January

Hello! This is the first installment of a new project I'll be running this year entitled Old Town Roundup in which I share 8 of my favorite songs and one of my favorite albums of the last month! This month, I spent a lot more time with some of the albums I listened to over break, finding a lot of new favorite artists, and listening to a lot of women in rock!

Chloe In The Afternoon, St. Vincent

My first introduction to St. Vincent, “Chloe” was the opener of her 2011 album Strange Mercy. Like any album, as the first track, it serves as the first impression–and this song left me wanting to hear so much more. Detailing an affair through distorted guitar, angelic synths, and rhythmic experimentation, St. Vincent does a masterful job of utilizing tension and release to create my most listened-to song of January. 

Shut Up And Drive, Rihanna

I like to describe this song as “Rihanna does Rascal Flatts,” which sounds like my idea of a good time. I’ve been spending a lot more time with 2000s music lately, mostly driven by this song. It also unexpectedly kickstarted my #1 theme of this month in music: women in rock. Additionally, I’ve spent a lot of time revisiting Alyssa Edwards and Tatianna in the last few weeks.

Salad, Blondshell

I’d heard of “Salad” before I listened to Blondshell, but I don’t think I understood the full impact of it until hearing it on the record. Blondshell is a coming-of-age album about trying to find yourself amid a quarter-life crisis, but this song touches on something of a different tone: how to deal with the weight of truly knowing the world after your friend is sexually assaulted. It’s a raw and powerful depiction of a woman in disarray, tearing through revenge fantasies and asking questions of God before ultimately culminating in a simple, almost childish threat towards the man in question but delivered with so much pure anger that she is terrifying. 

Untidy Creature, Sleater-Kinney

On January 19th, Sleater-Kinney released Little Rope, and it became the first album of theirs I’d ever listened to. The whole record is great; I would highly recommend it. It came out at the perfect time for all my women in rock music lately. I wasn’t sure what the best song was until I got to the very end, but as soon as this song began, I knew “Untidy Creature” was it. Similar to “Salad,” it’s a song about frustration at women’s experience in the world, as told through a toxic relationship. Different from “Salad,” though, is that it is a reflection, not a reaction. They tear through their anger and fear with a premeditated poeticness, accented by some massive guitars. 

Lego Ring, Faye Webster (ft. Lil Yachty)

Similar to Sleater-Kinney, Faye Webster is someone I’ve always heard in passing but never gotten into. My first introduction to this song was someone on Tiktok complaining about how weird it was, followed by a reply from someone else about how experimentation is a great thing. This of course piqued my interest, so I had to check it out. I found out what I expected to: I love experimentation! Although this song still has the quintessential Faye Webster sonic palette, it plays with tempo and texture (an autotuned and vibrato-ed Lil Yachty can be heard throughout the song) and closes with a nice verse from Yachty. I’m also a huge fan of the metaphor of a Lego ring… might have to use that in my own poetry sometime. 

NBPQ (Topless), Sudan Archives

Thanks to my dad for finding this one for me, and credit to KCRW for finding it for him. As is often the case post-break, you might have noticed this month has been a lot of discovering music from artists who had been sitting on my long list of people to check out for a while. Sudan Archives is one of them, but unlike some of the others, I had no clue what I was in for with her music. What I found was unlike anything I’ve heard before. This whole record is great, but this song is the clear standout. This song is Sudan reclaiming her worth from a world that’s tried to take it from her and proudly putting it on display. If you want to hear something new and epically cool, go check it out.

Shiver, Coldplay

Coldplay’s reputation over the last 20 years has become, for lack of a better word, ass. They’re so commonly thrown away as just another basic alt-rock-become-mediocre-pop-rock group that I think we forget what made them successful originally. I’ll admit I stole this song from a Coldplay deep dive video, but it has definitely changed my opinion on their origins. I honestly didn’t realize that Coldplay was capable of making this quality of music, but I have to hand it to them. Although not anything crazy, this is a very well-produced, well-played, and well-written song from the band’s early days. If you like Radiohead’s music but hate being associated with them, check it out! Then instead of Thom Yorke, you can be associated with the likes of Chris Martin.

Honey, Robyn

I’ve been a big Robyn fan since I listened to her 2010 album Body Talk a few years ago. I hadn’t explored further into her career until this December when I decided to listen to her only follow-up record, 2018’s Honey. It was like I was being transported to another universe. I’m sorry to keep saying this, but this is definitely one to check out the whole record on–it was very close to being this month’s album recommendation, but what stopped it is that as smooth and connected as each track is, there is a clear highlight among them. I could listen to this song for hours. It’s one of the most beautifully produced and mixed songs I’ve ever heard. Though quiet, it’s strong–the beat continues to build as if it will drop, but instead it drops away, leaving Robyn’s blissful layered vocals to take the lead, until it comes back in pulsating under her seduction. Robyn has given me a major appreciation for dance music. 

MASSEDUCTION, St. Vincent

Finally, we come to the first album recommendation of the year! This album absolutely blew me away. It was one of my favorite things I’d ever heard on first listen. I rarely come across a record that has me on the edge of my seat like this one did. After each song, I couldn’t wait to hear what the next one would sound like. Each one was a new mystery of texture and tension. St. Vincent (in cohorts with Jack Antonoff, who manages to get his grubby little hands on everything I love but unfortunately does a hell of a job with it) excels at creating a scene and an aura through music and storytelling. It reminds me of my love of Igor or Melodrama (which Jack happened to work on at the same time): an album that changes my perspective on what music can sound like, yet sounds so intrinsically right at the same time. 10/10, phenomenal record. 

you can find this month's playlist on spotify here.