NEW MUSIC FOR OLDS #21
Holiday Listacular!
Greetings! We have arrived at our final NMFO of 2022. There’s a lot to get to, but a few of quick programming notes:
I’ll be taking next week off to celebrate Christmas. And by celebrate, I mean “driving to Massachusetts to watch my dad play word games on his iphone”. This means the next Paid-Only NMFO will go out 1/4, but you Freebies won’t hear from me until 1/11. Steel yourself, emotionally.
Today’s NMFO will function a bit differently. I have more GOOD STUFF than usual and SOME BULLSHIT will forego my semi-comedic blathering in favor of some sweet, sweet best-of lists.
Finally, it’s not too late to gift a paid subscription New Music for Olds. Perfect for anyone you forgot about! They never need know you panic-bought a newsletter subscription! YOUR SECRET IS SAFE WITH ME.
Okay, let’s get cracking. Sorry in advance for typos and/or syntax errors.
GOOD STUFF
I’ve spent the past two weeks poring over everyone’s “Best of 2022” lists and BOY ARE MY EARS TIRED.
Today’s GOOD STUFF selections have been plucked from year-end lists on Stereogum, Paste, Sound Opinions, and many others. Given the sheer amount of music I’ve consumed over the past few weeks, and that these tunes aren’t exactly new-new, I’m including five songs instead of the standard three.
New folks, you might want to glance at the Glossary of Terms.
Kim Petras, “Throat Goat”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Slut Pop (E.P.)
Nutshell: Degenerate club music
Voltage: 7
Thoughts: A song to make you pine for the innocent days of “Short Dick Man”. This song is filthy and stupid and indefensible and I love it. The braying! The gargling! The sample of a dude, um…finishing? “Throat Goat” is the terrified fever dream of every religious conservative who’s ranted about our declining moral standards. Sorry no one’s ever referred to you as the “sucking queen”, pastor! Does it bother me that Ms. Petras redundantly rhymes “no gag reflex” with “I just need to flex”? More than it should, but when you have a near-perfect diamond, even the tiniest flaw is magnified.
Pairing Suggestion: Take a guess.
LATE ADDENDUM: I’ve just read that there’s a lot of controversy around Kim Petras working with producer Dr. Luke, who has been accused of sexual assault. Here’s some context.
NNAMDÏ, “Smart Ass”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Please Have a Seat
Nutshell: Oddball R&B/math rock hybrid
Voltage: 6
Thoughts: Man, this album (and this artist) is difficult to sum up. One moment it’s straightforward hip hop, then driving guitar kicks in, before transitioning into an ambient soundscape—often within the same verse. To the extent that this multi-instrumentalist has a “sound”, it’s probably too Rock for R&B fans and too R&B for Rock fans. Then again, this current batch of young folks has fewer hangups about consistency, so maybe that’s the Old in me. “Smart Ass” is an unusual mix of Autotune and “Midwest Emo”. It’s also probably the closest thing to a “normal” tune on this very ambitious album.
Pairing Suggestion: Setting your internal directive to “feelings”
Julia Jacklin, “I Was Neon”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Pre Pleasure
Nutshell: Thoughtful indie pop
Voltage: 6
Thoughts: Pre Pleasure has been my default “passive listening” album for the past ten days. It’s hard to articulate what I like so much about this album—there’s nothing radical or even particularly “new” about Jacklin’s style. But isn’t that so often the case with albums that have high replay value? They feel like they’ve always existed, just waiting to be noticed. At least five songs on Pre Pleasure have taken up permanent(?) residence in my subconscious. I chose “I Was Neon” because it evokes one of my favorite bands, but I recommend the album in full.
Pairing Suggestion: Involuntary head-bobbing
Nilüfer Yanya, “stabilise”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: PAINLESS
Nutshell: Uptempo indie rock
Voltage: 7
Thoughts: I’d never heard anything about this young British artist until she started popping up in best-of after best-of. On “stabilise” you’ll likely hear two influences: Radiohead (the hypnotic guitar riff and skittery drums would be right at home on In Rainbows) and TV on the Radio (specifically, “Wolf Like Me”). Perhaps Yanya’s next album will be inspired by Primitive Radio Gods, giving her the coveted Radio-Band Influence Trifecta. PAINLESS is a dense album and it’ll probably be a few more listens before I fully grasp Nilüfer Yanya’s whole “deal”, but this song has my attention.
