this and twisting them into something louder, darker, and more energetically exhausted than anything we’ve seen before.

This was the band's first experiment with heavier music, a theme we’d see expanded later in their career with the albums Infest the Rats Nest and PetroDragonic Apocalypse. From the first notes of “Robot Stop,” you hear the intensity come through, as vocalist and lead songwriter Stu Mackenzie opens with a chorus that recurs throughout the whole album, not just this song. It’s fast, it’s energetic, it’s designed to start a mosh pit, and it’s in 7/4.

As Stu opens the album singing “my body’s overworked” and “my coffin’s all I see lately,” we begin to get the feeling that the band is tired. They've spent the past four years releasing eight albums while touring, and they're ready to take a break, which, from the future, we know never comes. They follow this album with a five-album year, spanning microtonal music, narrative progressive metal, psychedelic pop, polymeters, and more.

Nonagon Infinity opens the door to the rest of King Gizzard's work and stands as a fantastic entry point if you love heavier music and want to start digging into this ultra-prolific band’s extensive discography.

– Noëlle Midnight

The The – Dusk

For years, I have spouted that the two most underrated bands of all time are Shriekback and The The, and I still wholeheartedly believe that. Both are British new wave-turned-alternative rock groups that started in the 80s, developed minor club play success in the States, but each only had two albums in the 90s. For The The, the brainchild of musician Matt Johnson, most people champion their first two albums: 1983’s Soul Mining, featuring classics like “This Is The Day” and “Uncertain Smile,” and 1986’s Infected, whose title track is easily one of the hardest rocking dance singles of the era. My favorite in their relatively compact catalogue has always been 1993’s Dusk, a more guitar- and singer/songwriter-based album that expertly helms the band’s transition into a new decade.

The record opens with one of my all-time favorite three-song runs: the dramatic, partially spoken-word “True Happiness This Way Lies,” the hopeful ballad “Love Is Stronger Than Death,” and the blues-influenced single “Dogs Of Lust.” Johnson’s reflections on the world and his place in it on tracks like “Slow Emotion Replay” and “Bluer Than Midnight” have always resonated with me, and the closing track “Lonely Planet” hits as hard in 2026 as it did whenever I first heard it: “If you can’t change the world, change yourself,” the refrain posits. The The would only be sporadically active after this album, including a 2024 comeback album, Ensoulment, and a tour to support it. While I appreciate everything Johnson does musically, Dusk will always be the high watermark.

– Logan Archer Mounts

Citizen – As You Please

Everybody and their mother talks about Youth as the quintessential Citizen record, and for a second, I was going to write about that as well. However, I wondered what else needed to be said about Youth, considering their third record, As You Please, is sneakily just as well written and not as sneakily much more red. Citizen’s movement into hazier forms of alternative rock was encapsulated quite well in their first two records, but As You Please showcased the gravitas of their emotional outlook on the world in a more mature way than Youth, though not as crushing as Everybody Is Going To Heaven. Tracks like “Jet” and “Fever Days” get the heads bobbing, but the spacey tracks like “World” and “Control” feel more akin to a Sunday Drive tracklist than a typical Run For Cover record. There’s also the fan favorite “Flowerchild,” which caps the record off with an acoustic-turned-punk anti-Valentine’s Day song. It’s a great journey to dive headfirst into and an overlooked example of what makes Citizen such an interesting group.

– Samuel Leon

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland

When I was a mere toddler, my parents would play all kinds of records to help me develop my own distinct musical taste. There was one artist my mom chose that stood out amongst the rest for a fresh-out-the-box baby David: Jimi Hendrix. Every day I would dance away in my all-white Huggies to songs like “All Along the Watchtower” and “Foxey Lady.” My mom has recounted this story about me prancing around to some of the best psychedelic rock ever created about a zillion times to my family, friends, and even complete strangers at the local Jewel-Osco. Fun times! Present day, now as a fully grown adult, I hold Jimi Hendrix in a special place in my heart.

Electric Ladyland, being the final full-length studio album before Jimi Hendrix tragically passed away, is a clinical masterpiece in artistry. “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” has my favorite guitar solo I’ve ever heard. There is a true rhythm to each stroke that I never know where it’s going to go, even though I heard it thousands of times. Jimi Hendrix is the Wilt Chamberlain of rock music. He changed how the game is played, holds damn near every record, and oozed pure charisma (do yourself a favor and look at that beautiful blue silk kimono he wore on The Dick Cavett Show).

Listening back to Electric Ladyland, you can hear how Hendrix's guitar skills were limitless. Songs like “Long Hot Summer Night,” “Gypsy Eyes,” and “Rainy Day, Dream Away” are iconic psychedelic jams from a man at the peak of his powers. This makes reliving all those stories dancing as an infant worth it.

Thank you, Mom!

– David Williams

Third Eye Blind – Third Eye Blind

I confess to being a silly guy for this one. I spent an entire subway commute scrolling through my library for my red album. When I happened upon Third Eye Blind’s eponymous 1997 debut, I felt ridiculous: it was always this one.

I saw 3EB at Jones Beach when I was nearing the end of my college career. I went with an on-again, off-again girlfriend; we’d had a complicated relationship due to our own traumas and the challenges of growing up. Now that I recall this memory, I feel the rain pouring on my skin, mixing with my tears as they played “Motorcycle Drive By” and “How’s It Going to Be.” In my mind’s peripheral vision, I recall her looking up at me with love and sadness. Only now do I realize that this night together and this concert we shared were the end of our relationship. It was beautiful, and now I look back on it fondly and with gratitude.

Only now, too, do I realize how meaningful and formative this album was and continues to be for me. Everyone sings along to “Semi-Charmed Life,” “Graduate,” and “Jumper,” but the singles are truly just the tip of the iceberg. “Losing a Whole Year” is an incredible opener, bookended by the equally gutting and somber “God of Wine.” “I Want You” translates lustful love into perfect pop rock—only for “The Background” to finish the story with the perfect break-up ballad right after it. How is a band’s debut this good? I remain flabbergasted by it.

As thankful as I am that this album soundtracked my growing up, I’m grateful to be able to listen to it now, sing along, and feel all the emotions without the pain of nostalgia. Instead, there is only awe.

– Joe Wasserman

Fiona Apple – When the Pawn…

When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king
What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight
And he'll win the whole thing 'fore he enters the ring
There's no body to batter when your mind is your might
So when you go solo, you hold your own hand
And remember that depth is the greatest of heights
And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land
And if you fall it won't matter, cuz you'll know that you're right

My love for Fiona Apple’s second album knows no bounds. It came to me at a very ~mental breakdown~ time in my life. I was 22, the same age Apple was when the record came out, and was equally masochistic and self-sabotaging. I felt like a floating head, watching my life unfold while I did nothing, unable to even consider having a positive thought. The saunteringly propulsive opener, “On The Bound,” became my favorite song to play on a loop while lying on my bedroom floor and staring at the ceiling. Any album with “Paper Bag” on it is going to be good (the line “He said ‘It’s all in your head’ / I said ‘So’s everything’ but he didn’t get it” alone should have gotten Apple a Pulitzer), but When the Pawn… is relentless from top to bottom. “Fast As You Can” makes me lose my breath with its urgency, kicking into overdrive after the looping drawl of “A Mistake.” Apple gets to the heart of both relational and internal toxicity, showing she’s fighting a battle with herself just as much as with the rest of the world. The smile she’s flashing on the blood-red cover masks the inner turmoil rumbling beneath.

– Cassidy Sollazzo

Kyuss – Blues for the Red Sun

When I think of red albums, my mind pretty quickly jumps to Songs For The Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age. It’s mainly because that record utterly blew my mind in middle school and continues to loom large in my life to this day, but it’s also because it’s pretty solidly red. While I entered this document fully prepared to write about one of the greatest records of 2002, I was met with a sudden flash to another Josh Homme project from a decade earlier, and that’s Blues for the Red Sun by Kyuss. On their sophomore record, the foundational stoner rock band tightened their screws in a stair-step discography where I truly view each record as a step above the last. On their debut, Wretch, the band arrived scuzzy, caked in beer and desert dust. One album later, they got druggier and spacier, dropping most of the thrashy elements in favor of chasing the almighty riff. From the opener, “Thumb,” it’s clear the band has honed in on the perfect tone and then proceed to spend the next 45 or so minutes slowing things down, stretching things out, and cranking their amps to earth-shattering levels. There’s still some chugginess like the iconic “Green Machine,” but tracks like “Freedom Run” and “Thong Song” show a surprising amount of restraint (shocking, especially given the latter’s title). Rather than throw every note at the listener in an attempt to whisk them off into heavy metal nirvana, Kyuss learned it’s much more gratifying to go the opposite way and descend into the smoky pits. A remarkable record that still sounds best played loud as fuck, nodding along, and flying down the highway. If you can manage all those things at once, all the power to ya. If you can’t, you’ll always have Blues for the Red Sun.

– Taylor Grimes

If we’re talking solid-color album art, there’s one band that stands above the rest, and that’s Weezer. Across fifteen studio albums, more than a third of their discography is made up of self-titled albums that fans simply refer to by their color. Each features the band members lined up staring down the barrel of the camera against a solid-colored background. In this recurring section, we’ll address the elephant in the room that is Weezer’s discography.

