Editorials
Of Monsters and Men Reflect on the “Beautiful, Dark Forest” of My Head Is an Animal at 10
It’s been a decade since Of Monsters and Men released their debut album My Head Is an Animal in their home country of Iceland in September 2011. The success of the LP and its rollicking lead single “Little Talks” led to a deal with Republic Records, over a million records sold, a permanent spot on the festival circuit both in Europe and Stateside, and an enduring, fervent fanbase. “It’s a super special album,” Ragnar (“Raggi”) Þórhallsson, the group’s co-lead vocalist/guitarist, tells Consequence over Zoom. “I’ve always cared for it — the simplicity of it is that it’s hard to create something simple and beautiful, and I think that album is that.” Released internationally in April 2012, My Head Is an Animal grabbed listeners not just for its catchy melodies, but for the group’s sense of adv...
M83’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming Turns 10: An Enduring Era of Indie
I’ve heard M83’s “Outro,” the final track of Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, in more TV commercials than I can count. Never mind the widespread usage in TV shows, films, and trailers: I’m talking strictly 30-60 second advertisements, the commercials you’d like to mute, tune out, or fast forward through. The usage of the song in media was arguably the most widespread around 2014, but even today, ten years after its release, music supervisors still gravitate towards “Outro” because of its humongous, cathartic climax, a waterfall of synths cascading into a vast cosmos of sound. Upon listening to Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming for the first time ten years ago, I doubt many people heard “Outro” and thought to themselves, “This is the sound of leasing a new Mazda.” Nevertheless, the song and album truly end...
Now I’m in This Dream Place: Mulholland Drive Is Still Puzzling, 20 Years Later
I still remember the first time I saw Mulholland Drive, which celebrates its twentieth anniversary this week. It was in the spring of 2005, and I was in my freshman year of college at the University of Iowa. An English lit major with an interest in writing about movies, I’d signed up for an Introduction to Cinema course that was required to pursue a film studies minor. A lot of the films we’d watched so far — Weerasethakul’s Mysterious Object at Noon, Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice — had left me, a curious but sheltered eighteen-year-old, somewhat cold. But there was an expectant buzz in the air when I settled in for that day’s screening: the film we’d watch today would have boobs in it. I knew who David Lynch was, but had only seen The Elephant Man, not the most representative film of his care...
What’s the Deal with Seinfeld’s Bizarre Pilot?
In this age of streaming, serialized television, and full-season orders for everything, the pilot feels like a lost, forgotten art. You see, kids, back when television aired on a handful of networks and you had to watch whatever happened to be on the boob tube at any given moment, network executives would order a test episode, or “pilot,” to see whether a show would work. It’s a pre-natal version of the show you’d come to know and love, often with characters, approaches, or visual tics that were dropped by episode 2. Now, Netflix is bringing Seinfeld, in all its remastered HD glory, to its shores on October 1st, offering audiences new and old the chance to binge their way through all ten seasons of the iconic, game-changing sitcom. But if you truly start at the beginning, with its dee...
Ask Dr. Mike: The Big Four Steps to Improving Mental Health
Spinning off from the Going There with Dr. Mike podcast, our monthly “Ask Dr. Mike” column is back to answer listeners’ questions about their mental health. This past month’s episodes focused on Suicide Prevention Month, with guests like Phantogram and Jesse Leach discussing how they cope with the “beast” of their own mental health. Today, Dr. Mike provides some simple steps to help us tackle these daily stresses on our wellness journeys. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, and it provides an excellent opportunity not only to check in on our own mental health, but also to find ways to improve our emotional well-being. One of the most daunting aspects of our mental health journey is that there are often harmful and complex issues that we face in our lives that could hinder our w...
Weezer’s Pinkerton at 25: The Band Has Moved On, Though We Never May Do the Same
Weezer isn’t giving interviews about Pinkerton for its 25th anniversary. There’s no big press push promoting a deluxe vinyl reissue of the album celebrating its quarter-century of existence. (As of press time, you can’t even buy Pinkerton from the band’s merch store, though it is readily available elsewhere.) This relative silence about an auspicious milestone (which will officially occur on September 24th) for one of their best-loved and most influential records might seem a little odd. But maybe Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo, whose intensely personal songwriting drives this 10-song, 34-minute record, doesn’t feel like there’s any advantage to speaking further on the subject. Clearly, the band has moved on; though they took a five-year break after Pinkerton that was, at the time, commonly ...
