- Songs My Ex Ruined Cool Recs Newsletter
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Look at that, week two and I’m still doing this. I feel like an Olympic athlete if writing newsletters with links and recommendations was in any way an elite sport. But I hope it brings you some enjoyment, enlightenment, any of the e words really.
Good Reads
The think pieces about this song have nothing on Billy Bragg’s response track/rewrite of it. Join a union. Bragg gives a great breakdown of the folk music background that Anthony’s singing comes from and why some of the digs in that song are missing the point. As only he could.
It’s Actually Common to Indict Leaders of Democracies (Foreign Policy)
Trying to wrap my head around what all these Trump indictments mean, this piece cuts through the day-to-day of it and gets at what this phenomenon is like outside of the U.S. and what existing international legal statutes exist.
Writing for Friends Was No Dream Job (Time)
An Asian writer who describes herself as the beneficiary of NBC’s diversity program in the ‘2000s talks about joining the writing room of TV’s biggest show and how it was a total nightmare. Weird how we feel like we can’t say no to some jobs, even if we know it won’t be a fit.
How Dating Apps Became a Paradise for Predators (Mother Jones)
The long and short of it is that the same law that protects social media companies in the U.S. from being held liable for things people or publishers post is what dating apps are using to get out of being responsible for hosting romance scams, sexual offenders, and violent people on the apps.
Heat Is Not a Metaphor (Harper’s Bazaar)
Just a beautiful piece of writing on climate anxiety and Hawaii — trust me.
What’s the future for AI creating music? What about music based on AI’s interpretation of some of the most popular singers? The estate of Frank Sinatra is the jumping-off point for this article that gets into how Google is angling to work with Universal Music (the largest label group and publisher) to develop an AI framework. Unclear if that’s a good idea but all signs point to nope.
Good Stuff
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
Is it weird that I just got around to reading this book this summer? So many of the themes translate to how the gulf of emotional space between the sexes feels right now. We’re in a time of tumult and change on that front and there’s something soothing about knowing it’s happened before and we’ll eventually get through it.
Podcast rec! If hearing the stories of how major needle drops got put into movies (and sometimes TV shows — the episode on The Bear was a real banger), this excellent show hosted by Rachel Brodsky and Aviv Rubinstien is an excellent one to subscribe to.
Ladies and gentlemen, the song of my summer, part 2
My Stuff
This week we had Jenny Owens Young on Songs My Ex Ruined and she was such a great guest. I’m going to guess that’s in part because she has her own long-running rewatch podcast about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and in part because she’s a highly sensitive musician and music fan. It’s certainly one of our best episodes so far.
Speaking of, if you’re even a casual listener to SMXR, we’d like your feedback in a little survey. It’s completely anonymous, you don’t have to give us any of your information, and it will help Melissa and me as we reshape the show and figure it out going forward. Also leaving us a review or recommending us to a friend would be great but like, there are only so many hours in a day.
And I was on KQED, the NPR station in San Francisco this week to talk about heartbreak songs. Here’s a link to listen to it on Apple podcasts, if you’re so inclined, but I’m sure you can find it elsewhere. The hour was prompted by a NYT article by musician and writer Brontez Purnell, who was also a guest. It’s a gorgeous read.
Love Is No Big Truth (Spotify) — I referenced this playlist of breakup songs on KQED and if you want a link to some left-of-center tracks that get me through it, this is that.
Another cool photo essay over on Eater Dallas this week, as I hand model yet again — this time while eating Italian food.