Cue the guy standing up in the courtroom meme: Side A of Red Album is the second-best Weezer material. Everyone knows the singles “Troublemaker” and “Pork And Beans,” which are very Weezery songs that fit perfectly in their rotation of hits. But “Heart Songs” has always been a crown jewel of the Rivers Cuomotolog (Rivers Cuomotic Universe?), a perfect song for music nerds like me, riddled with references to everyone from Judas Priest to Rick Astley. I’m pretty sure Red Album was the last CD I ever listened to on a Walkman, and boy, did I use the track repeat function a lot for that one.

Admittedly, I do think the album falls apart in the second half, save for the finale “The Angel & The One,” but then the deluxe version is full of incredible bonus tracks. If they had swapped in those songs, this would probably be a perfect 10 record for me. I think “King” has to be an all-timer non-album track for any band. And “Miss Sweeney” was on rotation for me years before a certain Sydney was making accidentally racist jeans commercials.

– Logan Archer Mounts

Drug Church – Cheer

I love heavy music. I especially love heavy music that channels pure, raging emotional catharsis. Drug Church, to me, is the ultimate raging-emotional-catharsis band, and Cheer is my favorite album of theirs. Every bitter lyric, sardonic riff, and sneering song title hits exactly how it should: a brutal uppercut to the slack, flaccid jaw of an apathetic and self-righteous society. Tracks like “Unlicensed Hall Monitor” unapologetically critique those who ignore the beam in their own eye so they can point out the dust in others’: “There’s a guy in a group chat with Klansmen telling you how to live / Just a matter of time before he’s the one twisting in the wind / A grown man who can’t handle his shit.” The preceding song, “Weed Pin,” is a scathing condemnation of career culture and the endless cycle of mediocrity it creates. “Pay shit rates, get shit labor / I should have started a chemical fire… / I should have burned this place to the ground.” Losers beget losers beget losers. History repeats itself, and a chemical fire burns Rome to ashes.

The deep red cover of the album features a trio that are jarringly posed: they appear undead, naked save for grotesque body paint and an unsettling collection of harnesses and wire. If you dare to look closer, you’ll realize that they’re all the same man, triplicated in different positions. The crimson paint (blood?) splattered across the mask, obscuring each face, only adds to the general unease of the skillfully executed artwork. Even with their visages obscured, the figures seem to be leering at us, taut with rage. Because Cheer blatantly critiques society and condemns both the worst and the self-proclaimed “best” of us, it’s not difficult to imagine that the zombie-like figure adorning the cover is meant to be an Everyman. Painted, holstered, harnessed, and violent, we all know him: maybe we are him.

– Britta Joseph

Mowmow Lulu Gyaban — 野口、久津川で爆死 [Noguchi, kutsukawa de bakushi]

I say this with the highest regard; I have no idea what’s going on in this album. Not just because it’s in a language I don’t speak, but because its alt-noise-funk sound is completely unique. The combination of manic lyricism, ripping basslines, and frenetic drumming results in a record that escapes easy description or conventional genre labels. Released in 2009, 野口、久津川で爆死 was Mowmow Lulu Gyaban’s first album on a label, followed by touring, several more albums, and well-deserved notoriety within their underground niche. Trying to figure out what makes this band work without knowing Japanese has been tough, but from live videos, I learned the drummer is also the main vocalist, explaining much of the energy charged in this 44-minute package. For me, the last track ties the whole album together and is a key reason I’ve kept it in rotation. It starts as a more subdued song, maybe hinting at a contemplative closing, but it slowly devolves into loosely constrained chaos, with two singers narrating the same lyrics of (if Google Translate can be trusted) a mostly mutual breakup. The track closes on speaker feedback and a call-and-response shout along from the audience, the perfect endcap to the entire experience.

– Braden Allmond

Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Fuck Kanye West.

This is not a plea to “separate the art from the artist.” This is not an attempt to identify a threshold in the Kanye West timeline where he “went too far,” thus exonerating anything before that statement or behavior. Both of these efforts are futile.

I haven’t listened to Kanye West’s music in years. I never wanted it to show up on any Year In Review report. I didn’t want my neighbors or people on the street to hear me listening to it. Mostly, I didn’t even want the $0.0000000034 per stream to go to him. And it’s a real shame, because from 2004 to 2011 Kanye West had an absolutely immaculate 6-album run. GOOD Music and Yeezus and even The Life Of Pablo were great too, but by that time Kanye’s behavior had blown well past “provocateur” into “complete asshole.” What began as mostly just asinine complaints about being under-recognized at award shows (culminating in the now-infamous “Taylor Swift imma let you finish” moment) got more and more outrageous and indefensible. At one time, Kanye’s biggest beef was with Bill Hader (Hader, both an SNL cast member and a South Park writer, drew Kanye’s ire in MBDTF). Most recently, Kanye took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal where he went long on his 2002 car accident, the damage it did to his frontal lobe, and his struggles with bipolar disorder. It’s a surprisingly lucid statement from Kanye that ends with a number of apologies and a plea for patience. Coming from a man who claimed “slavery was a choice,” expressed his “love for” Adolf Hitler, claimed to have “dominion” over his wife Bianca Censori, and put a swastika on the cover of his latest album, it feels like too little too late. It’s not only too late, it feels disingenuous and insincere, and to the skeptics is a pretty poor attempt at image rehab in the lead-up to what will likely be a new album.

I’m sympathetic to mental health issues! I’m sensitive to personality disorders! If Kanye West has issues severe enough to make him say even 20% of what he’s said in the last 10 years, his gobs of money should be able to get him the help he needs. And I hope he does!

Until then, it’s a damn shame Kanye’s aggressive attempts to make himself the main character of history have completely ruined an incomparable body of work–including his magnum opus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

I’m sorry this piece wasn’t really about the album at all, but I wanted to say it’s really annoying that I can’t even listen to some of my favorite albums anymore because the guy who made them is a megalomaniacal asshole.

– Caleb Doyle

Against Me! – The Disco Before the Breakdown

Bodies spilling over each other in a grainy photo, washed in red. Mouths shouting. Fingers pointing. People are reaching to lift up a fallen bass player. The cover of The Disco Before the Breakdown captures what listening to early Against Me! feels like: like you could fall apart at the end of this chorus, but you know everyone singing along will be there to pick you up. The music is this scrappy, ferocious beast that surges forward with abandon while Laura Jane Grace screams her confessions. Grace has never sounded more desperate for absolution than she does on “Tonight We’re Gonna Give It 35%” when she sings “it’s got me on my knees in a bathroom / praying to a god I don’t even believe in / ‘well, dear Jesus, are you listening?’” When I’ve been that desperate, The Disco Before the Breakdown has filled me with a sense of triumph in the sorrow.

– Lillian Weber

Best Witches – Jail

Jail by Best Witches has probably the single strongest opening minute of any emo revival act I can think of. Leading off with the drumset, after two seconds of guitar whine, there’s immediately a wayward, forlorn, and simple lead melody. After a tight 40 seconds, this promising setup is abandoned and replaced by two bars of strumming that sound like the stretch before a wind sprint. By the 60-second mark, we’ve gotten some very righteous arpeggios and our first lyrics “I would go out tonight, but we’re stuck playing at the house. Shit, there’s a glow stick, let’s check this thing out.” After a small regathering, we’re rolling again, and at the 1:20 mark, we get the terrible realization that this song is a eulogy for a lost pet: “Raleigh’s foaming at the mouth.” By the end of the second minute, everything but guitar has pulled away, meandering through the opening lick. Slowly, the momentum is built back, and by 2:45 we’re close to full speed again, though this time with more restraint, and the lyrics “No more running around, no more barking about all our favorite toys we can’t live without.” The final 90 seconds are spent repeating the line, winding down the drums, and taking their feet off the gas, gently giving way to full atmosphere, and the start of the next song. This whole EP is great, but “Margot’s Song” is awesome.

The energy this group brings to their art is infectious, and reminds of Olde Pine and Dikembe (still active!), two bands from around the same time. In classic emo band fashion, these guys made incredible music together for about a year, then called it quits for good. Shouts out to Trevor from Hays for showing me this EP like 7 years ago!

– Braden Allmond

Turnover – Peripheral Vision

Turnover’s Peripheral Vision was a point of contention for longtime Turnover Heads such as myself. Today’s emo kids might find it hard to believe that the Virginia Beach unit was largely a pop-punk group before their hard pivot to dreamy indie soundscapes. These same kids are the ones confused as hell at the Turnover gig when thirty-somethings are screaming “play Sasha!” just to piss off Austin Getz.

Peripheral Vision indeed altered the band's trajectory in ways unimaginable for a pop-punk/emo band at that time. The release sparked curiosity for newcomers and confusion from longtime fans. While I love PV and its hazy attitude, at the time I was more enamored by the band's first full-length, Magnolia, and felt a bit slighted that Turnover chose to ignore all their music before PV.

It was a hot-as-heck spring day in El Paso when Turnover trekked in alongside acts like Citizen and Sorority Noise. I was ecstatic to finally catch a glimpse of my favorite band, and in my often-overlooked hometown no less. The show essentially ended up being a full playthrough of PV from start to finish, with little acknowledgement of any other music in their discography. I was bummed to say the least. Ten years later, the album has reached near-legendary status amongst many audiophiles. Fast forward a decade to a rainy spring day in Albuquerque, when my fiancée and I attended the tenth anniversary gig for PV, where the front-to-back playthrough of the album was entirely expected. Lots of things have changed in the ten years between those gigs, but what hasn’t changed are two things: PV remains an absolute banger in ways unfathomable, and I still love Magnolia more.

The gig was euphoric, and ended with a few offshoots from random albums and EPs; however, the last song performed was arguably my favorite off Magnolia, “Most of the Time.” My high school self felt vindicated– in the sense that I was able to experience a pre-PV song live, and that the band chose to acknowledge who they used to be when I fell in love with them.

