I need to preface this by saying that I will still be part of the WIDR team indefinitely, but my time as a student and employee at the station have both ended. I am not sure how I feel about this, especially since I enjoyed nearly all elements of working in such a unique environment. Was it challenging to get the Nextkast System working in a virtual setting? Of course, you ding dong. But now when I think back to my time as a student, engrained in this brain is the wonderful adventures in DJing. I loved onboarding people virtually because we were able to accomplish so many different shows. Where would WIDR be without our new hosts? It’s hard to know. I’m just grateful to have had the opportunity to spearhead some 24-hour shenanigan shows and inspire others to get jiggy with it. I don’t know when the team will be back in person, but I certainly hope all of you young cats get to experience the euphoria of broadcasting your voice live to strangers. You might not be hearing me babble on and being THAT guy in the Discord server bugging everyone all the time. I haven’t moved on, it’s more like a see you later. I’m not breaking up with you, just like kinda moving on I suppose? We love confusing monologues. This is why you can tune into my show Drum the Base on Thursday nights to hear breakbeats all day. I also plan to help out with some other shows this summer. There may be mad chaos. Expect it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I owe a lot of my wins in college to WIDR and the fantastic community. It is rare to find a station that will blast K-Pop and then immediately follow that up with some “ScReAmO gUy RuInS iT” type beat. If you are somehow reading this and aren’t involved, I HIGHLY encourage you to do so. You wanna talk about childhood nostalgia? Here is your place for it. It will also help YOU too. Long live Nextkast, screw Rivendell and hopefully you won’t hear Boards of Canada anytime soon :) Signed, A slightly sad former WIDR Director, Kyle Petronio P.S. I’m not dead, so you can chat with me on Discord whenever!

At 12am on April 30th, Teenage Fanclub released Endless Arcade, a LONG-awaited album preceded by no less than five singles and no small deal of hype. It had been postponed about four times this year and I stayed up for it. My brother was listening to the new Royal Blood album when I told him, and together we listened to these albums we’d been waiting ages for to drop. When all was said and done, Royal Blood had “absolutely murdered it.” Considering Teenage Fanclub is one of my favorite groups of all time, I wish I could have said the same. Now, this review is going to require some tact. There are no bad Teenage Fanclub albums. In fact, such a notion is a concept harder for me to grasp than “Mothman”. Since 1989 this group--made up of Norman Blake, Raymond McGinley and Gerard Love--have been exporting work that, no matter what genre you’d classify it as, was beautiful and varying degrees of perfect. Even Howdy!, their weakest album bar-none, boasts the essential “I Need Direction,” and “Dumb Dumb Dumb,” and warrants a listen at least once a year… but Endless Arcade is a definite step down. Folks, what we’re dealing with is Teenage Fanclub’s worst. As bands grow older, it’s easy for them to stagnate, but that’s never what these guys did. They went full “Big Star” in the early ‘90s before honing that beauty that was uniquely them through the late ‘90s and early-2000s, and from 2005-onward have lapsed into calmer, more relaxing pop that isn’t uncommon for bands of a certain age, but Teenage Fanclub always had that ear and panache that kept things interesting. Then, in 2018, Gerard Love leaves, and that’s when the whispers begin. The three main players had remained the same since 1989, and one of their departures signified something big. Now, until two years ago, I had no idea there was more than one singer in the band, and I listen to them all the time. On God. I wouldn’t cap about this. All of the guys, regardless of who wrote what, adopted the same downplayed singing voice and style, which created this cohesion that you didn’t even see with The Beatles. Looking deeper into my favorites though, I found Love’s stuff to be my consistent favorites. “Sparky’s Dream,” “Speed of Light,” and “Fallen Leaves” are all A+ songs, never mind genre… and his falsetto whisper was far more distinct that Blake and McGinley’s impression of each other ever was. He offered this goosebump-inducing departure from their songs, as good as those songs were. The singles for Endless Arcade gave me hope though, Blake’s “Home” and “I’m More Inclined” were some of the best songs the group has dealt since 2005’s Man Made, and hearing of the fresh blood brought on in Euros Childs (lead singer for other poetic Scottish group, Gorky’s Zyngotic Mynci) seemed like a good ploy to keep this collective of songsmiths alive. And credit where credit is due: “Home” opens the album and does so perfectly. The album version in fact is nearly twice as long as the single was, clocking in at seven minutes and six seconds, but I was so at home in the music that I didn’t even notice--and “I’m More Inclined,” plopped right behind final single “In Our Dreams,” fits into the big picture like a glove. One of the big surprises to me was a 2019 song by McGinley’s