Pop Loser: Courtney Love Update, New Shabazz Palaces Single, a Blood Brother Returns as Evil Island

Welcome back to Pop Loser. I’m Dave Segal and I’ll be filling in for Audrey Vann over the next three weeks. Not gonna lie: I generally don’t mess with pop music, but I am familiar with losing. So, the content of this column may hit a little differently than it does under Audrey’s byline; she has a mastery of the domain that I, a writer more than twice her age, could never match. However, I have had dalliances with pop during my Stranger tenure. Over the years, come late December, various sadistic editors would command that I write about the 10 or 20 most popular songs on Billboard‘s year-end singles chart. I would do my best to complete the assignments with humor, insight, and snark. In retrospect, I should have filed an OSHA complaint. Anyway, let’s get on with the business at hand. Thanks for your tolerance during this difficult time.

This Week in Music: 

Wait, Courtney Love almost died in 2020? Controversial leader of Hole and Kurt Cobain widow Courtney Love recently posted a video on Instagram in which she says she has completed a long-gestating solo album and is contemplating when and how to release the follow-up to her 2004 debut solo album, America’s Sweetheart. Among those who contributed to the new album are Echo & the Bunnymen’s Will Sergeant, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, former Hole bandmate Melissa Auf Der Mar, and Butch Walker. Also in the clip, Love discussed a terrifying illness that she experienced. “I went to England in 2019, and when I went there, you know, my body just exploded. It just exploded, and I was in hospitals a lot. I almost died. I lost all my hair. I was about 100 pounds, and they told me I was going to die, and I didn’t believe them.” In August 2020, Love was hospitalized with anemia, but she said she’s on the road to recovery with help from CBD, the miracle chemical.

Seattle’s preeminent hip-hop artist, Shabazz Palaces (basically now Ishmael Butler and Erik Blood), have just dropped a new single, “Ahh World (I Won the Alpha Bet).” It’s the first teaser from Shabazz Palaces’ eighth album, It’s a Style Sport, out October 23 on Sub Pop. “Ahh World” glides into earshot with an ominous rhythmic undertow, a slurred bass-synth riff, ruthless rimshots, and Ish’s flow of infinite cool and gravitas, as he intones autobiographical verses about what it took to ascend to the hip-hop summit. Along with Butler (aka Palaceer Lazaro) rapping and co-producing with Blood, guest musicians on the 10-track album include Marquette Miller, Thaddeus “Thaddillac” Turner, Evan Flory-Barnes, Gerald “Tugboat” Turner, Kassa Overall, and Carlos Overall. It’s nice to see that part of It’s a Style Sport was recorded at former Seattle producer Randall Dunn’s Circular Ruin Studio in NYC. Note: Shabazz Palaces are headlining The Stranger Genius Awards at the Moore Theatre on September 12, and Blood will be DJing the event as well.

The Blood Brothers’ vocalist Johnny Whitney has a new project called Evil Island. The Ross Robinson-produced debut album, Terraform the Afterlife, was released August 14 via Blowed Out Records. BB fans should dig the whirlwind of cathartic art-punk that Whitney and company are slinging here, though the songs are a bit more streamlined and accessible than the Brothers’. Drummer Mark Gajadhar and guitarist Cody Votolato of the Bros join Whitney, along with members of OFF!, …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, and Glassjaw. Also, Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto makes a cameo on one song. According to the press release, Whitney devised Evil Island as “a fictional nation ruled by the self-appointed overlord King Death, where AI, late-stage capitalism, corporate optimism, and political extremism have reshaped every facet of everyday life.” Skewering of authoritarianism and consumer culture in Whitney’s trademark strangulated yelp ensues.

RIP, respected music journalist Dave Marsh. One of the key writers and editors at influential Detroit music mag Creem, Dave Marsh, passed away on August 14 at age 76. He guided Creem (where I briefly worked as a proofreader and for which I freelanced in the mid ’80s) to prominence with its irreverent, incisive attitude toward rock during the publication’s early-’70s heyday. Marsh also authored several acclaimed books, including Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who, The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 10001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, and a surplus of tomes about Bruce Springsteen. On a personal note, many of Marsh’s reviews in The Rolling Stone Record Guide infuriated me so intensely that I couldn’t bring myself to read his books. Anyway, here’s Marsh on Kurt Cobain and the demands of musical “authenticity.”

The Boomer content you didn’t ask for: Have you seen the publicity shots for Sam Mendes’s The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event? The actors playing John, Paul, George, and Ringo look like poor AI representations of the Fab Four. Filming began in March and the simultaneous release of all four biopics is scheduled for April 7, 2028. The fact that they couldn’t even get Lennon’s beard right does not bode well.

“Sunshine” by Jungle

British trio Jungle (J Lloyd, Tom McFarland, and vocalist Lydia Kitto) deliver an absurdly cheerful tune that recalls “Since I Left You” by Australian sampledelic masters the Avalanches. If you lust after carefree summer vibes, “Sunshine” will warm and caress your heartstrings with utmost skill. Jungle perform at Climate Pledge Arena on October 3.

Led by cracked genius Arthur Lee, the LA band Love are best known for their 1966 single “7 and 7 Is,” a proto-punk flamethrower that belongs in every home, and for their 1967 LP Forever Changes, a beautifully acid-friend psych opus that consistently appears near the top of “best albums of all time” lists. However, Love’s less-beloved records have many gems, too, including 1970’s False Start, which has been out of print on vinyl for 56 years. My fave song on it is an anomaly in Love’s catalog; “Gimi a Little Break” starts like an homage to the Troggs’s “Wild Thing” (ask your grandmother) and then transforms into a euphoric glam-rock earworm, replete with serious cowbell and a scorching guitar solo. I also have a lot of time for any singer who stretches the word “shine” to five syllables.

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