Music has the power to bring people together. It can strengthen bonds and form common ground between the most hardened of enemies. Still, when it’s your turn to DJ, all of your guests find an excuse to go outside or leave altogether. You probably think it’s because your taste is so excellent that it intimidates all the people around you, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re tired of seeing you live a lie, so we asked our staff what they’ve been listening to this week in the hopes of sprucing up your tired and pathetic playlists. You can thank us when you finally have a house party that lasts longer than 8:30 p.m. (Here is a playlist for you.)
Big Thief “Born For Loving You”
As they did with the recently released ‘Vampire Empire,’ Big Thief has been teasing audiences with ‘Born For Loving You’ for quite some time. To the relief of those who have yet to witness the band’s incredible live show, the song has been released in recorded form, adding yet another classic to their staggering body of work. Though this excellent Americana twinged single is merely part of a forthcoming 7″ release and seemingly nothing more, we wouldn’t be surprised if the prolific outfit announced, like, six more albums next year.
Deeper “Glare”
Chicago’s post-punk revivalists (please don’t tell them we called them that) Deeper just released their third LP ‘Changes!,’ their first for Sub Pop Records. Fans of the band will be pleased to hear a more pristine version of the beloved quartet. Despite the shinier production, Deeper still maintains their biting edge, armed with their signature angular guitars and catchy as hell backbeats. Album highlight ‘Glare’ nearly stopped production at Hard Times HQ, as the entire staff ceased writing to throw the world’s saddest dance party when the track hit our office speakers.
Meet Me @ The Altar “Strangers”
The pop-punk revival is still in full swing, and one of its most exciting progenitors, ‘Meet Me @ The Altar,’ is throwing out a few B-Sides from this year’s excellent LP ‘Past//Present//Future.’ The latest, ‘Strangers,’ is a fun-as-fuck ode to self-deprecating tendencies and imposter syndrome, bearing the markings of yet another pop-punk classic in the making. Put this one in heavy rotation if you feel like being magically whisked away to the early aughts, but please don’t forget how terrible you looked that summer when you dyed your hair green.
FIDLAR “Nudge”
Never ones to quit reinventing their sound, FIDLAR has decided to grace us with a slight return to form on their latest single ‘Nudge.’ It’s a chaotic two-minute surf punk barn-burner that dutifully answers the question ‘what would CAKE sound like if they played their instruments a little shittier and a fuck of a lot louder?’ It’s a refreshing break for those who were wondering if the band would ever release an original track again after a slew of questionable, albeit amazing, nu-metal cover tracks. While there is no news of a new LP, yet, the band announced a pretty sizable tour in Florida for some reason. So if you’re unfortunate enough to live there, be sure to check out their chaotic live show.
Dethklok “Aortic Desecration”
Because you’re an adult that goes to work and pays bills and all that, it’s likely you haven’t thought of ‘Metalocalypse’ or the fictional – but still realer than your bitch ass – band, Dethklok, in quite some time. God, when did you get so fucking lame? In case you missed it, the ‘band’ – which in reality is just Brendan Small absolutely murdering every instrument but the drums – released their fifth full-length album after an eleven-year dry spell. It also coincides with a new ‘Metalocalypse’ feature film and full soundtrack entitled ‘Army of the Doomstar’ as if you needed another excuse to waste your entire Sunday.
Slowdive “alife”
You might think we slept on this one, but we’ve merely been taking it in. When shoegaze pioneers released their eponymous comeback album in 2017, they had been out of the game for two decades. A staggering amount of time to be away, making for an even riskier comeback. Many thought we were lucky enough just to get one more masterpiece. That is, until they upped the ante with their latest, ‘everything is alive.’ The whole album is astounding, but the glimmering lead single ‘alife’ is still making us feel like it’s never too late to try again no matter how many people hated our old band.
When our writers, editors, interns, and general hangers-on aren’t scouring the internet for the latest and greatest tracks to help you look cooler than you actually are, they can be found relaxing with some tried and true classics. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights and see if we have to fire anyone this week.
