[Warnings: mentions of anxiety/mild panic attack]

Thinking about how comforting Eddie is, especially if you're having anxiety. One look at you and he's pulling you into his lap and wrapping his arms around you in the most secure reassuring hug.

"You feelin' panicky?" He asks softly. You nod, face on his shoulder, resting on the rough denim of his vest, taking in his scent. He hums in response. You're still breathing fast and shallow in spite of your best efforts to slow down, and he can feel your heart pounding like a rabbit against him. You cling tight onto him, and he holds you just as tight.

"Had a feeling. I can always tell when you're worried, peach."

He'll probably rock you a little, humming your favorite songs, pressing soft periodic kisses to the side of your head. After a while, however long it takes for your breathing to slow back down, he'll talk to you to gage how you're doing now. Once you're all the way calmed down, you better believe he's sticking to you like glue for the rest of the day, holding your hand and keeping you close, keeping an eye on you. There's no way he's letting his baby face that alone.

Part 3. hopelessly hopeful

Summary: Rumor has it, that hometown hero-turned-teacher Steve Harrington is hot for teacher. The English teacher next door to him at Hawkins High, who also happens to be his childhood friend, that is.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x chaotic!dumbass reader

Warnings: no use of y/n - reader goes by Trouble instead, depictions of heartbreak/grief, cursing, pop-punk slander by one Eddie Munson, Thanksgiving mention, protective!robin, scheming!nancy, sad girl hours continue

A/N: Modern!Teacher AU, English teacher reader, History teacher Steve, slow burn, friends to lovers, romance. Here’s 3.7K of multi-perspective tension, sexual and otherwise; feedback and reblogs are appreciated, enjoy!

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Then - Fall term, Thanksgiving break

There’s only so many days you can sulk in bed. Wrapped in a blanket swaddle of your own creation, it’s almost impressive; everything you could possibly need is within reach – snacks, drinks, and entertainment options. 

“You alright?”

It’s cold.

Winter has well and truly arrived in Hawkins, frost dusting the windowpanes and an ever-present chill in the air. Brief winter winds hit the town, snow flurries dusting the streets but never enough to stick. Still too early in the season for that.

You bundle up all over - two pairs of woolen socks, a sweatshirt stolen from god knows who, and too-long sweatpants snatched from Steve or Eddie, a quilt gracing your shoulders like a cape. Your friends try not to chide your melancholy overmuch, but the stubborn part of you still misses him.

Miss his eyes. His hands. The steadying effect of his voice.

Barely a month out and you’re already slipping. Eddie took it upon himself to delete your ex’s number, socials, and whatever other vestiges of your past life he could find from your phone. Some nights you’re thankful for his pre-emptive measures, most nights you’re not.

You spend most of your weekend mornings sleeping in as late as your body would allow because any moment awake was another moment that your mind will wander back to him. You feel ripped asunder, oscillating between accepting the fact that your engagement and relationship is over, and then letting yourself grow frustrated for allowing yourself to fall into this trap in the first place.

You wish you had never said yes to him last December. Never gone to that party back in college, never given him your number, never kissed him, never made love to him. You still ache to think of him, and you can only blame yourself.

Under a heavy spare quilt (Steve’s, naturally), you shiver. Due to the cold or your heartbreak, who's to say?

Eddie heaves a sigh and joins you on the couch. “Okay, sad girl,” he says, curling you to his side. He’s gentle handling you, warm hands tucking the blanket around your prone body with light touches. You’ve been lying immobile on the couch for the better part of the morning, long enough to make it through Bladerunner: 2049 without falling asleep.

They’re all understandably concerned.

You cry at the drop of a hat now, it seems. You throw things in frustration and have a quicker temper. You stare viciously at the black hole of your phone screen. You adamantly refuse to look at yourself mirrors. You sleep fitfully at night, tossing and turning against the sofa in the loft. Only admitting defeat when Steve pads in and sleepily leads you to his room with slurred murmurs of “Jus’ take my bed, honey. S’fine.” 

You hate that you sleep best curled alongside someone else. 

And Eddie’s all the more concerned because he’s been keeping an eye on your Spotify activity. Too many emo playlists from high school for comfort. He’d nearly staged an intervention when he walked past your classroom yesterday and heard something off of From Under the Cork Tree. Luckily Steve was able to talk him off the ledge.

“Look, I know you don’t approve,” he said pulling Eddie into his classroom by the back of his shirt, “But I know that when she listens to this song–”

“The fact that you know it is cause for concern, Harrington.”

“Uh, it’s more concerning that you know this song, Munson.” He huffs and runs a hand through his disheveled hair. ”Regardless,” he pats Eddie’s shoulder, “She’s trying to move on and that’s a good thing, trust me.”

And sure, he’d give Steve the benefit of the doubt. But he still has half a mind to scrub your Spotify data and start from scratch. For now, he settles for sitting with you as the opening credits roll for the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, extended edition, of course.

Nancy did it on purpose, but she’d never admit it. 

Just booked the AirBnB she’d been eyeing after you’d mentioned, casually, that your parents would be in California with extended family for the holiday. You’d bailed to avoid any uncomfortable questions. 

Friendsgiving it was then. Nancy and Jonathan would join the rest of you the day after Thanksgiving for a belated celebration. Until then, you had the cabin to yourselves. 

A little cabin by tucked away in a forest, earth damp from the mist and air fresh with the scent of petrichor. The car slows to a stop and Eddie cuts the engine. Robin bounds out of the front seat, all flailing legs and arms, desperate to claim the best bed for herself.

You roll your head to release the tension in your neck and elbow open the backdoor to step out of the car. Steve jerks himself awake aided by the thunk of the trunk being slammed shut and Eddie’s whistling. You allow yourself a soft laugh watching as he rubs the sleep from his eyes, glasses forgotten in the mess of his hair.

Blinking blearily, he exited the vehicle to help Eddie load the groceries and luggage inside. Trying to outdo each other with how many bags they could carry with the least amount of trips. With a roll of your eyes, you follow them into the cabin taking care to wipe your shoes on the mat by the door.

Unfortunately, you were greeted by an unavoidable fact. Apparently, there weren’t enough beds. Four to be exact, two singles and two queens. Eddie and Robin had already taken the singles, while Nancy had specifically requested the room at the back of the cabin. Which only left the queen bed in the upstairs loft or the couch.

Quite the predicament.

You tell yourself that it’s only for a few days, then you’ll be back to Hawkins before you know it. Back to reality and the countdown to winter break. You just needed a little reprieve, a few hours drive from your small town and running into students at the grocery store. Some time and space to clear your head and get over this thing.

Taking a deep breath to settle yourself, and it’ll be fine. It’s just Steve. The guy you’ve known since you were in diapers, no reason to worry. He knows everything about you there is to know. Well, nearly everything. 

A sharp inhalation of air as you trudge up the steps to deposit your duffle bag on the bed. That’s it then, you and Steve would take the loft and suffer through a few days of close quarters.

Not like you hadn’t done it before.

You’d been through worse; the camping trip of 2015 comes to mind.

“Huh,” he says after shutting the front door, shoots you a grin from the first-floor landing. “I’ll just crash on the couch,” he declares, “Give you some space.”

“No, don’t do that.” 

“S’fine,” he insists, “I’m sure it’s comfortable enough.” He tosses his bag onto the sofa cushions, a plume of dust bursting from the fabric, motes lazily drifting through the receding evening sun. “Shit,” he coughs, hand waving the dust out of the air, “Maybe not.”

Your laughter is soft, quiet as if it’s just for him to hear. A shake of your head as you descend the stairs. “Not gonna happen Harrington,” and it’s a promise. 

You lean in slowly, hand warm against his arm as you slip the backpack over your shoulder and turn to go back upstairs. Your free hand links fingers with his to tug him along. He follows you willingly, like he always has.

“I don’t like it,” Robin whispers to Eddie after dinner, arms soaked to the elbow with soapy water while she washes the dishes and passes them off for drying. He hums, taking a plate from her before wiping it down with a dish towel. “This forced proximity thing is not going to work out the way Wheeler thinks it will.”

“C’mon Buckley, would it kill you to be an optimist here? Harrington’s your best friend, after all.”

“Exactly,” she nods, “Which is how I know that this whole thing,” she gestures wildly around, soap suds flying, “Is going to implode. And we’ll be left to pick up the pieces.”

Eddie shoves his tongue to his cheek in an effort not to refute Robin, even though he vehemently disagrees with her assessment of the situation. If he had to come down on someone’s side, it would be yours, without a doubt. Sure, you were sulky and sad but that was to be expected - you were mourning for fuck’s sake.

Though you were crashing at the loft until the end of the year, just until you could secure a short-term lease somewhere, when he got up for work in the mornings you were not on the sofa where he’d left you those nights before. In fact, the only thing that did remain was the quilt you’d salvaged from Steve’s bedroom.

And speaking of Steve, his door was unusually cracked open, a sliver of morning light flooding across the hallway. Soft rises and falls of conversation sound out from his room, echoes amplified in the corridor. Your bright laughter quickly shushed by Steve, the sound of rustling sheets.

Eddie smiles at the memory, setting the plate in the drying rack by the sink and turning to Robin. “I think it’s sweet,” he admits, “And I think they both need something to hold on to right now.” He leans back against the cramped kitchen’s counter, elbows bent and fingers wrapped under the edge. A shrug of acknowledgment, “Just so happens they’re holding on to each other.”

Robin sighs, knowing that he’s right. She subconsciously mimics Eddie’s posture, fingers gripping the edge of sink and eyes falling to the dishwater as she faces the basin. “I just–” she breathes, eyes flitting up to him, wary. “I’m afraid he’ll get hurt… hurt, again.”

She shakes her head and pulls the plug of the drain, water groaning its way down the old pipes. Keeps her voice low, whispering, “Eddie you’ve been there, he’s in this endless cycle with her.” She grabs the towel from him to dry her hands, “Just over and over again while she’s completely oblivious to it.”

He nods in sympathy, hand coming to her shoulder and giving a squeeze. “Rob, I get where you’re coming from. Really, I do.” He tongues his cheek once more, searching for the right words. “And as much as we care,” he gestures between them, “At the end of the day it’s still their choice.” He pulls her in for a hug, chin resting against her head.

Robin allows herself to lean on him, groaning as her head knocks against his chest. “They’re just such idiots Eds.”

She can feel the vibration of laughter from his chest, “They sure as shit are, Buckley.” He draws back, looks her in the eye, “Luckily for them, they’ve got us looking out for ‘em, hmm?”

“Yeah,” she grouses, with no real heat behind it, “Lucky.”

Steve has to all but drag you to bed, thanks in no part to the cans of hard kombucha Eddie kept sliding your way. “You’re such a punk,” you pout, completely limp in his arms as he schleps you upstairs, “Was havin’ a good time, don’t wanna sleep.”

“Right,” he grunts, dragging you up the final step into the loft, “I’m the bad guy because I stopped you from crushing cans against your skull.”

“Yeah,” Robin joins in, phone in hand as she documents what she calls ‘clown chronicles’ and Steve has half a mind to be offended at his inclusion; he may be slow on the draw but you are an actual fool, hand to god. “Why you gotta ruin my blackmail material Harrington?”

You hurumph in displeasure, purposefully wiggling to make his life even more difficult. He drops you on the wooden planks in retaliation. “Rude,” you scowl petulantly, struggling to get your arms and legs working again.

“Well, if you’re gonna be a brat about it…” Steve trails off, distracted by searching your luggage for pajamas. He makes his way through socks and pants, a shirt you swear you didn’t steal from him in college, “What the hell—“

A bark of laughter, as if you just remembered something, “Would you believe,” you can’t stop yourself from laughing, “I packed three coats and no pjs!”

Steve halts his search, annoyed. Drops the articles of clothing unceremoniously in the duffle bag. Turns to you, hands on his hips and disapproving, “You’re a walking disaster.”

In that time, you’d wedged yourself between the top of the second floor landing and the dresser, slumped against the wall and were, yup, about to tumble down the stairs. He grabs you around the middle, hefting you over his shoulder and praying you wouldn’t upchuck at the sudden movement. 

You giggle and squeal, legs kicking against his back and chest as he plops you down on the bed. He begins to peel the sweater from your torso as you bat his hands away with a lazy smile, “If you wanted in my pants Stevie, all you had to do was ask.”

Steve sputters at your innuendo, choking and coughing over his own spit like an absolute imbecile. Mutters, “Fuck you so much,” under his breath once he can think again.

“Atta girl!” Eddie shouts from the landing by the stairs, “Make him work for it, Trouble.”

“Not helping dumbass,” Steve calls out, hand scrubbing down his face tiredly. 

Eddie and Robin say their goodnights and make themselves scarce. Flopped back on the bed, he watches your breathing even out with the rise and fall of your chest. How did you fall asleep so quickly? 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Steve says, fingers snapping to wake you back up, “C’mon, gotta shower and get ready for bed.”

“No,” you whine, eyes screwed shut, “S’comfy and I’m tired.”

It’s hard to convince himself to rally and get you up again. Sprawled like a star-fish across the bed because you’re, yeah, an asshole who takes up the entire bed. His gaze is fond as you rustle against the sheets, breathes out a sigh of relief. 

He sits at the foot of the bed, knocks against your leg, “Hey, wake up.” A slow shake from your head that’s currently smushed into a pillow. “Mmm, that’s too bad,” he sighs, “Guess I’ll just go ahead and prepare a bath for myself then.”

Earlier, he’d noticed the upstairs bathroom had a nice clawfoot tub. And you are, if nothing, a slut for a good soak in the bath. It was the only way your family could convince you to go camping and backpacking in the summers, by dangling a stay at a hot spring or spa for the trip home.

Steve stands back up to really sell the idea, and wanders into the bathroom. Bless the AirBnB host because the sink and tub are well-stocked with every kind of toiletry you could want. Glass jars filled with various bath bombs ranging in color and scent, shower gels from Le Labo, and skincare from some brand called La Mer.

He turns the hot water faucet as far as it’ll go, because you like a bath “hotter than hell and twice as steamy.” Runs his fingers under the water, gauging the temperature and turning the cold water tap as he hears your footfalls against the tile. 

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” he says, winding an arm around your waist. Rolls a sleeve up to his elbow and plugs the drain deeming the temperature sufficient. 

Pulled against Steve’s side, you rub at your eyes and survey your surroundings. And, true to his word, it’s a fucking nice tub. Technically, it’s a tub/shower combo with an extendable shower head, a tasteful shower curtain pushed to one side of the basin. He nudges you to pick a bath bomb and tosses it in, colors melting into the water as it fills the tub.

“Not so bad, yeah?” 

Setting you back against the sink as you nod, Steve opens his dopp kit and grabs a toothbrush. You’re quiet as you watch him squeeze some toothpaste on the bristles and brush his teeth, his eyes meet yours in the mirror and he winks.

Easy laughter as he turns back to you, jaw holding the toothbrush in place while he helps you pull off your sweater and tosses it into the bedroom. Stumbling briefly, your palm lands against his chest where you can feel the warm beat of his heart. His brow raises, are you good?

A shake of your head, you shiver at the new sense of chill in the air, skin reeling from its loss of warmth. “Cold,” you supply with a small shrug. Gone was the buoyant, cozy happiness from dinner and the after-dinner drinks hour. A brief reprieve from your sadness that seemed to follow you like a little storm cloud. 

