February Albums of the Month

 Wow. Two posts in ONE day??? This may never happen again. Here are all the albums I listened to in February, and some brief notes about them. These aren't all new listens, and there are a few recent releases as well. I'm pretty particular about how I listen to music (always striving for active engagement <3333) and figured it would be easy enough to put on here. I promise to not paywall any of my trivial thoughts, looking at you, Pitchfork.

'Kind of Blue'

Miles Davis

'Assembly'

Joe Strummer, The Mescaleros

A compilation album I listened to in preparation for International Clash Day. Loved the inclusions of songs I already knew, but really liked Love Kills! 

'No Love Deep Web'

Death Grips

Listened to a lot of Death Grips this month, I don't think this album is my favorite, but still enjoyable!

'Calling Out of Context'

Arthur Russell

Another compilation! Such an underlistened, influential artist. Before performing 'Psycho Killer', David Byrne shared kind words about Russell, and explained how he contributed to the song. 

'Lonerism'

Tame Impala

CLASSIC! Probably my favorite Tame Impala album. The first half of the album is a generational run. 

'Reign of Terror'

Sleigh Bells

Another consistent entry in their catalogue! I don't think it could ever beat 'Treats', but there are a few nice standouts in here, like 'End of the Line'. Sleigh Bells is fundamental to my Gen Z 'indie sleaze' repertoire.

'Adventure'

Television

'Sun'

Cat Power

Manhattan is obviously the best (and most well-known) song from this album, but I think I only really thought about her cover records! When I was in Italy over the summer I saw some posters for her upcoming concert of solely Bob Dylan covers.

(not an album just a pic of the posters in Verona)

'Bloom'

Beach House

Is this the most popular BH album? Maybe its Depression Cherry. This one is still great though- second or third favorite! The Hours and On the Sea are MY SONGS!

'We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic'

Foxygen

(Wait help what happened to the line spacing)

That title was a bit of a mouthful. This is a fine album for its time. I just saw a TikTok earlier today about a bad experience/troubling story about this band. Am I out of the loop? I can go without listening again if need be. I'm not that dedicated to Foxygen.

The Modern Lovers- s/t

An insane, lengthy (yet tight) debut. I think Richman's laid back confidence about his style and writing makes this an incredibly approachable (but still abstract enough) album that still holds its weight today. Going to choose a lot of obvious favorites:

Roadrunner (first heard it in School of Rock that I watched when I was like 8)

Astral Plane

Old World (this was one of my songs of the month I think)

She Cracked

Government Center

Shout out Jerry Harrison and Cameron Winter.

'Imaginal Disk'

Magdalena Bay

Modern classic. Saw them in December. I mix all the songs up and was desperately trying to figure out which one went 'kitty cat, kitty cat oh oh'. Took a few hours, lots of singing, and a Reddit search to realize she is NOT saying 'kitty cat', and the song I was thinking of was Tunnel Vision. Bought the CD almost immediately after that whole debacle. The website is so worth exploring too!

'Last Splash'

The Breeders

These are cooooooooooooooooool girls. Thrifted this CD. Divine Hammer is my fav. 

'So Much Country 'Till We Get There'

Westside Cowboy

Newish EP release! I don't know a lot about this band, but annoying hip and up to date music lovers will probably get a kick out of this. I want to try to compare this to Black Country, New Road, but I need to be honest for a sec and admit that I have literally never listened to one of their songs all the way through. 

'GT Ultra'

Guerilla Toss

My first GT album. This is eccentric music that won't be for everyone!

'Moon Safari'

Air

Watched a live concert version of this album while studying. I LOVE to listen to this while doing schoolwork!

'For Emma Forever Ago'

Bon Iver

I like this one just fine! I've never been a huge Bon Iver person. 

'Kid A'

Radiohead

Threw this on while studying! I'm not a die-hard Radiohead person, but I like enough of their stuff! My favorite Radiohead-related experience was when I took my mom to a showing of the original silent/black and white version of Nosferatu that was synced to this and Amnesiac. Crazy cool.