appearance, and just how much more enjoyable it is in the context of the album. “Everything’s Falling Apart” is a slower song with a wonderful chorus, and while I’d known it for so long it was one of the few songs on the album that gave me goosebumps. And that’s the big issue to me really. Teenage Fanclub consistently--and this is no exaggeration, don’t misconstrue me--give me goosebumps. Like my hair is raised several times listening to any one of their albums. Endless Arcade brought next to none of that power. Most of the songs here are above-average filler. The title track is one of the weaker ones here, in fact. “Don’t be afraid of the endless arcade that is life,” the chorus sings. That should tell you everything you need to know. Their lyrics are often simple, but never did I peg Teenage Fanclub to make the easy ploy of making their album title a metaphor for love or life. It’s too easy. It’s the coward’s way out, and I know they’re better than that. And most of these songs are just forgettable, apart from the singles--and even a few of those aren’t great! The one exception is a wonderfully bitter little Blake tune toward the tail-end called “Living With You.” It’s one of the highlights. It’s more downbeat than most of the band’s output, but Teenage Fanclub so rarely do these kiss-off tunes that any and all are welcome. Frankly it rules. It isn’t a fitting closer, but it’s far better than “Silent Song” is, which to my ears was forgettable and kind of bland. Perhaps it could have undergone a little reshuffling. It’s not really my place to say. And on the off-chance that Teenage Fanclub are reading this, I’d just like to say that I love your stuff. I’m not mad… hell, I’m not even disappointed. While I may not have enjoyed the album as much as your other stuff, you guys have put out far more quality songs since Love’s departure than I ever thought would have been possible. I love your stuff, but such a shake in the lineup I can only imagine threw everyone off. I sincerely hope you keep at it, and hope that this is a lull between two great heights in your career. This thing is weaker than Howdy!. Sure. But I’d rather listen to a weak Teenage Fanclub album than a strong album from ninety-nine percent of your contemporaries, and 100 percent of your fellow bands who’ve been at it since the eighties. I sincerely hope that your arcade keeps trucking.

Worry Club aka our very own Chase Walsh updates this playlist live on Instagram every week! Give this awesome collaborative playlist a listen and join him on Wednesdays at 8 PM to help update it!

Happy Britpop Week everyone! Just a warning: I am very unqualified to write what I’m about to write but I’m going to give it a go because I’ve been learning about Britpop by tuning in this week along with all of you and WOW DO I LOVE IT! We’ve gotten to learn a lot that was going on with the Britpop music and culture but the one thing we miss out on with radio is seeing what was happening visually, the aesthetic if you will! For context of what I’m about to share, I highly recommend reading Hank’s Britpop blog first which will give you an idea of what was happening historically in the Britpop era. As I’ve been listening to the iconic Britpop albums, I’ve checked out a few of the iconic music videos and as a result been able to see the iconic styles of these bands. There’s so much to unpack here but for the sake of this blog not lasting forever, I’m going to talk about a music video from each of the big four Britpop bands: Suede, Oasis, Blur, and Pulp as well as a video from Elastica, the only big Britpop group that is female led. Let’s start with Oasis and their video for “Wonderwall”. First of all, the video is completely in black and white except for the brightly colored guitars and sad clown hat that stand out in the most beautiful way possible. “Wonderwall” is of course a more melancholy song which the black and white color scheme suits very well. This isn’t the first time that Oasis did a stripped down, black and white music video like this, but “Wonderwall” was the perfected version of it. There’s so much to see in this video: Oasis jamming and just goofing around, records spinning, sad clowns, and more. This very stripped down style of video was very fitting for Oasis given the band members’ backgrounds in the lower middle class. Some of the big Britpop bands were more posh but Oasis certainly was not. Their background is also reflected in the styles of clothing they wore, especially in this video. We see denim on denim, crewnecks, oversized button ups, and Liam Gallagher’s John Lennon-esque sunglasses. Next we need to look at the band that was pretty much at war with Oasis, Blur and their video for “Parklife”. This video couldn’t be more different than the video for “Wonderwall”. First off, the video is in color, and very bright color at that. This video is full of chaotic energy with speedy car scenes, Damon Albarn’s dancing and bouncing (with ice cream in some cases), spinning rainbow umbrellas, and more. This matches the energy of the song which is also quite chaotic and punchy. Blur is known for their upper middle class background which has been an object of ridicule. This background is naturally reflected in their fashion which we can see in the video for “Parklife”. We see blue