He finished brushing his teeth, arm guiding you along as if you’re a marionette doll and he’s the puppeteer. Not that you mind, his warm hands skating up and down your arms absentmindedly. He tucks his chin on your head and sighs.

“How d’ya wanna do this, honey?”

Reaching behind you, you quickly shut off the tap, steam from the tub dampening your arm. Hooking your thumbs in along the waist of your leggings you push the black fabric downward, hips canting from one side to the other. You feel his quick intake of breath before you hear it, the air stuttering in his lungs.

Hips successfully freed from their confines, you grip his shoulders once more to stabilize yourself. His hands settle safely at your waist, mouth open in a pant. “What do I—“

“If you could just—“ you both speak at the same time. Huffs of laughter as you compose yourself, “I’m gonna fall over if I have to wrestle these off myself.”

He swallows drily, willing his gaze not to wander too far down. “Kay, so I just—“

You chuckle, guiding his hands to the rucked up fabric at the tops of your thighs. Your fingers weave through his, thumbs leading him to the thick band. “Hook your thumbs in and tug.”

He nods dumbly, giving a cursory pull at the lycra and nylon weave. You sway at the effort, uneasy on your feet, palms steadying themselves against his shoulders. 

Standing as stark still as you could, you watched silently as he descended to his knees on the tile. Head glancing back up to you while he rolls the leggings from your thighs.

The sight of Steve kneeling at your feet nearly steals your breath. 

He swallows thickly, trying desperately to look anywhere but right in front of him. It’s not like he hasn’t thought of you before in this way. He definitely has. Because he’s a grown man who's in control of his desires, he tries not to. But because he’s a man semi-living in close quarters living with a woman he’s attracted to, he can’t help it. 

It certainly doesn’t help that he’s close enough to smell you, see the damp patch of silk on your thong, near enough to taste it, if he wanted. He bites his cheek and focuses on the metallic tang of iron in his mouth. Distracts himself with thoughts of you – your friendship, your ever-present teasing with an edge of flirtation that causes the blood in his veins to rush. 

He’s too far down now for your hands to reach his shoulders comfortably, instead, your fingers glide through his strands of hair; he bites back a groan when your nails lightly graze his scalp, tugs the leggings further down, your knees knocking together at the effort. 

“Sorry, Stevie,” you rasp, as if every cell in your body is attuned to the way he responds.

The nickname that rolls off your tongue certainly is not helping, his jeans becoming tighter as he works the fabric from your legs. He’s not sure exactly when it happened — when the friendship turned into something more for him. Somewhere between the wet plush of your lips shivering against his after the Homecoming dance freshman year, and the ABC frat party in college, he’d realized that the way he felt about you was more than friends should.

In fact, it was borderline unfriendly.

You hiss as he drags the last bit of fabric down your calves and off your ankles; the joints pop softly as you roll them out. He chucks the leggings through the doorway and rises to his full height, your mouth is open and panting — pink and wet. 

“Thanks.”

He nods, eyes trained on yours, face coloring from the effort in the heat of the room. He brings a hand up to scratch the back of his neck, “No problem,” swallows the saliva collecting in his mouth. “I’ll let you uh—” he turns to leave.

Your hand reaches out for him, cool fingers against his forearm. “You’ll come back, yeah?” Voice but a whisper against the rushing of his blood, “When I’m settled?”

Steve curses his timing because when he turns to respond, he catches sight of your back as you lift the tank-top off. Skin dotted with beauty marks and the occasional scar, his eyes open wide. The soft curve of your breast against the cage of your ribs, the delicate slope of your waist and hips.

He has enough sense to turn away when you hook your thumbs into the band of your thong. But goddamn if it doesn’t pain him all the same. You fling the silk elsewhere and he hears the water give way as you step into the tub and slide down until the bubbles cover your form.

Casually pinning your hair up in an effort to not get it wet, some bits fall to your face and have gone wavy in the heat, curling up against your chin and cheeks. “Stevie?”

He thinks you look like some sort of Raphaelite muse.

“Come back for you?” He asks, repeating your earlier question as his back slides along the basin of the tub where he sits, sighing when your hand tangles in his hair, “Always.” 

so if a modern version of frank-n-furter, janet, columbia, and magenta from the rocky horror picture show formed a riot grrrl/rock/sometimes other genres girl(ish) band would that be crazy or what?

AU TIME YIPPEEEEE!! made this one with irl friend @hatsunerandal a while back and i’ve been meaning to post about it i just keep forgetting LMAO so yeah!! band au!!

this band is called the transsexual pussycats because. yeah.

we have everyone on vocals, janet on drums and guitar, frank also on drums and guitar (they switch which one does which (that was a lot of rhyming)), columbia on bass, and magenta also on guitar and keyboards :D

“don’t be cringe about it” NEVER. COLUMBIA IS SCENE NOW RAAAAHH 🦅🦅🦅🦅

janet’s style is just. lana del ray vinyl. and magentas goth and franks punk yaaay!!!

irl friend and i have put together a total of. 4 albums i think? and i am almost done with the fifth one! our process is just. find already existing songs, plop them in a playlist, and then write paragraphs about who sings what and who wrote what and what they wrote the songs about etc etc! quite a fun process if i do say so myself :3

albums 1, 3, and 4 were done by me, album 2 was done by irl friend!! their names are “mcpussy meal” (we almost named the band mcpussy but after i said “old mcpussy had a farm eieio” we changed our minds), “lord of the lesbian jellyfish”, “one girl, 69420 women”, “honestly,” and the fifth one which im not quite done with is “rose blood”!! we’re slaying with the names as u can see! the songs mostly stick to a rock/riot grrrl sound, but they can also do some more pop/hyperpop or electronic songs, and i felt REALLY silly and added a folk song to rose blood :3

now. u might be asking. where is the rest of the cast? what part do they play in this au? well!! for one thing columbia and eddie broke up (she’s with magenta now i love lesbians) and she has written at least one song about him per album 🫶 but other than that he’s out of the picture, along with pretty much everyone else…

EXCEPT FOR BRADLEY MAJORS.

i told my friend about brad in this au and they just said “brad def has groupie energy that 1000% works” and i think about that a lot LMAO he’s not actually a groupie he’s just their biggest fan ever even though he doesn’t even listen to their style of music. he attends every concert, has all the merch, is basically just so embarrassing about it i love him dearly. he’s also in a qpr with janet and dating frank yahoo!! i fucking LOVE the brad/janet dynamic in this au because all of her concert outfits are so slutty and so pink and after the shows and after hugging her aggressively he’s like “you’re wearing so little are you cold :( wear my jacket i don’t want you getting sick” and in one of the songs she is quite literally screaming her lungs out and im just imagining him watching that at a rehearsal and being like “Yay!! :-D” he’s the silliest ever actually

it’s also a canon event that the band got interviewed by that one guy with the hat who goes WHO ARE YOU i hope u know who im talking about if u don’t im so sorry that was so vague

ok those are the basics!! if ppl see this and enjoy it feel free to ask me questions about it i love talking about my silly guys so very much and thank u so much for reading this far 😭😭

Ok but like if Eddie was in modern times

EDDIE WOULD TOTALLY BE INTO CONSPIRACY THEORIES, LIZARD PEOPLE FUCK YEAH, THE ILLUMINATI? SHIT THE ONLY REASON HE HASNT JOINED IS BECAUSE EVERYONE IN THE GROUP COLLECTIVELY PROMISED TO DESTROY HIS INSTRUMENTS IF HE DOES.

That and he would have totally been into Unus Annus. Casually going around doing the dance of Italy, and copying Phrases like, if he was with a dude he’d joke around and recreate the scene “I don’t see a father In your contacts..’ and he would pause and say “well about that” and then on 4/20 “Bust out the weed we’re going to hell!” And he will constantly make are you close jokes it’s a given. And continues to say I’ll go even further beyond whenever he does something. (Like deadass everyone’s convinced hee hoo and the gongozzler are some stupid conspiracy theories, they don’t realize it’s real)

Also he would totally be heavy into MCR, TØP, Waterparks, etc (obviously not every song, but for any guitar solos) AND BO BURNHAM HE WOULD BE SINGING HIM TOTALLY

Plus secretly he listens to Ariana grande and Taylor Swift and secretly has a crush on Billie Eilish though hes constantly having sexuality crisis’s because of Yungblud.

Honestly, he would totally be into that healthy shit. I everyone thinking he’s hella unhealthy when really he drinks huge amounts of water during the day and loves fruit.

Totally a dc fan

Loves metal with all of his heart but pop punk/ emo music hits his trauma just right

He’s been in foster care at least once

He wouldn’t be in any AP classes but extra help as he has difficulty focusing (not because he’s dumb)

He would totally be into roleplaying online

Video games

He would LOVE the lord of the Rings movies

Secretly watches twilight because he finds Robert Pattinson attractive whip Steve is team Jacob.

He would totally be into The Walking Dead

Hella supportive of everyone (except obviously rascists, etc)

His journey jacket would totally be covered in gun control, lgbtq+, pro-choice, and a dont do drugs pins. (The last one is obviously a joke he has)

Eminem, he would totally go through a hard eminem phase being angry at the world and listening to my mom, must be the ganga and stan

Has a love hate relationship with the metal community

I love how we all imagine what eddies band would sound like and it's all different like I love being exposed to new music etc so I'm open to listening to thrash metal or more pop music. I think the same blog that made the playlist for the thrash music also did like a pop punk one too and tbh I loved it bc I didn't grow up listening to that stuff and I feel like I missed out so much and I'm just grateful this Fandom is also helping me expand my music taste also to that anon I don't have a link to the playlists either and I forgot about the blog who created them 😫

in terms of poppunk era (i was a teenager between 2005 and 2011) i unfortch SO see eddie singing situations by escape the fate. he just has that sort of slutty energy. (but that’s what i hc for my rockstar!eddie specifically)

but irl i hc modern!eddie (modern as in, was a teenager when i was a teenager) as an AX7 emo/scene kid. i’m not wrong.

modern au red/milo dump while i try to get myself together to answer asks nd work on ATJ:

(tw for alcohol mentions near the end, also this is an EXTREMELY long post, its so long that even after i split it into categorized sections each section could be its own post)

CLOTHING

milo absolutely has no sense of fashion. i feel like this is basically canon - for the styles at the time, he dresses fairly basic, mostly focused on looking put together for his job (definitely dresses aimed more towards how he would like to be treated by his peers, despite his actual position - then again our best example outside of the expedition is when he's about to deliver what he considers the most important presentation of his life, so who knows, maybe he usually dresses like a slob). aside from that his main concern seems like practicality and comfort. his wardrobe is dominated by earth tones - beiges and greens set with white and greys. all of that taken into account, i can see him dressing like this in a more modern era:

basically- a lot of cardigans, usually collared shirts or comfortable turtlenecks (since he does still occupy a research position at the smithsonian, even if only in title), big ol' coats, khakis and chinos and slightly stiff dress pants complete with ironed creases. i can see him wearing similar clothes outside work, just more comfortable - jeans and knitted shirts, henleys, more turtlenecks, and comfy cardigans over short sleeved shirts. i dont really see him wearing a lot of prints, i think he'd veer more towards solid clothes in lighter colors, but maybe he has a few. hes definitely the kind of guy to think of wearing the single graphic tee he owns as "bold and wild".

im very married to the idea of him wearing converse though. i cant explain it. milo in converse keeps me going in this world

hes kind of broke so i think maybe he got the converse secondhand maybe? or a gift of some kind. aside from the converse i can see him wearing a lot of oxfords and maybe wingtips

i want to see him in a hawaiian shirt so bad. i am losing it at this thought. he buttons it all the way up to his neck like someones awkward dad. milo wears a hawaiian shirt to "let loose". he wears it with like, khakis. or knee length jorts AHHHHDJHDSGJHDSJGh

a tie??? does he wear his hawaiian shirt with a tie???? does he think it makes it look cooler?????????? i am sobbing

red is the COMPLETE opposite. in the canon 1914 setting, red is already very rebellious for an AFAB person of their era- theyre openly a suffragette, they frequently refuse to wear skirts even in public and dress in mens clothes even before they were openly nonbinary, despite not being accepted into the male-dominated research fields and colleges they continue to educate themself with or without help, they purposely aim for an "unfeminine" silhouette when they dress, refuse to wear corsets, etc. (spoiler alert- there's a clear reason they get on so well with audrey in ATJ)

theyre also easily mistaken by people that didnt know them prior to their transition for being just a very small/young cis man- even though they canonically have a very soft "traditionally feminine" face

so basically, in any era theyre set into, red is always gonna aim to be ahead of the curve- both in their personal beliefs and practices and in their fashion. theyre also very androgynous in their clothes, although they tend to aim a bit more masculine (thats partially due to the era though, and having been forced into skirts exclusively for their entire life- i think in a modern setting where its more acceptable for AFABs to dress and act in a less hyperfeminine way, theyd be more okay with a fluidity in their gender presentation).

all that taken into account, i can see them dressing like this:

lots of baggy clothes, especially baggy jackets and shirts. they like loose fitting high waisted pants like JNCO jeans, cargo pants, etc but they arent averse to pencil legs. they rarely ever wear skinny jeans or drainpipes though. messy hair is a lifestyle for them- their haircut is definitely home-done

you know how in BICSTLY they used to have really long hair before they cut it? in a modern au i can see them impulsively doing the cut at like 3am and waking milo up at his door cause they screwed it up and he ends up having to help fix it (even though hes literally no better at cutting hair than them. worse even)

definitely have an undercut bob- bob on top, shaven on the bottom layer. they might end up growing their hair into a mullet at some point if they get bored. probably dyes their hair all the time out of boredom and then regrets it later and has to use dye remover.

lots of ripped tights and fishnets, leggings with big loose crop tops, big hoodies, safety pin jewelry and homemade jewelry. maybe some sticknpokes.

all that said, they still know how to dress in a professional situation. since its a modern au theres really nothing holding them back from the education and career they canonically want but cant get in the 1910s, so i imagine they would work at the smithsonian as well, maybe their father helped them get the job? potentially in that case they might be his assistant- after all, he trusts their opinion on artifacts more than anyone else's.

at work you can still very much see the punk/skater/grunge/goth style but its more understated- turtlenecks, high waisted and looser dress pants, lots of black, slightly unbuttoned collared shirts with a loose overcoat and no tie

since i elaborated on milos shoe taste i may as well elaborate on red's: they definitely wear converse as well, probably newer than milo's since their father is fairly wealthy and they can afford it. they also have a doc martens collection. they have a pair of demonias but they never wear them and milo is really the only person to even know they own them, let alone see them in them. they really dont like to wear heels much, but they own a few just to play around with. they have a bad habit of wearing any laced shoes untied, but they never trip over the laces. they also use lace code- their most-worn Docs have purple laces on the right foot and yellow on the left. some of their Docs have (reclaimed) pink laces.

has an extensive pin collection including feminism pins, anti-racism pins, punk-related pins, skater-related pins, and pop culture pins (80s music, modern music, old movies, etc)

MUSIC TASTE

milo's into a lot of older music- stuff from the 50s is his favorite. really into jazz and ballroom style stuff. his favorite band is queen, i think- he likes the old-fashioned sound, the jazz-chamber-ballroom influences, the diversity of their lyrics, and the complexity between the guitar riffs, the basslines, and freddie's vocal runs as well as the vocal harmonies.

sometimes he hums good old fashioned lover boy to red and they two-step in the living room in their pajamas :pleading:

also very into rush. yes, he is a rush guy :pensive:.

also listens to a surprising amount of lo-fi? he really likes stuff that remixes older music with hip hop and lofi elements, like earl grey. nearly exclusively into instrumental stuff but also very into louie zong. he listens to it while he works a lot.

knows a lotttt of foreign artists, especially niche ones. fuckin LOVES casiopea

red's spotify is a goddamn mess. everything from 2000s emo, to classic 70s punk, to post-punk and new wave, to 90s pop, to rap. they cant be easily classified at all

their favorite bands are oingo boingo, prince, queen (they listen to a lot of their harder-rock music, but milo knows theyre into the ballads too. theyll never tell anyone else though), doja cat, lil nas, fall out boy, and billie eilish.

red recites the intro monologue to lets go crazy very seriously to make milo laugh, sometimes. they get very into it with their facial expressions. sometimes it devolves into a full air guitar/keyboard/drum and wild dancing session. milo does not know how to participate in this but he loves watching them have fun with it. sometimes they pull him off the couch to make him dance with them, though

they are a huge sucker for dark pop, vaporwave, retrowave, EDM, hip hop, emo, punk... etc etc. anything that combines any two or more of those genres in an original or interesting way gets their attention right away

there's a lot of sharing between the two of them- even though their music tastes are so different, they like a lot of the others taste, and theyre always up to listen to whatever their partner is playing.

red is a huge softie, and milo has found them more than once listening to or humming something he was playing for them the other day because it reminded them of him

speaking of which- in the 1914 canon, red can play piano. i think that carries over to a modern au, where they could play piano and by extension keyboard. i like to think they experiment with a lot of instruments but i doubt they ever really mastered any others. maybe theyre okay at drums or bass?

they learned to play and sing teo torriatte for milo, as a surprise. when they first performed it for them, they had everything set up for when he got home from work- the lights were dimmed, they had candles lit around the keyboard, they draped stuff in cloth to make it look pretty, they scattered flower petals around. when milo walked in and saw it all, he almost proposed then and there- the only thing that stopped him was that he would kick himself for the rest of his life if he did that without a ring.

