Emily’s exploration of the runaways and kidnappings of Soul Asylum(‘s video) is harrowing, though I was in the “terrified of nuclear war” crowd more than the “terrified of stranger danger” one. You Don’t Even Know Who I Am is, as Kathleen says, “sad sad sad…with no redemption.”
There is something heartbreaking in the clinical precision of Sinéad’s “Last Day” and Andrew’s deconstruction drives that home. But Kurt really was (and in dust, still is) the voice of our generation, and Jenifer pays lyrical and visceral homage to his (and her own) and so many others’ pain.
I haven’t ventured into anyone else’s thoughts on this, but the Clapton essay is generative ai, right?
Regardless, I adore the Grandpaboy/Westerberg song, which I had never heard. Thanks Barry for bringing it to my attention. (And for being a bio writer after my own heart.)
Silas muses that if you don’t form certain neural pathways in the “everything is so dramatic” era of adolescence, you might never. But Mo realized in middle age that you can be messy and imperfect and still be loved. I saw both artist each play once in the 90s, nearly opposite energies. Leaning Cat.
What do we take from our parents and what do we leave behind for our children? Are questions Nanette and Christopher both tackle here. Feeling echoes of myself in both essays, my parents in their 80s and kids under 5, and wondering how not to fuck it all up. Vote-wise, I find “Winter” a sadder song.
I managed to read and vote in all the day 5 and 6 matches, but up against the wire without time to share thoughts.
I might still, if I find some space today or tomorrow.
But now with a new batch live…
This is more or less the conversation that precipitated my vegetarianism when I was two.
Yeah, there’s a (of course fuzzy) line between review and critique. And I typically prefer the latter in the case of most media.
I lack the words to capture it, but ... it's just endlessly remarkable to me that so many people in our society have chosen trans kis -- TRANS KIDS, the smallest, least significant, most vulnerable demographic slice you could possibly pick -- as a repository for all their fears & insecurities.
A digitally drawn homage to the George Herriman comic strip Krazy Kat. Starting left of frame we see yellow Ignatz Mouse having just thrown a brick which is sailing across the center of the frame and in another instant will bash the oblivious Krazy Kat (a blue bipedal cartoon cat wearing a red scarf) in the back of the head as he walks innocently to the right. Everything is drawn in rough black pen and colored in pale washes. A speech bubble from Ignatz reads ‘Maybe it will…’, the word ’Happen’ appears in the whooshing trail of the sailing brick, and a final speech bubble belonging to the Kat reads ‘…Today’.
*My Ballard novels (with the exception of High Rise, which was sorted onto a shelf of books published in 1975) were in that box of books that I lost in a move.
Like Ballard’s Concrete Island, the spaces under a bridge and in a parking lot are both liminal spaces of automobile culture. I don’t recall whether Ballard’s protagonist gets out or not* but I’m glad Timothy and Brittney both made it through. Aesthetically, the (empty) lot & emo are more my thing.
A deep, personal, tragic sadness barged in to Katie’s essay and subsumed. But like Jenny, I have phantom recollections of a Morphine show that I’m pretty sure happened, but retain no tangible proof. By the end, Mark was playing a one-string bass and Dana was playing two saxophones simultaneously.
I like the fact that both these essays center a live, amateur rendition of the song. Abigail’s reading of Thomas as a sad young man who lost his friend personalizes a story I really only know from Caravaggio’s painting. But Brian’s multiple revisitations of the beautiful and the sad tipped it.
For many (most?) of us, sad songs are part of how we navigate the trials of adolescence, as in both these essays. Counting Crows were a feature of my own late-teen sadness and the fog and the crows have followed me as well.
And also about Shakespeare and the virtual spaces of the early social internet and James Turrell.
So I voted against my @marchxness.bsky.social bracket champion. I’m 90% certain I bought Out of Time in ‘91. How did I sleep on “Country Feedback”? Did I just never listen past the radio-friendly upbeat numbers? Was I not ready for alt-country? It’s worked its way in since yesterday, and it’s stuck.
Two absolutely fantastic essays and two songs that, while both undeniably earworms, don’t move me. I love Gabriel’s poetics, but can’t help but feel some tenderness for an 18 year old James moved to tears by what is ultimately a pretty heavy handed last chance redemption story.
Erin’s call to arms puts me in mind of another chronically misread ‘90s satire of heteronormativity, Lisa Germano’s “You Make Me Want to Wear Dresses” which I’ve been threatening to cover for decades. But fireflies, Yayoi Kusama, and Ashley digging home the line “you won’t be happy anyway” = tears.
Kay reminds us not to be snobs and Amy finds some solace in the favorites of others. Ultimately, I think Vince Gill wrote the sadder song, even if it’s not so much to my tastes.
In my bracket, my gut had Liz Phair going all the way. It’s personal. One of my “divorces” (we weren’t married, but I felt we someday would be) ended on a cross country road trip. But I had forgotten “Country Feedback.” I too was 16 in 1991 and had moved on from REM. Don’t know which way this goes.
Two very personal essays of grief, two very sad songs. This could go either way. I think is that synth tremolo on “Roads” that does me in though.
I don’t think I’d ever heard this Third Eye Blind deep cut. Like Brian argues, I too viscerally feel its sadness (ignoring the hospital bits). But Danielle’s deep dive into “Sade Siren’s” broken heart, and a song I’m more familiar with, tips my favor.
Lydia’s argument for taking Backstreet’s lyrics as more than just nonsense is persuasive and the TRL format is a great conceit, but David’s close reading of Waits’s “beautiful melody…telling terrible things” and “that room in your head…where this song is playing on repeat” swayed me.
When I moved apartments, a little over a decade ago, I lost a box of books: the first dozen or so issues of McSweeney’s, and authors A-D. Including Kate Braverman, some of whose books had been hard found in the nascent days of internet shopping. I loved Braverman’s books and wanted to own them all…
…I just learned of her 2019 death in Leah Mensch’s essay on (ostensibly) Bob Dylan’s “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven” (it’s more about Braverman, who loved Dylan). This wasn’t a fair match, as my own sensibilities owe an unpayable debt to Braverman’s prose. But do read Allison’s essay on yearning, too.
When I moved apartments, a little over a decade ago, I lost a box of books: the first dozen or so issues of McSweeney’s, and authors A-D. Including Kate Braverman, some of whose books had been hard found in the nascent days of internet shopping. I loved Braverman’s books and wanted to own them all…
Like Kimberly, I can viscerally feel being 17 without a license, shotgun, driving aimlessly. But I don’t have any real emotional connection to The Wallflowers. Ani DiFranco, on the other hand, plays a role in the loves and losses of my late teens/early 20s. And that last line of Susanna’s essay…
There’s an interesting parallel here, in that Fiona Apple was safe for Drew as he was not yet fully losing his religion, and Bush was safe for Jason in the sadness of the (post-Kurt) late grunge era. I really enjoyed both essays, I’ve always had a soft spot for Bush, even though that wasn’t cool.
This was the toughest of these first matches. Ron’s look at “1986 and 1995 as places I needed to be to get where I am” was poignant (and I love Annie Lennox). But ultimately Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Airplane…” is a perfect album and Aaron’s essay was a gut punch that I didn’t see coming.