jeans, collared sporty jackets, and crewnecks once again. In Blur’s case, their style is preppier and more polo inspired. Next we’re going to tackle Suede and their video for “Animal Nitrate”. This video is much more sensual and sleazy than what we’ve seen from the other Britpop groups so far. For most of this video, we see Brett Anderson sensually dancing, Suede making music, and people dressed as animals - often with minimal clothing. This certainly fits with the song that is more sexual in nature than “Parklife” or “Wonderwall”. So what was Suede wearing? The Cool Britannia movement is generally known for making dressing casually, cool but Suede didn’t really fit into that. Brett Anderson dressed very androgynously with opened button up shirts, cropped shirts, and jewelry being staples. His style was generally a bit more glamorous and adrogenyous than what others were wearing in the movement. “Common People” by Pulp is our next video up. I would argue that this is the most fun video out of the bunch with coordinated dancing on the illuminated, colorful dance floor, rides in a shopping cart through the supermarket, and people moving repetitively like robots throughout. The colors are very bright and the energy is very high in the video. This contrasts however to what Pulp was wearing in the video. We see them wearing more neutral tones in the form of button ups over t-shirts, crewneck sweatshirts, and suit jackets. The style is a bit more formal than Blur or Oasis but still generally pretty casual. Our last video to check out is “Connection” by Elastica. This video is all about contrast with brightly colored sets but an effortlessly cool energy from the Elastica members. We see Elastica dispersed throughout different rooms in a house as well as in the screen of the many TVs in the video. We get quite a lot of eye contact from Elastica, especially Justine Frischmann who stares into viewers’ souls without blinking. Elastica’s attire in this video contributes to the contrast to the brightly colored sets. We see the band wearing nearly all black, opened button up shirts, Doc Martens, and more traditionally grunge inspired clothing. There was quite a lot of contrast between the style of videos and clothing between the Britpop bands but as you can see there was also quite a bit of common ground in the aesthetics between them. Like I said I just really love Britpop now after listening to Britpop Week here at WIDR so catch me trying to emulate all of these bands' styles for the near future! There are so many more iconic Britpop music videos worth watching - check out some of them in a playlist here! If you want to get a better idea of what the Cool Britannia clothing style that accompanied the Britpop movement looked like, check out this Pinterest board here.

Hey, everybody! Thanks for making Britpop Week great! We’re getting to the end here, and before it wraps I’d just like to, yeah, thank everybody who’s tuned in and gotten excited about it. If your eyes are open, there’s a lot more than I could hope to cover in four hours. From the fashion, the culture, the characters of these big characters… I wasn’t even able to play all of the songs that made waves! If you’ve got Britpop Fever, as I do all the time, here are a few musts that weren’t covered! MUSIC: Modern Life is Rubbish-Blur: The first, and ironically best of their three Britpop classics. Ironic because it was the one we didn’t play! Dog Man Star-Suede Suede gets introspective, druggy and powerful in their sophomore album. Acclaimed, but quite an artistic step up for fans. (What’s the Story) Morning Glory-Oasis The big one. One of the definitive rock albums of the nineties. Wall to wall heaters. Game-changer. This is Hardcore-Pulp Jarvis Cocker’s descent into depression and addiction brought out one of the most beautiful albums of the movement with this one. Likely Pulp’s best. Covers self-worth, shame, and the nature of celebrity. Be Here Now-Oasis Oasis’ magnum opus, for better and worse. An exhaustive rock epic only achievable with an ego as high as the Gallaghers’ and no shortage of cocaine delusion. Here is a Beginner’s Guide to Britpop playlist with some of what we covered this week and more curated by yours truly! BOOKS: Many books have been written on the subject, but John Harris’ Britpop! Cool Brittania and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock is quite something. MOVIES: 24 Hour Party People (2000) A hilarious look at Madchester, Britpop’s bumbling precursor. Oasis: Supersonic (2016) An in-depth (maybe too kind) look at the Gallagher brothers that at the very least has a good deal of love. It’s also an A24 movie, so it’s competent. Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Britpop (2003) A very funny documentary chronicling Britpop from its humble beginnings to pitiful end. Despite a disturbing lack of Suede, there’s a lot of perspectives from a lot of the big players, and it’s very, very funny. Thanks so much again! This was a ba-last!

Happy Britpop Week everyone, we hope you're enjoying the festivities! Unfortunately we can't cover all of the Britpop greatness in just one week. On the bright side, our host Hank Melluish put together a Britpop Deep Cuts playlist with some forgotten tunes and personal favorites from the era. Check it out here!