Oxymoron “Down The Drain”
One of our writers has been in a German punk phase lately, much to the detriment of everyone’s productivity. Still, we have to admit that this one is pretty catchy. It’s also worth noting that justice systems suck in other countries too, as evidenced by the song’s lyrics here. You’d do well to add this to your playlist to get your friends hyped, but also to get them educated.
Maps and Atlases “Witch”
We know what you’re thinking: ‘Math Rock? What is this, 2008?’ Well, that is when the song came out, but also, shut the fuck up. This track somehow holds up better now than it did when it was released, or at least that’s what one of our senior writers keeps telling us. While we generally don’t align with their musical taste, this one checks a lot of boxes so get off your high horse and give it a try.
The Blood Brothers “USA Nails”
We recently ranked the entire studio discography of the Blood Brothers. Not a single person disagreed with the results and it was nice to revisit the catalog, but the damage done to the writer who penned it might be irreversible. Recently, he’s just been muttering the hook of this song to himself at all hours, and even worse, he’s re-entering his bandana and youth-large tee phase. We’re really hoping it’s just a phase, but he has been adamant about it not being one.
Title Fight “Symmetry”
There are a lot of memes circulating that erroneously suggest Title Fight is planning a reunion. It’s incredibly wishful thinking and you might be wondering where they’re coming from. We hate to blow her cover, but it turns out that our managing editor has been making every single one of them while sobbing in her office to the band’s landmark album, ‘The Last Thing You’ll Forget.’ Chances are this shocking discovery will also be the last thing we’ll forget.
Listen to the always expanding playlist:
He’s too old to be doing this. A white-haired pastry chef starting a DIY venue is a recipe for Chef Wendell to get his ass kicked whenever some tough guy band wants extra drink tickets. He’s best suited creating cereal magic in the kitchen. Leave this pure old man alone from that devil’s music.
Mr. Mini Wheats wants people to eat him and his friends. Not sure if they have a death wish or a vore fetish but either way this isn’t a guy you want hanging around teenage musicians, or anyone for that matter.
There’s little imagination needed to figure this one out. One loves to steal and the other is a cop. Neither one is trustworthy. It’s also not a good sign that the two people running the venue are always fighting.
This guy is clearly unstable and cannot be trusted with any responsibility. Booking shows at his place would be a nightmare, he openly admits to being mentally unstable to anyone who will listen. Any door money collected for bands will disappear the minute he’s got his mind on cereal.
This spineless loser gets walked over by kids all the time. His place is gonna be filled with kids looking for a place where they can drink beer without being carded and all the dudes who have been banned from other venues just hanging around playing with their knives. By the end of the venue’s run, it has slowly been turned into a meth lab and he’s just gonna go “Oh well, fun while it lasted.”
Will charge people $20 at the door if he thinks they’re dumb enough then will pocket the cash and drive off before any of the bands on the show realize they still haven’t been paid. He will also pee on the cars in the parking lot.
The venue would feature a half-baked wall mural of Bob Marley made out of Sharpie markers and they would constantly talk about how they want to “Open up a skate shop out back” when they really need to invest in a plumber because the toilet is overflowing again.
Snap, Crackle, and Pop started their venue entirely because no one else wanted to host their terrible band they describe as “Catch-22 meets Thursday meets Nick Cave.” They’ll insert themselves into most shows they host despite getting old faster than the soggy cereal they promote.
Nothing special about his place. Everyone who attends barely cares about the bands and talks over them. Much like the cereal being changed from Sugar Crisps to Golden Crisps, the venue’s name had to be changed due to association with certain illegal activities that occurred.
Lucky is all about magic or as he would say, “Magick.” The name of the venue will be an unpronounceable sigil he created. After the shows die down he will try to get the remaining people to participate in a sex ritual but most people still there at 5 a.m. don’t want to hook up with this guy who has Andy Rooney eyebrows drawing circles on the floor.