HOBBIES/ACTIVITIES

milo is still an avid chess player in this, but i like to think hes in some kind of groupchat or text or discord server for it. he doesnt necessarily consider any of the others in the chat close friends, but he does know them all by name

he tries to get red into chess but they never really get it

he tells them all about the stuff that goes down in the games and they just. do not understand. but they love listening to him get excited about it anyway

"red you're not gonna BELIEVE this, eddie played an italian game on star today! i thought for sure she would see through it since everyone knows it but she slipped and he beat her in like, 13 moves! i wouldnt have believed it if i hadnt been there!"

"yes sweetie please tell me more" (barely disguised pained expression)

red is a skater and a regular at the skate park by the smithsonian

most regulars there know them by name, they can spot a newbie a mile away

they have a sticker of a broken tv with a skull inside of it on the underside of their board, its become recognized as a symbol of them unofficially

since theyre so regular and have been going there a lot longer than most of the other skaters that frequent the place, a lot of what they say is kind of just accepted as the rules

they have a bad habit of lecturing new kids who show up without knee/elbow pads or helmets at the very least. all the other skaters enforce it too. kids dont end up showing up without protective gear very often after their first visit

they brought a first aid kid and left it there and everyone has kept it stocked pretty well without them having to have much input. its kind of just a communal first aid kit

they once drew the broken tv symbol on the inside of a half-pipe and everyone started calling it red's ramp after that

they also started calling the bowl at the center of the park the Soup Bowl and now thats just accepted as the name. some of the newer kids genuinely thought that it was called that by the park and were shocked when they found out it was just a random nickname red gave it one day

theyve brought milo a few times but hes extremely awkward on his feet and could never really get his balance on a skateboard, and quite frankly red is afraid of what might happen if he tried even a low ramp, so he usually just sits at the rim of the bowl while red skates around

everyone knew he was their boyfriend before they even met him. a few of the regulars called him by name right away. one of them was certain red had brought him before.

but no

they just talk so fuckin much about him that its like they already know him

aside from skateboarding, red is pretty good on rollerskates/blades

they tried to take milo to a roller rink once but it was a disaster and they ended up going home, changing into pajamas, ordering chinese food, and marathoning movies till they fell asleep on the couch together. so not a total loss

theyre both very into movies. red is deep into horror and milo likes indie/art movies and just Cannot handle horror at all, but they both agree on old movies, from the 80s and 90s to like the 30s.

red has shown milo some of the classic horror movies and the niche old ones (from like the 40s) since theyre not difficult to stomach

every so often when red brings up wanting to see a horror movie milo is like "aw babe we can watch that tonight i promise it wont be bad" and he genuinely thinks he can handle it this time

he cant

he never can

it is always a lie

red ends up holding him every time and talking him to sleep, but it thankfully never causes like a major panic attack or anything like that

they love going to museums together, of all kinds. they love art museums. they also go to aquariums and aviaries

sometimes they like to go to other history museums and criticise the veracity or accuracy of exhibits/translations, all in good fun of course. theyre never actually being mean about it

SIDENOTES/UNCATEGORIZED

they both used to work at starbucks, when they were younger and before they worked at the smithsonian. they worked at separate stores 2 blocks from each other.

milo cant stand soda or carbonated drinks, red can and will chug a java monster in order to survive a long workday if they must. milo is constantly concerned for their health and wellbeing

they r both lightweights when it comes to drinking. they can split a six pack and both be falling-over drunk by the end of the night.

given the changes in beauty standards people DEFINITELY think milo is more attractive than they would in 1914. cmon. hes a lil twinky nerd. you think people wont eat that up?

he never really catches onto the flirting much though

did u think i would forget ki/da and the others? youd be wrong.

i simultaneously like the idea of something similar to the movie happening, but also just like... ki/da just being a regular person living on the surface. in either case they r all friends still

in the case of ki/da just being a regular person on the surface- i like the idea of atl/antis just being A Place in this au, maybe its a bit of a closed off country though? like, not many foreigners live there and to get there you basically need to be there as a diplomat or a scholar

maybe ki/da visits DC as a diplomat? she is a princess, after all

red meets audrey online cause they both yell at the same misogynistic asshole on twitter

they exchange discord names in the replies of the tweet and tell the guy not to interrupt them while theyre talking in his replies

i like to think red and milo are selected to go on an academic visit to atl/antis (to learn about the culture, with permission of the king), and audrey ends up as the mechanic on the ship during the visit and theyre like (spiderman pointing meme) at each other

red and audrey have so many inside jokes that they basically speak a different language. milo gets some of the terms from context and pop culture (they use "so very" in real life- as in "wow, that shirt is so very.") but he is hopeless to learn all of it

one of their inside jokes is any variation of "milo hot girl summer" and they REFUSE to explain it to him no matter how much he begs

milo wears that iconique tank top on the ship and they say it literally any time he bends over, picks anything up, reaches for anything, moves, BREATHES. he is bewildered and at this point concerned

(in truth, the joke came from red taking a really blurry picture of him in a short sleeve shirt where he looked pretty cute and captioned it "milo's having a hot girl summer rn" and they just could not stop repeating it once audrey met him IRL)

they have a minecraft world. i do like to believe that every so often vinny finds a way in- theyre never sure how- and griefs the shit out of them by blowing up EVERY. monument.

this post is getting long bc im enraptured by the idea of an atl/antis modern au so im cutting it off here but expect WAY MORE later

Jennifer Kelly 2020: I’m done expecting next year to be better

Not to belabor the point, which has been covered everywhere, but 2020 sucked. My last live concert was on March 7th. It was 75 Dollar Bill in a beautiful reconfigured industrial space on the Amherst College campus, and I already had questions about whether I should be there or not. The show was worth it, absolutely riveting, and no one I know got sick from it, but a couple of weeks later, Amherst College shut down and then, basically, the world.

When I think about 2020, I think about bands that don’t fully make sense unless you see them live, and how, this year, no one got to see them live. I think about musicians who were barely making it before, now cut off from concert revenues and, in a lot of cases, day jobs at restaurants, coffee shops and bars. I think about six-digit medical bills from multi-week COVID-19 treatments, and how my insurance will only cut that to low five figures. I think about the constant spew of bile and nonsense, the willful destruction of American institutions and the persistent sense that we will never recover from any of this, and I look for refuge.

Most of the time in music. Because the music kept coming even when everything else shut down. Even the artists who were holding back for better conditions ended up releasing EVERY ALBUM ON EARTH starting about September 18th. There was always music, good music, interesting music, beautiful music, and while that doesn’t compensate for a terrible year, it was something.

Here are 10 albums I loved best from 2020, with links to reviews or other articles I’ve written about them.

1. Gunn-Truscinski — Soundkeeper (Three Lobed)

Soundkeeper by Gunn-Truscinski Duo

A gorgeous exploration of mood and tone, this double CD set includes two extended live cuts and ten more recorded just down the road in Easthampton, Massachusetts. (And I thought nothing ever happened up here.) “Pyramid Merchandise” punches the hardest, John Truscinski balancing rock solid beat keeping with abstracted sculptures of percussive experiment, while Gunn finds the sweetness and the growl in his blues-touched guitar sound. But “Ocean City” is pure lovely respite, with big rounded notes dropping slowly and with grace through wavering transparencies of sustained tone. Long, searching, “Soundkeeper” will rekindle your longing for live improvised music, while the closer “For Eddie Hazel” vibrates with supercharged intensity, the notes and the steady rhythm too bright and beautiful to look at straight on.

2. Six Organs of Admittance — Companion Rises (Drag City)

Companion Rises by Six Organs of Admittance

Chasny imbues the down-home with wonder and the inexplicable with natural grace in this album inspired by stargazing. The album’s name references the way Sirius appears close to Orion, and the rollicking “The Scout Is Here,” commemorates the appearance of the Oumuamua asteroid, but this is no squiggle-y space opera. The music is mainly made of clean, all-natural picking, blues bends, and rambling jangle, though ruptured, periodically, by rushing, whooshing, amplified electronic sounds. Warm, simple clarity is tipped with awe in finger-picked “Black Tea,” while mists and mysteries predominate in evanescent “Worn Down to the Light,” but the joy comes in the balance between the ordinary and the unknowable shimmering like stars in a black sky.

3. Gil Scott-Heron and Makaya McCraven — We’re New Again (XL Recordings)

When the estate of Gil Scott-Heron asked Chicago composer, percussionist and hip hop chopper Makaya McCraven to reimagine the artist’s last, most personal album, McCraven jumped at the chance to tackle its themes of black struggle, black family and perseverance. McCraven surrounded Scott-Heron’s words with shimmering, post-jazz arrangements that incorporated some of his father’s recordings (his dad is jazz drummer Stephen McCraven) in an ongoing tribute to the blood relatives who shape and equip young black men for a challenging world. The music is wonderful, very different from the original, spare, blues-based arrangements, but they open out the master’s words in an illuminating way. I like, especially, the hustling, shuffling movement of “New York Is Killing Me,” which summons the city’s energy as clearly as the feel of heat rising out of a subway grate in August.

4. Obnox — Savage Raygun (Ever/Never)

Savage Raygun by Obnox

Obnox’s psychedelic mayhem roars like a California wildfire, setting a torch to rock, soul, hip hop, jazz and punk with fuzz-crusted abandon. Icons like Hawkwind flare out and curl into white-hot ash, while even Neil Young’s lick from “Southern Man,” is consumed in the all-encompassing heat of Lamont Thomas’ onslaught (“Young Neezy”). A double album, Savage Raygun covers a lot of ground, but in such a kinetic rush that it seems like one entity that stretched from end to end.

5. Anjimile — Giver Taker (Father/Daughter)

Giver Taker by Anjimile

Anjimile sounds beautifully comfortable with their new vocal range in this second full-length, which follows a gender transition. Pitched low and warm, their voice effortlessly navigates subtle melodies, integrating complex, African-leaning rhythms into songs about love, identify, family friction and the possibility of redemption through embracing one’s authentic self.

6. Osees — Protean Threat (Castleface)

Protean Threat by Oh Sees

John Dwyer has fronted bands called The O.Cs., The Ohsees, Thee Ohsees and now just Osees, evolving from a one-man bedroom pop outfit to a gleefully slopping garage pop project to a droning, krautrocking motoric monster along the way. This newest iteration takes a little of this, a little of that, from the repertoire, putting Dwyer’s best Bo Diddley-esque stomper in years (“If I Had My Way”) next to a wiggy psychedelic freak bomb called “Toadstool” which is adjacent to the dub-scented, narcotic head trip called “Gong of Catastrophe.” The mix works because Dwyer and his band commit to all of it, sequentially and within tracks. It’s the best Osees in years, all the good things in one package.

7. Sam Amidon — S-T (Nonesuch)

As always, Amidon starts with traditional, mostly folk and blues material and, as always, he transforms it into something more adventurous, spiritual and faintly otherworldly. With Shahzad Ismaily and Antibalas’ Chris Vatalaro to back him up, he breaks down the unyielding contours of pre-modern banjo tunes and porch blues, finding steady drones and complex afro-beat syncopations in their steady melodies. You can hear “Cuckoo Bird” a million times in a million different voices and never hear it as luminous and open-ended as here.

8. James Elkington — Ever Roving Eye (Paradise of Bachelors)

James Elkington is always pressed for time, maybe because he works regularly for so many other people’s bands (Richard Thompson, Jeff Tweedy, Spencer Tweedy) and collaborates with others (Steve Gunn). And yet his second solo album brims with balm and solace; he finds time in the interstices between warm, jazz-scented, Pentangle-esque verses and intricate flurries of picked and strummed and electric guitar. Even “Nowhere Time,” which exhorts “It is time for you to move,” has an ease and calm to it, while “Moon Tempering” is as still and lovely as winter starlight. Ever-Roving Eye is an album that assures us we’ll get it all done somehow, but just stop for a minute and listen.

9. Jehnny Beth — To Love Is To Live (Arts & Crafts)

This riveting solo debut from the Savages frontperson is both quieter and more intense than her full-band compositions, juxtaposing incendiary spoken word with the hedonistic thump of the dance floor. Guests are varied—Joe Talbot of IDLES at one pole, the actor Cillian Murphy at the other—but the music never drifts from Jehnny Beth’s singular viewpoint. Compare her to PJ Harvey or Beth Gibbons or Bobby Gillespie as you will (I did), but this is her 100%, and there’s nothing else like it.

10. Cable Ties — Far Enough (Merge)

Far Enough by Cable Ties

Australia churns out quality punk bands like the Hershey factory makes kisses, and Cable Ties, formed in Melbourne by four young rebels, ranks as one of the best to surface here in America this year. “Tell Them Where to Go” is the money track here, all rust-crusted bass crunch and ragged estrogenated vocal energy. But let’s not put them in the “girl band” ghetto. As I said in my review, “The easy thing would be to compare McKechnie’s vibrato-zinging vocals with those of Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker or her verbal agility to Courtney Barnett, but the blunt force and agile violence of the music, brings to mind post-punk bands like the Wipers, Protomartyr and Eddy Current.”

Honorable mention

I also really enjoyed these albums in 2020.