Hey y’all, unfortunately for us WMU students finals are coming up, although that also means that we’re almost at the end of the semester so woo hoo! In the spirit of finals I have been digging back into my favorite study music (check it out in another blog here). It’s mostly classical, Debussy being the frontrunner but sometimes I like to listen to other stuff too including a very unconventional study album, Since I Left You by The Avalanches. I feel like most people would never think of this as a good album to study to but I’m here today to explain why I think it is and why it’s just an awesome album in general. So I actually discovered this album my senior year of high school, 18 years after the album came out in 2000. Senioritis at that point had really kicked in which meant a lot of procrastination and subsequently late nights doing homework. At the time I was mostly listening to YouTube for music and at a certain point while studying each night, I would just let YouTube’s recommendations take over. Say what you will about listening to music on YouTube but I still stand by their recommendations which led me to Since I Left You. I don’t remember what exactly got me to the point of that coming up on my computer but my truly exhausted brain was very happy about it. At that level of exhaustion I think my brain was more receptive to genres that I typically didn’t listen to, like electronic music in this case. When I’m that tired I’m also more receptive to very weird and trippy music which I consider this album to be. Now, just what is Since I Left You like? Since I Left You is an electronic, indie rock album composed entirely of samples. This album is truly an album, not a collection of songs, and thus it must be listened to as an album. The songs flow so seamlessly together that it is difficult to tell when one song ends and another begins. The different samples come in and out of play until minutes later you realize that the music changed entirely, right under your nose. This is an unbelievable experience that I can't recommend enough. So hear me out here, I think that this overall trippy musical experience in Since I Left You is ideal for studying, especially late at night. One very important thing when listening to music while studying is to make sure that the music won’t be overly distracting. While Since I Left You is a very weird album, in my experience it has not been very distracting. I often get distracted by when songs change in other music I listen to but this is not the case with the seamless song transitions found in this album. When your brain is in need of a quick mental break, that is when you will notice that the music has changed at which point it wouldn’t really be a distraction. Every once in a while, something musically weird will happen which will snap you out of the tiredness you may be experiencing while studying. This album is also mostly void of lyrics which for me is ideal when studying to further avoid distraction. Overall based on what I need when studying, Since I Left You is a great study album for me and I think any students reading this should give studying to it a go! Even if you aren’t in school and studying, I still highly recommend listening to this album, it is a true masterpiece! They also have a 20th anniversary edition coming up in June where they are doing remixes of every song on the album so look out for that as well if you enjoy it!

Happy finals week WMU students! We know you must be studying hard in preparation for your exams, so we put together some music playlists and recommendations that you can study to! We've got a variety of genres so take your pick of what you want to study to! Maggie Classical Study Playlist Album recommendation: Since I Left You by the Avalanches Molly Indie Pop Study Playlist Andy Variety Study Playlist [DJWillKill] Album recommendation: Flume: Deluxe Edition

Happy 420 everyone! We created a collaborative WIDR 420 playlist for all of your festivities today - check it out here!

Hello, everybody! My name’s Hank and I host Obscurity Knocks on Tuesdays at 4pm. The general idea is that I believe there’s a great deal of pop music out there that people would love if they knew it existed or remembered it. Now, that’s my general sales pitch. I love pop music, and so does everybody, but what I love more than music--more than anything, really--is a good story. Tomorrow, we’re doing an episode of this sub-series by the name of Obscurity Shines, which marries my love of pop music and my love of stories. Each one of these specials delves deep into a forgotten musician or subgenre, and this week and next, in honor of our program director, Kyle, we’re doing a two-part Britpop episode. But folks… and this sounds like an infomercial… that’s not all. I’m pleased to announce that starting Tuesday (April 20th) and ending Tuesday (April 27th) it’s officially Britpop Week, baby. So, what is Britpop? I catch a lot of flack for this. It comes up a lot on the show, and I’m beginning to find that not many of my listeners are familiar. The basic gist is that after Margaret Thatcher left office, a vacuum became apparent not just in pop culture, but in culture collectively. Thatcher’s Britain bore this unease and sadness into the working class, so the 80s in Britain were kind of dank and dismal and void of any fun for them. They were forced to look stateside for entertainment, but in the process the country was becoming Americanized and losing its identity. They missed the days of The Kinks, their songs about the sunset on Waterloo, and David Bowie’s distinctly British swagger. Uniquely British artists who made it cool to be so, the rest of the world be damned. It was time to get back to basics. Then, in 1993, Suede’s debut album tops the charts. Its singles have been getting serious word-of-mouth praise, what-with their sleaze, fun, and stark contrast to grunge and the UK’s own Acid House, and from there, Cool Britannia is born. A hundred bands come out of the woodwork to board this steam-train to promise, and as the country comes of age for the first time since