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1 min read
Parachutes turns 26 and it still sucks
Read more . . . →26 years ago today, Coldplay released their debut album Parachutes. It still sucks. This is the record people reach for when they want to argue the band was good “before they sold out,” which is the whole con — Parachutes wasn’t a promising start that curdled later, it was the finished blueprint for two decades of beige. Chris Martin already had the formula bolted down: strum four chords, aim the falsetto at the cheap seats, and mistake sounding sad for having something to say. “Yellow” bought the beach house and “Trouble” still leaks out of every coffee shop, but the...
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1 min read
He's Locked In
Read more . . . →Forty minutes on the same patch and it’s still just noise. Do not interrupt. He knows exactly what he’s doing. (He does not.)
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She Got Past The Bouncer
Read more . . . →Nan’s been raving in that warehouse since before your favorite DJ was born. Seen things in there. Says nothing.
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1 min read
Yellow turns 26 and it still sucks
Read more . . . →26 years ago today, Coldplay released “Yellow.” It still sucks. The whole song rides one metaphor a 15-year-old would’ve crossed out: you’re a star, I went yellow, the end. Chris Martin found four notes on a guitar, decided that was plenty, and pushed the falsetto until “earnest” started doing the job that “good” was supposed to do. Then the ad agencies got hold of it, and for the next decade you couldn’t watch a car drift down a coastal road or a phone spin on a white background without that mopey little riff leaking out of the speakers. It didn’t...
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1 min read
POV: You Requested A Song
Read more . . . →Static for a face, hands still on the mixer, dead air where the eyes should be. He heard you. He’s choosing not to.
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1 min read
Trash Panda B2B Nobody
Read more . . . →Pulled out of the dumpster behind the club at 4am, already mixing cleaner than half the lineup. Book him.
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Where The Warmth Actually Comes From
Read more . . . →Not the DJ’s transitions — the literal fire coming off the platter. Gather round, it’s the warmest thing in the set.
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The Drop Is Buffering
Read more . . . →Headliner’s whole “live set” is one laptop and it just hit the spinning beachball. Crowd’s still going off. Nobody’s clocked that the music stopped.
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18 years of Viva la Vida, still wearing the costume
Read more . . . →18 years ago today, Coldplay released Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. It still sucks. This was supposed to be the brave one — the big reinvention. They put a Delacroix painting of an actual revolution on the cover, zipped themselves into surplus-store military jackets, and hired Brian Eno to scuff up the corners. Then they handed in the most focus-grouped record of the decade. You cannot cosplay as the barricades and write songs engineered to play under a phone commercial at the same time. The title track is a man who has never lost anything in...
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A Church Worth Showing Up Early For
Read more . . . →Lasers through the rafters, sub in the stained glass. This is the only service we’d get there on time for.
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