Lewsberg — In this House (12XU)

Damien Jurado — What’s New Tomboy (Mamabird)

Bill Callahan — Gold Record (Drag City)

Mike Polizze — Long Lost Solace Find (Paradise of Bachelors)

Destroyer — Have We Met (Merge)

Decoy w/ Joe McPhee — AC/DC (otoROKU)

Thurston Moore — By the Fire (Daydream Library)

Tobin Sprout — Empty Horse (Fire)

FACS — Void Moments (Trouble in Mind)

Elkhorn — The Storm Sessions (Beyond Beyond Is Beyond)  

Howling Hex — Knuckleball Express (Fat Possum)

Wendy Eisenberg — Auto (BaDaBing)

Xetas — The Cypher (12XU)

Califone — Echo Mine (Jealous Butcher)

Chouk Bwa & The Ångströmers — Vodou Alé (Bongo Joe)

Shopping — All or Nothing (Fat Cat)

Bonny Light Horseman — S-T (37d03d)

Tashi Dorji — Stateless (Drag City)

The Slugs — Don’t Touch Me I’m Too Slimy (2214099 Records DK)

Dr. Pete Larson and his Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band — S-T (Dagonetti)

Okay so you happen to have a list of the songs mentioned in lmntsfy or songs that would be on the crews data sticks that weren’t mentioned??? Pls it’s for science

this took so so long to compile because i took it WAY too seriously what else is new also it’s uhh long so more under the cut

eddieok so full disclosure i used jdg’s eddie playlist for most of the inspo in this but i’m an idiot and didn’t realize i was only seeing half of the songs on the playlist bc i was looking at it in my phone browser (i don’t have spotify OKAY) so there’s like. way more songs than i realized and i am now bummed out i did not get to include :/ ANYWAY other than this playlist, eddie has: pretty much every queen album, lots of madonna, lots of cyndi lauper, and the entire soundtrack to dirty dancing

richiei mentioned somewhere in lmntsfy that richie mainly fills his data stick with comedy sketches so notably he has: john mulaney, hasan minhaj, ali wong, and uh other comedians who are popular in the 2030s probably. MUSIC WISE, lot of 70s pop rock, 80s rock, 90s grunge, 00s pop punk (can we just all agree that richie listened to p!atd and fob as an angsty little twelve year old) so. lots of fleetwood mac, eagles, ramones, queen, probably some foreigner, PLENT of the cranberries and red hot chili peppers. also because i said so he listens to the front bottoms and modern baseball but he didn’t include them on his data stick because he was like “we can’t take SAD MUSIC into space” he was very insistent on it

stanso he definitely has like the entire playlist from his and patty’s wedding; i’m gonna go more into this soon but stan and patty got married and then like. he went up into space SO he was Pining. their first dance was to if you ever have forever in mind and stan listens to it. all the time. all the time. he’s in love and u know what we don’t blame him. there’s also a lot of instrumental music on his because he’s a NERD. mostly piano. it reminds him of patty and how he used to wake up to her playing

beverlylizzo. just like. all the lizzo. commander beverly marsh is educated with multiple degrees, has numerous accomplishments under her belt, is an icon to many young girls interested in science, and she would burst into tears at the opportunity to meet lizzo you can quote me on that. ALSO. pretty much any song that’s been popular from the early 2000s to before she left in 2035 is on there. one of the first things she does when she gets home is turn on the radio to start finding out what music she missed

benokay we know he loves nkotb. we know it. so every album by them ever. but also he would have been PRIME AGE during the one direction hype so he loves them. he LOVES them. you can pry that from my cold dead hands. he has basically every boy band ever invented on his data stick. every cringy pop hit from before he was even born to know. he loves them unashamed. he knows every word to take me home (2012) and you know what we don’t blame him

mikemost of mike’s data stick is filled with like. episodes of star trek. also doctor who. but just the new stuff, he hasn’t gotten around to the OG stuff yet. he’s too busy rewatching star trek. nerd i love him SO MUCH. also my boy loves doo wop, he used to listen to it with his grandfather all the time so he LOVES IT. the del-vikings, the flamingos, the shirelles, the penguins, the ink spots, the temptations, all the ‘thes’ (yes, he makes that joke). he has all of his grandfather’s old vinyls safely stored and in as prime condition as they can be. 

billok so u know that scene in stranger things where jonathan is showing will should i stay or should i go yeah that’s bill and georgie and the song is every song on his data stick. bill is a nostalgic fucker so pretty much every song you can think of that exemplifies what the 00s-10s are, that’s on there. coldplay. kelly clarkson. panic! at the disco. britney spears. p!nk. destiny’s child. avril lavigne. you all know. MAROON 5. bill is basic and we love him for it okay!!

data sticks can include tv shows, movies, audio books, music, e-books, home videos, etc, so all of them have a pretty good collection of things that they take with them up into space. on mars richie does, eventually, recover all of them, though he does end up using eddie’s more frequently than anyone elses surprise surprise!!!

anyway i know this isn’t specific songs and more like general vibes but i hope this kind of is what you were looking for?? thank you for the ask i had so much fun with it AND SORRY AGAIN THAT IT TOOK SO LONG 

i was tagged by @old90soul @lemonyellowsvn @whitedeadflower and @longlivepearljam to answer some music questions! thank you thank you i love getting tagged in these things.

favorite band: i have lots but rn its a tie between pearl jam and mötley crüe.

favorite musician: eddie vedder is dope not sure if you've heard of him before. also jack white and dave grohl.

favorite song: rn im bopping to smokin in the boys room by mötley crüe but tbh i have thousands of favorite songs.

favorite genre: the overall rock genre; metal, classic, grunge, punk, etc.

favorite instrument: BASS BBYYY

favorite era of music: 1980's or 90's depends on what kinda day im having.

favorite years of music: 1991, 1989, 1967, 1979, 1994, 2001, and 2006

least favorite genre: country (all excluding like johnny cash and dolly parton and maybe a couple others idk), the fucking abomination that is mumble rap, most modern pop, and idk probably something else i just can't think of it rn.

been to any concerts?: lol NOOO i wish im poor as fuck.

favorite broadcasted concert: pearl jam unplugged if that counts.

favorite album: ten by pearl jam, sonic temple by the cult, shout at the devil by mötley crüe, 1039 smoothed out slappy hours by green day, and sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band by the beatles.

any upcoming concerts?: i might be seeing alice in chains this summer but once again money and i think there are some local bands that are gonna be playing close to where i live soon. i might see that.

in a band? (in or out of school): if you count playing percussion in concert band then sure. besides that fuck i wish.

play any instruments?: concert percussion for my bitch ass school (like snare drum, bass drum, drum lines, marching, etc.) and a little bass guitar (i suck ass but whatever).

and i tag everyone who would like to participate!

2018 Pedal Fuzz Favorites

Contributors from Pedal Fuzz have weighed in on their favorite albums of 2018. there was (thankfully) no shortage of excellent music released this year. We hope you give these artists a listen, a share, and maybe even smash that ‘buy’ button on Bandcamp or at the counter of your local record store.

***note***these are listed in order they were sent to the editor

Dustin K. Britt

Al Riggs, WE'RE SAFE BUT FOR HOW LONG

David Byrne, AMERICAN UTOPIA

Father John Misty, GOD'S FAVORITE CUSTOMER

Florence + The Machine, HIGH AS HOPE

Gorillaz, THE NOW NOW

Janelle Monae, DIRTY COMPUTER

Mary Lattimore, HUNDREDS OF DAYS

Neko Case, HELL-ON

Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, YEARS

Troye Sivan, BLOOM

Jon Foster

The Nels Cline 4 – Currents, Constellations – Nels Cline is one of those figures that’s always been on my peripheral. His name has floated around progressive independent music for decades. His association with Wilco didn’t cause me to go through his discography. This record just popped up this year, a little promotion from a devotee helped a lot. Seeing him play at Big Ears this past year solidified my interest.

 Currents, Constellations is fascinating, the interplay between Nels and technical wizard Julian Lage keeps pushing the music forward, sometimes noisy and sometimes jazz freak-out. It’s a perfect gateway record, not all the way jazz and not all the way progressive rock. After listening to the record for a few weeks I ordered the last two Lage records and a couple Cline ones. Julian Lage’s Modern Lore is also on my best of 2018 list.

 Similar Fashion – Portrait Of – I don’t know anything about this band. I don’t know where they come from. I have no context other than a simple post from the producer, John Dietrich of Deerhoof fame. Just that last bit of information caused me to click on the link, a task any music fan can do dozens of times in a day when the music is in front of you all the time. Another Bandcamp link, nah…I’ll pass.

 Thankfully I clicked on the link and heard a record I immediately loved. It was energetic and progressive, a little silly even. How many records reference the TV show, Scandal? One thread going through the record is this quasi-Raymond Scott feel. He’s the guy who wrote a lot of music for Looney Toons, and I love him. Imagine Bugs Bunny chasing Foghorn Leghorn through a forest while a small group of music majors raised on jazz and rock and roll score it. The best songs on the record are full of exuberance and sugared up energy.

  Oh Sees – Smote Reverser – Oh Sees have a lot of records. They might have too many records. Because they have so many records it becomes difficult to get excited about a new one. Although I listen to all of their new records I don’t buy them automatically. I feel like I need to sample them. Recently they’ve been going through this tour of the outer fringes of rock and roll subgenres. You know, last year’s record was the folk record with psychedelic touches. They’ve done the garage record with psychedelic touches. Smote Reverser is their early 70’s hard rock record with psychedelic touches.

 When trying to describe the record, I feel like I have nothing positive to say about it. At the core there’s the usual really loud Dwyer leads over the top of everything. You know they’re coming, they’re always there, it should be an annoying cliché but they sound so good. His tone is delicious. Mix in dueling drums and an interest in letting songs unfold for no particular reason, and it’s a record to fall into.

Palberta – Roach Goin’ Down – This is a punk record. It’s ragged and personal and it feels like it could fall apart at any moment. Sometimes I think the musicians are superb players, while on other songs I feel like it’s the first day of them playing their instruments. The songs are short blasts of postpunk joy that could have been made in 1980.

 While I’m enthralled with this record, and enjoyed them immensely when I saw them live in Raleigh, I worry about them. I worry that this perfect moment will be ruined if they become a little more adept at their instruments. Taking away some of the passion in their playing might neuter their effectiveness. A better scenario might be for them to break up and move onto other things leaving this batch of songs as their only work.

 New Optimism – Amazon to LeFrak – New Optimism is basically Miho Hatori, most notably of Cibo Matto fame. It was a record I didn’t know existed until I started down a random google search hole. It was one of those days where think to yourself, “Oh, I wonder what they’re doing” and then six hours have past. Not setting out to find new music by her and then there it is, was like a wonderful present. Unfortunately it’s only an EP. Unfortunately I haven’t heard anyone talk about the record at all. It came out in July and I worry it’s already buried under mounds of other new releases. Googling Hatori again I realize she has produced a full length record I didn’t know anything about. This last surprise was released in October.

 The music on Amazon to LeFrak is right in line with her work in Cibo Matto and her painfully underrated Ecdysis from 2005. The music is colorful and dancey, vibrant and a little quirky. I hope this flurry of creative continues into the New Year.

Eddie Garcia

In 2018 I listened to and focused on music from films as much or more than straight-up albums. Here are my favorites, they’re all magnificent and worthy of your time.

Favorite Film Scores & Soundtracks

Hereditary - Colin Stetson

Mandy - Jóhann Jóhannsson

Suspiria - Thom Yorke

Black Panther - Kendrick Lamar

You Were Never Really Here - Johnny Greenwood

A Star Is Born - Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper

Vox Lux - Sia / Scott Walker

Revenge - ROB

Kin - Mogwai

Thoroughbreds - Erik Friedlander

Eighth Grade - Anna Meredith

42 Grams - Takénobu

*Honorable mention* Halloween (2018) - John Carpenter. I mean, it was great to hear The Theme loud & revved up/industrialized in a theatre, but not really doing much new here if I’m being honest. Love to John Carpenter forever though!

Favorite Albums

There was much that I ‘liked’ this year in music but less that I ‘loved’ (gonna blame that partially on a shortage of deep listening time). I also had a few instances where live greatly outweighed the record, no matter how much I tried to listen. So rather than list out 40 albums, here are the ones that really affected me, so much so that I even have physical copies of 90% of these.

Sons of Kemet - Your Queen Is A Reptile

Bill Frisell - Music Is

Ohmme - Parts

The Nels Cline 4 - Currents, Constellations

The Messthetics - s/t

Mary Lattimore - Hundreds of Days - Meg Baird & Mary Lattimore - Ghost Forests

Dark Prophet Tongueless Monk - Insides

Yo La Tengo - There’s A Riot Going On

Shane Parish - Child Asleep In The Rain

Low - Double Negative

Marisa Anderson - Cloud Corner

Mind Over Mirrors - Bellowing Sun

Renata Zeiguer - Old Ghost

The Sea And Cake - Any Day

Oh Sees - Smote Reverser

Yonatan Gat - Universalists

Julian Lage - Modern Lore

***I just picked up The Hex by Richard Swift and Mattson 2 Play ‘A Love Supreme’ but as they haven’t gotten a full spin yet I can’t include but they sound mighty fine so far.

Favorite Pop Song

Kimbra - “Top Of the World”

*I don’t really listen to much modern pop music but this song slays and instantly appealed to me the first time I heard it.

Patrick Wall’s Top Ten

Knee Meets Jerk, or: In Which a Semiretired Music Critic and Journalist Offers Brief, Non-Critical and Non-Sequitur Thoughts on His Favorite Music of 2018. Because, Hey, Music Is Personal and Subjective, Right?

*Results listed in alphabetical order and subject to change.

Bad years look better when they’re gone.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt more unstable — professionally, personally, psychologically — in my life than I did in 2018. In the past eighteen months, I've moved twice — from a new home to an old home to very, very far away from home. I bounced from a solid if unexciting job to no job to high-paying but infrequent freelance jobs to steady and cool but low-paying jobs to a high-paying but stressful and wholly unfulfilling job. Commutes went from long car rides to long bike rides and long walks to long train and subway rides. As summer faded to fall and turned to bitter winter, the world just felt increasingly, incontrovertibly, ineffably doomed. New homes didn’t feel as such. Old ones seemed gone, unable to be returned to — no man, Heraclitus mused, can step twice in the same stream.

If things were roiling internally, they weren’t any better externally. The planet is doomed. The authoritarians won. The world got colder. Some of my friends got cancer. Some of them, their cancers came back. Some of my friends got sad. Some of them came to the brink of death. Some of them got help, got better. Some of them didn’t make it through the year, taken either by illness or by their own hands, their voices now silhouettes, never coming back.

All this is to say: I have done far less critical listening this year than in the past. My time is more limited. My tastes are broader and more tolerant now than when I was a quote-unquote critic, but they’re harder to fathom. The things I connected with this year, I don’t know that I could explain why. I don’t know why Cave’s “San’Yago” spoke to me on the same level as Janelle Monae’s “Make Me Feel,” Jeff Parker’s “Blackman,” They Might Be Giants’ “Last Wave,” The Fearless Flyers’ “Ace of Aces,” Superchunk’s “What a Time to Be Alive,” The Messthetics’ “The Inner Ocean,” Fucked Up’s “Normal People.” I don’t know that I can qualify why none of the records those songs were on made the list below, or why I connected with those records in times of existential crisis. (Though, were I to give it some good, critical though, Monae’s Dirty Computer would probably grade out as the best of the year.)