the sixties, the world takes notice. But nothing gold can stay, as they say, and as commercialism, fandom, nationalism and political exploitation reared their ugly heads, the biggest movement of the nineties was already a dead one walking. From its humble beginnings to explosive conclusion, Cool Britannia (and Britpop its accompanying genre) told a fascinating story of not only musical history, but sociopolitical history as well, and one that has, at least on our side of the pond, remained largely buried. Every day at 1pm during the week, we’ll be playing an important album from the heyday of Britpop, bookended by this lengthy story on the Tuesdays surrounding it. The idea is to not only tell the listeners a real doozie, but to bring them some music that’s fallen largely into obscurity over here, and most importantly, to educate one “Kyle Petronio” before he graduates. It’s been a huge and ill-advised undertaking, considering I have essays I should be writing and tests I should be studying for, but this is a doozie. And if you’ve got any taste at all, you’ll love its music. Britpop Week Schedule 4/20 4-6p Obscurity Shines: Britpop I 4/21 1-2p Suede-Suede 4/22 1-2p Parklife-Blur 4/23 1-2p Definitely Maybe-Oasis 4/24 1-2p Elastica-Elastica 4/25 1-2p I Should Coco-Supergrass 4/26 1-2p Different Class-Pulp 4/27 1-2p The Great Escape-Blur 4/27 4-6p Obscurity Shines: Britpop II

It always seems like post-hardcore outfit Hail The Sun is pushing the boundaries and genre conventions. Their fifth full length entry, New Age Filth is no different. Upon my first listening at midnight, I have some general thoughts on the record I would like to share. Similar to last year’s Afterburner, every April post-hardcore release can be anticipated from a bigger band in the scene. Maybe soon Rise will release Eidola’s The Architect after fans have been begging for it, given the most recent merger with Blue Swan Records. I digress. Domino: This is up there in the S-tier of Hail The Sun singles. Any fans of polyrhythms will be pleasantly surprised at both the technicality and mainstream accessibility of this one. Oh and that sweet outro. Slander: An interesting track to be listed as the second in the album sequencing. I like to compare this one to Dance Gavin Dance’s “Midnight Crusade” from Artificial Selection. Upon first listen I wasn’t entirely impressed, since I was expecting mad heavy vibes. But this song has a great interplay of building tension and release. Solipsism: This tune seems like a blending of sonic pallets from all previous albums. Kris Crummet’s production is also phenomenal. And that man is THE GUY in the scene. Suffolk vibes in the outro that leads into “Misfire”. Misfire: Oh hi, it’s me, The Mars Volta, and I’ve been reincarnated for this one song. If you haven’t checked out Deloused in the Comatorium then you need to. This song feels like an evolutionary child of “Drunkship of Lanterns”, in the most Hail The Sun fashion ever performed. Quite possibly my new favorite. Made Your Mark: I won’t lie, this song was a bit off-putting when I was expecting something a bit heavier. But I always forget that Hail The Sun isn’t just heavy or soft 100% of the time. That would be quite dull. This song was a strange choice as a final single, but I think it will grow on me. Slipped My Mind: Dare I say this is the most mainstream Hail The Sun can get? This is not even a jab at them, but this reminds me of earlier 2000’s punk revival bands. Makes me long for a time when I was a child and listening to Downtown Battle Mountain when I was certainly too young to. Nature or nurture? I have a strange feeling that this song has some inspiration from Avenged Sevenfold a bit. That outro specifically. Parasitic Cleanse: A song about humanity’s vices and that has incredible lyricism. I also think this song mislead people to think this album would be incredibly heavy the entire time. I’ve listened to this song way too much so I’m a bit burned on it. But it has Wake era vibes that have been missing for a long time. Just as good as “Domino”. Hysteriantics: MAJOR Mental Knife vibes, and Donny’s vocals punch through this mix beautifully (well really the entire album because Kris Crummett is the best in the biz). I almost get a feeling that if stylistically these chords were played differently, they could compliment a blues or hard rock anthem. Lots of chromatic tomfoolery. And we enjoy that don’t we? AND THE BREAKDOWN MAKES ME MISS SIANVAR!!! I want another Swancore supergroup because my ears need more blessings. Devluation: Every Hail The Sun album needs a pseudo acoustic song, and this is the one. On Mental Knife, the equivalent was “On Existence”, and Culture Scars it was “Never Kill a Mouse; Let It Kill Itself”. That vocal processing was so interesting too, the major rotating panning of Donny’s angelic voice. PROTECT IT AT ALL COSTS. Punch Drunk: This one feels like a baby between Nova Charisma and Sianvar. Honestly, for a closer, I was a bit surprised. But I shouldn’t judge. When you are creating art this chaotic, track sequencing might not be the biggest priority. It IS still a banger. This may have been better as a single, but I am not mad that it is the closer. I also thought that “Into the Sunset” was a trash closer last year for Afterburner, and then I grew accustomed to it. Final Analysis: I need to let this album marinate in my brain for a while. It will tide me over until Eidola’s The Architect (come on Rise we are ALL WAITING). We are supposed to get new Royal Coda soon I suppose. Regardless, this album is fantastic. I am not sure if it surpasses Wake just yet, but perspectives do change. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the other lovelies of the band, John Stirrat on Bass, Shane Gann on Guitar, and Aric Garcia on the other Guitar. They mold so well and HOT TAKE, Hail The Sun is arguably more musically interesting than Dance Gavin Dance (I will regret saying this later but this is fine). Thank you for coming to my review. Now go listen to that album. I’ll be back for The Architect once Rise figures itself out. Peace.