– Brandon Cortez

my better half – mybetterhalf.

This self-titled EP from Seattle emo band my better half is short and not-so-sweet. Instead, you can expect each of the five tracks to reach inside of you, rip open something unresolved, and then grant catharsis through raw vocals and distortion. Despite being a relatively recent addition to the scene, my better half has effortlessly garnered a following and embarked on a West Coast tour.

On mybetterhalf., vigorous drumming and heavy guitars take turns with somber, melodic moments of reflection. The vocals convey a desperation that’s timeless to the genre, with lyrics that could have been scribbled at any point in the past 30 years. In beloved emo fashion, my better half frequently layers spoken word and dialogue over melancholic instrumentals–opening the EP with an ominous twist on one of Agent Cooper’s notorious voice notes from the cult-classic TV show Twin Peaks.

My better half is young, and their songs will take you back to the same point in your own life. Their most popular track, “Work and Progress,” begins once again with spoken word: “Yesterday I graduated / today, I’m alone.” This leads into a bittersweet commentary on the familiar experience of coping with, or rather, resisting change. Closing out the EP, “A Shipwreck I’ve Seen” hints at the ending of something more brutal than graduation and the crushing weight of uncertainty that comes with it. It’s a gritty, intense track with traces of both metal and hardcore, leaving room to breathe only during the brief, contemplative mid-section.

mybetterhalf. is the band’s only released work so far. In just five tracks, my better half has curated a heart-wrenching collection of life’s most difficult emotions and channeled them into an honest, authentic gem amongst the scene.

– Annie Watson

The Chemical Brothers – Come With Us

I was an AV club kid in high school, a pursuit driven 50% by my interest in audio equipment and 50% by my desire to skip out on class. On the day of events like the school talent show or battle of the bands, my friends and I would be given all-day hall passes to set things up in the auditorium; this all-day work window was something I insisted on, but I can admit now that it was, in most cases, not necessary. Sometimes the setup took less than an hour. This left us with a lot of time to screw around, and much of that screwing around involved playing Come With Us really, really loud over the PA system. In my head, I can still clearly hear the opening of “It Began In Afrika” bouncing off the walls of the empty auditorium as we sat in the light booth haphazardly messing with fresnels and avoiding chemistry class. “Star Guitar” is definitely a song best enjoyed at a late-night rave, but I’d argue that listening to it in the middle of the day when you’re supposed to be in AP English ranks a close second. Nostalgia aside, I still think Come With Us is a super enjoyable album, definitely the release from this era of electronic music that I return to the most. Great guest vocals from Beth Orton on “The State We’re In” and Richard Ashcroft on “The Test,” lots to sink your teeth into in general. Don’t think that I’ll ever get tired of it.

– Josh Ejnes

Fall Out Boy – Folie à Deux

My love for the band Fall Out Boy is deep and well-documented, beginning at an early age through rhythm games, as is often the case for me – whether it was “Dance, Dance” on Dance Dance Revolution or “The Take Over, The Breaks Over” on Guitar Hero: On Tour. Despite regularly watching the music videos for “I Don’t Care” and “America’s Suitehearts” on Xfinity On Demand in junior high, I did not become a vehement lover and defender of their fourth record, Folie à Deux, until a handful of years ago.

Fall Out Boy's final record before their five-year-long hiatus in 2009, Folie was a notable departure from many elements that fans came to expect from the band: a more collaborative writing approach, more worldly lyricisms, less emo songwriting and more focus on various genre influences, as well as lead singer Patrick Stump desire to move away as the focal point of their songs. It’s no wonder that Folie was received less positively than its monumental predecessor, Infinity On High. To this day, Folie remains the underdog of their catalog, even among the band members themselves, but I love an underdog.

Folie à Deux excels in every aspect of Fall Out Boy that I adore, and its multitude of features and collaborators only expand on that. Stump is firing on all cylinders vocally and delivering a performance of a lifetime on this album, a preview of the comparable vocal performance on his 2011 solo record, Soul Punk. Pete Wentz’s lyricisms are, to my estimation, the best of his career, focusing on American psychosis and commentaries rather than emo love songs. Joe Trohman, despite his struggles with drug abuse during the recording, complements the melodies and instrumentation with his virtuosic guitar playing. At the same time, Andy Hurley’s drum parts stand as the most iconic in the band’s history.

Despite enjoying the albums that preceded it, I genuinely see Folie as Fall Out Boy’s magnum opus that they could have hung their collective hats on forever. Especially with “What A Catch, Donnie” acting as an emotive love note to the band’s most notable triumphs thus far. Folie à Deux is proof that it pays, at least artistically, to destroy your creative mold and see what masterpieces can be crafted from its pieces.

– Ciara Rhiannon

My Sister’s Fugazi Shirt – Man Fears the Darkness, and So He Scrapes Away at the Edges of It With Fire

Although I have long since fallen out of the anime world, Neon Genesis Evangelion remains one of my favorite works of all time (so much so that I dragged my girlfriend, who has never even heard of the show, to watch the agonizing End of Evangelion at a theatre). In Man Fears the Darkness, and So He Scrapes Away at the Edges of It With Fire, My Sister’s Fugazi Shirt uses lo-fi hip hop, a genre often reduced to inoffensive background vibes, as a mirror to reflect the true essence of Neon Genesis, the characters, and their struggles in making sense of a broken world.

Virtually all of the samples on the album are lifted straight from the anime’s dialogue, with whole songs being dedicated to a specific character or scene from the show. Even though the instrumentals themselves are gentle enough, the sampling evokes some of the more emotional moments of the series, making it hard for the album to be thrown on as a ‘chill radio to relax and study to.’ Instead, the catharsis of the show bleeds into the album; Shinji literally endures the end of the world and finds a way to continue living. In that sense, Man Fears the Darkness is a strangely comforting album, despite the bleakness that blankets Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s no surprise that people are so passionate about the show; these characters are reflections of us and the strength that each of us is capable of. Let this unsuspecting collection of songs remind you of that strength.

– Nickolas Sackett

Honorable Mentions

Hey, we can’t write about every album with this color, so here’s a list of some more that we feel like we should mention.

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
Pool Kids – Pool Kids // POOL
Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs
Antioch Arrow - In Love With Jetts
The Fall of Troy - Doppleganger
Coheed and Cambria - The Father of Make Believe
Flycatcher - Wrench
Snail Mail - Habit
Cory Hanson - I Love People
World’s Worst - American Muscle
Young Thug - Barter 6
Man Overboard - The Human Highlight Reel
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Migos - Culture II
The White Stripes - Elephant
Beach House - Depression Cherry
St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
ScHoolboy Q - Blank Face LP
Snail Mail - Lush
Heart Attack Man - Fake Blood
Wilco - Cruel Country
Lil' Wayne - Sorry 4 The Wait 2
Russian Circles - Empros
Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork
The White Stripes - The White Stripes

January 28, 2026

Cover Collector – January Blues

January 28, 2026/ The Swim Team

At some point near the tail end of 2025, I conceived of a more communal way to bring this love of album collage to life. Because, sure, getting a live readout of your listening history is cool, but this is also about album art, an essential part of the experience and something us nerds can fixate on just as much as the songs that sit beneath the cover. As such, I’m excited to introduce Cover Collector: a monthly installation where the Swim Team will discuss some of our favorite albums based on album color. For January, we’re leaning into wintery blues.

Drive By Truckers – The Dirty South

I think about the lanky blue demon on the cover of this album all the time. I wonder how he got in the middle of those Alabama pines, if he’s drinking bootlegged rye or bourbon out of that bottle, and what he’s thinking about alone in those woods. I wonder if he likes being mean, if he listens to The Band, and if he’s scared of his daddy. How long has he been sitting on that stump?

The Dirty South is Drive By Truckers’ fifth album (I am forgoing the hyphen in the spelling of their band name here because former member Jason Isbell swears it wasn’t there when he was playing in it, and he is all over this album) and the conceptual sequel to Decoration Day. Like Decoration Day and most of their discography, the band uses the album to dissect the wrongness of the people in the South. However, what makes me like The Dirty South the most out of their Southern investigations is the consideration of familial myth and unstoppable tragedy as something crucial to understanding the region. It makes for a layered and haunting work. In an old website post, Patterson Hood said that “Tornadoes, Danko / Manuel and Carl Perkins' Cadillac all sound especially fine.” Unfortunately, he is wrong. Those songs do all sound fine, but what sounds best are “Where the Devil Don't Stay,” “The Day John Henry Died,” and “Puttin' People on the Moon.”

– Caro Alt

Grateful Dead – Dick’s Picks 15: Raceway Park, Englishtown NJ, 9/3/77

A band like the Grateful Dead has such a seemingly high barrier to entry. For the uninitiated, you’ve seen the iconography your whole life—the dancing bears (they’re actually “marching” bears), the skull with the lightning bolt in it, the skull with the rose crown. You’ve seen the images of hippies twirling. Maybe the most you know of them is your high school friend’s older brother who reeked of patchouli. Of course, all these things are reductive. But it’s what sticks.

To actually get into the music of the Grateful Dead, where would one even start? Over a 30-year career, they played over 2,400 live shows, almost all of which were recorded and exist online in some way. 13 studio albums, multiple off-shoot bands and side projects. It’s like eating an elephant, and the method for tackling both is the same: one bite at a time.