By the end of the day Buzz is just another drone serving his hive and Queen. He will forever be a bootlicker who is ready to give up his punk lifestyle whenever it becomes too time-consuming. Plus the floors in the place are way more sticky than any human can comprehend.
Every single flier, and I mean every single flier will have “Follow my nose” listed as the location. This will be great at confusing police from shutting the place down. His sketchiness is questionable due to his refusal to accurately spell the word fruit. Makes you wonder if that’s a legal thing he’s hiding.
This Sgt. Pepper looking guy loves to host psyche rock acts which is cool, but all the food options in the venue cut your mouth up so bad that most bands vocalists can’t even perform. Also, if you accidentally knock his hat off he will beat you within an inch of your life.
Carmella is known to throw crazy events. She is a DJ so she hosts a lot of raves, but the venue is in that sketchy part of town where all the streetlights are broken and even the trains seem to drive faster.
Frosted Flakes are barely healthy or extraordinary in flavor but that never stopped Tony from promoting them as this delicious meal for doing sports. That means it doesn’t matter if the band sucks, Tony will talk up how Grrrreat! they are. Definitely good if your band is playing. Still, he’s kind of a jock and all the toilets were replaced with a giant litter box.
STP’s second self-titled album is their second worst self-titled album, and their weakest altogether; we don’t make the rules. This LP starts our piece with sad news and is the first full-length record from the band without their late singer Scott Weiland, who also moonlit as the vocalist for Them Crooked Vultures. The X-Factor’s Jeff Gutt is an amazing “new” frontman, and this is NOT a joke. However, he had HUGE shoes to fill from both Weiland AND the late vocalist from Linkin Park, Chester Bennington, who sang for the band’s lone 2013 EP “High Rise”. Mr. Gutt can sing better than most, but he even knows that Weiland’s voice is paramount for STP. Gutt seems to take this in stride, and videos of him performing STP’s sonic catalog live do the songs almost as much justice as the original lineup’s finest hours.
Released just before the world shut down from the globally renowned/critically acclaimed cholera epidemic of 2020, Stone Temple Pilots’ eighth and newest studio album “Perdida” is definitely Jeff Gutt’s best one at the band’s helm, and that may sound like a freaking put on, but it truly isn’t a push off; he’s our prince and you’re our jesters. Released via the home of the best band of all time, The Rutles, Rhino Entertainment Company, “Perdida” is a solid ten-track LP from start to finish, and FAR from a loss… See what we did there? Hardcore STP fans and others just discovering the band need to check out the Japanese edition of this record as well, as it has three live acoustic renditions of three Weiland hits “Big Empty,” “Interstate Love Song,” and “Daughter.” In closing, Jeremy spoke in class today, and we fare(d) he well through the years.
Stone Temple Pilots’ first self-titled LP, which was their sixth album as a band, and last full-length to feature frontman Scott Weiland on lead vocals/megaphone, came out almost exactly nine years after their fifth album “Shangri-La Dee Da,” and proved to the world that there was still a surprising-to-some demand for the band, as the record debuted at number two on the Billboard 200… Not too shabby, stewards!! The band dared its fans to take a load off, care, and they did, as fast as they possibly could. Also, just after releasing a greatest hits album called “You’re Welcome,” STP told the world that they were done as a band in 2003, but got back together five years later, like all bands who break up except for the ones that don’t. Sadly, Weiland was fired in 2013, and even more tragically, he passed away in 2015.
We’re going to die on a hill right now: “Days Of The Week” is without question or hesitation one of Stone Temple Pilots’ best singles. We’re going to live on a mountain right now: “Shangri-La Dee Da” is without question or hesitation the band’s worst album name. It’s quite cliche to take influence from The Beatles, but some cliches are cliches because they are positive! This record is the band’s first of four to be released this century, and is by far their best from the aughts and beyond; the ‘90s were just better in every way for STP and everyone else on this planet. Also, both of the DeLeo brothers and drummer Eric Kretz absolutely shine like Collective Soul on this full-length!
