At this point, Musgraves has found a real sweet spot of contemporary, pop-swirled cosmic-ish country-ish. Her previous one, 2018's Golden Hour, turned out to be a massive one for me - probably the last album to've entered my personal pantheon - and while star-crossed isn't at that level, its best moments, heavily front loaded, especially "good wife" and "justified", are striking.
Friday, September 24, 2021
Big Red Machine - How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?
Given who's involved - Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon, and a fair smattering of their talented friends including Sharon Van Etten, Fleet Foxes, Taylor Swift and more - you'd think this would be good, but instead it's boring, ultra mainstream-indie easy listening where they neglected to bring any good songs.
"To Howard, From Julian 2021" (playlist)
These days they are most definitely playlists and no longer mix cds - not even virtual ones.
This one's particularly good. First to land was "Teenage Wasteland" by Wussy, from 2014 but gesturing at the 90s with its mix of fuzz and melody, and urgency and resignation, plus a title and anthemic compactness that puts it in a lineage of teenage experience-referencing classics eg "Teenage Kicks", "Teen Age Riot" (the latter compact even at 7 minutes).
Other favourites: "Some Small Hope" by Virginia Astley, "Small Talk" by Scritti Politti, "London" by Benjamin Clementine (which at first I thought was too fey but changed my mind about after more listens).
Was it deliberate that the lyrics of the last three songs all prominently feature foreign cities? London, Vegas ("Meet Me In My Dream" by Marc Almond), Winnipeg ("One Great City" by the Weakerthans). Sign of the times, maybe.
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