Danpilled is back! I recently made a guest appearance on Jesse Hawken’s Junk Filter podcast to talk about Steely Dan collaborator Michael McDonald. Jesse and I discussed McDonald’s distinctive voice, his prolific guest appearances on a wide range of records from the 70s and 80s, his work with Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, and his fantastic new memoir What A Fool Believes. There’s some fun stories in this one, like he and Walter Becker’s ill-fated plan to become cocaine dealers at the height of their fame in the late 70s, and his surreal experience seeing the famous SCTV sketch about him for the first time.

This was a premium Patreon episode, but it’s here for you free of charge. That said, I highly recommend subscribing to Junk Filter!

Washed Up On The Shores Of Silver Lake

Maren Morris “Push Me Over”

I didn’t realize this until I looked at the credits, but this is basically a Muna song with Maren Morris on vocals. They wrote it, they’re the musicians on the track, but the lyrics are specific to Morris’ recent experience of getting divorced and coming out as bisexual. Were it not for the last bit, I’d question why they’d give away a pop song as strong as this. Morris sounds flirty, charming, and confident on the track, but in the context of the lyrics it’s kind of a fake-it-til-you-make it thing. She’s singing about trying to figure out how to seduce a woman she’s into, but is unsure of how to make it happen – she’s out of her comfort zone, she feels like she has no map for this. But this isn’t a song about frustration, it’s about the excitement of doing something new. The lyrics get overtly sexual; the choruses feel a little triumphant. It’s a bright and positive song verging on a wholesome energy – Muna always seem to err on the side of late 90s/early 00s VH1 vibes – but not so much that it makes the sexy parts feel corny.

Buy it from Amazon.

Jhené Aiko “Guidance”

This is a real “happy ending” sort of break-up song, one in which the singer is relieved to get out of a bad relationship but seems to have minimal lingering anger about it. Which is not to say there’s no trace of negative feeling – she gives you some concrete examples of why this person was wrong for her and one verse ends on the evocative line “you were the match that lit up my path to show me what bridge to burn.” But the emotional focus is on feeling grateful and literally blessed by God, and you can sense Jhené Aiko nudging herself away from her darker feelings as she deliberately pushes herself towards the light.

Buy it from Amazon.

Try Not To Romanticize

Fousheé “Still Around”

Here’s a song with an usual set of tensions – busy percussion, an even busier bass line taking up most of the space, minimal keyboard accents, and a relatively mellow acoustic guitar groove by Steve Lacy that’s so Steve Lacy it made me go “is this Steve Lacy?” the first time I heard it. The mood is fairly placid and meditative, but that aggressive and chunky bass line puts the whole track on edge. It’s almost like transplanting a post-punk bass part into a fairly chill Marvin Gaye song. Fousheé’s vocals stay on the more relaxed side of the composition, emotive in her R&B inflections but still a little reserved. The lyrics suggest a situation where she’s reaching out to someone she loves but is unclear where they stand with her, and whether or not they want to stay in her life. She sounds optimistic and open-hearted, but once you key into the words it’s hard not to hear that bass rumble as her barely concealed angst.

Buy it from Amazon.

LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS

• Ryan Antiart, once a devoted and obsessive Kanye West fan, is now begging the guy to retire. I saw one guy on Twitter describe the new West record Vultures 2 as sounding like a posthumous release while he’s still alive, and I think that’s a very accurate review.

• Laura Holliday wrote about why some corners of the internet have become fixated on “lostwave” for Dazed.

• Here’s a recent extended interview with Michael McDonald, conducted by Rick Beato.

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This special edition episode of Fluxpod is an interview with Carl Newman, the primary songwriter, singer, and guitarist of The New Pornographers. This conversation is focused on his songwriting process and working with Neko Case and the rest of his bandmates to flesh out his compositions. The band's new record Continue As A Guest is out now, and the band will be touring throughout the year. 

The songs featured in this episode are, in order, "Continue As A Guest," "Firework in the Fallen Snow," "The Bleeding Heart Show," "Really Really Light," "Pontius Pilate's Home Movies," "Cat and Mouse with the Light," and "Angelcover." 