“No. 4,” the band’s worst record of the ‘90s, is still much better than your best work ever… Even Sarah “Harvard Man” Michelle “Wife Of Former WWE Employee, Freddie Prinze Jr.” Gellar “Prinze” agrees, and Buffy is always right! If you had a chance to catch Stone Temple Pilots with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Fishbone for this album’s tour, and stayed the whole time, you definitely saw Angelo Moore and Anthony Kiedis. If not, you were likely watching Incubus open for 311 as “Drive” was about to infect your local grocery store, which is a trademark for Mom Rock. Anyway, despite the fact that “No. 4” contains a song called “Sex & Violence,” of which said derivative title appears on more albums than the word “the,” sour girls and sweet boys from all sides of the spectrum should and did appreciate this hard rocking and musically strident effort by STP.
Moving forward there are no “skip it” tracks in this piece but it must be stated and notarized: “Big Bang Baby” is without question the band’s best single on all of their albums, and possibly their best song/music video. If you disagree, and we know that you freaking morons will, we will send seven caged tigers to your domicile and/or your mother’s garage. That would be, wait for it, wait for it, a literal tumble in the rough! “Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop” might be one of the weirder album titles of the ‘90s, of which there were many, but its incredible songs counter said weirdness with, uh, weirdness in a good way! Critics, except us, are very stupid, and this album got a lot of unnecessary hate from “music” “journalists”. Whatever and ever amen, man. Press play, and get lost in this psychedelic fur.
Sorry this isn’t No.1, but it also isn’t literally No.4. Anyway, Stone Temple Pilots’ debut 1992 album “Core” completely and utterly rocked the world, and that is NOT an understatement, as said LP was certified EIGHT times platinum in America. Eight. Times. Platinum. That stat is unheard of these days in the age of the stream and short attention span. Still, haters like you will always have their say/way/spray, and STP managed to be labeled in an inferior publication as both the Best and Worst New Band. Make up your minds, weirdos! Although track three, “Wicked Garden,” is slightly better and that’s a non-opinion based fact, according to Wikipedia, the gospel of truth and Ruth, track nine, “Plush,” was the fourth most-played song of the ‘90s decade on mainstream rock radio. Try doing THAT, Candlebox!
These colors don’t run, and “Purple” wins this competition by a short margin… Mazel tov to Grimace/your great aunt’s mu’umu’u! “P” for “Purple” is “P” for “Perfect,” which makes sense given the fact that it came out in 1994, the best year outside of the 1960s for popular culture in the form of music, film, art, and television. “Purple” is a diverse/powerful listen, and proves that a sophomore doesn’t have to slump. Fun fact: Weezer’s “Blue Album” is not named such, but it is also based on a color, and it too came out in 1994. Fun addendum to said fact: The word “Purple” is not to be found on its album’s cover, but if you bought a new copy of the CD in the ‘90s, it was on a sticker. Yeah, we’re a stickler for accuracy.
So how do you choose where to have your destination wedding? Make sure it’s somewhere obscure enough that absolutely no one can get a direct flight. Choose somewhere scenic but not actually fun- you don’t want people getting a real vacation out of this. It’s YOUR wedding, and everyone’s experience should revolve around you. Make sure the destination is not a place any guest might actually want to go if given free will (which they don’t have here). And as a bonu, choose a place you have no personal connection to so everyone gets more confused as to why you chose it.
Picking a bad location is the first step, but raise the stakes by making every part of the trip a nightmare. Ensure that the nearest airport is so small that no one can get a direct flight, even if they can afford it. Then, choose a wedding venue nowhere near that airport so guests have to figure out public transportation, pay for an expensive cab, or rent a car where they have to drive on the scary side of the road.
Invite your most broke, underemployed friends. Twist the knife into their struggle. And if you start to suspect that they may pull the “I can’t afford it!” card, ask them to be in the wedding party. Then, they simply cannot refuse.