So hear me out here… have y’all ever heard or seen an ad that you couldn’t get out of your head? Maybe this happens to me too much because I’m an Advertising major but there are a lot of times that ads stick in my head. Usually I don’t act on them but this time was different. When I’m not listening to WIDR, I’m usually listening to Spotify whose ads are ridiculous. Ridiculously annoying and ridiculous in general. For months I have been hearing this Spotify ad for M&M's playlists. The ads tell you to buy a bag of M&M's, scan the Spotify code on the bag, and gain access to these themed playlists. Now I don’t like this idea. The entire concept annoys me. But in this case curiosity killed me and I had to buy some M&M’s to listen to these playlists. So I did. I bought four shareable bags of M&M’s for this and I don’t even like M&M’s that much. But that’s beside the point. I’m here today to tell you about and rank the M&Ms playlists I purchased and listened to which were “Party Bangers”, “I’m kinda into you”, “Like a Boss”, and “Friends4Ever”. I will be ranking and judging these playlists on 3 factors: Does the music in the playlists align with the theme? Does the music have a good variety? i.e. is it not basic? Did I personally enjoy the music/would I listen again? Obviously some of this will be subjective, but nonetheless keep reading to see my ranking of these M&M's playlists! 4. Friends4Ever I’m gonna be honest here, this playlist was pretty atrocious mostly because it was so CHEESY! With songs like “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” (both in English AND Spanish I might add), “Count on Me”, and “Thank You For Being a Friend”, this playlist was a recipe for mac and cheese without the mac. Now don’t get me wrong, there were some great songs on here like “Jumpin’ Jumpin’”, “Why Can’t We Be Friends”, and “With A Little Help From My Friends”. This playlist did fit the theme really well, it’s definitely a friendship oriented playlist. There was also a pretty decent variety of music including a few songs in Spanish which was consistent among all of the playlists. However, this playlist comes in fourth place because it was so cheesy that I would never voluntarily listen to it again. 3. I’m kinda into you So the best word I have to describe this playlist is confused. Many of the songs in this playlist were about love and many others were about sex which created a very strange vibe. It felt like this playlist didn’t know who it wanted to be so I don’t think the music aligned with the title of the playlist that well. There weren’t any songs in this playlist that I hated and there was a fair bit that I did like including “Vida de Rico”, “Sugar Sugar”, and “Crazy in Love” to name a few. I would say that there was a good variety in this playlist as well with some classics and some more recent hits. I probably won’t be listening to this playlist again not because I disliked the music, but because the vibe of love and sex songs together would throw me off. 2. Party Bangers This was another playlist that I would call confused. If I’m honest, a lot of the music in this playlist did not feel to me like party music. For example, “Blinding Lights”, “We Can’t Stop”, and “Dance Monkey” are not songs that would get me in a party mood AT ALL. That being said, there were quite a few songs that really brought the party mood including “TiK ToK”, “Good Feeling”, “Can’t Hold Us”, “Don’t Stop The Music”, “Just Dance”, and the incredible “Latch” which will NEVER fail to get me in a party mood. The one song that this playlist was missing was “Party Rock Anthem” according to Aya who listened to Party Bangers with me. I have to agree with her, how can you have a party playlist without "Party Rock Anthem"?? This playlist definitely had the least variety of the four with nearly all of the songs having been released in the last ten years. Overall I enjoyed a lot of the songs in this playlist but the non-party songs really killed the vibe in this playlist. 1. Like a Boss This was the only M&M's playlist out of the four that I genuinely enjoyed and would listen to again! This playlist had so many hits that felt like good songs to work to like “Working for the Weekend”, “Money, Money, Money”, “Manic Monday”, and “9 to 5”, the incredible anti-capitalist anthem by Dolly Parton herself. This playlist did a great job of keeping with the theme of work and had so many great tracks! I would say that there was a good amount of variety as well. So I’ve got some concluding thoughts on this little experiment. I still don’t like the idea of purchasing playlists even after listening to them, I still think it was a bad idea overall. Honestly these playlists were about what I expected, pretty basic overall and not hugely aligned with what I or what I imagine the typical WIDR listener would enjoy. One last thing I need to point out is that I got so many ads for these playlists while listening to them! That was pretty annoying. Anyways, thanks for reading and indulging my little experiment!

