Pop Loser: Happy Birthday to the Woman Who Ate 280 Macarons in One Week

Welcome back to Pop Loser! The biggest news in music this week was that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married, but given the negative feedback I’ve gotten from writing about Swift in the past, I decided to play it safe and celebrate a less divisive woman in music: Courtney Love. In honor of her birthday this Thursday, I will revisit the misunderstood time she threw her MAC compact at Madonna. Plus, Ballard Music & Seafoodfest is this weekend, the Hildegard festival lineup has dropped, and Charli xcx revealed the tracklist for her upcoming album Music, Fashion, Film (out July 24). 

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This Week in Music: 

This week in Strangerland, the gorgeous July print issue hit the stands, which means there is a new calendar of music events that’ll keep you busy all month long. Dave Segal wrote about prolific multi-instrumentalist Morgan Henderson (Fleet Foxes, the Blood Brothers, the Cave Singers). And our first episode of Noise Complaint dropped with experimental instrumental band Iroiro—it was a real treat to have a theremin in the office!

Ballard Music & Seafoodfest is this weekend. Getting stuffed to the gills with salmon while blasting to Built to Spill is something my cat and I enjoy regularly in the privacy of our own home, but at Ballard Music & Seafoodfest, it can be a communal experience. The lineup is great this year, with highlights like Coral Grief, the Maya Experience, and, yeah, BUILT TO SPILL. Plus, the fest is free, so you can spend all your money on lobster tails, shrimp kebabs, and BBQ salmon. 

Medieval mystics, rejoice! The lineup for Hildegard 26 has dropped with five experimental and avant-garde artists inspired by 12th-century mystic, poet, songstress, and herbalist Hildegard von Bingen. The ethereal music oasis will take place at Vermillion on Sept 16 with Crystal Beth, Mt Fog, Leeni, alice does computer music, and Old Man of the Woods. 

Happy birthday, Courtney Love! In honor of her 62nd birthday this Thursday, July 9, I’d like to take a moment to celebrate the woman who once ate 280 macarons in a single week (relatable, they are basically just air). There are endless fun facts about Love: she’s a noted Bay City Rollers fangirl. She cocreated the manga series Princess Ai, which is based on her life. At 9 years old, she recited Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” at her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse audition. And, back in 2005, she warned women about Harvey Weinstein. But today, I’d like to zoom in on the time she crashed Madonna’s interview at the 1995 VMAs.

You’ve likely seen it before: Madonna is seated outside the award show for a quick, seemingly unremarkable interview, when an enthusiastic Courtney Love tosses her MAC compact to get Madonna’s attention. “Should we let her come up?” the interviewer asks. “No, don’t, please,” responds Madonna, “Courtney Love is in dire need of attention right now.” 

Because this aired the year before I was born, I became acquainted with the clip on pop culture countdowns (remember VH1’s I Love the ’90s?), which usually presented the clip as evidence of their feud. When I recently revisited this clip, I was shocked by how sweet and human the interaction is once Love approaches Madonna. Love walks on screen slyly and acknowledges and apologizes for the interruption, then the two have a friendly conversation about their footwear choices and attraction to funny men. Eventually, Madonna’s people whisk her away, but before leaving, she holds Courtney’s hand, kisses her on the cheek, and says, “Bye, sweetie, take care.” Unsurprisingly, this nuanced interaction, filled with admiration from Love and genuine care from Madonna, has been misremembered as a feud. THIS STOPS NOW!

Incoming: Music, Fashion, Film. Charli xcx dropped the tracklist for her seventh album, which includes a song called “Persona,” which I’m hoping is inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s sapphic psychological drama of the same name. The album also closes with a song featuring legendary body horror director David Cronenberg.

Music Events Worth Your Hard-Earned Money This Week:

Leenalchi July 8, Vera Project, 7 pm, all ages

NW Independent Label Market July 9, Stoup Brewing, 5–9 pm, all ages

Ballard Music & Seafoodfest July 10–12, NW Market St, all ages, free

Zookraught, Buddy Wynkoop, Toxic Tears July 11, Baba Yaga, 8 pm, 21+

Skip the Needle, Joh Chase, Tiny Vipers July 11, Conor Byrne, 9 pm, 21+

The Songs That Keep Me Up at Night:

“Wo, man (feat. Ayra Starr)” by Peggy Gou

Peggy Gou’s new song with Nigerian pop phenom Ayra Starr is everything to me. Gou’s harmonies are right out of an old Destiny’s Child song. The music video looks like an early-aughts teen magazine with visuals that remind me of a very specific Steve Madden ad. The chorus is not so much words as it is sounds: “A diggy, dang, dang, dang, da-dang, a diggy, dang, dang, dang, da-dang.” It’s giving me Spice Girls’ “zig-ah-zig-ah” or Ak’Sent “Zing, zingy-zang, za-zang, za-zang, zingy-zingy, zang zingy, zanga, za-zang, za-zang, zoom” energy.

“Littlest Things” by Lily Allen

I put on Lily Allen’s Alright, Still as soon as the temperature outside hits 80 degrees. It’s the perfect album to lounge around the house in your swimsuit, or to brave the hot, crowded city streets and romanticize the alienation you feel (is that just me?). I recently discovered that “Littlest Things” uses a sample from the 1974 soundtrack to the softcore porn Emmanuelle, which made me love it even more.

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