Dirty Work Is a Weird Glimpse Into the Movie Career Norm Macdonald Almost Had
Norm Macdonald, who left us too soon at the age of 61 after living with cancer for a decade, was a comedian’s comedian. You can tell because so much of his greatest work is just him. There’s the opening passage of his special Me Doing Stand-Up, where he immediately pontificates about being haunted by the grim specter of death (“It’s good to be alive, isn’t it? That’s what I say. I find that to be the goodest thing there is, to be alive. And uh, the reason it’s so good, it’s cause it’s so bad to be dead. It’s not like life’s so fucking great, but compared to being smothered in earth…”). There’s his legendary ultra-clean roasting of Bob Saget, and his interjections on Conan O’Brien’s first Late Night show, where he couldn’t stop running down Carrot Top. Even the Saturday Night Live gig that ...
Up Yours! The Black, Queer, and Feminist Artists That Revolutionized Punk
Consequence’s Punk Week continues with an essay on the “outsider” artists who have succeeded in and revolutionized the genre, despite the odds being stacked against them. Keep checking back throughout the week for interviews, lists, editorials and videos — it’s all things punk, all the time. Flip through the annals of punk history, and consider the bands often cited as icons: The Clash, Sex Pistols, X, Black Flag, Fugazi, Ramones, Green Day, Rancid, blink-182. These artists certainly deserve their lofty status and every plaudit thrown their way, although you might notice that these acts (largely) feature lineups dominated by straight, white, cisgender men. On the surface, this seems counterintuitive. Punk is often positioned as a reaction against the mainstream, a way to include marginaliz...
Why Exodus Is the Perfect Eulogy For DMX
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-05-28T21:17:31+00:00“>May 28, 2021 | 5:17pm ET Posthumous albums are tough to judge; they’re effectively the last will and testament of a usually beloved artist. Now, calling DMX beloved is the understatement of the last two decades, so Exodus is more than just an album. X’s first album dropped in 1998, and in one calendar year, Earl Simmons became the biggest rapper in the world by more than a few country miles. He snatched the minds, hearts, and souls of anyone on this planet who considered themselves even a casual hip-hop fan. That part about “souls” is essential. DMX laid his spirit to bear in every rhyme he wrote and every bark he bellowed. We felt his joy, his pain, his triump...
J. Cole, Rap’s Middle Child, Comes of Age on The Off-Season
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-05-14T18:39:31+00:00“>May 14, 2021 | 2:39pm ET As with most middle children, one tends to forget about them in favor of their older or younger sibling. The Off-Season, out today (May 14th), sees J. Cole — aka hip-hop’s self-proclaimed middle child — finally accepting and embracing his place, and letting everyone know that though he may exist between generations, he still has plenty to offer. A typical middle child is constantly seeking approval from either or both of their parents, only to find themselves ignored (and therefore disappointed). Cole has garnered similar scorn from a large sector of rap fans — look no further than his shots at Kanye West on “False Prophets” or his cont...
Hip-Hop and TikTok Are Bringing Pop-Punk Back in a Big Way
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-05-04T18:36:48+00:00“>May 4, 2021 | 2:36pm ET Pop-punk has crept back onto the charts, and its latest takeover is well underway — without any live shows and long after the end of Warped Tour, a hallmark of the genre’s previous reign. In the past year, pop-punk has made its comeback, but with the help of some unlikely forces. The first of those forces are hip-hop crossovers, which have propelled pop-punk to the top of the charts. 24kGoldn and iann dior’s single, “Mood”, blended elements of pop-punk and hip-hop and went to No. 1. On the Alternative Airplay chart, All Time Low got their first No. 1 with their single “Monsters”, which featured hip-hop star blackbear. A remix featuring D...
Ramones’ Self-Titled Debut Sparked a Punk Movement That Would Span Decades
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-25T16:25:45+00:00“>April 25, 2021 | 12:25pm ET Editor’s Note: On April 23, 1976, four twentysomethings from Queens with shades, blue jeans, and leather jackets released their self-titled debut and started the punk rock movement. Our own Lindsay Teske takes a look back on those days as the Ramones’ first record turns 45. The 1970s were destined to undergo a cultural shift. The many effects of the Vietnam War had long been taking their toll, the bizarre circus of the Nixon and Ford presidencies had fatigued many and generated a deep sense of distrust in the government, and the cherry on top of it all was an ongoing recession that absolved the idea of stable employment for countless...