How do we measure out our worst years? What defines them, shapes them? What do we reach for when everything feels bad? What do we reach for when we just need things to get better? The sensitive among us, we to turn art — the gear-minded among us, to music, in particular. But how do we code ourselves to forget, when the music we listened to — the music we connected with the most — brings us back to those places?

If you’re lucky, you get to close that part of yourself off and forget about it. If you’re luckier, you don’t. You recognize those sounds — those emotions — when you hear them again. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to close that part of yourself off and forget about it — but you’ll recognize those sounds when you heard it again. You just need to realize that you were lucky enough to have heard them in the first place.

So here are eleven records released in 2018 that I listened to that I enjoyed more than the other ones I listened to that were released in 2018. These are the records that provided some small comfort, and that will reinforce, in the years to come, that bad years look better when they’re gone. We hope.

Rafiq Bhatia, Breaking English [Anti-]

The Body, I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer [Thrill Jockey]

Khruangbin, Con Todo El Mundo [Dead Oceans]

Julian Lage, Modern Lore [Mack Avenue]

Low, Double Negative [Sub Pop]

Makaya McCraven, Universal Beings [International Anthem]

Mount Eerie, Now Only [P.W. Elverum & Sons]

Ohmme, Parts [Joyful Noise]

Miles Okazaki, Work [self-released]

Tangents, New Bodies [Temporary Residence Limited]

Ryley Walker, Deafman Glance [Dead Oceans]

Patrick Wall is an infrequent contributor to Pedal Fuzz. Sometimes, people pay him to write things. He used to live in North Carolina; he currently lives in Massachusetts. The record he actually listened to the most this year? Psychic Temple’s Plays Music for Airports.

Tom Sowders

 This year I listened to a lot of music that did not come out recently. BUT. I did have some favorites in 2018.

Eric Bachman - No Recover

The National - Cherry Tree Vol. 1

The National - Boxer Live in Brussels

Big Red Machine - S/T

Cat Power - Wanderer

The Love Language - Baby Grand

Shopping - The Official Body

Waxahatchee - Great Thunder

Speedy Ortiz - Twerp Verse

Surfbort - Friendship Music

 Lee Wallace

To make this as absolutely accurate as possible and to allow for any sudden last minute submissions, I am writing this at 8pm on New Year's Eve.

My best of 2018:

Guided By Voices - Space Gun (Rockathon Records). This has already become one of my touch stone GBV albums, in roughly the same status as Mag Earwhig! or Class Clown Spots a UFO or even Vampire on Titus. Fifteen concise psych pop rockers, not a micro second wasted.

Adrian Legg - Live (self release). Adrian is surely one of the two or three best finger style guitarists on this planet, and for nearly forty years he has been traveling and performing solo gigs at house concerts, coffee bars, pubs and anywhere ears will listen.  As wonderful as his playing and composing can be, his arduous fans know that his eloquent, story like song introductions are half of the appeal of seeing him in person. This is perhaps the first time that Legg has released a live album with these stories intact. His ruminations lately have concerned greed, materialism, racism, and the destruction of the environment, all from the perspective of a sagely septaugenarian that has traveled the world many times over, but they are as beautiful as his delicate, astounding guitar playing.

Julia Holter - Aviary (Domino Recording Co.). Holter's third album takes an extraordinary leap from the intelligent chamber pop of her previous work to spooky, other worldly avantgarde. Since so many music reviewers tend to make lazy comparisons to Kate Bush when writing about Holter, imagine if “Lionheart” had jumped straight ahead to “The Dreaming” with 21st century technology. Batshit arrangements and sonic freakouts, lysergic orchestral pile ups that come from outer space, on first listen it all sounds like a mess in places, but hang in there, your brain will thank you.

Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer (Atlantic). Composer/singer/dancer/actress/ time travel enthusiast Monae can be high on concept sometimes but she is even higher on melody, groove and astoundingly great vocal performances. I haven't yet taken the time to dissect what all of this “means” in terms of her commentary about contemporary society and what not, but it sure sounds superb. I suspect that she isn't even close to her peak yet, either.

Lilac Shadows - Brutalism (Diggup Tapes). This Durham, NC quartet has apparently done cassettes and digi downloads before but this is on a bona fide high quality vinyl LP in beautiful packaging. Flavors of “Movement”-era New Order and classic 4AD make this music nerd proud to share some geographical proximity with them. Excellent live band too.

BLAST TO THE PAST: 1st July 2001

Hello again and welcome to BLAST TO THE PAST, where we review UK Top 40 charts from decades ago to see what was happening all the way back then. We’re taking a break from the 1980s and zooming past in lightspeed to 2001, specifically the week of 1st-7th July, as Summer had started to kick in. This chart in particular has some classics and some notable events, which we’ll get into right now.

Top 10

Okay, so first, we have a debut – yep, that’s right, it’s not just intense streaming that lands songs at #1 immediately, there were songs that were big enough to sell just that many copies to get to the top at their first week. At number-one, we have “The Way to Your Love” by megastars Hear’Say, who were pretty damn big in the UK, this being their second chart-topping single. Oh, yeah, and they were created by an ITV reality show, because, I mean, of course they were! They’re a British pop group from the 2000s.

Sadly, we don’t see the rise, yet we see the fall of classic cover “Lady Marmalade”, by the all-star cast of Christina Aguilera, P!nk, Lil Kim and Mýa, from the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack, down one spot to number-two.

We have another top five debut, and not the last top 10 debut, with Usher’s “U Remind Me” starting its chart run at number-three.

At number-four, dropping two places from last week, we have “Angel” by Shaggy featuring Rayvon.

Number-five is home to two-spot-dropper “There You’ll Be” by country singer Faith Hill, from the Pearl Harbor soundtrack.

At number-six, we have the debut of Gorillaz’ “19-2000” featuring uncredited vocals from Miho Hatori as well as founding Talking Heads members Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz.

“All I Want” by Alesha Dixon-fronted R&B girl group Mis-Teeq has dropped three spaces to its current spot at number-seven.

Do any of you remember Brandy? Because I sure don’t. Apparently she was huge, but I remember her feature on a Kanye track from Late Registration and that’s pretty much it. It’s somewhat strange that she collaborated with Ray “Hey-Fab-I’mma-kill you” J of all people, but—Wait a second! They’re siblings? And Ray J is Snoop Dogg’s cousin? Wow, he really had connections, huh? Anyway, Brandy and Ray J’s cover of Phil Collins’ “Another Day in Paradise” is down three spots to number-eight.

“Another Lover” by another-rando Dane Bowers debuts at number-nine. If you’re wondering who this Dane fellow is, he was in a boyband called Another Level then he was on “Celebrity” Big Brother. In fact, I don’t think I know who this dude is, and I see no reason to find out.

“Do You Really Like It” by DJ Pied Piper and the Masters of Ceremonies finished off the top 10 with a four-space drop back to the final spot in the ten most popular songs of the country as of July 1st, 2001.

Climbers

Let me tell you now – there weren’t many at all. In fact, other than the number-one, there weren’t any songs climbing the charts, rather a whole lot of new entries and a whole lot of fallers.

Fallers

Where do we start?

“Daydream in Blue” by electronica duo (sharing their name with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode) I Monster is down 11 spots to #40, “It’s Over Now” by Diddy’s favourite R&B group 112 is down 17 spots to #39 and “Best Friends” by pop group allSTARS* is down eight spots to #38, who had a show on CITV in 2001, and appeared on the Scooby-Doo soundtrack the same year, so I’m assuming they were for kids by kids.

“Close to You” by Wet Wet Wet singer Marti Pellow is down 16 to #37, “No More (Baby I’ma Do it Right)” by three (forgettable) little women known as 3LW is down 10 to #36, “Digital Love” by the best robots in music Daft Punk is down 11 spots to #35, “Out of Reach” by soul singer Gabrielle is down seven spots to #34, “Sing” by alternative rock band Travis is down 10 spots to #33, “Ride wit Me” by Kelly Rowland’s former crush Nelly featuring rapper City Spud is down six spots to #31, “It’s Raining Men” by ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is down 10 to #30, the classic “Papercut” by nu-metal band Linkin Park is down 15 to #29, 1980’s hit “Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant is here for some reason, but it’s down nine to #28... seriously, why is this here? Apparently it had a “ringbang remix” which landed it into the top five in 2001. Huh, you learn something new and kind of dumb every day.

“Booo!” by lost-in-time musician Sticky (no, not Sticky Fingaz, this Sticky is some nobody without a Wikipedia page) featuring rapper Ms. Dynamite is down 11 to #27, “Here and Now” by the freaking Steps is down nine to #26, “This Time Around” by house music duo Phats & Small is down 15 from #15 to #25, “Thank You” by Dido – best known for Eminem’s excellent use of it as a sample in “Stan” – is down six spots to #24, “Have a Nice Day” by Britpop band Stereophonics is down eight to #20, as is “We Come 1” by electronica group Faithless at #19 as well as “My Way” by walking punchlines Limp Bizkit at #18. “Don’t Stop Movin’” by S Club 7 is down five to #14, as is “All Rise” by boyband Blue at #13. Wow, that was a lot!

Dropouts

Some data in this section may be inaccurate or non-existent, so bear with me as not all drop-outs will be noted in this section, mostly due to the fact that we don’t know a lot of them and I’m just going by what’s there on the UK Singles Chart’s official website.

There weren’t any returning entries this week, so I figured we’d go straight to the drop-outs that we know of, of which there are quite a few of, like “Cold as Ice” by M.O.P. (the Mash-Out Posse) dropping out from #36, “Heard it All Before” by Sunshine Anderson out from #35, “Rock da Funky Beats” by Public Domain featuring Public Enemy Chuck D out from #33, “Video” by India Arie out from #32, “Free” by Mýa out from #39, “Fiesta” by living trash-bag R. Kelly out from #38, “Never Enough” by Boris Dlugosch and Roisin Murphy out from #40, “Musak” by Trisco out from #28, “Jonathan David” by Belle & Sabastian out from #31, “Voodoo” by Warrior out from #37 and, finally, “Let U Go” by ATB out from #34.

NEW ARRIVALS

Now, let’s just jump right into talking about the ELEVEN new arrivals we have this week. I’ll try and keep it brief.

#32 – “Innocente (Falling in Love)” – Delerium featuring Leigh Nash

So, Delerium is an ambient/electronica group known for their hit song “Silence” featuring Sarah McLachlan and Leigh Nash is the lead singer of rock band Sixpence None the Richer, known for their massive hit “Kiss Me”. They would later go on to record a whole album together six years later in 2007, which I don’t really recommend – it’s kind of boring. Is this song a foreshadowing of what to come?

So I’m not the biggest fan of trance at all but I don’t mind this calmer, peaceful trip-hop-influenced stuff from Delerium, in fact I really love the opening guitar riff and the looming instrumentation (and what seem to be bells) before the steady drum beat kicks in and Leigh Nash starts smoothly singing the first verse, all over the instrumentation like she is the main force rather than a jackhammer beat, which is why a lot of EDM doesn’t click with me. However, this is almost not EDM at all. I mean, it’s kind of danceable electronica but, yeah, this is not trance at all, although the strings are definitely reminiscent and it does slowly pick up pace with some uglier synths like trance often does. I don’t know about this, it really drifts along the line between boring and dreamy, much like a lot of songs from Sixpence None the Richer. Did it have to be six minutes? No, but it doesn’t drag on too much in all its peaceful melancholy. I really don’t know why this was listed as a trance song on Wikipedia? Are they talking about the much longer and much worse Tiesto remix? If so, then why did they not specify? Maybe I’m nitpicking about the Wikipedia page more than I should but this song doesn’t really do much for me. If it had some more pop-rock edge from Leigh Nash, maybe I’d like it more, but as it stands, it’s just really weaksauce.

#23 – “Happy People” – Static Revenger

Ah, great, more EDM – lovely. Static Revenger is a Grammy-winning DJ, mostly known for making house and disco. This song in particular went platinum, so you know it’s going to be good, right? Well, if 6ix9ine’s (Platinum-certified!) “GUMMO” told me anything, it’s that sales don’t mean the art or the artists involved are any good... Maybe I should be more open-minded to dance music, I mean, I like a lot of 1990s house so this can’t be much different. I like the R.E.M. song with pretty much the same name, so it’s not like I’m averted to the concept of... happy people. This can’t be too bad.

Oops! I already kind of hate it and love it at the same time. This guitar riff is great but the synths are too static-y for the most part and the build-up feels too drowned out to really be a good build-up until the jackhammer beat starts coming in before the drop, which is a good climax but not entirely satisfying as the simple, repetitive hook stays exactly the same after the drop – I expected some mix-up? The keys introduced after the first drop are a nice change of pace and I appreciate their inclusion, and this is definitely a really fun, exciting and catchy track, however, I think this is just not my thing. It feels soulless and like a bit of a non-presence, which I guess is good for this type of club track? I don’t know, but I guess I just don’t “get” modern EDM still, even though this is barely modern, being early 2000s and all. Maybe I just don’t get EDM at all. Maybe I should learn to have some fun. Probably that last one. Next.

#22 – “Getting Away with It (All Messed Up)” – James

So, James are an indie rock band who have also dabbled in electronica and more experimental rock, including the artsy album WAH WAH. They’re apparently releasing an album next month, which I’ll definitely check out. This single is from their 2001 album Pleased to Meet You, which received mixed reviews by critics at its initial release. Has this song in particular stood the test of time?

Well, yeah, it has. Not in a way that I can be ecstatic about, as it still is somewhat dreary in its constant simplistic guitar strumming, but once the drum beat kicks in, it gets much more exciting and uses the quiet-loud dynamic well, albeit to a lesser extent than other alternative rock bands, as the main increase in volume is the lead singer’s voice, who croons over the oddly funky bassline and the cheap synths as well as the distorted guitar riffs after the first chorus which, yes, are awesome and are pretty nice as a back-up to synth bleeping and different string patterns that add to how intense and urgent the song seems to be, despite its slower tempo. Oh, yeah, and there’s an insane breakdown or solo before the final chorus, where the synths just freak out and that’s pretty damn cool, and the fact that the last chorus continues with the same instrumental makes the song all the more exciting, as it progresses in intensity just to abruptly end. I’m more of a (similarly-named) Travis fan personally, but this song rocks as well.

#21 – “Million Miles Away” – The Offspring

Remember these guys? I don’t know about everyone else, but I used to love these guys. They were one of my favourite bands, and honestly, probably still are as far as rock is concerned. The Offspring are a Californian rock band fronted by Dexter Holland, who always straddled the lines between alternative, pop punk and straight-up punk rock. They have a UK number-one and many other hits (and damn good deep cuts) in their arsenal, so how does this song in particular, from their album Conspiracy of One, fare?

It starts with a rapid and intense guitar riff that isn’t too heavy but fast enough to keep up with the simplistic, mad-cap drumming, creating an instrumental base for Dexter to moan about his break-up over. While I appreciate the instrumental, it is a tad too simple, as is the hook with the “oh, oh, oh” vocalisations and the singing feeling too whiny at times, especially in that chorus. While I love the instrumental to death, I feel Dexter’s sloppily-mixed vocals being all over it ruin it for me. However, there’s enough time where it’s just the backing and the guitar solo also rocks, so yeah, although I’m not a fan of the repetitive lyrics and delivery here, I can dig what’s behind it. Sadly, this is probably the first and only Offspring I’ll get to talk about – trust me, they’ve made much better stuff. My personal favourite of their singles is “Hit That”, if you want to check that absolute romp of a dance-rock track. They’re also releasing a new album this year, so I’m excited for that.