Hello everybody! U Know / I Know came out with their EP, Fiona this week and it is FANTASTIC! I’ve been listening to it all this week since it came out and it has really been keeping me smiling! I really love all of the individual songs and they together create a very cohesive sound for the EP. The first song “Fiona” shocks me every time because it manages to go so hard but also manages to stay light and fun! The vocals sound almost ethereal at times and the melodic guitar lines complement that, but other times the guitar goes so hard including with that kick ass solo at the end! Overall “Fiona” is a very fun song that’s just great to jam out to. This song in particular makes me excited to jam out to at house shows once it’s safe! The energy cools down a bit for the next song, “Satie”. This song is straight vibes, it’s so chill. They hit us again with the melodic guitar lines but this time they’re a bit more rhythmic which is super fun. This is almost other-worldly in how it makes you feel. It’s chill enough to take you away from the stresses of life to an island somewhere where everybody is just having a good time. “Bounce” is another chill one that really spoke to me lyrically. The music mimics the feeling of being lost and trying to find yourself that the lyrics convey, but in a very mellow and enjoyable way. I love how the rhythm changes in this song which immediately grabs your attention. The harmonies of the vocals in this song really stuck out to me as well in just sounding very angelic. “Q&A” started with a guitar melody that reminded me of “Here Comes the Sun” which I loved so much, especially with how it contrasted with the opening lyrics “Why don’t you fuck me up?” This one went through such a major mood change in the middle which is so fun and really helps bring the energy up in this overall very chill EP. “Goodbye Kalamazoo” made me personally feel a bit sad since I am currently away from Kalamazoo but I really enjoyed it. This song did a great job of rounding out the EP by bringing the energy up for the end. I love the long instrumental at the end that gave the band an opportunity to show off even more how talented they are with some killer solos. Overall Fiona is a fantastic EP with some great energy that I can’t recommend enough! Check it out here!

Okay, this is a hard article to write, just because I’ve been obsessed with this label for years (IMO the best label of all time), and because there’s so little widely-available info on Sarah Records that my knowledge comes from only a couple different places (one being a documentary that interviews both of the founders as well as all the most important artists on the label, I highly recommend it). I’m gonna do my best to feature the coolest parts of the label. Sarah Records was started in Bristol in 1987 and run by just two people (a couple), Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes, Clare being just 18 when she began the label. From the very beginning they were on the attack against the incredibly male-dominated heteronormative climate of the English music press, starting with the name of the label, which was meant to be both a female reference as well as personifying the label as a woman. Clare and Matt both came from (and met in) backgrounds in distributing fanzines (which back then was your only source of hearing indie music along with John Peel), and they carried this into Sarah Records by not only distributing fanzines as part of their catalog, but also distributing random mini-fanzines in all of their releases (I own two myself). Clare had an absolute acid tongue for sexists in the music world, and would write angrily in her fanzines about how people would call asking for Sarah Records, and then assume that she was some kind of secretary and wait to be passed to her boyfriend. Sarah Records was often referred to as “Matt Haynes and his girlfriend Clare” in the music press. In her fanzine "Lemonade" (number 14 out of Sarah’s 100 releases), she writes: “This SARAH thing, it’s two people: joint decisions, equal finance etc. He maybe does more of the boring drudge stuff like letrasetting and packing up records into envelopes because I do other things - right now earning the money for the new releases, other times studying. No so-and-so and his wife/girlfriend 'I couldn’t have done it without her, she was so understanding and did all the typing' shit, but the TWO of us, equals for once.” That being said, feminism ran with what I’d consider to be the theme running through Sarah: HONESTY. Brutal honesty. The literature Matt and Clare put in their releases was so honest that at some points it’d veer toward surrealist writings about their relationship. The bands on this label were derogatively referred to as “twee”, which today is a somewhat valid genre term, but back then was one of the absolute worst insults for a band. It referred to music that was overly emotional, childish, and bright, but the brutal honesty was lost on the music press. In a striking example of the music press’ absolute hopelessness, one of the best songs on the label, "Clearer" by Blueboy, a post-Section-28 song written by a gay man expressing his desire to love and be loved, was described as “a limp-wristed song about being sad”. One of the coolest ways in which they expressed their honesty was by being active anti-capitalists running a capitalist venture, with the approach that you ARE being a capitalist just by taking people’s money, but you don’t have to actually abuse the fans while you’re at it. In this endeavor, Sarah forfeited a lot of money because they refused to release 12” singles of