the new pretty committee #29
jacob grammys. 12/29/24
musings
musings will be pretty short this week since i’m working on my year end lists of music. so, without giving too much away, here’s a round-up of my completely arbitrary honors and dishonors.
favorite musical moment: cash cobain
rap has had a tragic lack of fun in it over the last few years so it’s always good to see someone like cash cobain not take anything too seriously and pump out deliriously horny bangers. after years where men refused to acknowledge that the most innovative rap was coming out of women just having a good time, cash cobain really integrated female sex rap sensibilities into his club drill repertoire and caught fire.
least favorite musical moment: brat
fine album. the months that followed can’t even begin to be described by bloated and overexposed. this was a pain in the ass from all directions - musically, it’s underwhelming (and no one wanted to talk about the music), culturally, it’s tautological (what is brat summer other than what it?), and theoretically, it’s vapid in the dullest way possible. free charli. free brooklyn. free me.
best surprise: almighty so 2 by chief keef
worst surprise: personafication by maxo kream
one rapper returns to form after a middling start to the year, one rapper falls from form after a great start to the year.
most underrated: ehhthang ehhthang by glorilla
most overrated: blue lips by schoolboy q
the way we keep letting men get fourth, fifth, etc. tries at their album but still refuse to discuss glorilla as one of the best rappers of recent memory is beyond me.
best musical discourse: chappell roan stan culture
honestly this is the closest we’ve gotten to discussing the commodification of music and musician yet.
worst musical discourse: diddy
yeah, he’s evil. now please shut up about it - these kind of deep focused rages at one individual almost never address the systemic changes actually needed.
a ranking of every artist’s “country” turn this year
beyonce - duh
moneybagg yo - he understands whiskey whiskey more than morgan wallen
post malone - not great, but very earnest in his chart bombing
lana del rey - not sold
sabrina carpenter - even more not sold
mgk - what a year where mgk isn’t the worst country sell out
eminem - geez
marshmello - geezus
artists most likely to go country next year
david guetta - “because you’re mine, i walk the - DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN”
kim petras - yes, it will be called “cuntry”
ilovemakkonen - just a feeling
all time low - pop punk act desperate to stay relevant with the means to do it?
owl city - and it’s about god
nba youngboy - please if this happens it will be so good
what i’m listening to
christmas - sufjan stevens
what i’m reading
sumario de plantas oficiosas - efren giraldo
de circulo y ceniza - piedad bonnett
the ethics of ambiguity - simone de beauvoir
on the fringe
good - ed. by toni beauchamp
what i liked this week
i love catching up with old friends and talking about new things. like - we still have lives! the new is real! we are still alive!
my book protector case (with love)
wearing t shirts (and even sleeveless shirts) in december
making my music year end lists and realizing how much great music has come out this year! then going and listening to it again!
chasing great poison girl drink prices with a tacos tec trompo quesadilla for the ages
also for getting to command aux on the way there and play the most houston-baity music ever in the (volkswagen) whip
we survived christmas!
my brother made these really wonderful homemade bookends using his woodmaking skills and they are startlingly good! i can’t wait to put them up on my soon-to-come second bookshelf.
my annual return to kaboom books, where the owner and i discussed the liquidation sale of bernie madoff held in houston many many years ago
the utterly bizarro vibes of houstonians at bars
rstudio packages and free implementation
a poem by me
playdoh kind of boy
flinching ¿could one emerge any other way from the valley womb of the country of lotus? when the heaven must rear itself onto the ground it fell from ¿what chemical or cleaver could slice its brood back to blood? my family speaks the tongue of the earth, like me, but paints starts in glyphs i leaked light onto looking ¿could it ever be distilled? ¿to find me at the bottom of it? in the bosom tied upon a leash ¿could my martyr merely pass out with a knife ringing dully into a hollow chest?