'And in the Darkness Hearts Aglow'

Weyes Blood

Words cannot express my intense connection to this album. It feels weird to even try. 

'Mercy'

John Cale

UGH!!! He's still got it! Please listen to this theres also a Weyes Blood feature <3

Jacqueline Taieb- s/t

'Teen Dream'

Beach House

'Titanic Rising'

Weyes Blood

Please refer to previous Weyes Blood entry above. 

'Sorry to Bother You'

The Coup

I saw Sorry to Bother You the movie with LaKeith Stanfield a long time ago, and absolutely loved it (side note im SO looking forward to Boots Riley's upcoming film, I Love Boosters). I did NOT realize that the screenplay also spawned this album. So good. If you're in the mood for something narrative driven, political, and with plenty of kazoo features (Your Parents' Cocaine) this is for you. 

'Heavy Metal'

Cameron Winter

Listened on CD while Anna and I played Fortnite. Classic Thursday night. 

Little Joy s/t

Ok for transparency's sake I thought this was Mt Joy. It was not. I was still very happy though! This is the only album from the band, featuring Fab from The Strokes.

'More Songs About Buildings And Food'

Talking Heads

Unrelated, but I got the 'True Stories' album (used of course) on CD this month. The Big Country will always make me cry. Other favorites include Thank You for Sending Me an Angel, Warning Sign, The Girl Wants to Be with the Girls, Found a Job, and Take Me to the River. 

'Heaven or Las Vegas' 

Cocteau Twins

'Wild is the Wind'

Nina Simone

'Entertainment!'

Gang of Four

'Vertigo'

Wand

I love Wand. I heard some of their songs for the first time in the Khyber Pass Pub in Philadelphia on my 21st birthday last year. Alicia and I had king cake, and I bought my first drinks there. I also ended up going home with two identical stickers, featuring a stupid looking possum with a baseball hat. I put one on my school binder, and the other on my pink waterbottle. Except, the little part of the sticker where the hat floats above its head didn't lay flat on the water bottle, so I tried to cut it off. I overshot it and lobotimized my possum. Sorry buddy. Anyways, this is a pretty recent (2024) album, and frontman Cory Hanson has been active lately too- his 2025 release 'I Love People' was stark and cynical, and was one of my favorites of last year. Smile is totally the standout here. There are some GREAT live versions on YouTube.

'Songs of Leonard Cohen'

Leonard Cohen

'Stories From the City Stories From the Sea'

PJ Harvey

Do you think her and Fiona Apple get along? What's that dynamic like?

'Fox Confessor Brings the Flood'

Neko Case

I listened to this pretty passively while at work. I think she is supposed to be performing somewhere down here soon. 

'Hot Fuss'

The Killers

Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine is one of the most insane album openers ever. This whole thing just sounds like they're from Vegas, you know?

'The Apple Tree Under The Sea'

hemlocke springs

2026 debut album! I've liked that one song since it went super viral a few years back. This was nice! I'm excited to see where she'll go from here!

'Beats and Breaks From the Flower Patch'

Kitty Craft

I'd love to get the scoop on the cover art for this. Is it an original drawing? Painting? Old print or something?

'Blame the Clown'

Twisted Teens

Another 2026 release and another interesting album cover! I like it, but I have a lot of questions. Mainly- this has GOT to be the singer from Parquet Courts right?? Maybe I'll listen again. Something feels unresolved.

'My Days of 58'

Bill Callahan

2026 release! I liked it! Not as obscure as 'Reality' but still sonically interesting! I get him and Tim Heidecker mixed up sometimes. 

'Doolittle'

Pixies

67

I feel a little bad about ending like that, but I have nothing else to say.

On Triple LPs.

 It's 1980. You're at the record store. You remember buying your first double LP, probably the White Album, and then coming back a few years later and purchasing the world's first real triple LP, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass (everyone knows that the Woodstock live album doesn't really count, ATMP was all new material). But things have changed in the ten years since All Things Must Pass's release. If you're punk frontman Joe Strummer, you've definitely been thinking about changes in the neoliberal economy, promulgated by the recently elected Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, where overall wealth and earnings increased, but inequality widened dramatically.