Deadheads have argued for decades—and we like to argue about everything—which is the best show to give someone to introduce them to the Grateful Dead? Cornell ’77? Kind of a perfect one. Veneta ’72? Really great, but long and spacey. Buffalo ’89? A classic, but misses some of the “lore” of the 60’s and 70’s. In my time, I’ve put multiple people “on the bus,” as they say. While it’s maybe not the absolute best, and it doesn’t cover all necessary ground, I keep coming back to Englishtown ’77.

1977 was a banner year for the Grateful Dead. Maybe THE banner year. If you ask 100 Deadheads their favorite year, I would wager over half would say ’77. Everything was just kind of connecting for them. They had fully gotten back up to speed after their hiatus year in 1975, and Jerry Garcia was at one of his many peaks. Mickey Hart, the band’s second percussionist, had returned after resigning in disgrace when his father stole a bunch of money from the group. Mickey, with other drummer Bill Kreutzmann, had locked into a sort of dancey disco vibe, apropos of the late-70s. The crown jewel of 1977 is the month of May, boasting a dozen or so all-time great shows. But this one took place in September.

Raceway Park was a massive space, and this concert would become one of the largest crowds the Dead ever played to. Estimates range from 125k to 175k people, with the most conservative figures still over 100k. Two people died, and two babies were born. There are a hundred great stories about this show (like it had been over two years since they played “Truckin’,” so apparently they had to go backstage and relearn it together in the middle of the show?), but I don’t want to hog this piece. Suffice it to say, 09/03/1977 contains multiple all-time performances of some of the Dead’s most classic songs: Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleoo, Looks Like Rain, Peggy-O, The Music Never Stopped, Eyes of the World.

Everybody take a step back!

– Caleb Doyle

Jay-Z – The Blueprint

The Blueprint is Jay-Z at his rap beef apex; he’s sitting on a throne of dominance in New York. The rollout for Jay’s sixth studio album contained some of the most memorable moments in the Y2K era for hip-hop. There was the infamous 2001 Summer Jam concert, where Jay-Z displayed a photo of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy wearing a ballet outfit, a moment that still lives in infamy to this day in rap beef history. The dichotomy of embarrassing an opponent dressed like Michael Jackson, then bringing out the real Michael Jackson at the same concert, needs to be studied by our top historians. It’s a stroke of hater genius by Jay-Z. “Takeover” was the equivalent of a figure-four leglock aimed at not only Mobb Deep but also another rap icon, Nas, which resulted in my favorite hip-hop tussle of all time.

Besides the juicy rivalry bits, on The Blueprint, Jay-Z curated a specific soulful vibe with innovative production from a young and hungry Kanye West, who mixed in his classic soul chops, resulting in hits like “Izzo (H.O.V.A.), “Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love),” and “Never Change.” Eminem is featured on “Renegade,” a feature that I still think back to almost twenty-five years later. Something about two hip-hop heavyweights trying to out-bar each other gets me going. This song is like a Tyson-Holyfield spectacle. The Blueprint is an all-time classic that solidified Jay-Z's place in another stratosphere of superstardom.

– David Williams

Superheaven – Jar

Two years ago, my girlfriend gifted me a tape player and Jar on cassette for our first Christmas together. For me, the title of this album might as well be “Now That’s What I Call Post-Post-Post-Hardcore!” With every listen, I feel like I hear a new influence or notice a new similarity to another song. Some albums break the mold, but this one was cast so perfectly in its own that it makes the entire genre shine brighter. So, it’s not surprising that when Jar was released in April of 2013, it actually charted. On the radio. In the context of other notable releases, Title Fight’s Floral Green came out just six months prior (in a city just 10 minutes away from Superheaven’s hometown of Wilkes-Barre, PA), Citizen’s Youth released two months later, and The Hotelier’s Home, Like Noplace is There followed in late 2014. My favorite track is “Hole In the Ground,” which somehow simultaneously reminds me of Mineral and makes me appreciate Daughtry just a bit more. Final fun fact: the album cover was originally red! It changed when the group changed their name from “Daylight” to “Superheaven.”

– Braden Allmond

Motion City Soundtrack – Even If It Kills Me

The first four Motion City Soundtrack albums are sacred artifacts – well, to me at least. MCS has always been a band that felt like my own; a rejection of my sheltered upbringing that existed outside the influence of friends and family. I discovered various early hits of theirs in high school, mainly through my Say Anything Pandora station, and there has always been this secret sauce drawing me back to those early days of their career, from I Am the Movie to My Dinosaur Life. As they all feel like children to me, it’s impossible to pick a favorite, but if I had to pick the black sheep of the family, it’s their third creation, Even If It Kills Me.

It lacks the notable singles like “Everything Is Alright” and “My Favorite Accident,” you probably won’t find it collecting great accolades among top albums of all time, and it might not be considered a “no-skip” album (a term I have my own qualms with, but can’t fit into 300 words). No, Even If It Kills Me isn’t flashy and, as a whole, it’s actually a downright bummer of an album both in lyrical and musical content, but there’s a tender and often lighthearted sincerity to this particular entry in the band’s catalog that holds a special place in my heart. Songs like “Fell In Love Without You” and “Calling All Cops” offer more than enough fun and familiarity, while others, namely “Point of Extinction” and bonus track “The Worst Part…” exist purely as a reliable gut punch when I’m feeling the need for one.

Blue? Oh yes, Even If It Kills Me fits the descriptor in more ways than just its painfully 2000s album cover.

– Ciara Rhiannon

Knocked Loose – A Different Shade Of Blue

It’s been fascinating to watch A Different Shade Of Blue age since its release in 2019. In the scope of Knocked Loose’s songwriting structure, this is when the Oldham County group elevated their meat-and-potatoes approach to hardcore music and turned it into something downright scary. Every ring out and downtuned guitar passage sounds like it came straight out of hell, thanks to Isaac Hale’s obsession with creating the most unnerving guitar tones known to man and Will Putney’s complimentary production style. On the lyrical front, Bryan Garris screams of hiding someone in the walls and having a bone to pick with death, working together with video game voiceovers to further exemplify the horrifying atmosphere that Knocked Loose have wanted to build this entire time. This type of world-building would be further refined in their next record, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To (a masterclass of 2020s heavy music associated with the color green, not blue), but A Different Shade Of Blue brought the group to the limelight for a lot of music listeners, myself included. My first proper hardcore show was their gig at Webster Hall, where I got spinkicked in the face within half an hour of getting inside. Good times.

– Samuel Leon

Ratboys – The Window

Ratboys are probably one of indie rock’s most perpetually underrated bands. Since self-releasing their self-titled EP as a duo in 2011, the band has expanded and solidified over five albums, tightening the screws each time and leaving a flawless batch of tunes in their wake. The group was sitting at the intersection of alt-country and indie rock before Pinegrove or Alex G, much less any of the bands currently chasing that sound down today. It should come as no surprise then that the Chicago band feel like such a singular and authentic voice—they’ve only ever known how to be themselves. Nowhere is that more clear than The Window, a record packed with vivacious rev-up songs, life-affirming melodies, and soul-searching epics that gradually melt into each ventricle of your heart upon repeated listen. I’d say that The Window is Ratboys’ most realized work yet, but based on the few singles released from Singin’ to an Empty Chair, it seems we might have an even better contender arriving in a matter of days. Ratboys are a rare band of consistency; a group that somehow manages to just keep getting better as they unlock new and exciting compartments of their own sound. While The Window stands as the most recent articulation of that exploration, it will be exciting to see how they continue to crank out these stirring indie rock songs with craftsman-like precision.

– Taylor Grimes

Portishead – Dummy

Nobody captured the ‘90s sense of “cool” quite like vocalist Beth Gibbons on Portishead’s Dummy. This seminal trip-hop album features her voice, breathy and sweet, over reverb-y minor chords and shifty cymbals. Like the midnight blue of the album cover, Dummy is so nighttime-coded it simply doesn’t make sense to listen to it while the sun’s out. Gibbons’ lines are flirty and at the same time deadly serious. Some speculate you shouldn’t look the blue Medusa in the eye, but I recommend turning up the bass volume.

– Katie Hayes

Weezer (1994), also known as “The Blue Album,” is simply an all-timer. Maybe I’m biased as someone who identifies with Rivers Cuomo’s nerdy tendencies and staggering unconfidence. Despite those leanings, these songs fucking rock and make for one of the best records of the 90s and alternative music as a whole. Ending the whole thing on a wandering, meditative, soul-affirming 8-minute song is just the cherry on top.

Dire Straits – Love Over Gold

Love Over Gold is one of the best records that I’ve ever found in a bargain bin. Before picking this up a month or so back, I only really knew Dire Straits through their radio hits, so I wasn’t at all prepared for Love over Gold’s 14-minute-long opener “Telegraph Road.” A heartland rock track from a British band that’s as long as a prog song, you just can’t beat it. Front to back, this record is full of great moments, especially in the latter half of the title track, where you get some very cool lead interplay between vibraphones, marimbas, and a nylon string guitar.

This has quickly become the album that I reach for when I’m not exactly sure what I want to listen to; it’s interesting without being heady, perfect for late-night listens while you stare at the ceiling. I know I’m late to the party here, but man, Mark Knopfler can really play. Beyond its own merits, I have an affinity for this record because it got me obsessed with Knopfler, which led to me watching a movie he scored called Local Hero. The movie had been on my watchlist for a while, but I’d been holding off because its premise made me fear it might be trite and predictable; the Knopfler connection was enough to push me over the edge to actually watch it. It turned out that I was totally wrong, hell of a movie. Thanks, Love over Gold.