songs they’d already released, as they thought it was bullshit to try and make fans rebuy their record collections (much to the annoyance of their distributors). They also refused to reprint their discography on CD as (funnily enough for today) they felt it was a bourgeois format that not everybody had access to, and would only serve to squeeze more money out of fans for music they already had. In one of the Sarah records that I own (I Fell In Love Last Night by Heavenly), Clare put in a small half-apologetic half-angrily-explanatory note saying that that would be the last record of theirs that would be released in a plastic bag and wraparound sleeve, and that they would begin to have their records printed in a factory. She ends the note saying: “...from SARAH 31 on WE’LL BE DOING IT TOO, because we’ll be getting all our sleeves made in a FACTORY, even though it all costs lots more money and our mail-order prices will have to go up but, well, at least we’ll be doing our bit to bolster the current inflationary spiral and thus bring down the government while all YOU’LL be doing all day is hanging around record-shops looking gormless, so Q.E.D.” Oh yeah, and did I mention they ended the label after exactly 100 single releases, at the peak of its popularity? Matt explains it in an inspiring chill-inducing ad taken out in the paper called A Day For Destroying Things: “Because when you were nineteen, didn’t YOU ever want to create something beautiful and pure just so one day you could set it on fire and then watch the city light up as it burned?” They ran their label as outspoken anti-capitalists and feminists, based the label around brutally honest pop art, and then blew it up at its peak as their final pop-art statement. No matter who you are and how disappointing it is to have such a limited catalogue, you have to admire the dedication and commitment to their values. You might have noticed I haven’t even begun to give any specific recommendations, but I will honestly just leave a playlist of their 100 releases for y’all to go through. There are no bad songs in their discography, and I frequently put that playlist on shuffle. My favorite full-length of theirs is Unisex by Blueboy (an album we’ve featured on WIDR before), but once again there are very few bad releases on this label. Check out a playlist of the singles released by Sarah Records here.

There are few bands whose music I have been as entertained by throughout my life as the music of Mouse Rat. The Awesome Album has been a staple in my listening since it came out in 2011 and I really don’t see that changing any time soon. Thus I’d like to share my formal review of The Awesome Album with all of you today. We start off with the iconic “The Pit”. While I normally turn to music for a break from reality, I love how much this song is rooted in reality. Lead singer and song writer Andy Dwyer fell in a pit and wrote a song about it. It’s so real which is quite respectable in my opinion. It’s definitely a jam too, like I have no doubt that this would be a sing along hit at any Mouse Rat concert due to the good vibes. Let’s be honest, what better thing is there to celebrate than falling in a pit? Next we have “Menace Ball”. I love the chill, classic rock vibes of this song. We’ve got some fun guitar lines which really add some interest to the song. It’s a great nostalgic song about past love but manages not to sound mopey. Ending on the lyrics, “spread your wings and fly” definitely keeps the listener feeling optimistic about love which we all need to be. Up next is “Mouse Rat Ann” which really shows off Mouse Rat’s range. This one is definitely more of a sad one that is sure to bring tears to the eyes of listeners. The sparse lyrics in the chorus really emphasize the message of the song, which is how much Andy misses Ann. “Two Birds Holding Hands” is the next banger and when I say banger, I mean it. I appreciate that Mouse Rat got a bit metaphorical with this song, by referring to the love between two people as two birds holding hands. I love how this song captures but the realistic aspects of a relationship with lyrics like “we’ll do anything together, even eat some bacon” and the more fantastical aspects with lyrics like “we can go bowling then hitch a ride to outer space”. Love itself is somewhat fantastical and this song really shows that. The next song is bringing tears to my eyes to write about because it was written to say goodbye to Lil Sebastian, Pawnee Indiana’s favorite miniature horse. “5000 Candles In The Wind” is a real tear jerker but I think that it properly pays homage to the life of that wonderful little horse. Though the song is sad, it does end on an optimistic note with the lyrics, “spread your wings and fly” which we all hope Lil Sebastian has done in horsey heaven. “Catch Your Dreams” is another one that shows the range of Mouse Rat as it was the campaign song for when Leslie Knope ran for office. I think this one is a very interesting take on chasing your dreams. I had never thought about crushing your dream to keep it near to you but in retrospect I like that mentality a lot. You’ve gotta fight for your dreams and in the process sometimes fight your dreams. “Sex Hair” is the closer of this album and it does not disappoint. I’m not going to go into detail about the message of this song because y’all are smart, I’ll let you infer. I will say though, what a fun way to close such a fun album! Thanks for reading about this band and album I love so much, and happy April Fools’ Day! Oh and this blog is dedicated to my friend and second favorite resident Bad Boi, Chloe Miller.