(Graph from Jonathan Jones at The Spectator)

Or maybe, you're taking notice of global patterns- like the rapid changes in Latin American leadership, or, more accurately, the wave of U.S. backed coups that destabilized the region. No matter which political woes you may be tormented by, you and Joe both know that the best music is made in response to the times, and as someone with a similar outlook would say, the times they are a changin'.

How much farther can The Clash push the boundaries though? They've already released London Calling, receiving widespread acclaim for its diversity of genres and relevant themes. They've mastered both content and delivery, what else could possibly be left? The triple LP, Sandinista! points to the answer: form.

The sprawling nature of Sandinista! was no accident. After fighting with record label CBS over releasing London Calling as a double LP, and the subsequent release of Bruce Springsteen's double record, The River, The Clash was ready to push the boundaries yet again. Not only would this be a triple album, but it would also be a triple album sold for the price of one. As you can imagine, this did not go over well with label execs, and the band had to compromise, forgoing any royalties on the first 200,000 copies sold in the UK, and a 50% cut in royalties elsewhere. As usual, profit was not a priority for the band. There are several probable explanations for this sprawling six-side- 'retaliation' for label pushback on London Calling, the absence of controlling manager Bernie Rhodes, or, according to Joe Strummer, "just for fun really". 

Unsurprisingly, Sandinista! was not as well-received as London Calling. Why would anyone want to spend time with a lengthy, contemplative album when more distilled versions were readily available? If anything, the album has gained notoreity for being divisive among fans. In an interview/comedy sketch featuring Fred Armisen as his punk frontman character, Ian Rubbish (spoof on Johnny Rotten), he introduces his parody of the album, Acapulco, and says, "They (The Clash) had a lot of dud songs and stuff, so I thought, to be experimental, we'd have a lot of spoken word, stand up comedy..."

Armisen's Rubbish's 'Acapulco' album cover. Its really a great interview-- L' The Clash's Ondonc All in G (and the entirety of this video) has been a true cultural touchstone for me.

Armisen riffs on the album's ironic abundance-- there are 36 tracks on this album, not all of them can be hits. Nevertheless, The Clash resisted the emerging cultural consumption patterns of the 80s- instead of refining their sound and becoming more caricaturized versions of themselves, they prevented any Flanderization by releasing an album that made listeners question their previous conceptions of the band, and encourage inward reflection. I'm reminded of an excerpt from my professor's book about violence in the U.S. that I recently read for class:

"After convincingly showing that notions of manhood have in fact changed, becoming more individualistic and less communitarian during the twentieth century, she [Susan Faludi] posited, “What gets discussed is how men are exercising or abusing their control and power, not whether a lack of mooring, a lack of context, is causing their anguish.” Faludi identified what she called a new “ornamental culture,” changed fundamentally “from a society that produced a culture to a culture rooted in no real world at all.” The American culture she described was jewel-like, with millions of facets radiating not outward but inward, reflecting one another." 

Thanks Professor Strain. I don't wish to harp on the gendered elements of this excerpt-- it provides more use when the metaphor of a jewel-like 'ornamental culture' is brought across the pond. I presume that this 'ornamental culture' that has discouraged critical introspection is connected to the growing neoliberal economy of the time. If any degree-granting institution would like to host me for a graduate degree to investigate that topic (how neoliberalism affects consumption and creation of popular culture) please let me know at your earliest convienience. In the meantime, before I can make my contributions to the literature, consider the following:

• A post-Romantic view situates culture as something that rises from the popular masses (as opposed to individuals) and changes over time, subsequently effecting how we live our lives.
• But should humans 'meddle' in this inevitable cultural evolution though? Depends who you ask. Neoliberals, like Friedrich Hayek would say that cultural evolution is a telos that is necessary to uphold a capitalist system, and that humans cannot, and should not attempt to organize collective life-- just leave it to the market or something!
• But, Racheal Fest states, "This properly neoliberal theory of culture withholds from those it pretends to empower the possibility of purposeful participation in the expansive creative narrative it projects."
• Much to consider. I think that a neoliberal economic order that encourages individual preferences and consumption has severly undermined the traditional function of a cultural mediator (at least in regards to popular culture and taste-making), and discourages opportunities for critical analysis (a skill important for media literacy, and for preserving democracy). 
• I'm not an expert (but I'd like to be), so here are some sources to peruse if you are so interested: a 2024 policy report from the Roosevelt Institute, and a 2014 overarching article about different cultural dimensions of neoliberalism.
  

Thanks for indulging me reader. Back to the band. Now to answer my central question of 'Why is this album good even if there are several filler ("dud") songs that may not immediately appeal to listeners?' Like any good pretentious music fiend, I'm going to draw from the Sandinista! book in the 33 1/3 series- which invites a guest author to provide their breakdown and commentary on an iconic album- for an answer.

Henley is pretty quick to answer my question, and states, “The excessive nature of the album invites discourse, forcing debates among fans and critics. More than that, it urges fans to devise their own versions of the album to be shared, offering different perspectives and approaches, and creating new appreciation for songs that were otherwise ignored. The album is built for this type of active engagement. That is the strength of Sandinista!.” So should we be using triple albums to combat neoliberal cultural consumption patterns then? Well I mean sure, but not exclusively. Provoking active engagement is really the most important element here- if I ever get around to it I'll write up a post about Ranciere's Emancipated Spectator that gives some guidance for achieving this active engagement. Even if not commercially successful, at the least, The Clash could always put out an engaging, provoking album.

Taken at the Torn Apart exhibit in November 2024 at the Orlando Museum of Art

Wilco frontman and alt-country icon Jeff Tweedy's 2025 triple solo album, Twilight Override has a clear lineage to Sandinista!. He says he was inspired to write his album after listening to The Clash's on a road trip with his sons. In regards to triple albums, he states, "By giving somebody a lot of music to luxuriate in, you're setting up a little barrier. But it's also for a certain type of listener to be rewarded. And I just thought that it flies in the face of a culture that's gotten faster, more surface level." Please, enlighten us further Jeff:

"I don't think there's anything wrong with aspiring to explore a different length, and to see if I can hold somebody's attention for two hours, and hold my own attention, and allow songs to be around a bunch of other songs that wouldn't necessarily make the cut if you're going for maximum impact. The idea of being able to facilitate someone spending two hours doing something like listening to a record intentionally- I don't know if very many people are actually going to do that. But I think it's designed to do that. And that's what I wanted to do."

I don't have much else to say, and am not totally sure how to conclude this. The songs on Sandinista! and Twilight Override are good, but what makes the albums great are their abilities to hold attention and promote active engagement. 

Some of my select favorites off of Sandinista! (in no particular order):

• The Magnificent Seven
• Hitsville U.K.
• Ivan Meets G.I. Joe
• Somebody Got Murdered
• Police on My Back
• The Call Up
• Washington Bullets
• Charlie Don't Surf
• Career Opportunities

Long time no talk

 Keeping it brief today- here's some pictures I've been resonating with lately. 

David Byrne of Talking Heads with lyrics from the song "(Nothing but) Flowers" projected on his head.

A small image featured at the bottom of David Graeber's website. It was his birthday a few weeks ago and I watched an excellent interview with his co-author, David Wengrow to celebrate him.

I came across this quote written on a wall in the background of a TikTok. I didn't realize it was from Allende until I looked it up. Maybe that's the secret to staying young forever. It also reminds me of this essay about 'Culture as creative refusal' by Graeber. 

Last one:

Like WOW. The Fallout New Vegas Launch Party/Kim Kardashian 30th Birthday Party with musical guest Vampire Weekend. What a sentence. Mad props to the agent that came up with that lineup.