– Josh Ejnes

Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth

Sometimes I forget that Nine Inch Nails is one of my favorite bands. The last release of theirs I was really obsessed with was 2013’s Hesitation Marks, and I’m not enough of a cinephile to follow all of Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’s soundtrack work. Plus, the last time I saw them was admittedly a bit underwhelming, considering the first time I saw them at Lollapalooza 2013 is still, to this day, the best live performance I’ve ever witnessed. That show had arrived after eight long years of build-up, when I heard the band for the very first time. With Teeth had just come out, their first album since 1999’s The Fragile, and their finest hour in my opinion. The album was blaring from my dad’s home office when I walked in there to ask him a likely asinine question, as I often did. I heard Trent screaming “DON’T YOU FUCKING KNOW WHO YOU ARE” over this chaotic electronic music, unlike anything I’d heard before. After that, I became a pre-teen NIN devotee, studying every CD my dad had in his collection, including the remix albums like Fixed and Further Down The Spiral, and of course, With Teeth.

In some ways, I think Teeth is the perfect NIN album. It’s a career-encapsulating collection of songs that range from aggressive radio singles like “The Hand That Feeds” and “Only,” to classic goth ballads like “Every Day Is Exactly The Same” and “Right Where It Belongs,” plus fan favorite deep cuts like “Getting Smaller” and “Sunspots.” The band’s next album, 2007’s Year Zero, with more fantastic blue artwork, would inspire me to write a 14-chapter fan fiction for my fifth-grade creative writing assignment. Trent and his rotating cast of bandmates have been a longtime influence of mine, even if their records aren’t as prevalent in my rotation as they once were. With Teeth will always be a cornerstone in my musical evolution that hasn’t lost a beat in the last 20 years.

– Logan Archer Mounts

12 Rods – If We Stayed Alive

12 Rods—a Minneapolis group sometimes remembered for earning one of Pitchfork’s very first “10s,” but maybe more commonly referred to as “the greatest band that nobody remembers.” After calling it quits in 2004, 12 Rods made a surprise comeback in 2023 with seven previously unreleased tracks and just one remaining member—frontman Ryan Olcott.

Despite a 20-year gap between records, If We Stayed Alive picks up seamlessly where Olcott and the former band left off. In true 12 Rods fashion, the album blends dreamy, dizzying textures with cryptic yet personal lyricism. While heavier moments of 12 Rods’ discography made use of synthesizers and occasional distortion, If We Stayed Alive opts for electric guitar with a timeless wash of reverb. The record’s haunting opening promptly transitions into a handful of more optimistic tracks, then just as quickly pivots to a cool, understated groove. Olcott’s nuance shines even in the final 20 seconds of the record when the listener is granted the slightest hint of a harmonic and emotional resolution after floating through the sonic ether.

While the cover is a lively electric blue, If We Stayed Alive evokes the deep blue of a downtown on a foggy night. This record is ideal for the dreampop fan who yearns for the 90s, and is the perfect gateway into the bittersweet world of 12 Rods.

– Annie Watson

Oklou – choke enough

I, admittedly, don’t know much about Oklou. I know that she is from France, is a classically trained musician (a pianist and cellist), and recently became a mother during the creation of choke enough. The ripples of motherhood flow throughout the album, especially in the blurry, domestic scene displayed on the cover; a group of kids hanging out in the living room, slightly out of focus, their attention drawn to something happening just outside the window. Oklou herself poses for a selfie in the foreground of the scene, perfectly depicting the conflict that is prevalent throughout the record: what does it mean to be Oklou now in such a strange era of accelerated surveillance technology, one where she not only has a new life to care for but has instant access to the beauty and (horror) of the world in a scrollable feed?

That dichotomy is explored beautifully through a gentle record that remains alluringly at arm’s length, despite its intimacy. Much of the music here resembles the transient experience of passing by a club at night and hearing the 808s pump through the walls; you can feel the party, but you're not exactly a part of it. You need that distance sometimes, that oddly comforting sense of proximity that allows the freedom to pause and make sense of it all without getting completely wrapped up in it. Oklou gives us a misty, ephemeral work, pushing towards the emotion found in trance and club music, yet constantly pulling back before the exuberant drop. But all rivers flow back to the self. Let the blue waters flow over you. You never know what can be floating underneath.

– Nickolas Sackett

The Weepies – Hideaway

I hadn’t been driving for long. Freshly sixteen, I’d revel in my newfound mobility with jaunts just about anywhere. That particular day in 2008, I was on the move, hoping to stock my CD shelves with goods from CD Warehouse, a nook in my neighborhood’s strip center. Part of me felt shame determining a purchase based on album art, but the other part of me fell in love with the delicately drawn beluga whale on the cover of The Weepies’ Hideaway. I grabbed the plastic square and slapped it onto the counter. In the container of my car, the songs felt like lullabies, gently melancholy like the stars and the sea on the cover.

This album has never quite let me out of its orbit. The opening track, “Can’t Go Back Now,” is one of my playlist mainstays. The folky duo’s silky harmonies sail over soft, sparkling guitars and keys: “If you ever turn around, you’ll see me.” It’s an ode to a deep blue road that I still find myself driving, almost twenty years later.

– Katie Hayes

Lorde – Melodrama

I was first introduced to Lorde in 2013 when my college roommate played “Royals” for me through the tinny speaker of her iPhone 4. We would play the album on loop as the semesters flew by, cementing Lorde as one of the defining artists of my undergrad career. Fast-forward to 2017, and I’m heading into my second year of graduate school. This time, Lorde had freshly released her sophomore album, Melodrama, and my best friend and I loved to listen to “Liability” as we agonized over papers, research, and recital prep. The album artwork is one of my favorites: a moody, intimate painting of Lorde by Sam McKinniss. His treatment of light through the use of rich blue tones and contrasting coral accents is mesmerizing. The portrait is timeless, capturing both elegance and raw vulnerability through angular brushstrokes and saturated hues. I’ll always love it. Nostalgia lives on in every track, reminding me of evenings spent blasting this album with the windows down, breathing in the salted Gulf air, and screaming about the “fuckin’ melodrama” until our voices were nearly as raspy as Lorde’s.

– Britta Joseph

The Avalanches – We Will Always Love You

The Avalanches entered the cultural zeitgeist with their 2000 album, Since I Left You, and re-entered it again with their long-awaited 2016 follow-up, Wildflower. Both albums are beloved for good reason, but to me, nothing compares to the magnum opus that is We Will Always Love You. In some ways, this is a concept record, following the love story between Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, the director of the Voyager Golden Record project, whose goal was to cement the existence of human life into the universe by placing two golden records upon the Voyager spacecrafts in 1977. Her face is on the cover, and the thesis of her project serves as a throughline of the album’s heart and soul.

There is no record that feels as all-encompassing or celebratory of the human experience and what it means to love each other. Throughout the album’s runtime, The Avalanches combine their signature plunderphonics and sample-based production with interpolations and features from musicians whose work spans countless genres and decades. From Johnny Marr and Blood Orange to Vashti Bunyan and Karen O, the album centers around the idea that everyone can come together and celebrate our shared humanity through music. The record’s hour-long runtime never feels bloated or weighted down by any of its inclusions; in fact, it’s an album that feels wrong to listen to unless it’s as a complete work. Despite the fact that each track can stand as its own composition, when listened to as a full album, every song continues to build on the last. It’s all one musical idea extrapolated on by many different voices and perspectives.

Each time I think back on the tracks I love the most, like “Interstellar Love” with Leon Bridges, “Gold Sky” with Kurt Vile, or “Running Red Lights” with Rivers Cuomo and Pink Siifu, I remember the cathartic rush and emotion I feel throughout the journey, capped off by the closing track. The final song “Weightless” contains the Arecibo Message from 1974, a Morse code which was broadcast at the speed of light into the universe to beg the question of extraterrestrial existence. Though we may not have any concrete way to know who heard the Voyager Golden Record or the Arecibo Message, we know that music connects us to each other, no matter where in the world we are.

– Helen Howard

Honorable Mentions

Hey, we can’t write about every album with this color, so here’s a list of some more that we feel like we should mention.

Joni Mitchell - Blue
Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
The Killers - Hot Fuss
Explosions in the Sky - How Strange, Innocence
Nirvana - Nevermind
Turnstile - Never Enough
Momma - Welcome to My Blue Sky
First Day Back - Forward
Drunk Uncle - Look Up
Geese - Getting Killed
Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor’s Guide to Earth
Carpool - My Life in Subtitles
Combat - Stay Golden
Judge - Bringin’ It Down
Megadeth - Rust In Peace
Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell
Fall Out Boy - Take This To Your Grave
Oldsoul - Education on Earth
Death Cab For Cutie - Thank You For Today
Adventures - Supersonic Home
Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour

July 27, 2022

The Most Petable Dogs In Music

July 27, 2022/ Taylor Grimes

Dogs. They’re everywhere, maybe even in your own home. You might know them as Man’s Best Friend, but I’d argue they’re even more than that–they’re art.

I’ve always been a dog person. My family has had two dogs; Inca (rest in peace) and Miracle. They’re both Keeshonds and both very good girls. I’m just doing a ballpark estimation, but I’d guess that I’ve taken dozens of gigabytes worth of photos and videos of both of them over the last sixteen years. They’re cute, and I love them!

It only makes sense that musical artists have the same connections with their dogs, so it’s no surprise why many of them have immortalized their pets (or other people’s pets) on the covers of their albums.

Go on, just think about it. You can probably name a few off the top of your gear right now without even trying. As far as album covers go, I’d like to make a bold and substanceless claim that no other creature within the album kingdom has been as well-represented as canines. Big guys, small guys, fluffy guys, feral guys, they’re all here in some form or another on various album covers from indie rock to experimental bullshit.