#16 – “Hard to Explain” – The Strokes

The Strokes don’t really need an explanation, right? One of the biggest American rock bands in recent memory, hailing from New York and bringing back garage rock in a huge way that led them to two top 10 UK hits. This is their first ever single, from their debut album Is This It, annoyingly without a question mark. Maybe XXXTENTACION could have lent them one, he seems to have had an extra one left around. That’s beside the point, let’s get into the breakout single from The Strokes.

It starts with a simple drum beat – possibly not from Fabirizio Moretti but rather from a drum machine - before going into one of the most memorable and slick guitar riffs of all time, thanks to guitarists Albert Hammond and Nick Valensi, with a funky bassline provided by Nikolai Fraiture backing not only the guitars up but also the distorted vocals from Julian Casablancas, with a catchy-as-all-hell hook that leads into an abrupt fake-end, before it picks up again for another exciting few minutes of punkish indie rock, with Casablancas’ vocals getting more strained and emotional throughout. I’m actually finding it pretty hard to describe and review this song fairly without insane hyperbole, as Casablancas says, it is pretty hard to explain, as it is one of my favourite hit songs ever, with its perfectly balanced amount of rowdiness and genuine intrigue, and dare I say, a certain classiness to the composition. Fantastic song, fantastic album, and a damn great band.

#15 – “Baddest Ruffest” – Backyard Dog

This is the 2002 FIFA World Cup song, made by big beat producing duo Backyard Dog, consisting of Aniff Akinola and Lloyd Hanley. To my knowledge, they haven’t done anything else, although Akinola here has rapped on other songs, like the mild success “Bounce ‘n’ Boom” and Kirsty MacColl’s top 40 hit “Walking Down Madison”, so it’s debateable if these guys are one-hit wonders, but if one of the most notable things the lead singer has been in was a Vimto advert, it’s safe to say you’ve probably been forgotten in time since. So, how’s Backyard Dog’s seemingly only ever piece of released music (other than their only studio album and the remix EP for this very song) that is documented on the Internet?

Well, it starts with what are assumingly sampled horns in one simple loop before a subtle but effective bass comes in and Akinola starts shouting, adding some ragga influence, but mostly I’d say this is a pretty simple big beat song, with a solid horn hook and even Akinola’s vocals adding a lot of uniqueness to an otherwise not-very-noteworthy track. Hell, I’d like this a lot more if it weren’t for the annoying chicken-like record scratching that makes up most of the song. As it stands, there’s one element that just tears the whole thing apart, which is unfortunate as this is actually a pretty fun and exciting, different song, and I do wish these guys had more material to listen to, because I’m digging their style. It’s pretty intriguing, even if it is just some big beat loops with Caribbean-tinged vocals being yelled over the track by a charismatic performer, who I’ll try and dig up other projects from. I hope these guys reunite to make some more jams.

#12 – “More than That” – Backstreet Boys

Listen, you know who the Backstreet Boys are. I know who the Backstreet Boys are. I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand them. They’re talented men, sure, but it feels a bit too cheesy and sickly sweet for me to really get into. Does that ring true with “More than That”, from their 2000 album Black & Blue?

Yes, of course it does. Why wouldn’t it? It has a pretty interesting albeit typical Latin or tropical guitar riff, but the vocals from the boys here aren’t too great, and everything that surrounds them just feels like purely perfect pop blandness. It’s too perfect – kind of like “These Days” by Rudimental featuring Jess Glynne, Dan Caplen and Macklemore and “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B, both of which I talked about on REVIEWING THE CHARTS. It’s a good song, definitely, but it feels too manufactured for me to enjoy on repeated listening, as in the end, it is a soulless boyband song. What did you expect, a long, in-depth review that focuses on the vocal range of the boys and how excellently they mesh with the smooth R&B production? No, you’re not getting that, because there are better pop songs and better R&B singers that you could be listening to, even if it’s just the early 2000s. In fact, we’ll be talking about another in just a short while.

#9 – “Another Lover” – Dane

No, this is not who I meant! I meant Usher! I didn’t want this complete nobody to come in! Well, what does Dane have to say?

Nothing. He has nothing to say because he is uninteresting and typical lyrically. That was a dumb question, I don’t think he even wrote this song... but in R&B, it’s more about how you say it, and, damn, does he pull off the smooth, Latin-influenced production well! The Latin riffs are still present in the guitars, and the drums are more prominent than they probably should be, but Dane brings a great presence to the track, even if it doesn’t seem like he can actually sing very well at all, using his falsetto a lot of the time to mixed results, but he is fun and has more charisma than Juice WRLD and Dexter Holland when moaning about issues with a partner. I love the whispering in the penultimate chorus as well, which continues in the outro as some kind of acapella percussion, which I appreciate for its experimentalism if anything. This slick 1990s-resembling production and the man’s charisma make this a great listen, even if it’s not on Spotify and only has 70,000 views on YouTube... Yikes. Now, THIS has been forgotten in time.

#6 – “19-2000” – Gorillaz featuring Miho Hatori and Talking Heads (Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz)

I love Gorillaz. I’ve been a fan for a long while now, and I have grown to love how they blend genres excellently in accessible and catchy yet still experimental and strange pop songs, while still believing that the flow of an album is definitely important... well, they used to do that. Right now, with Humanz and The Now Now, it seems that they care more about the singular songs, which is fair because of streaming being more important now, but like the Avalanches, the flow of the album is seminal in my enjoyment of a Gorillaz album, and that has not been consistent recently, with bloated, boring albums and messes of songs like “Sex Murder Party” and... “Man Research (Clapper)”... from their self-titled 2001 debut album. Okay, so, maybe they’ve never been too great at the whole “making tight compositions” thing. This song is kind of proving as that chaotic structure not working too well. Let me elaborate.

“19-2000” is about the new millennium, as its title suggests, and follows the trends of the bridge between 1999 and 2000 very carefully, with a sampled trip-hop/hip-hop drum beat and catchy boyband-like vocalisations. However, it feels very messy in all its minimalistic joy. You have Miho Hatori’s repetitive lyrics about getting “the cool sunshine”, some reversed and heavily-edited vocal samples, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz doing whatever the hell they want in the background with some multi-tracked humming from frontman Damon Albarn, behind careless and slow verses from Albarn. You also have the “we gon’ break out” bridge thing, which is just kind of there? And then you have the various synth noises going on in one specific ear while there’s finger-snapping – could we have saved this for the video, guys? I don’t know, this song is fun and I’m still relatively positive on it, but like “Tranz” and “DARE”, it seems like too much is going on throughout. Also, I don’t know what’s Albarn, what’s Hatori, what’s Weymouth and where the hell Frantz is, so that’s lovely. It just piles into some kind of ball of musical elements, but they don’t mesh. They just keep growing.

#3 – “U Remind Me” – Usher

Usher is one of my favourite artists of all time. His charisma and personality is unmatched in R&B, and he will go down as a legend with some of the best club bangers and powerful and slick R&B ballads in music history. This is US chart-topper “U Remind Me”, from his third album 8701. While I’ve always preferred the Confessions era (my personal favourite Usher track is “Confessions Part II”), I can dig his earlier stuff and this is no exception.

Those introductory strings are damn beautiful, and then the piano and the synths come in, to assist Usher in all his glory, with his smooth delivery and scratched backing gang vocals. Sure, the lyrics can be seen as pretty corny or selfish and close-minded, but Usher pulls them off with his immense amounts of swagger, with a guitar coming in to match his charisma in the second verse. Oh, yeah, the song’s about a girl he can’t date because they remind him too much of an ex... for a song about what seems to be a first-world problem, Usher’s melodramatics may seem unnecessary, but they’re really not. The catchy hook and his many ad-libs really help rather than hinder, as it becomes pretty beautiful considering its potentially silly subject matter by the end. Maybe it’s too long, maybe it’s too overdramatic, but I don’t care. Usher pulls it off like no-one else ever could.

#1 – “The Way to Your Love” – Hear’Say

Okay, can I get a “get out of review” free card? Come on, it’s the eleventh new arrival and it’s the most anti-climactic, blandest-as-possible pop song, orchestrated by a trash talent show, with talented yet uninteresting and charmless singers, as well as cliché production – although the drums here are pretty cool albeit unfitting, I will admit – including the cheapest strings I’ve heard this side of Soundcloud rap, which I feel I’ve made too many comparisons to in a blog about 2000s pop music. Ah, well. What’s this song got to say, do or try and get across? Nothing. Nothing at all. This is so cheesy that I feel the milk being heated already... yet it’s not even funny. It’s just boring. It’s just a slog. Just an uninteresting, undeserving #1. At least it’s not “Freaky Friday”.

Conclusion

Best of the Week goes to “Hard to Explain” by The Strokes, no competition, although “U Remind Me” is an Honourable Mention and deservedly so. Worst of the Week? Although I have the most bile for our #1 here, yeah, it’s going to “Innocente (Falling in Love)” by Delerium for just being insanely boring, with Dishonourable Mention going to “The Way to Your Love”, I suppose. Nothing here is outright bad, just very uninteresting. See you tomorrow for REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

If the modern teenage losers club were a band, who would play what instrument or sing? And what type of music would they play?

OKAY BUT WHAT AN AMAZING QUESTION I AM HONORED?!?!?!

Okay so I am personally a sucker for the pop punk/emo genre and I already connect so many different songs to the Loser’s Club that I HAVE to say they are totally a pop punk/emo band.

A few reasons being that they hate their town, half of them have angsty crushes on each other, their home lives mostly suck, and they’re parents are shit. Literally all of these ingredients make a perfect pop punk/emo band.

ANYWAYS.

-Richie and Beverly are the lead vocals (think “A Part Of Me” by Neck Deep) but sometimes Richie shreds on the electric guitar. Beverly’s voice is beautiful and Richie has that perfect loud boy with problems kinda voice that fits the aesthetic perfectly. 

-Stan prefers to hold the tambourine but will play piano for their more angsty/sad songs. Bill will sometimes play piano beside him (it’s cute). 

-EDDIE IS ON THE MOTHER FUCKING DRUMS BECAUSE I SAID SO. DO YOU SEE HOW MUCH ENERGY THAT FUCKER HAS? He would be all over that! (Richie looks back at him and watches him in awe every time Eddie gets a drum solo during a song)-Ben is bass guitar because basists need focus and he has so much of it with everything he does. Ben also helps write a lot of the songs with Beverly.-Mike plays the banjo because he is a god damn country boy and I love the idea of him playing a banjo. Unfortunately, he can’t use it much with the band though so he settles with playing the electric guitar which he also loves and he’s honestly playing it constantly whether or not they’re at band practice or just hanging out.

-Bill plays the acoustic guitar because he’s a calming person and acoustic guitars are so soothing and so is he and they have him play acoustic for sadder songs. He sings but rarely. There’s one song on their album so far that he sings by himself and it’s a song about missing his brother (Think “Brother” by Kodaline but an acoustic version with Bill’s teenage voice).

GUYS HELP ME OUT WHAT’S THEIR BAND NAME?

Modern!losers and their music tastes

Mike- ya boy Mike 100% listens to Khalid !!

- he enjoys R&B but honestly he will listen to anything

- he appreciates good rhythm in a song

Richie- he's honestly stuck in the past

- pretty much only listens to music from the 80's and 90's

-mostly punk/rock

- apart from that the rest of his music is meme songs

- the other losers are now sick of the shooting star meme song and it's all because of Richie

Eddie- Beyoncé where you at ??

- Gaga, Rhianna and Beyoncé are his faves

- This boy can DANCE

- As soon as one of his queens comes on he is not afraid to let go and be himself

- Richie loves it

Ben- can tell you the name and singer of pretty much any pop song

- he loves Camila Cabello, Shawn Mendes, Ed Sheeran and more!

- always keeps up to date with the top 50

- everyone goes to him for their music questions

Beverly- Girl power yo

- Paramore, Florence and the Machine, Halsey and garbage are her faves

- also loves going to small gigs and supporting local musicians

Stan- lives for music with meaningful lyrics

- listens to a lot of Indie stuff

- sleeping at last is one of his faves because their music is just so chill

Bill- this fucking nerd listens to video game soundtracks

- the FFVIII soundtrack is his fave

- he also loves listening to piano pieces

- Bill listening to Stan playing piano? Yes please

- he lovessss the Legend of Zelda soundtracks too!

BONUS !

Georgie- follows after his big bro and also listens to video game soundtracks

- mainly Pokemon and Legend of Zelda

- he loves his big bro so much and wants to be just like him

- he gets Stan to teach him to play piano

- Bill cried a lil when he saw the two sat at the piano together

A/n- hi hello sorry these aren't that long. Let me know if I should add or change anything because I am a sucker for modern!losers. Big thank you to @hawkinsloserss for helping me figure out what Bill would listen to because I couldn't think of anything oops

Modern!Eddie would secretly like one direction and then when Richie finds out he makes fun of him for it but if anyone else does he beats them up for it (Bonus: when they start dating their song is If I Could Fly by One Direction)

I’VE NEVER DONE A HC LIST BEFORE DON’T JUDGE ME TOO HARSHLY PLS*Eddie started listening to boy bands and pop when Ben introduced him to New Kids On The Block.* New Kids lead to the Back Street Boys which, somehow, lead Eddie towards One Direction.* The only people Eddie told at first were Bev and Ben.* Beverly says that she doesn’t listen to One Direction. * She’s lying.* Niall is Eddies favourite 1D boy. * Every time Eddie hears ‘Perfect’ off of the ‘Made in the AM’ album he thinks of Richie.* When Beverly leaves Derry he cries every time he hears ‘Summer Love’.* When Richie finds out Eddie listens to One Direction he laughs until he cries.* Except he’s not at all surprised that’s what Ed’s jams to.* For the love of god, the boy thinks 5SOS is punk rock.* One day, Vic and Belch got ahold of Eddies phone while he was listening to music and caught him mid-funk.* Two black eyes, a broken nose and a set of bloody knuckles later, Vic and Belch are dragging each other away and Eddie is cleaning the broken skin on Richie’s hand. * Eddie finally gets the courage to tell Richie how he feels after having ‘Happily’ on repeat..* For. Three. Days.* Whenever they fight Eddie sulks and listens to 'Half A Heart’* Richie buys Eddie and himself tickets to see the boys on their final tour. * It’s becomes a known fact throughout The Losers Club that 'If I Could Fly’ is their song.Hopefully this ain’t shitty - please add anything I could’ve missed ❤️ Also, send head canons to my inbox for some more lists??? Maybe??

