From Blown Speakers

Sunday, April 19, 2026
i know that the bar closes at 11/i hope you never finish that beer

Song of the Week

Olivia Rodrigo - drop dead

Still disappointed that Olivia's new album title is 9-words too long and all of them aren't 4-letters, but the lead off single's a pretty great one.

"Drop..." sorry, "drop dead" is a nice little fake out too. This isn't a spiritual successor to "get him back." In fact, it's the opposite. And it comes out swinging with a dreamy little keyboard line that was buried in my brain after the first listen, then wallops you over the head with a big chorus that's going to do numbers in karaoke bars around the world all spring and summer.

As with the best Rodrigo songs, it's fun as hell. There's the "Just Like Heaven" reference in the first verse that would be pretty cute in a vacuum, but becomes pretty clever when you remember that she performed it with Robert Smith at Glasto and he was in the studio with her when she was making the album. And speaking of "get him back" there's that quasi-rap thing that worked so well there in the second verse. There's the chant-along bridge that's got people trying to sleuth out who the gemini is. And there's all the nice little touches like the handclap punctuating "goddamn!"

I was kinda worried when I read that she was straying away from the rock thing she did so well on GUTS, but if this is what we're going to get on you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, I'm here for it.

Classic of the week

Sonic Youth - The Diamond Sea

I went to a record store on Record Store Day before 1pm for the first time in many years to get Diamond Seas, a 12" single that features live recordings of my favourite Sonic Youth song ripped apart and plunderphonically stitched back together by (brief Vancouverite) John Oswald.

Side A was spliced together from versions recorded in 1995 and side B features recordings from 1996. Both sides clock in 20:44 and apparently you can play them simultaneously a la Zaireeka if you have two copies and two turntables too. They're weird, wonderful and such a fitting postscript to one of my all time favourite pieces of music.

Shout out to Red Cat for providing the goods.