In this article, I’d like to rank these famous pups by how much I’d like to pet them personally. I’d also like to give the clarifying asterisk that I think all of these dogs are good boys and girls. This ranking is no judgment on the dog’s looks or the artist’s music, purely how much I would personally like to curl up with the dog we see on the album art.

Secondary asterisk: don’t you dare contact me and tell me that I “missed one.” This is all of them, every dog that’s ever existed on an album cover ever. There are no more… Just kidding, please add your favorite album cover dogs in the comments; I want to see them all.

Machine Girl - Wlfgrl

Given the title of this album, the animal captured on Machine Girl’s breakthrough album may very well be a wolf. Regardless, it does not look friendly and is not an animal I would want anywhere near me. 0/10

21 Savage, Offset & Metro Boomin - Without Warning

Not a happy dog, and I wouldn’t be happy to be around him. 1/10

Blur – Parklife

Here they come, barreling towards you, driven by some unknowable primordial force and the taste for victory. I think greyhounds are pretty cool, but any time you see a muzzle on a dog, that signals at least some level of un-cuddliness. Also, minus points for being British. 2/10

Joyce Manor - Cody

I wonder what the dietary information is on a mannequin head. 2/10

Rick Springfield - Working Class Dog

A prisoner of capitalism. One album later, the same dog can be seen riding in the back of a limousine flanked by two girl dogs. He may claim, as the title reads, “success hasn’t spoiled me yet,” but the smile on his face has noticeably faded. Money won’t bring you happiness, Rick Springfield dog, I can promise you that. 2/10

Weezer - Raditude

Sometimes a boy’s just gotta fly. He probably just heard “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” and got all hyped up. We’ve all been there, right? I would like to vacation in this home, but I don’t know if I could deal with the energy level of this particular dog. 3/10

Nouns - still bummed

Something about this dog has always unsettled me. Maybe it’s the underexposed flash film photography, the modest Christmas tree in the background, or the music itself, but I’ve never been a fan. Plus, huskies always remind me of this meme dog. 3/10

Rush – Signals

Not to go all “Cruella” on you guys, but I once heard that Dalmatians are bad with kids, and that turned me off of them forever. Not even a good Rush album. 4/10

Snoop Dogg - Bush

Look, I know there’s probably a more-famous Snoop Dogg cover you were expecting to see on this list, but Bush is a fun little funk record that’s worth checking out. This is also markedly less horny album cover than Doggystyle, and this is a WHOLESOME list, so I’m opting for Bush. The ideal listening (and dog petting) scenario is nearby a BBQ on a hot summer day with some beers in hand. 5/10

Mogwai - Travel is Dangerous

This is my baby Yoda. The live version of “We’re No Here” is crushingly heavy and one of my favorite songs of all time; please go listen. 5/10

SUB-CATEGORY: CARTOON GUYS

We’re roughly halfway through our countdown, so let’s take a break from the real dogs to look at some fake dogs. I’m putting all these illustrated guys into their own category because they’re still dogs but deserve to be analyzed with slightly different criteria.

In terms of the physical action of petting, would I be petting a 2D approximation of these dogs? Would I myself be 2D? Would it be a Roger Rabbit-style cartoon-into-real-world logic? As you can see, we must look at these boys slightly differently and rank them accordingly. Still scored based on cuteness and overall petability.

Mannequin Pussy - Perfect

I can see why Mannequin Pussy chose this dog as the cover for their awesome EP from last year. It’s a rager of a punk release, and this snarling German Shepard embodies the music well. This all said, cartoon or not, I’d like to keep this dog far away from me. 1/10

Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Freaky little dog with freaky little eyes. Honestly would probably put me to sleep just like this album. 2/10

Crywank - Tomorrow Is Nearly Yesterday And Everyday Is Stupid

Here we see a certified looooong boy having achieved Dog Nirvana. I’ll let him enjoy victory over his tail and not disrupt him with my pets or adoration. 3/10

Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy

Long before I knew anything about Will Toledo’s life as a furry, I thought this album cover was just a veiled homage to Daniel Johnston. I’d offer to pet these dogs, but honestly, it seems like they’re comforting each other just fine. 4/10

Hovvdy - Easy/Turns Blue

Technically a single, so technically a dog 5/10

Newgrounds Death Rugby - Pictures of Your Pets

No idea where these guys are, what they’re wearing, or why they're posing for a picture, but I can only imagine they’re a good hang. I’d let them crash on my couch while backpacking across the country. 6/10

Mo Troper - Dilettante

A vibrant and multi-colored dog. Truth be told, I don’t know quite what’s going on here, but the abstractness kinda adds to the charm. If I owned this dog, I’d name him Schlorp. 7/10

TTNG - Animals

A landmark math rock album in which a group of five British men attempt to replicate the energy of 13 various animals across as many tracks. While the dog only may be one small piece of this album and its art, it’s hard to deny how small and cute this guy is. Plus, if he can coexist alongside an alligator, elk, baboon, and more, you just know he’s a stone-cold chiller. 8/10

Various Artists - No Earbudz Vol. 1

Look, ain't no rules says a dog can't play basketball. There also aren’t any rules that a PR company can’t put out one of the best compilations of 2021. Assisting in album campaigns for the likes of Bartees Strange, Into It Over It, Future Teens, Caracara, and more, No Earbuds is a killer organization that’s home to some of the best and brightest minds in emotional indie rock. Having all these artists cover each other was a stroke of genius. Here’s hoping we get a Vol. 2 someday. Very petable, very good. 9/10

Advance Base - Animal Companionship

Regal, majestic, pure. These are just a few of the words that come to mind when I look at the dog on the cover of Animal Companionship. He might be a little cold, but I’d gladly let him inside and allow him to warm up by the fire. Also, possibly my favorite album on this list besides TTNG. 10/10

Okay, that about covers us for the two-dimensional dogs. Now, back to your regularly-scheduled dog ranking…

Alex G - Trick

Look at him go. He may have grown up in a religious environment, but you can just tell that this German Shepherd knows how to party. 6/10

Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger In The Alps

In Phoebe Bridgers’ first (and, in my opinion, best) album, we take in an image that, much like her music, is equal parts haunting and charming. Set on a pastoral farm scene, a scratched-out cartoon ghost obscures the humanoid figure beneath. A rainbow breaks through the sky, dog nearby, cautiously surveying the scene and looking damn cute while doing it. Phoebe has also posted a cool unedited version on Instagram, which is great for all your Deluxe Edition needs. 6/10

Hot Mulligan - you’ll be fine

Me? Depressed. Emotionless. Existing, but not feeling. My dog? Luckily my dog feels everything. We both take in the endless expanse of nature listening to the post-emo of you’ll be fine, and for 31 minutes, it seems like things might just turn out okay. 6/10

Pet Symmetry - Pets Hounds

Floppy-ass ears and big hangin’ tongues, what else could you want in an animal? I just know these dogs would be down for a couple of hours of fetch and a long rest on the front porch afterward. 7/10

Jimmy Mayo - Whoops

Boop. Oh, sorry, I didn’t see ya there. In what feels like the tonal inverse of the Nouns dog, here we have a warm but just-as-out-of-focus pic of a pup on the cover of one of the most underrated and under-the-radar emo EPs of the past few years. 7/10

See Through Person - Chariot

Another great emo dog. He’s chillin’, you’re chillin’, life is good, and the riffs are twinkly. 7/10

Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

The Stranger Things lady? Cool! All kidding aside, I’m happy for Kate Bush and the legions of Gen Z fans she’s recently attained. I’m even happier to report that the titular hounds on Hounds of Love appear infinitely cuddle-able. In fact, the album cover acts as undeniable proof of that fact. 8/10

Pet Symmetry - Two Songs About Cars. Two Songs With Long Titles.

Whoa, boom, second entry from the same band on one list! Pet Symmetry is easily taking home the “most dog-friendly band” award. They must have been trying to make this a theme in the band’s early days, and how could you deny them when you look at a dog this cute? A wonderful boy that I would drive to the dog park any day of the week. 8/10

Little Big League - Tropical Jinx

Michelle Zauner, mustaches, and a singular fluffy pup snuggled in between them. What else could you possibly need? 9/10

Beck – Odelay

One of the types of dogs. I’ve always wanted to pet him. I’ve always wanted to see him on a windy day. I’ve always wanted to see him do everything. 10/10

Shelley FKA DRAM - Big Baby DRAM

Damn, look at DRAM. Look at that pup. This image radiates happiness in a way that few album covers ever do. A perfect composition. 10/10

March 06, 2022

I Tried Weezify So You Don't Have To

March 06, 2022/ Taylor Grimes

On January 31st, the year of our lord 2022, the infinitely reputable Louder published a reality-shattering sentence onto the internet; Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo has built his own "Spotify-like player" known as Weezify. I read the headline multiple times, ensuring I was interpreting it correctly. I knew all those words, but I’ve never seen them arranged in such a way. Does this really mean what I think it means?

This news was coming hot on the heels of musical titans like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulling their music off Spotify in the wake of the platform actively spreading anti-vaccine information. Elsewhere, Kanye West announced that his proprietary Stem Player hardware would be the only way to listen to his upcoming Donda 2. The music industry was shifting at speeds we’d never seen before.