This is a nice long interview with Will Sheff, a musician best known as the songwriter and frontman of Okkervil River. We talk about his new album Nothing Special, which is his first record under his own name, and why he decided to step away from the Okkervil River name. We get into some fairly deep stuff about music and creativity in this conversation; I think you'll enjoy it whether you know Will's music or not. All of the songs in this episode are from Nothing Special except for the first song, which is "Mary On A Wave" by Okkervil River.

Here’s the music video for “Estrangement zone,” one of my favorites from the record.

This episode features Billboard journalist Eric Renner Brown, who has spent the past few years covering the concert industry for Pollstar. We talk about his experience of covering the industry through the chaos of the first phase of the pandemic, and what's been happening with small venues, huge venues, and festivals since things have mostly resumed in the current phase of the pandemic.

If you subscribe to the Fluxblog Patreon you can hear a tangent we went on about the current jam band scene with a focus on Goose, Billy Strings, and Dead and Co. this coming weekend.

This episode features Louis, the host of the Pop Pantheon podcast. We talk about the show and his history as a DJ and along the way go off on tangents about several pop stars including Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Rihanna. If you love pop this episode is for you!

LEO SEASON ♌️🦁🌞🔥 is a playlist of songs expressing different facets of ~LEO MINDSET~, featuring several notable Leo musicians. This one is kind of a fun experiment, but let it be known that if this one flops my personal Leo pride will be wounded and I simply will not do this for the other signs! [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

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This episode is a marathon of all four episodes of FLOPUARY, a miniseries meditation on the concept of flopping by myself and Molly O'Brien of And Introducing. The miniseries was previously behind the paywall on the Fluxblog Patreon and originally came out in February of this year. We cover a lot of interesting ideas in this one, I'm really proud of it and excited for more people to hear it. In addition to getting deep into philosophical matters we go deep in discussing some specific artists including Madonna, Katy Perry, Elton John, U2, George Michael, and Taylor Swift.

Everyone's favorite sporadically produced and confusingly released Steely Dan podcast is back! This time Jesse Hawken and I are joined by the writer Carrie Courogen to talk about recent Dan shows, the whole Aimee Mann thing, a recently unearthed Dan cover of Joni Mitchell, and a bunch of classic songs including "Deacon Blues," "Glamour Profession," "Rikki Don't Lose That Number," "My Old School," and "Green Earrings." We also discussed "Barrytown," but that clip will only be available to Fluxblog Patreon subscribers.

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This episode of Fluxpod features Brian Hiatt, the host of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast and one of the most prolific features writers in the history of that magazine. In this conversation we talked about his long career at Rolling Stone, how he approaches talking to some of the most famous people in the world, and changes in what people want from artist and celebrity profiles through the years. 

My series of summer throwback playlists is wrapping up for the time being with THIS WAS SUMMER 2004, sending you back to a time when people were getting tipsy, dipping it low, leaning back, and floating on. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

This week’s episode features Briana Cheng, an A&R for 4AD and owner of the artist management company B4. We talk about what she does, how she works with new artists, and how high personal stakes put her in the position to take working in the music industry very seriously from a young age.

There’s some clips of songs by artists Briana works with through this episode, here are the titles in the order they are played:

Tkay Maidza “Cashmere” Hawa “My Love” 27delly “No Complaints” Velvet Negroni “Wine Green”

Continuing on with my run of playlists flashing back to summers of yore, I give you THIS WAS SUMMER 1978. This one is a snapshot of the peak disco era, and while the main vibe here across genres is extreme 70s laid back hedonism you can sense the mood shift in the angsty punk that’s bubbling up and odd outliers like Kraftwerk’s Hot 100 charting “Trans Europe Express,” which in this context sounds as though it’s coming from another universe. [Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube]

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This week’s episode of Fluxpod features Karina Longworth, creator and host of the long-running film history podcast You Must Remember This. In this conversation we talk about her current ongoing series Erotic 80s/90s, the formative influence of Madonna, MTV's The Real World, art school, the fallout of the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial, and her approach to curating history. 

Continuing on with my run of playlists flashing back to summers of yore, I give you THIS WAS SUMMER 1984. This is a pivotal moment in pop history where the character of the decade really sets in as MTV becomes the dominant tastemakers and Madonna, Prince, and Bruce Springsteen ascend to mega-star status. [Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube]

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