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+ no one cares about conservatives' Bad Bunny tears & a trip down Fall Out Boy lane
Hey, folks. I took last week off on account of the fact that it took me a whole week to recover from my cousin’s wedding weekend. I fired off my last post on a Friday, a review of The Life of a Showgirl, pining for a brassy orchestral sound. And that is exactly what I got the following night when I attended my first wedding with a band instead of a DJ. I was a little apprehensive at first. But by the end of the night, I was pleasantly surprised.
There were a few early evening songs that didn’t quite square with the 12-piece vibe, but they hit their stride once they got into Donna Summer and Prince. We all jumped around to a strangely hypnotic blink-182 rendition. The most memorable moment, however, came from an incredible cover of “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan. I knew it was a massive hit last year—a fun-loving song of the summer. I didn’t necessarily expect every generation at this wedding to sprint to the dance floor, overflowing beyond the wood grain onto the country club carpet, encroaching on any stragglers left sitting at the surrounding tables. Everyone belted every single word. It felt like a singular unifying moment—peculiar given the singular unifying moment, literally, between two people that we all witnessed a few hours prior—the reason for our being there in the first place. That one was for them, but “Pink Pony Club” was for us.
So I needed time to recover from my literal hangover, as well as my spiritual one. I’ve had a lot of catching up to do, and as such, this week is all liner notes.
Pitchfork is introducing comments and audience scores to its music reviews in 2026. The announcement came yesterday, but I’m honestly kind of surprised that its taken this long for them to actually implement a feature like this. Pitchfork reviews used to be revered as bible truth, but in recent years the public seems to be taking their notoriously harsh critiques less seriously. In 2021 they published a list of albums they would re-score upon further consideration, some of which are truly insane—Daft Punk’s Discovery went from a 6.4 to 10, Liz Phair’s self-titled album jumped from an appalling 0 to a 6 (the writer later apologized for this one). So it’ll certainly be entertaining to see how audience scores compare to the official numbers, especially considering this will be available to over 30,000 music reviews on the site. As publishers try to forge ahead in a digital world that values page views and programmatic advertising less and less every day, I’m sure this will breathe a little bit of relevancy back into the waning Condé Nast brand. We’ll see how this goes and if they can manage to capitalize on it.
It’s finally feeling a lot like fall so here are here are 15 albums that sound like fall from Colin Kirkland’s The Jam Jar.
Vampire Weekend announced they’re releasing a live album from their 2024 Madison Square Garden shows. The album will be a double-LP vinyl exclusive, including songs from two different shows. They add to a long lineage of MSG live albums, with an apt Bill Joel cover of “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” to boot. They’re set to ship in mid-December, so it could be a good holiday gift if you can snag one of the limited 3,000 copies.
Debbie Harry wants Florence Pugh to play her in a biopic. I could see how someone might peg me as a cynical hater of biopics, but unfortunately they’d be wrong. I agree with Debbie. That would rock.
D’Angelo’s streams jumped nearly 800% following his death. The legendary R&B singer died on October 14th after a battle with pancreatic cancer. D’Angelo only released three official albums over the course of his three-decade career, but managed to become one of the most revered and respected names in R&B history. According to Billboard, his catalog drew over 16.1 million streams the week of his death, with three of those songs crossing 1.9 million streams each. For the uninitiated in the chat, I highly recommend his critically acclaimed 2014 album Black Messiah.
Callum Turner recently revealed how he met his fiancé, Dua Lipa. Feeling inspired to delete all the apps and start reading more books in public.
The worst people you know have had a lot to say about Bad Bunny’s selection for the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show performer. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Ken Casey of Boston’s bravest Dropkick Murphys fame has spoken out in support of the decision, saying, “I had never really listened to Bad Bunny’s music, but after his performance in Happy Gilmore 2, I will go to the mat for that guy. God bless his heart. He is a true, true American.” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell couldn’t agree more, as he recently shut down conservatives’ calls to replace the Puerto Rican artist for the show. “He’s one of the most popular entertainers in the world,” Goodell said, via The Athletic. “That’s what we try to achieve. It’s an important element to the entertainment value. It’s carefully thought through. I would say I’m not sure we’ve ever selected an artist where we didn’t have some blowback or criticism. We have hundreds of millions of people watching, but I have full confidence it’ll be a good show.”
Fall Out Boy released a 20th anniversary edition of their album From Under The Cork Tree. I remember it like it was just yesterday. Christmas 2005, I was a lively 10 years old and my older cousin who I looked up to the most in both life generally and music taste gifted me the Fall Out Boy CD wrapped in a massive gift box, the kind you’d put a bulky sweater in—likely the only box he could find in the minutes before we arrived for Christmas Eve. I think it’s the only Christmas gift he’s ever given me to this day. The CD was still wrapped in plastic, so it wasn’t even used! Regift or not, it was a spark that led me down a formative music discovery journey and likely part of the reason why I’m writing this damned thing (almost) every week.
thanks for the mention:):):) will I see you in the Pitchfork comments section?