Artists are now beginning to realize that the negotiating power lies in their hands. They are the creators; platforms like Spotify and Apple Music are merely leeches that profit off their countless hours of hard work and years of honed craft. Much like the Starbucks workers unionizing and the Kellogg’s employees striking for better pay, we are collectively realizing the power we have in mutual support of each other. The pandemic has taught us many things as a society, but one of the more optimistic takeaways is discovering the strength we have in solidarity. Similarly, artists are clearly unhappy with the bill of goods they had been sold and are rightfully looking for alternatives. It’s time for innovation, true innovation. Enter Weezify.

The proposition was simple. “Tired of Spotify? Come on over to Weezify.” Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo tweeted along with links to the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and his personal website. How could I say no to that? Every day I wake up and listen to the 15-hour Weezer Discography playlist top to bottom; you mean to tell me that I can get this content somewhere else??

While many people (including myself) foolishly thought this was a goof or simply too good to be true, my curiosity got the better of me, and I soon found myself reluctantly clicking the link to the App Store. I stared at the app page for a minute as if I were standing outside the gates of heaven. “Be not afraid,” the icon seemingly whispered to me as I clicked the download button almost without thinking.

Upon launching Weezify, you’re immediately greeted with a login screen. Still unsure if this was a legitimate app or just something designed to steal my social security information, I sheepishly clicked “Maybe later,” hoping that my fence-sitting response wouldn’t be reported directly to Mr. Cuomo himself. I am a Weezer Believer, but I also grew up in the era of computer viruses and Rickrolls, so I still have to follow my internet street smarts.

After clearing that screen, the app dumps the user directly into its “Player” tab, which I stared at for a good minute until I soon became crushed when I realized that it wasn’t going to load. A constantly-swirling blue loading icon taunted me, beckoning to the wild treasures that might hide behind it. My mind was racing.

Dismayed but not deterred, I clicked over to the “Profile” tab to work my way through the app left to right. I was informed that I was a “Lurker” as I stared at my profile picture: a Rivers Cuomo Funko Pop which sat perched atop a quote from “Surf Wax America.” Again, the app encouraged me to sign up or log in. Not yet, Rivers, you temptress.

With the image of the cold, dead eyes of a Rivers Cuomo Pop Fig freshly burned into my mind, I clicked onto the “Market” tab and suddenly found myself face to face with… this.

I howled. I recoiled. I don’t know what I expected to find on this page, but it was not a bowtie-clad Rivers Cuomo selfie staring me down.

The top of the screen informed me that I own 0 of 12 bundles and 0 of 3236 demos. Three thousand two hundred and thirty-six demos. That’s enough Weezer to gorge yourself. That’s enough Weezer for a lifetime. That’s enough Weezer to bring you to your deathbed.

I clicked on the selfie almost instinctively. It’s one of those moments where life has led you down a path, and you know what you must do. You can turn tail and run, but some divine being has led you to this moment, and you can decide to either press your thumb down gently upon Rivers Cuomo’s face, or you can deny yourself the experience that life has set out before you.

A popup appeared with a slightly wider crop of the same photo and a description that reads, “New hope with our singing with Jonathan Daniel. Jake was a big influence.” Below that laid a series of confounding numbers.

-2
-3
-4
-5
1-4-2-5 @126_2015_3_9_13_9_12
1-5-4
@771I_want_down_time_2015_2_23_17_23
116._one_time_2015_2_25_13_52_22

What is this? Some kind of code? Coordinates? A sleeper agent activation phrase? I was scared.

Suddenly, audio began to emanate from my phone. I heard a Weezer song being played from a computer as Rivers Cuomo himself harmonized with the tune. Seemingly playing these tracks off of his personal speakers, Rivers clicked through various White Album-era demos and gave some background to the band’s recording process at the time. He rifled through the files, filled with wonder spurred by individual rarities and alternate melodies. It’s the same energy that I have while scrolling through my mp3 library, clicking on a half-dozen different tracks before landing on what I actually want to listen to. The difference here being that this was a man listening to his own songs. He sang along softly at various points before clicking feverishly onto the next file. After shuffling through various White Album oddities for a few unstructured minutes, he sighs, comes back to his senses, and unceremoniously says “alright… bye,” and then the recording ends.

Slightly disoriented, I soon began to understand; each of these bundles had an “introduction” where Rivers himself gave some contextual background information on the specific era of the band and then encouraged you to purchase. Those numbers, coordinates, and inexplicable characters were individual tracks, all of which contribute to the collective 3-thousand-plus songs contained within the app. Whew.

Rivers is no stranger to demos; his series of Alone albums from 2007, 2008, and 2011 gave a peek into the band’s early years and Cuomo’s specific creative process. This app is the slightly-illogical continuation of this, with thousands of demos available for Weezer superfans who want to fill every hour of every day with weird slightly-unpolished Weezer recordings unheard by most of the general population.

With 12 bundles at $9 a pop (and one inexplicably priced at $10), that means you can currently have access to the entirety of the Weezer demo oeuvre for the low, low price of $109. How can one possibly say no to that?

In all seriousness, Weezify is a rough-around-the-edges app built for a bafflingly-small niche group of super fans. Is Weezify the answer to every intricacy of the Streaming Debate? Yes, it is. Will it replace Spotify? Also yes. Will I spend every waking hour of my life listening to things like “TechnoProgressions1 i VII VI iv”? Yes, I will. Thank you, Rivers Cuomo, for the one ethical musical streaming app, nay, company to ever have existed.

November 19, 2021

My Favorite Type of Song

November 19, 2021/ Taylor Grimes

I just found out that one of my all-time favorite songs is about jerking off.

Ever since I first heard the twangy guitar plucks of “My Name is Jonas” pouring out of Guitar Hero III as a teenager, I’ve been enamored with Weezer’s eponymous blue album. Over the course of the intervening decade, the band has been a constant source of edgy adolescent tunes, ironic memes, questionable artistic decisions, and unexpected comebacks. It’s not like I’d never heard of Weezer by 2007 (I’d heard “Beverly Hills” on the radio and “Island In The Sun” in a movie or two), it’s just that I didn’t know the band was actually, well, you know, good.

Once I gave The Blue Album a listen in full, I “got” Weezer almost immediately. The ever-shifting mixture of Cars-esque power pop, feel-good surf tunes, and pop culture geekery were beguiling to my teenage brain. I got to become familiar with iconic singles like “Say It Ain’t So,” “Buddy Holly,” and “The Sweater Song,” all only my own, devoid of hype, expectations, or over-exposure via radio play. With lyrics that referenced X-Men and idolized (arguably) the least-cool member of KISS, I could tell this was an album tailor-made for a teenaged Taylor. More importantly, I could tell it was better and far more artistic than songs like “Beverly Hills” had led me to believe.

For me, the cherry on top of The Blue Album came in the form of its final track. After nine songs of catchy hook-filled power pop, the group wraps the record up with the absolutely epic eight-minute closer “Only In Dreams.” This song blew me away the first time I heard it, and it continues to blow me away every subsequent time I listen to it.

“Only In Dreams” begins with a solitary bassline and light cymbal taps. An acoustic guitar joins in, then a snare. An electric guitar starts plucking away, and suddenly the entire band has taken up the melody without you even realizing it. After about a minute, a remorseful Rivers Cuomo enters the track and quickly establishes the stakes: “You can't resist her, she's in your bones / She is your marrow and your ride home.” He soon continues, further illustrating how omnipresent this figure is, singing, “You can't avoid her, she's in the air (in the air) / In between molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide.” Suddenly a whir of distortion kicks up, and the entire group bottoms out into a swaying, distorted borderline-shoegaze riff.

Over the course of a verse and another couple of choruses, the lyrics paint a picture of romance, dancing, and adolescent clumsiness. Cuomo sings the title seven times, then lets the riff do the rest of the talking. The lyrics wrap up about four minutes into the song, and the back half of the track contains a beautiful, cresting instrumental that rises and falls with the power of a post-rock song. It’s a commanding display of emotion, musicianship, and artistry… Then I found out it was about nutting.

That’s right, the song itself is meant to depict a dream where our hero is meeting this unnamed woman, dancing with her, then, you know, getting it on. This means the back half of the track; the build-up, the rises and falls, the constantly-beating drum, are all meant to be an auditory depiction of the narrator achieving climax. Hmm.

See, I’ve always liked this song for its format more than anything. It spends the perfect amount of time telling a compelling (if not a little vague) emotional story. Then, the band begins this instrumental jam that flows so seamlessly from the narrative. You don’t even realize how long this instrumental passage is until the song finally comes to a close, and you look down to see that eight minutes have passed. The song is segmented into these two beautiful acts that tell a story and then allow you, the listener, to fill in the rest. It’s about as creative and interactive as music ever gets.

It took me until very recently to realize that many of my favorite songs share this exact same format. Perhaps two of the most famous examples would be “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” by The Beatles and “Transatlanticism” by Death Cab For Cutie. Both of these songs begin with simplistic instrumentals followed by a relatively straightforward bout of lyrics. Most importantly, both pieces are capped off with an instrumental back half that repeats the same measure over and over again to an almost hypnotic effect. In the case of The Beatles, “I Want You” is practically the template for Stoner Rock as we know it today. The song features a sludgy, slow-moving, and distorted riff that could perfectly accompany the slow-paced head bobbing of any given doom metal show. Meanwhile, “Transatlanticism” is a piano-led ode to long-distance relationships that begins with a remorseful delivery and dream-like logic. The song gradually builds underneath a repetition of “I need you so much closer…” before erupting into an instrumental that repeats the riff for four minutes straight because it’s that damn good.

My point is, this is a style of song that’s more pervasive than we probably realize. It’s not just songs that are “long,” it’s songs that are long and winding and intentionally leave this vast wordless space for the listener to project their own feelings, thoughts, and experiences onto.

