Still Valid, the new album from MJ Hibbett & The Validators, is out today and well worth a listen if you're a fan of catchy punk songs with lyrics that make you chuckle so much that you almost miss how insightful they are.
Now, many of this album's tracks deal with the theme of getting a bit older and thinking about the past and stuff, and I worried that as a mere 24-year-old I might not be able to fully appreciate the middle-aged wit and wisdom on offer here. To counter this problem, I played the album for my mum and asked her to write down some of her thoughts, which you can find below after my own review of Still Valid. I'm hoping that, by offering a perspective from either side of the big four-oh, we can do this ace little album justice.
Reviewer #1: Joel Dear
Blogger, copywriter and musician, born in 1991
I'm nearly halfway through my twenties now, and the prospect of getting older still is a pretty terrifying one. I've been doing the same job for four years and I increasingly feel like I've missed my chance to be a rock star or a successful music journalist or, y'know, something actually fulfilling.
Welcome to the second half of 2016, motherfuckers! As June is now over, here are 10 of the tracks I've been rocking on the regular over the past month...
1. It Was Christmas When I Fell Apart - Little My
(from Beeps)
Contrary to what this song's title might suggest, Little My's Beeps is a lovely, summery listen with loads and loads of fun pop moments. Read my review here.
2016 is just about half-over, the last six months having rocketed past with the velocity of a drumstick that the guy on the stool wasn't gripping properly. Today, I thought I'd share ten of my favourite albums from the first half of the year, so that's exactly what I've done: find them all listed below (in alphabetical order, just in case these turn out to be the best albums of 2016 overall - I want to preserve a little bit of mystery for my end-of-year list!)
Roughly five years have passed since I heard Frightened Rabbit's The Midnight Organ Fight for the first time, and yet it was only a few weeks ago that I looked at that title again and said to myself, "Hey, that's a euphemism for fucking, isn't it?"
In fact, upon revisiting Organ Fight, I found a lot more references to sex than I remembered. Okay, Keep Yourself Warm was always pretty obviously about casual sexual encounters ("It takes more than fucking someone you don't know to keep warm"), but I never really noticed until now what Scott Hutchison was singing about on songs like The Twist and Fast Blood.
I've seen a lot of people talking about Puberty 2, the new album from Mitski, over the past couple of weeks. Apparently it's very good - I'd love to throw my hot take into the mix, but sadly I haven't got around to picking up my copy of Puberty 2 from Spillers yet.
Instead, I'd like to talk about Mitski's previous album, Bury Me at Makeout Creek.
This was one of the albums on that long list of recommendations I received from my survey respondents last month, and I really love it - it's dramatic, emotive, and it rocks. Here's my favourite track, First Love / Late Spring:
One of the many things I like about Bury Me at Makeout Creek is the fact that its name is a Simpsons quotation. More specifically, it's a Milhouse Van Houten quotation: Bart Simpson's blue-haired, bespectacled best friend delivers the line after being hit by a bus in the episode Faith Off.
Now, I considered writing a big, albumwally analysis of Bury Me at Makeout Creek and how Mitski Miyawaki is secretly singing from the point of view of Milhouse himself. Or possibly Milhouse's future girlfriend. Or maybe a twentysomething Milhouse who is now in a romantic relationship with Bart. As you can see, though, I couldn't quite make up my mind on what angle I wanted to approach this from.
Still, I remain convinced that Milhouse is in this album somewhere. so what I've decided to do is select a key lyric from each of Makeout Creek's ten tracks and accompany each one with a fitting picture of Milhouse from the awesome frinkiac.com. Please enjoy, and hopefully I'll have some proper thoughts to share with you once I've listened to Puberty 2 a few times.
Track 1: Texas Reznikoff
"But I've been anywhere, and it's not what I want, I wanna be still with you"
Track 2: Townie
"I'm holding my breath with a baseball bat, though I don't know what I'm waiting for"
Track 3: First Love / Late Spring
"One word from you and I would jump off of this ledge I'm on, baby - tell me "don't" so I can crawl back in"
Track 4: Francis Forever
"I look up at the gaps of sunlight, I miss you more than anything"
Track 5: I Don't Smoke
"If you need to be mean, be mean to me, I can take it and put it inside of me"
Track 6: Jobless Monday
"He only loves me when there's a means he means to end"
Track 7: Drunk Walk Home
"Fuck you and your money, I'm tired of your money"
Track 8: I Will
"I will take good care of you, I will take good care of you"
Track 9: Carry Me Out
"I drive when it rains, at night when it rains I drive, and the headlight spirits, they lead me down the Styx, so black it shines"
Track 10: Last Words of a Shooting Star
"I am relieved that the turbulence wasn't forecasted, I couldn't have changed anyway"
Bury Me at Makeout Creek is available to buy from Mitski's Bandcamp page. If you enjoyed this, you may also want to check out the Milhouse-inspired all-emo playlist that was recently featured on The Grey Estates.
