the monday roundup

featuring springy-songs, selena gomez as charli xcx, and a haunting music video

Hi, happy Monday! It’s feeling very spring-y in my neck of the woods, hope you’re enjoying some sun and warmer weather! I listened to

Adam Offitzer

’s “spring ‘25 starter pack” playlist a lot over the weekend- highly recommend as a seasonal soundtrack!

I’ve been making my way through new/new-ish releases, and have Some Thoughts on two albums in particular!

I did my research and finally listened to I Said I Love You First, the new Selena Gomez x Benny Blanco album. It is so… fine? Not bad, but if I wanted to listen to Lana del Rey or Charli XCX or The Marias, I’d just listen to them…! I really am a Selena fan, but she has always been more of a vessel for a good pop song than a distinct Artist, so it’s not surprising that that’s the case. I mean, I like “Bluest Flame” a lot, but that’s because it is a Charli song. Like, it doesn’t just sound like Charli, Charli is in the song credits. I’m desperate to know if Selena and Benny just obtained a cast-off demo from Charli or if this was actually a brand new track with the Charli co-write (I’m assuming it’s the former). If you have any insight, please let me know.

I listened to the new Lucy Dacus album, Forever Is A Feeling, a lot while traveling the other week. I like it - it is kind of ideal snoozing-on-a-plane music - but I’ve gone back and forth on exactly how much I like it. I don’t think it reaches the musical heights of her last few albums, but there are some sweet, wonderful (like, really wonderful) lyrics on here. This is a vulnerable album because we know who the love songs are about - the album rollout included the official hard launch of her relationship with Julien Baker.¹ If nothing else, this album has just made me feel wayyy parasocially invested in their relationship. I’m not sure I’ll really revisit Forever Is A Feeling in full (outside of while snoozing on a plane), but there are some gems on here (“Ankles,” “Talk,” “Most Wanted Man,” “Lost Time”).

Today’s mix includes my favorites from these albums plus tracks off new albums by Momma, Panda Bear, and Ariana Grande (the songs on the deluxe version of eternal sunshine are so good…) and new songs from Wet Leg, Kesha, Rachel Chinouriri, S. G. Goodman, and more!

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I’ll leave you with this because it is haunting me- I visited with some friends the other weekend, and we spent one night deep in a YouTube rabbit hole that originated with the music video for Chet Hanks’s new country song. I don’t like the song, but I cannot stop thinking about the music video. I’m sorry for this!!!

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1. Real ones considered their Pete Davidson/Ariana Grande couples costume the hard launch.