Sometimes they are conceptual like “Maggot Brain,” where an environmentalist spoken-word intro leads to a soul-rending two-part guitar solo. Sometimes they are skillful shows of musicianship like Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun,” where rapid bursts of guitar feedback emulate the sounds of guns, helicopters, dropping bombs, and other Vietnam imagery.

Sometimes an artist sneaks it into the album in a way that’s subtle yet impactful, like Angel Olsen’s “Sister” or Soccer Mommy’s “Yellow is the Color of Her Eyes.” Sometimes the artist intentionally draws attention to this style of song by having it open an album as Japanese Breakfast does with “Diving Woman.” Other times, the artist will choose to close the record with this brand of winding instrumental stretch like the aforementioned Weezer, or even something like Jimmy Eat World’s “Goodbye Sky Harbor,” where the song’s lengthy 13-minute coda is either loved or immediately skipped over depending on who’s listening.

Bands like The Antlers seem to craft these kinds of songs effortlessly. Songs like “Rolled Together” and “Endless Ladder” aren’t even that long but still have enough room to properly unfurl. Across the board, the examples are truly countless. There’s “Black Oak” by Slaughter Beach Dog, “Runaway” by Kanye West, “Drown” by Smashing Pumpkins, “Phone Went West” by My Morning Jacket, and hundreds more. These songs are all incredible and often my favorites of their respective bands. I’ve spent the better part of the last two years compiling these types of songs into one long, genre-free playlist on Spotify that I sometimes throw on when I can’t decide what else I want to listen to. This is just a format of song that clicks with my brain, and I really wish there was a term for it.

One of my first instincts is to call these types of songs “jams,” but that evokes so many images of hairy hippies, tye-dye t-shirts, nitrous tanks, and ganja goo balls that the title becomes unappealing. Bands like Phish and even My Morning Jacket indeed go out of their way to transform their songs into “experiences” when played live, but given the types of songs that I’m talking about, the word “jam” feels almost dirty. I like the idea of following the twists and turns of a live performance; that can be an extraordinarily rewarding and powerful experience, I just don’t like what the word “jam” evokes for me (and I assume) most other people.

I wouldn’t call “Transatlanticism” a jam song, but it undeniably bears many of the same qualities. Truth be told, what I’m discussing here is some mix of jam band tendencies, post-rock builds, and stoner rock song structures. I know the concept of “jamming” isn’t relegated to any one genre, band, or scene, but hearing it done well on-record is so rare. I can be listening to a random album like At Home With Owen and suddenly, halfway through, get hit with a seven-minute slow-burn like “A Bird In Hand” and be swept off my feet.

This format is striking because they intentionally stray away from the three-to-five-minute verse/chorus/verse structure that many songs default to. A song like Pedro The Lion’s “Second Best” would never get played on the radio, regardless of what year it came out or how popular the band already was. Similarly, a cut like “13 Months in 6 Minutes” by The Wrens is pretty unlikely to be someone’s favorite track on the album. These songs are simply too long and too unwieldy for standard radio play, streaming binges, or music videos. They don’t lend themselves well to any of those formats because they’re meant to be experienced and taken in with a subconscious part of your mind working to fill in the blanks and flesh out the edges.

That is what’s so great about these songs. They’re hypnotic. They invite you in and give you time to breathe, listen, think, and feel. They’re also ever-changing. Depending on where you’re at in life, you could take something totally different away from the instrumental as another listener. Hell, give it time, and the way you interpret any one of these songs will change based on what phase you’re at in your own life. It’s a Rorschach Test in musical form.

Two of my favorite songs of all-time use this exact same format. First, there’s “Like A River” by Sharks Keep Moving (which I’ve written about in detail before), then there’s “Oh God, Where Are You Now?” by Sufjan Stevens (which I’ve also written about in loving detail over here). Shortly behind those two is “Only In Dreams” by Weezer.

You can see why I was so shocked to find out that “Only In Dreams” is about something as bodily and objectively-hilarious as ejaculation. I mean, the band doesn’t exactly play it for laughs, but I feel like that explanation kinda takes some of the mysticism away. Until you hear that exact commentary from the band, “Only In Dreams” could be literal, it could be metaphorical, it could just be weird poetry, but as soon as you know it’s about Rivers Cuomo pounding off, you’re just like “...oh.”

It’s like if you were in the middle of interpreting a deep meaning from an abstract piece of art from someone like Rothko or Pollock, and then the artist themselves came up behind you mid-thought and whispered, ‘this one’s about the time I shit my pants in a Taco Bell parking lot.’ You have no choice but to have reality come crashing down around you upon hearing that. The illusion is shattered, and all you’re left thinking about is low-grade meat, cold tortillas, and diablo hot sauce. While you were once finding some sense of existential peace in the art, now your mind is consumed by thoughts of your own body and its disgusting functions.

An artist’s intent should not completely override your personal interpretation of the work, but finding out that the song’s creator had such an opposing message in mind is a little conflicting, to say the least.

“Orange, Red, Yellow” by Mark Rothko (1961)

The doubly-funny part of this is that I know this type of song is not for everyone. If you’ve made it this far, I assume you probably enjoy this type of structure or, at the very least, are interested in where this is all going. See, I know these tracks are just tiring and overindulgent to some people, but what some might call long-winded, I call searching. What others see as boring musical repetition, I see as an empty canvas. What others interpret as masturbatory, I interpret as cosmically-affirming.

At times, this format feels like the musical equivalent of a long take in film. André Bazin is a famous French film critic who has focused a great deal of his career writing about the realism of the “long take.” The long take is a filmmaking technique in which an individual shot has a much longer duration than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of movies in general. Bazin argues that directors use this technique out of a “respect for the continuity of dramatic space and its duration.” He argues that long takes are closer to how we as an audience perceive reality (i.e., unfolding in real-time) and, therefore, more impactful. It gives the viewer a personal choice of what to focus on, and it introduces ambiguity into the structure of the film. All of these concepts apply to music as well.

Songs with this structure also have a strong sense of continuity. It feels as if we are being swept into the scenery along with the artist. As the listener, we have the choice to focus on the song as much or as little as we like. We can listen to individual instruments, pick apart the time signature, figure out how this melody flows from the lyrics, or just let our mind wander with the band as our guide. That’s powerful.

Ironically, much like the song format I’m attempting to write about, I don’t have much of a defined ending for this piece. Instead, I’ll opt to do something I never do and close this article out with a quote. I know that’s a bit of a cop-out, but it’s too relevant to this discussion for me not to include. In their recently-unearthed Oregon City Sessions, there’s a section where Portugal. The Man lead singer John Gourley discusses the band’s creative process circa 2008 and how they re-interpret their own creations in a live setting. In it, he simply explains,

“I’ve always really liked that droney… I mean, calling it ‘background music’ is not the best way to talk about it, but I love things like that. I’d love to do a record eventually where we can just go for ten minutes and do what a song needs to do as opposed to culling those points as far as the song structure goes. I think we should be a little bit more loose.”

Blog

Tinted Windows – Tinted Windows

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Nonagon Infinity

The The – Dusk

Citizen – As You Please

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland

Third Eye Blind – Third Eye Blind

Fiona Apple – When the Pawn…

Kyuss – Blues for the Red Sun

Drug Church – Cheer

Mowmow Lulu Gyaban — 野口、久津川で爆死 [Noguchi, kutsukawa de bakushi]

Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Against Me! – The Disco Before the Breakdown

Best Witches – Jail

Turnover – Peripheral Vision

my better half – mybetterhalf.

The Chemical Brothers – Come With Us

Fall Out Boy – Folie à Deux

My Sister’s Fugazi Shirt – Man Fears the Darkness, and So He Scrapes Away at the Edges of It With Fire

Honorable Mentions

Drive By Truckers – The Dirty South

Grateful Dead – Dick’s Picks 15: Raceway Park, Englishtown NJ, 9/3/77

Jay-Z – The Blueprint

Superheaven – Jar

Motion City Soundtrack – Even If It Kills Me

Knocked Loose – A Different Shade Of Blue

Ratboys – The Window

Portishead – Dummy

Dire Straits – Love Over Gold

Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth

12 Rods – If We Stayed Alive

Oklou – choke enough

The Weepies – Hideaway

Lorde – Melodrama

The Avalanches – We Will Always Love You

Honorable Mentions

Machine Girl - Wlfgrl

21 Savage, Offset & Metro Boomin - Without Warning

Blur – Parklife

Joyce Manor - Cody

Rick Springfield - Working Class Dog

Weezer - Raditude

Nouns - still bummed

Rush – Signals

Snoop Dogg - Bush

Mogwai - Travel is Dangerous

SUB-CATEGORY: CARTOON GUYS

Mannequin Pussy - Perfect

Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Crywank - Tomorrow Is Nearly Yesterday And Everyday Is Stupid

Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy

Hovvdy - Easy/Turns Blue

Newgrounds Death Rugby - Pictures of Your Pets

Mo Troper - Dilettante

TTNG - Animals

Various Artists - No Earbudz Vol. 1

Advance Base - Animal Companionship

Alex G - Trick

Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger In The Alps

Hot Mulligan - you’ll be fine

Pet Symmetry - Pets Hounds

Jimmy Mayo - Whoops

See Through Person - Chariot

Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

Pet Symmetry - Two Songs About Cars. Two Songs With Long Titles.

Little Big League - Tropical Jinx

Beck – Odelay

Shelley FKA DRAM - Big Baby DRAM

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