It is rather presumptuous to call you the biggest rock 'n' roll band in the world, but when you have a catalog of songs as impressive as the Rolling Stones', the label may be true.During its legendary career spanning over 60 years, the iconic English group has written some of the greatest melodies in the history of music. From simple rockers to songs tinged with blues, soul, country and even dance, the Stones have proven their mastery for all genres they touched.Given their stature and their continued influence on other artists, it is not surprising that the Stones remain one of the most covered acts in rock music. And while YouTube is brimming with budding stars offering off-key versions of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and toothless renditions of "Gimme Shelter", many fellow musicians have found distinctive new ways to reinterpret classic songs of the Stones.We scoured the mud to find the 50 best Rolling Stones covers.David Bowie, "Let's Spend the Night Together" (1973)The Stones released "Let's spend the night together" on their 1967 album Between the buttons. The track was also a double A-side single with "Ruby Tuesday" and became a moderate hit in the UK - although its sexual nature resulted in a reduction in circulation in the United States Six years later, David Bowie gave to the song a glam-rock makeover, add layers of synthesizer and increase the tempo. The singer - then in the middle of Ziggy Stardust - released his version on his 1973 LP Aladdin Sane.Johnny Cash, "No Expectations" (1978)The Man in Black delivered a catchy rendition of "No Expectations" on his 1978 LP Missing girl. While the original Stones - released in 1968 on their Banquet of beggars album - was a more moderate affair, Cash heightened the energy of the track with a sweltering guitar, soulful backing vocals and an emphatic harmonica solo.Devo, "(I cannot get satisfaction)" (1978)Devo's offbeat interpretation of this classic hit from the Stones has become a revolutionary piece for the Akron group. The version evolved during one of the group's jam sessions. At first, leader Mark Mothersbaugh - a staunch fan of the Stones - started singing "Paint It, Black" to the weird rhythm of his group mates. When the words didn't match the rhythm, it went to the words of "(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction" ... and a legendary revival was born. Just before its release in 1978, Devo played his version for Mick Jagger. After initially showing no response to the song, the Stones singer "suddenly got up and started dancing on this Afghan rug in front of the fireplace," said Gerald Casale in a conversation with The new yorker. Jagger gave his blessing and Devo would soon perform the song on Saturday Night Live.Tegan and Sara, "Fool to Cry" (2013)Twin pop-rock duo Tegan and Sara tackled the Stones "Fool to Cry" for the HBO soundtrack Girls. While the original version from 1976 was a sweet and moving ballad, this cover featured layers of synths, drums and guitars, resulting in a modern and rich update.Linda Ronstadt, "Tumbling Dice" (1978)In a 1978 interview with Hit parader magazine, Linda Ronstadt explained how "Tumbling Dice" was added to her repertoire. "The group used to play this all last summer at the soundcheck," noted the singer. "I really loved it too, but no one knew the words. Then Mick came backstage when I was at the Universal Amphitheater and said, "You do too many ballads, you should do more rock'n'roll songs." Describing the singer of the Stones as "the greatest singer of contemporary rock'n'roll, writer of rock'n'roll", Ronstadt literally forced his hand. "I made him write the words for this song and learned it."Guns N ’Roses,“ Jumpin ’Jack Flash” (2018)This Rolling Stones cover was part of the bonus material included in the remastered Guns N ’Roses’ 2018 Appetite for destruction box. Recorded during a 1986 session at the Sound City studios in Van Nuys, California, the track sees GNR deliver a high octane version of "Jumpin Jack Flash". The guitars are noisy, the groan of Axl Rose is powerful and the energy is palpable from the opening note. Three years after the song was recorded, GNR would open for the Stones at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, a performance that is remembered more for its chaos than for its music.The Who, "Under My Thumb" (1967)Although not included in the original version of the album Who's rarities and outtakes Dimensions and lawns, the cover of the group "Under My Thumb" would make its way towards the 1998 and 2011 reissues of the LP. The Who recorded the song in 1967 as support when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were detained in England for drugs.Elton John, "Honky Tonk Women" (1971)Just over a year after the original was released, Elton John covered the Stones "Honky Tonk Women" on a radio show in New York. The performance will eventually become the singer 11/17/70 live album, released in 1971. Notably, John's version supplants the guitar tone of the Stones with John's distinctive piano style.Jane’s Addiction, “Sympathy for the Devil” (1987)Jane’s Addiction’s self-titled debut album was widely recorded during a performance at the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles. Included in the 1987 release was their version of "Sympathy for the Devil" from the Rolling Stones. For their cover, Perry Farrell and company amplified the psychedelia, adding bongos and swirling sounds to the arrangement. Dave Navarro is also making his presence felt with hot guitar solos.Albert King, "Honky Tonk Women" (1971)It's no secret that the Stones were inspired by American blues musicians, and they don't have much more influence than Albert King. It must have been a source of pride when the Bulldozer Velvet decided to cover "Honky Tonk Woman" on his 1971 album Lovejoy. As you would expect, the rendering is filled with fantastic guitar solos and soulful voices. The support of the legendary rhythm section Muscle Shoals further elevates the track.U2, "Paint It Black" (1992)U2 rides their early punk sound and more pop trends on this version of the Stones 'Paint It Black'. The cover was released on the B side of the 1992 U2 single, "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses". While the atmosphere is less threatening than the original, the best in Dublin have added tambourine, harmonies, vocal effects and an explosive guitar, appropriating them while remaining faithful to the original.Elvis Costello & Lucinda Williams, “Wild Horses” (2002)Carrefour CMT welcomed extraordinary guests during its two-decade television series. The show, which brings together country artists and musicians from other genres, was premiered on January 13, 2002. In this first episode, alternative country star Lucinda Williams sang alongside rock legend Elvis Costello. Before their rendition of "Wild Horses", the last singer explained that the song "made me think of this kind of music" when it was first released by the Stones in 1971.Lindsey Buckingham, "She Smiled Softly" (2011)Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham kept it simple on this cover of The Stones' "She Smiles Sweetly". While the original featured drums, bass and organ, Buckingham decided to take a minimalist approach, removing things only for vocals and acoustic guitar. The result is a distinctive and poignant interpretation, which was featured on the Buckingham solo LP in 2011 Seeds we sow.The Allman Brothers Band, "Heart of Stone" (2003)By the time they released their 12th and final album, the Allman Brothers Band showed little resemblance to their original selves. Finis Duane Allman, Berry Oakley and Dickey Betts, with Gregg Allman, Jaimoe Johanson and Butch Trucks the original remaining members. However, the line-up changes did not prevent the group from offering a powerful cover of the 1964 single of the Rolling Stones "Heart of Stone".The Folksmen, "Start Me Up" (2003)The fictional folk group - made up of Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer from Spinal Tap - is best known for its role in the 2003 fake documentary. A strong wind. Their interpretation of the Stones classic "Start Me Up" was featured on the film's soundtrack, while the trio also performed the song during promotional appearances. In the clip here, late night host Conan O’Brien asked if the Folksmen heard the Stones about their coverage. "A disturbing silence," replies McKean as Mark Shubb.Rag N ’Bone Man,“ Gimme Shelter ”(2017)British singer-songwriter Rag N ’Bone Man delivered this coverage of the Stones' Gimme Shelter in 2017 as part of BBC Radio 1 Live Show. The slow combustion rendering explodes halfway, the power of the moving vocal performance is matched only by the dizzying riffs of the guitarist.Eric Burdon & War, "Paint It Black" (1970)An interpretation for those who listened to the original Stones and thought, "It would be great if it was three times longer." The psychedelic funk jam band Eric Burdon & War scored a minor hit with their version of "Paint It Black" when it was released in 1970.Motorhead, "Sympathy for the Devil" (2015)This version of "Sympathy for the Devil" had the honor of being the last song from Motorhead's latest album. The group Bad magic LP was released in August 2015, just four months before the death of singer Lemmy Kilmister. Surprisingly, the metal icon still sounded great on the track, giving the song its signature growl.Cat Power, "(I cannot get satisfaction)" (2000)Singer-songwriter Cat Power wowed fans and other artists with his distinctive style of indie rock. She has collaborated with many great artists over the years, including Dave Grohl, Eddie Vedder and Iggy Pop. On his 2000 LP The cover record, the singer has redesigned some of her favorite songs, including this sensual interpretation of the satisfaction of "Stones (" I can't get no ")".The Soup Dragons, "I'm Free" (1990)The Scottish alt-rockers, the Soup Dragons, were a resounding success with their 1990 performance of "I am free" from the Stones. The cover - which added a dance rhythm and reggae twitch to the track - was a Top 10 hit in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Alternative Songs charts. in the USA.Sundays, "Wild Horses" (1992)In the mid-90s craze for emotional acoustic rock on the female front, this cover of the Stones' Wild Horses emerged. The restitution, delivered by the English group The Sunday, would be the subject of a significant radio broadcast while appearing in the film. Fear, TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and an advertisement for Budweiser.Scorpions, "Ruby Tuesday" (2011)German heavy rockers The Scorpions recorded this version of "Ruby Tuesday" for their 2011 compilation album, Come back. The release - which saw the group cover a handful of songs by other artists, as well as re-recording their own classic songs - was kind of a comeback, given that the German group had released their "final" LP, Sting in the tail, just a year earlier.Betty LaVette, "Salt of the Earth" (2010)R&B singer Betty LaVette lent her powerful voice to this magnificent rendition of the working class anthem of the Stones "Salt of the Earth". While the original, released in 1968 Banquet of beggars, looked more like an optimistic jam, LaVette refused things, adding a horn section and an organ to her moving performance. The cover appeared on the singer's LP in 2010 Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook.Social distortion, "Under My Thumb" (1996)The venerable punk rock band Social Distortion added aggressiveness and frenzy to the Stones' "Under My Thumb" in this cover, published in 1996 on their White light, white heat, white trash LP. Singer Mike Ness has long professed admiration for British rockers, noting in an interview with Consequence of Sound in 2018 that Social D's music brand is "somewhere between" the Stones and the Ramones.Little Richard, "Brown Sugar" (1971)Like many musicians, Mick Jagger had an unwavering appreciation of Little Richard. The singer of the Stones was particularly impressed by the "take of the public" by the pioneer of rock'n'roll. "I couldn't believe the power," Jagger said of Richard, adding that the rock icon was his "first idol". It is safe to assume while Jagger was on the moon when Little Richard decided to cover the "Brown Sugar" of the Stones in October 1971, just six months after the release of the original.Peter Frampton, "Jumpin 'Jack Flash" (1972)It's always exciting when one rock icon covers another, and this effort by Peter Frampton is no exception. The legendary musician transformed "Jumpin 'Jack Flash" into a fiery groove, featuring several moments of instrumental exuberance. It’s the only song not written by Frampton to appear on his first solo album, 1972 Wind of change. A live performance also appeared on the rocker's 1976 seminal LP, Frampton comes alive!Def Leppard, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (1992)It's not exactly what you would expect from one of the biggest and best hard rock bands of the past four decades, but Def Leppard's cover of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is a particularly bare acoustic gem. It was released on the luxury edition of the group's LP in 1992 Adrenalize. The Celtic influences on the track come from Hothouse Flowers, the Irish group that collaborated on this cover.Liz Phair, "Little Mother Help" (2005)Singer-songwriter Liz Phair recorded her cover of "Mother’s Little Helper" for the album's 2005 soundtrack album Desperate housewives. The Stones ode to drug addict home bodies receives an infusion of venom in the hands of Phair, the singer expelling the catchy but somber words of the melody with a poignant and captivating delivery.PP Arnold, “You Can't Always Get What You Want” (2017)In the late 1960s and early 1970s, soul singer PP Arnold recorded a collection of songs that were to appear on her album. The turning tide. The LP, produced by Eric Clapton and Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, was caught in the label's paperwork and did not see the light of day until 2017. Surprisingly, given the time that has passed, the recordings n have lost none of their emotional impact, including Arnold's powerful cover of "You Can't Always Get What You Want".The Holmes Brothers, "Beast of Burden" (1997)In 1997 House of Blues released a compilation album called Paint It, Blue: Songs of the Rolling Stones. As its name suggests, the LP featured an assortment of Stones classics reinvented by various blues artists. Among the highlights was this cover of "Beast of Burden" by the Holmes Brothers.Tori Amos, "Angie" (1992)Tori Amos brought its distinctive mark of piano and song to this cover of "Angie", released in 1992 on the Crucify EP. Although the original of the Stones was already a ballad deploring the lost love, anxiety and emotion rose in the hands of Amos, the singer seeming to tears at various times of the track. The result is both heartbreaking and beautiful.Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, "Star Star" (1983)One of the hottest songs in the Stones catalog was also controversial for Joan Jett. The singer included an uncensored version of "Star Star" as a hidden track on the cassette version of her group's LP in 1983 Album. Outraged by the song, several chain stores, including Walmart, refused to sell the outlet. Cover reappeared later on Jett's 1993 compilation Go back.Stone Sour feat. Lizzy Hale, "Gimme Shelter" (2015)Hard-rock band Corey Taylor Stone Sour has released a cover EP called Straight Outta Burbank in a limited edition for the Record Stone Day 2015. The highlight of the EP was this powerful cover of the "Gimme Shelter" of the Stones, with the invitation of Lizzy Hale from the metal group Halestorm.Tina Turner, "Under My Thumb" (1975)R&B legend Tina Turner toppled the classic Stones "Under My Thumb" on her head for this 1975 cover. While the original song tells the story of a man who took control of a sexual relationship, Turner reversed the script, making the woman the dominant force. In doing so, the singer also turned "Under My Thumb" into an unexpected celebration of women's empowerment.Otis Redding, "(I cannot get satisfaction)" (1965)Soul icon Otis Redding released his version of "Satisfaction" in September 1965, just a few months after the release of the original Rolling Stones. For his interpretation, Redding dropped the recognizable guitar part of the melody, instead of enlisting a section of funky horn. The result is a rendering that remains somewhat faithful to the original while feeling completely unique. The cover was featured on Redding's beloved Otis Blue LP, an album often ranked among the greatest of all time.La Roux, "Under my thumb" (2010)Grammy-winning electronic duo La Roux released their version of "Under My Thumb" in the Divert compilation version. The cover is far from the original, with the classic rock sound of the Stones replaced by synthesizers and a lively dance rhythm. Some may criticize the track for moving too far from the original. Instead, we will celebrate La Roux's daring reinvention of song.Prince, "Honky Tonk Woman" (1995)Years before Purple rain made him a star, Prince was invited by Mick Jagger to open for the Rolling Stones at a few concerts in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the performances did not go well, the Purple One being booed off the stage. Yet Prince's respect for the Stones has never wavered, and he has sometimes performed many of the group's songs in concert throughout his career. In 1995, this one take version of "Honky Tony Woman" was included in Prince's VHS release The entrepreneur.Rage Against the Machine, "Street Fighting Man" (2000)In 2000, hard rockers Rage Against the Machine decided to honor some of their major musical influences with a cover album called Renegades. The release included work written by Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, the Stooges, Devo and the Rolling Stones. The Street Fighting Man version of Rage was overflowing with anxiety, energy and aggression, exactly what you'd expect from the much-vaunted political rockers.Aretha Franklin, "(I cannot get satisfaction)" (1968)The Queen of Soul gave the Stones hit its own twist, releasing her interpretation of "Satisfaction" in 1968. Aretha Franklin and the Stones will gain mutual respect over the years, with Mick Jagger even appearing briefly in the documentary. the concert amazing Grace (filmed in 1972 but not released before 2019). When Franklin died in 2018, the singer of the Stones said, "She was so inspiring, and wherever you are, she always brought you to church."Oasis, "Street Fighting Man" (1998)Oasis released this cover of "Street Fighting Man" as the B side of their 1998 single "All Around the World". In 2008, guitarist Noel Gallagher compared his group to the Stones. “Oasis is a group that you understand or not. Everyone knows who we are. You must see us in league with the Rolling Stones now, "he said. Is anyone surprised?Soundgarden, "Stray Cat Blues" (1991)The dirty ode of the Stones to a minor groupie has been transformed in this interpretation of Soundgarden. Released as the B side of the Seattle Jesus Rockers single in 1991, "Jesus Christ Pose", the cover is enhanced by the scotch guitar by Kim Thayil and the powerful voice of Chris Cornell.Tesla, "Mother's Little Help" (1990)Tesla is normally known for increasing noise, which is why it came as a surprise when the band swapped their amps for acoustic guitars for the 1990 live album. Five Man Acoustical Jam. The LP has seen Sacramento rockers reinvent a handful of their own songs, while covering a variety of other artists. This version included this version of "Mother’s Little Helper".Kiss, "2000 Man" (1979)Compared to some of the other songs on this list, "2000 Man" is a lesser-known song by the Stones. Still, that didn't stop the makeup rockers - and the future Rock & Roll Hall of Famers - Kiss from covering the song on their 1979 album. Dynasty. Guitarist Ace Frehley took the lead vocals on the track, which also appeared on the 1996 live album Kiss Unplugged.Susan Tedeschi, "You Got the Silver" (2005)The Stones first song to feature Keith Richards on lead voice, "You Got the Silver" was originally released in 1969 on Let it bleed. Thirty-six years later, Susan Tedeschi included this version on her 2005 cover album, Hope and desire. In his hands, the song receives more country and blues influences than the original, including a howling guitar part delivered by her husband Derek Trucks.Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, "Sway" (2011)In 2011, Mojo the magazine recruited an assortment of acts for their album tribute to the Rolling Stones Sticky Soul Fingers. One of the most notable titles of the release was this blues-rock cover of "Sway", delivered by Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears.Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, "Wild Horses" (2011)Another highlight of Mojo’S Sticky Soul Fingers compilation was this emphatic rendition of "Wild Horses" by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. Although the original is a windy acoustic ballad, Jones intensified the energy with a vibrant and moving interpretation.Meat puppets, "What to do" (1999)When the influential rock trio Meat Puppets reissued their second album, Meat puppets II, in 1999, they included a handful of previously unavailable runs. Among them was this cover of the first song from the Stones "What to Do".Phish, "Loving Cup" (2010)Jam group Phish has made the Stones Loving Cup a regular part of their live set for over a decade. Air - originally released on the iconic 1972 Stones LP Exile on Main Street. - has also appeared on several Phish live albums, including At Roxy, Hampton / Winston-Salem '97, Amsterdam and the 2010 concert film Phish 3D.Marianne Faithfull, "Au fil des larmes" (1964)The rare case where the cover came out before Mariannes Faithfull released their version of "As Tears Go By" in 1964. The song, which was written by Richards and Jagger, became Faithfull's revolutionary hit, peaking at number 9 on the UK chart. The Stones will release their version in December 1965, just when Jagger and Faithfull became the swinging 60s couple.Chevy Metal, "Miss You" (2017)Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins' side project, Chevy Metal, has developed a passionate following through their animated versions of many classic rock songs. The group regularly covers artists like Queen, Van Halen, Motley Crue, The Doors and The Beatles during their dynamic concerts. Here, the group, accompanied by their compatriot Foo Dave Grohl, delivers their interpretation of the flagship piece of the 1978 Rolling Stones "Miss You".window.twttr = (function(d, s, id) (document, "script", "twitter-wjs")); (function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); (document, "script", "facebook-jssdk")); !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments); if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window, document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '631470830669776'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); https://oltnews.com/the-50-best-covers-of-the-rolling-stones-ultimate-classic-rock?_unique_id=5e9f44a896e22

