Weeks 12 & 13: Good Grief by Lucius & This Thing, Reality by Beau

I want to start out by saying that I've been a pretty big failure at this for the past few weeks. Those couple of 60 & 70 degree days really caught me off guard, and I haphazardly threw my posts together. Vitamin D will do that to a girl.

"Luckily", the sun is gone again, it's cold as the dickens (as my great-grandmother used to say) and I'm ready to buckle down.

Truthfully, I owe a lot to Pitchfork for reigniting my fire.  Pitchfork is definitely one of the most frustrating facets of the music industry, but their review of Lucius' new album was some of the biggest BULLSHIT I've read from them in awhile.

I was really curious about what Good Grief would bring to the table, since their freshman album Wildewoman was such an exciting find for me when it came out. I listen to their song Turn It Around to pump me up almost every day. It's like Jessica's daily affirmation ritual, but not cute. Even with that track being so unbelievably amazing and integral to my every day life, I really believe that Good Grief blows Wildewoman out of the water: not in the way that Wildewoman was "okay" and Good Grief is "better," but more like a continuance of the water metaphor: Wildewoman was a beautiful, splash-less dive from a Junior Olympian who has great promise, and Good Grief was the crazy friend who showed up to the actual Olympics and did the most unbelievable & obnoxious cannonball you've ever seen and all the people in the stands storm the judges table and steal all the number 10 posters and jump into the pool with them.

But not the fucking Pitchfork judge. In this metaphor, Pitchfork isn't the group of international spectators. In this metaphor, Pitchfork is the pissy Olympic judge from Russia who gave Good Grief a 6.3 out of 10 just because emoting makes them uncomfortable.

"As put-together as Good Grief’s presentation is, and as ingratiating as its songs are, the record suffers from a distinct lack of identity..... making Good Grief sound like everything at once but nothing in particular. "

Whatever, Pitchfork. We don't all have concrete identities, and we don't need them either. Have you ever read Humans of New York? Do you think it would be so widely popular if all the people that were interviewed were like "Sup, I'm Kevin and I have it all figured out. Interview over."

Good Grief is full of energy and harmonious belting, and if that's not cohesive enough for you, then you can fuck right off.

With that note, I'm going to be listening to Beau next week (and still probably Lucius).
Beau released a lil baby, self-titled EP last year and I liked 4 out of the 5 songs on it (Soar Across the Sea was not my cup of tea). I'm excited to dive into this new album, although I'm a little disappointed that they kept my least favorite song and cut my favorite.