Bad Progress – Pictures of Girls
The majority of us are overstimulated. We’re also tired and uninterested all the time. Most of us eat and sleep too much. We watch too much television and are obsessed with whatever morsels of entertainment that our phones can provide. And, once we’ve exhausted ourselves doing all these things, finding no real pleasure for too long, we start right back at it.
We’ve built the wheel and turned ourselves into the hamsters. What’s worse, the most economically ambitious of us have learned how to use our addictions and disenchantment to make ourselves richer. They’re all dirty businesses supported by ourselves, people dying for just one more thrill.
That‘s the world that Bad Progress are shouting about on the sinisterly catchy “Picture of Girls.” The song, in fact, zeroes in on the economy of lust, sex, and low self-esteem. As for Bad Progress, the band’s sound is an interesting mix of modern English-barked post-punk and cheeky glam-rock singalongs.
Muster Marks – Cancelled
It’s still a great time to be a crisis publicist. I’m sure that work will remain plentiful in the years to come, and that this kind of employment will allow you to meet wealthy and famous people. The money must be pretty good, too.
With all these pros, however, you won’t mind when your employers ask you to suffocate whatever is left of your soul, now will you? Everything’s got a price and, since you’re in the room, you ought to be happy with yours.
I always figured most of the old rock stars were, irrevocably, a bunch of bastards. But I didn’t imagine they’d ever get lynched, least of all on social media. It’s a bizarre, nearly comical turn of events that Muster Marks comments on.
“Cancelled,” a single that takes the drum loop from “Nighclubbing” and somehow makes them feel even more sinister, sounds like a danceable post-punk number set to the beat of one of those publicists trying to clean up the reputation of some disgraced celebrity or other. Muster Marks is clever and on the mark with this one.