Top 10 Albums of 2018

It’s that time again. What a year. Thank gods we had great music for a little reflecting, some much-needed re-energizing, and of course, a lot of rabblerousing.

Here are my picks for the year’s 10 best albums. What turned your tables in 2018? Let me know at [email protected].

Happy 2019!

Rey

10) Sleep — The Sciences [Third Man Records]

San Jose psych-doom power trio Sleep have emerged from the purple haze to release “The Sciences,” their fourth studio record — their first in nearly two decades — giving stoner rock fans everywhere 53 glorious minutes of dark, dank, primordial heaviness that few if any bands can deliver. Anchored by Jason Roeder’s surgical-strike stickwork and vocalist Al Cisneros’ syrupy, sludgy, downtuned bass, master axe-smith Matt Pike plows through the kind of menacing riffs one can imagine flying off Hephaestus’ anvil as he’s forging Poseidon’s new trident — just as the god of the sea is packing his bags (and bowl) for a journey into the deep.

Listen on Spotify.

9) Mojo Juju — Native Tongue [ABC]

Born in Australia of mixed heritage — Aboriginal (Wiradjuri) and Filipino — Mojo “Juju” Ruiz de Luzuriaga, in her third full-length LP, digs deep into race, family, immigration, colonialism, identity politics and Indigenous heritage across 16 soulful, sultry, deeply personal and exquisitely original tracks that stretch across styles, genres, vibes and even languages. In a troubling era where xenophobia is on the rise, “Native Tongue” deftly explores what it means to be “the other.” “Just because you own the airtime, you think you own the sky,” she proclaims on “Think Twice,” lassoing a global Zeitgeist that is impossible to ignore — and making it far groovier than anyone thought it could be.

Listen on Spotify.

8) JPEGMAFIA — Veteran [Deathbomb Arc]

For his third studio album “Veteran” (a reference, at least, to his four-year stint in the U.S. Air Force), the 28-year-old mad-scientist glitchcore rapper/producer JPEGMAFIA (aka Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks) pulls out all the stops and then some to deliver one of the most distinctive hip-hop albums in years — if his wild and wooly aural experiments can even be considered hip-hop at this point. Vulcanic bass lines slither over shattered post-industrial beats as the New York native, now based in Baltimore, stretches his restless, inquisitive mind (he has a master’s degree in journalism), riffing on such far-ranging matters as Defense Department discharge forms and the fashionista handbags made famous by singer Jane Birkin (the one-time collaborator/lover of Serge Gainsbourg). The production is totally frikkin’ insane; the samples alone set him apart, from the bizarre epiglottal workout (a looped ODB vocal) that snakes through “Real Nega” to the brilliant rapid-fire Bic pen-clicking in “Thug Tears,” which triggered, at least in one fan, an ASMR (“autonomous sensory meridian response”), the unique auditory-tactile synaesthetic feeling of euphoria that has been used to describe a “spine-tingling” event. In fact, the whole 47-minute affair is fairly spine-tingling — and a bit bone-rattling, too. (h/t: JF)

Listen on Spotify.

7) Art Brut — Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out! [Alcopop!]

The Berlin- and London-based art-punk quintet comes crashing back after seven years of silence with their exuberant, hook-laden fifth studio LP, a tightly-wound 35 minutes jam-packed with gorgeously odd, party-ready, rock-steady mini-anthems with more horns, harmonies, group ah-ahs and sing-alongs than your drunken final campfire jam at band camp. Cheeky speak-singer Eddie Argos keeps things humming along with blisteringly droll deliveries of super-catchy, instant-classic lines. “I hope you’re very happy together, and if you’re not, that’s even better,“ he sniggers to an ex-lover in what could be the most gleeful break-up song ever written. In “Too Clever,” Argos distills the waggish self-reflexivity that has been his touchstone since the band emerged 14 years ago: “Sometimes the smartest man in the room would rather be outside — howling at the moon … Ah-woo!” Press play and let the bad/good times roll...

Listen on Spotify.

6) Young Jesus — The Whole Thing Is Just There [Saddle Creek]

For their third studio album, art rockers Young Jesus have crafted fresh, expansive highways and byways across the musical map. Ranging like the plains of boozy philosopher-poet bandleader John Rossiter’s Midwestern roots — and shot through with the jazz-inflected post-rock his Chicago hometown made famous — “The Whole Thing Is Just There” shows the now Los Angeles-based four-piece at their edgy-yet-dreamy, exquisitely exploratory best. Enveloped by a spacious production, Rossiter muses nimbly, often ironically, over complex arrangements interspersed by instrumental improvisations, with angular shards of guitar peppering lush soundscapes. “If saints aren’t given voice to teach of burns, we’re led to blood periphery,” he warns on the brooding, labyrinthine opener “Deterritory,” before the band opens the throttle and doesn't let up for the rest of this multifaceted 49-minute masterwork. 

Listen on Spotify.

5) Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want [Ipecac]

The hyper-intense post-grindcore noise mavens from Providence come out swinging on their fourth studio full-length (their first after an eight-year hiatus), showing that age hasn’t mellowed them out one bit. Above droning swirls of machine-edged walls of guitar, monomaniacal tank-tread basslines and call-to-battle drums, lead caterwauler Alexis S.F. Marshall lords over a gathering storm, slinging scorching, misanthropic observations of humanity’s dark side. “It may please your heart to see some shackled, wrists and throat, naked as the day they were born,” he howls on “Long Road, No Turns.” For 48 grinding, often terrifying minutes, Daughters exercise a powerful, all-consuming yet controlled cacophony — the kind of music killer hornets must listen to when they swarm. Still, there are intermittent flashes of beauty amidst the menacing Sturm und Drang of this post-apocalyptic wasteland, like one of those hornets pausing on a lonely flower, drawing a touch of sweet nectar before buzzing off for the kill.

Listen on Spotify.

4) Unknown Mortal Orchestra - IC-01 Hanoi [Jagjaguwar]

While recording their fourth full-length “Sex and Food” (also released this year) in such far-flung locales as Mexico City, Seoul, Reykjavik, Auckland and Portland, Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson (guitar, bass), his brother Kody (drums) and their father Chris (keyboards, flugelhorn, saxophone — the latter two often patched through effects) found themselves hunkered down one night in Hanoi. There the wandering New Zealand minstrels met up with Vietnamese musician Minh Nguyen (on sáo trúc, a traditional Vietnamese flute) for a casual jam at Phu Sa Studio. What emerged from that session are seven inspired tracks of sexy, smoky, brooding, propulsive Miles Davis-inspired exploratory improvisation. “IC-O1 Hanoi” may only clock in at 28 minutes, but it unfurls otherworldly mood for miles.

Listen on Spotify.

3) Jeremy Dutcher — Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa [Independent]

Toronto-based operatic tenor, pianist, composer, ethnomusicologist and Indigenous activist Jeremy Dutcher mines his First Nations roots for his striking, inspirational debut, a labor of love that is the culmination of five years researching and transcribing the traditional music of the Maliseet, an Algonquian people of New Brunswick, Quebec. “When I first got to hear these voices, that work for me was a profoundly transformational moment in my life,” he said in a CBC interview. “It was a process of deep listening — to sit there with these headphones and really hear what these voices had to tell me.” Featuring the grainy, century-old recordings of his ancestors’ songs (which he uncovered on wax cylinders at the Canadian Museum of Civilization), the endangered Wolastoqey language (spoken by around 100 people), modern sounds and rhythms, and his own penetrating, emotive voice winding through sprawling post-classical rearrangements of traditional First Nations music, “Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa” (“Our Maliseet Songs”) is an ambitious, fascinating and important work — a richly deserving winner of the Polaris Prize, one of Canada’s most prestigious music awards. Dutcher says his art is rooted in “Indigenous futurism,” one aspect of which is recovering traditional languages and viewpoints to counteract the Western narrative that seeks to erase them. Celebrating ancestral voices while looking to the future in a fight for today, this is one for the ages.

Listen on Spotify.

2) King Tuff — The Other [Sub Pop] 

On his dark-themed yet fun-filled fourth studio album, Vermont’s reigning king of psychedelic garage rock roams new territory, plumbing the worrisome depths of our current technology-driven, environmentally-destructive reality. Backed the impressive drumming of longtime collaborator Ty Seagall and aided by blasts of brass and sinewy synths, King Tuff (aka Kyle Thomas) rolls through crunchy, bluesy riffs, peeling back the layers of our iPhone-addled brains to reveal the poetry, nature and wilderness that we’ve lost along the way to our self-inflicted digitized annihilation. “So take me to your telescope and point me to the void, save me from the ones and zeros before it all gets destroyed,” he beseeches on “Circuits in the Sand.” If The Doors would’ve been the perfect final act to take the global stage as Armageddon rains down on Earth (“The End,” of course, being the last song we’d ever hear), King Tuff, with “The Other,” stakes a fairly convincing claim to the rabblerousing penultimate slot. 

Listen on Spotify.

1) Caroline Rose — LONER [New West] 

Somehow, Caroline Rose has managed to explore tough themes like sexism, misogyny, loneliness, self-doubt, infidelity and death, while delivering some of the most instant-party gems of 2018. Arch yet artful, Rose’s satire-spitting, synth-heavy third studio LP slips into seductively murky corners that burst open into dazzling technicolor skies on a dime. “I go to a friend of a friend’s party,” she deadpans on the opener. “Everyone’s well dressed with a perfect body. And they all have alternative haircuts and straight white teeth, but all I see is just more of the same thing,” The album, however, is anything but. With razor-edged turns of phrase, in-your-face punk attitude and catchy, curvilinear melodies, “LONER” certifies the Long Island songstress as a genuine pop maestro whose super-sly winks belie her 28 (!) years.

Listen on Spotify.

Honorable mentions:

Cassper Nyovest — Sweet and Short [UMG/Family Tree]

South African rapper Cassper Nyovest’s club-ready fourth studio album signals a return to his roots in kwaito (Afrikaans for “angry”), a heady mix of hip-hop and house music that originated in Johannesburg in the 1990s featuring slow tempos and African sounds, samples and slang that has grown into a potent youth culture. 

Listen on Spotify.

Peter Brötzmann and Heather Leigh — Sparrow Nights [Trost]

For their first studio album, Scotland-based improv pedal steel master Heather Leigh (whose excellent solo album “Throne” was also released this year) and German free jazz sax legend Peter Brötzmann show off the intimate, minimalist intensity they’ve developed over three years of collaboration. Probing and melancholic, “Sparrow Nights” is often rapturous, at times profound.

Listen on Spotify.

Tomáš Kačo — My Home [Independent]

On “For Chopin,” the opening track on his long-awaited debut album, 31-year-old virtuoso pianist and composer Tomáš Kačo takes the master’s lead, playing the famous Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 (first published in 1832). But soon, the song diverges into his own expressive, jazzy strands to create not only an homage but an audacious musical conversation that stretches across the centuries. History plays a central role in “My Home,” which features some of the vibrant traditional gypsy music that Kačo’s father played for him when he was a just a young Romany pianist studying at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. A special treat: legendary bassist John Patitucci joins in for the duet “Marov.”

Listen on Spotify.

Scud + Nomex — Maschinebau EP (re-release) [Praxis]

In 1997, London techno-scuzz impresarios DJ Scud (founder of Ambush! Records) and Nomex (founder of Adverse Records) joined forces to launch the Maschinenbau label, releasing just two 7”s. Praxis had to good sense to re-release these deliriously filthy and abusive breakcore/industrial noise tracks just in time for the 21st-century robot invasion.

Listen on Bandcamp.

Ÿuma — Poussière d’ètoiles (“Stardust”) [Innacor]

In Poussière d’ètoiles (“Stardust”), Tunisian duo Ÿuma (singer Sabrine Jenhani and guitarist-singer Ramy Zoghlami) offer an intimate, minimalist blues-folk gem, sung in Arabic, that isn’t afraid to tangle with the difficult cultural politics of their homeland. In “Mestenni Ellil” (“I wait for the night”), they explore the desperation of two young lovers who can never be together due to the girl’s arranged marriage — a practice that is sadly legal and common in Tunisia.

Listen on Spotify.