Pairing Suggestion: A rather intense bicycle chase
Black Magnet, “Floating in Nothing”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Body Prophecy
Nutshell: Industrial metal
Voltage: 9
Thoughts: It’s strange, the things that evoke nostalgia. I’m sure warm fuzzies aren’t what this loud and rather abrasive industrial metal band is going for. But if you were listening to KMFDM or Godflesh around 1990, in that micro-era before Grunge became the coin of the realm, Black Magnet will take you back to the days of black rubber pants and non-ironic use of the term “cyberpunk”. That was never quite my scene (loved NIN, owned exactly one Ministry album, had a vague awareness of Pigface), but it feels like a genre with meat left on the bone. After all, our current reality feels more dystopian than whatever Al Jourgensen was screaming about in 1990.
Pairing Suggestion: Taking down Arasaka Tower with the help of Johnny Silverhand
This newsletter is too long for a poll, but general comments?
And now, without further adieu…
THE 2022 NEW MUSIC FOR OLDS HOLIDAY LISTACULAR
MY FAVORITE SONGS OF 2022
Here they are: my ten favorite ditties of this rapidly fading year. These are all songs I’ve featured in NMFO—but don’t try to convince me that you remember them all.
Notes:
I enforce a strict one-song-per-artist policy.
Anything I just learned about from a year-end roundup is disqualified. Too soon, as they say.
This playlist on Apple Music // This playlist on Amazon Music
MY FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2022
Thus Love, Memorial
Tears for Fears, The Tipping Point
Trip Villain, Won
Momma, Household Name
The Mars Volta, s/t
The Beths, Expert in a Dying Field
OSKA, My World, My Love, Paris
Wet Leg, s/t
Natalia LaFourcade, De Todas las Flores
Pool Kids, s/t
There’s a lot of redundancy with the Favorite Songs list, clearly. So for this playlist I picked songs different from the ones I’ve written about in NMFO. Don’t say I never did nuthin for ya.
This playlist on Apple Music // This playlist on Amazon Music
Oh by the way, these playlists are the kind of thing Paid Subscribers receive every week, only with themes like “Rainy Afternoon” and “Air Drummer’s Delight”. You know, hint-hint and all…
Oh by the way, Part II: Did you know that I do things other than listen to music? It’s true! I watch movies, and television and sometimes I accidentally read a book! NMFO will alway be music-centric (it says so in the name!), but let us celebrate the end of 2022 by briefly loosening these thematic constraints.
MY FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2022
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Top Gun: Maverick
The Northman
RRR
Moonage Daydream
Barbarian
Hustle
Metal Lords
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
On my need-to-see list: Tar, The Menu, Triangle of Sadness, Pinnochio, After Yang, Glass Onion, Crimes of the Future
MY FAVORITE TV SHOWS OF 2022
“Better Call Saul”
“Players”
“Raised By Wolves”
“House of the Dragon”
“Andor”
“Station Eleven”
“Severance”
“Westworld”
“The Righteous Gemstones”
“Yellowjackets”
MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022
I don’t read as much as I used to because I have Twitter-related brain worms. Also, I’ve come to accept that I enjoy the notion of being well-read more than I enjoy the actual task of reading. But books do occasionally find their way into my brain!
Most of the stuff I read this year was released prior to 2022, so I won’t bother ranking these. This is just some stuff I enjoyed this year:
The Broken Earth Trilogy (The Fifth Season/The Obelisk Gate/The Stone Sky) by N.K. Jemison
Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
How to Write One Song, by Jeff Tweedy
On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder
Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks, by Chris Herring
10% Happier, by Dan Harris
Okay, I’m exhausted and I’m pretty certain you all stopped reading a while ago. Here’s a test: If you got this far down, leave the name of your favorite candy bar in the comments. No context or explanation!
Thank you all so much for being a part of New Music for Olds. I’m always skeptical when people refer to their own artistic endeavors as a “community”, but it means a ton to me that you find NMFO to be a worthwhile use of your time. I’ll be making tweaks in the coming months to foster a bit more participation—you know, like a (gulp) community. If you have any notion about what you’d like to see more of (or less of), leave a comment or email me a newmusicforolds@gmail.com.
Onward to 2023!
100 Grand
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups... not technically a candy "bar", but I stand by the choice.