Conventional wisdom says that if you make guests travel far and wide, they don’t owe you a gift. But you’re not conventional. After the wedding, be sure to text everyone who didn’t give you a little extra and ask “Hey, I can’t seem to find a card from you. Did I lose it?” Then send them the link to your registry. They will lose sleep that night (and probably for the next few).
Fuck no. One, he’s vegan. Two, he’s way into drumming. Both would have you foraging for calorie deficits. Sure, he’s in good shape, and he’d probably outlast everyone in the woods somehow, but do you really want to spend your last two campfires debating the merits of Buddy Rich versus Dave Weckl versus . . . no.
Henley would try to write a breakup album about losing all his loved ones. He’d be constantly slowing you down, having totally forgotten about the one time he braved a dark desert highway with a cool wind in his hair. You’d want him to check out and leave.
Grohl would be on a rival gang, you just know it. Everything he says seems a little too sincere. Watch out for those teeth and those quarter-note flams. The guy can fight. He can foo-fight.
Rosie O. on the skins? Hell yeah. Battle-ready after a cush retirement in Malibu? Hell no.
The drummer for an early iteration of Steely Dan, Chase also survived the desert on horseback in “The Three Amigos. “But we know from that film he’d be stingy with the canteen.
Dolenz would be one of the few drummers who’d want to step up and lead the group. But everybody else would want Davy Jones.
Rick was so cool when you were eleven and he was thirteen playing drums in your parents’ basement. But he’d cry like a baby when the campfire went out and it was time to get a little shut-eye–as he did at your brother’s party in 1993.
Chad’s a lot bigger than Rick and a way better drummer. But he’d want everyone in the group to wear only one sock. And he’d eat your bean rations, which were supposed to last a year, in the first two days.
R.E.M.’s drummer would get tired of hiking around the country and bow out early. It’s okay to admit defeat when the world around you is burning.
There really isn’t much Justin would offer you, he wouldn’t be a good protector, he’s no good at growing food, but if there was a group of cannibals descending on you chances are he would be their first choice.
Lee would want to record the time you shot an old man by accident because you thought he was wielding an ax and not, as it was, a soaking-wet cardboard box. Put the camera away, Tommy.
Smith knows how to “journey,” and he wouldn’t stop believin’ even if you ran out of food. But he recently made a shift to jazz fusion. So no.
Ooh, what a tasty percussionist! Full of subtle knick-knacks like delicious high-hat rolls, Seuss-like temple blocks, and mystifying splash cymbals. He’d be the perfect accompaniment for your recon mission across uneven terrain. But when someone’s hacking at you with a makeshift ax, and he’s crescendoing a glorious, epic cymbal roll, it would be like, “No thanks.”
He’s A.I., right? He and his friends would be against you.
Lars would have you up early, jogging, meditating, and making plans to outfox the competition. Yes, you’d survive with flying colors, but who’d want that insufferable pseudo-philosophical voice in your ear as you do it? And is that a fucking wine aerator, Lars?
Stamos would be good in a cramped space with a lot of people. Just have everybody hide their guitars when you’re out cooking squirrels. This isn’t that kind of campfire, Uncle Jesse.
He’d do okay pillaging New England and the coastal states. Just don’t let him near Texas.
Fred would be a lot of fun for the first few weeks. He’d have you in stitches doing impressions of the gang you just ran into (killed). But then you’d get down to the last Coke, and he’d sort of want it all for himself, wouldn’t he? And he wouldn’t say it. But you’d feel bad asking to split it.
You’d be like, “Put that down! Pay attention! This is life or death!” But then you’d come to after a surprise attack and realize he’d saved your life, and you’d have to say thanks. Eh. No thanks.
The Cure’s drummer would thrill you and all the woodland creatures of western North Carolina (or is this eastern Tennessee?) with endless wind chimes. But all those chimes and stands are a lot to carry, and word is he doesn’t even like to talk about Robert Smith.
Con: The Kiss drummer would demand he reapply kitty-cat makeup for each battle.