Content Nausea No. 20: Extinction
Sabotaging life just to find something to write about, why was it always this way? Did I do it on purpose?
Welcome to the 20th edition of Content Nausea. Here is No. 19. Here is the welcome blog. Please click the heart at the top of the page and maybe forward this to someone you know.
I did not read anything that ruined my day before 9 a.m. Tuesday — my day was ruined when I finished this piece at 10:34 a.m. — but I did stand in my kitchen at 9:20 a.m. and watch/listen to the port-a-potty (AP Style says it should be ‘portable toilet,’ but who cares) get emptied at the newly constructed townhouses across the street. It was preferable to the news.
Dylan from Cloud Nothings posted a link to 10 demos on Twitter on Monday night, and I did not come across them until Tuesday. Obviously, I had them on repeat while I was up late trying to put together a mock draft. Spoiler: They’re good, and I like them. I immediately traded notes with Reese on which were the standout tracks. “Welcome To My Planet,” “This Thing Inside” and “Get The Truth” are the ones that caught my attention, especially the finale.
The timing of this was humorous to me. I ended up spending a couple nights over the weekend in a turntable.fm-type room with strangers from Twitter. I’ve been running more again. And then I was up past midnight listening to lo-fi Cloud Nothings on my headphones. My 2011 regression continues apace.
In spring 2011, the second semester of my freshman year in college, I spent Cinco de Mayo in my dorm combing last.fm to look for Cloud Nothings mp3s that I didn’t own. I think I tracked down “Another Man” that night. I had already played the NYC Taper set from summer 2010 to death and was in the process of rounding up all the physical releases at that moment. It was a fun time.
Listening to these fuzzy riffs reminded me of “I Apologize” or “Even In The Summer” (miss u, Salad Fork) or “Crying Underwater” or any of the random blog mp3s that are probably impossible to find now and have been rendered almost useless by the streaming economy. “Better At Being Apart” has the little ‘woos’ that typified “Talk To Me” and other tracks from the early 2010s. There seemed to be an infinite number of gems at that time, and the thrill of getting an email with an attachment from Reese or trading external hard drives with Emily or Anna outstrips a Spotify or YouTube link.
It’s something that I hadn’t really expected to feel in a while. My external hard drives are in a box in my desk, and when I made my “April goals” check list earlier Wednesday, one of them was to organize my external hard drives. I’ll go through the mp3s that have been dormant there because I don’t want to set up iTunes on my work computer, and my personal computer would buckle under the weight.
Tuesday night, though, I thought about it. I fired up iTunes and dragged the “Enemy At Home” demos into a new playlist. It felt good.
The past couple days were a couple random music (and one non-music) anniversaries that are worth highlighting (and at least one was probably worth its own newsletter, but alas):
Friday marked 11 years since we had to run 22 400s at track practice. Later that night, I played a Wapinitia show during my “hospital socks” phase. It was good.
Friday marked 10 years since I went to see Woods and Real Estate with Anna and Marc in D.C. That was #formative, and it kicked off a streak that went from March 2010 through August 2013 or so where I went to at least one concert per month. That was a good night, and it remains one of my favorite shows. [The NYC Taper recordings of Real Estate & Woods from earlier that tour hold up! Real Estate covered “My Molly!” Both bands played “No Rain!”
Tuesday was nine years since Anna and I went to the second-to-last* LCD Soundsystem show at Terminal 5 in New York. That was an lol saga. But it remains one of my favorite shows and favorite nights. *Obviously, it was not the last show, and I’ve seen them twice in the comeback. Still great!
Tuesday was eight years since I went to a Cloud Nothings show in D.C. with WMUC people, and it was fantastic. That was the first time I saw them on the Attack on Memory tour. I would see them, uh, a couple more times on that tour. Also, Anastassia and I stood, like, five feet from each other three months before we actually met in person. Small world!
Wednesday was nine years since a Pains of Being Pure at Heart/Twin Shadow show that I do not remember anything about because I was so tired from the LCD show the night before, and Wednesday was eight years since another Cloud Nothings show at Ottobar.
All right, time for ostensibly the real reason for this newsletter: We’ve reached the quarter-pole of the year, so I rounded up a couple songs and albums that are worth noting. (I know I still haven’t finished my 2019 lists…).
Here’s the 2k20.25 playlist:
And yes, it’s vaguely in an order. The songs on top are some of my favorites of the year. “Surprise” is massive, “November” is one of the more direct songs Martin Courtney has ever written for Real Estate and Charli XCX’s appearance on the “ringtone” remix makes it go, while Lil Uzi Vert, Dogleg, Grimes, Soccer Mommy, Rio Da Young Og and more have made some of the best songs of the year.
Here are my top 10 albums of the year (so far):
Eternal Atake by Lil Uzi Vert
The Main Thing by Real Estate
Full Hand by Kevin Krauter
Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee
Melee by Dogleg
Simulcast by Tycho
Color Theory by Soccer Mommy
Circles by Mac Miller
Printer’s Devil by Ratboys
Rare by Selena Gomez
There is still so much listening left to do, but this is where we are right now.
Thank you for reading the 20th edition of Content Nausea. Please let me know what your favorite albums and songs of 2020 so far are.
Making the distinction between life and lore
Odds favor the former when you wear a mask
Masochism forming in the reflection and
I’m trying not to turn into a psychopath
Better to have lost it then to find it tossed out
That’s what I’m telling myself
Wasn’t I better than nothing?
—D.G.