Header by Rory Midhani
Welcome to Crystal’s Track Stop, where every week I bring you a selection of the raddest tracks from my record collection and also from the internet. All killer no filler.
“Demons” – The National
“When I walk into a room, I do not light it up. Fuck.”
You might get the feeling that you’ve heard “Demons” before even though it’s brand-new and that’s because you kinda sorta have, it sounds like a summary of High Violet. It has everything that a National fan would expect from a National song; darkness, a slow burn, intensity, lyrics that rip your heart apart. If you’re a little underwhelmed on the first spin (I was) then go twice, ’cause it shares one additional characteristic with their past pieces: the more often you listen the harder you’ll fall.
We need to wait another month for their new album, Trouble Will Find Me, however but if you pre-order it then you’ll get to download “Demons” straight away.
“These Paths” – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Last week the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s streamed their entire new album, Mosquito (hear the entire thing here!) however youtube is just so awkward that despite my excitement I’ve only listened to it once. Did you listen? What did you think? My initial feeling is that it is so weird and unpredictable and I LOVE IT. I mean I don’t love it as much as I love “Phenomena” but parts of it are definitely blowing my mind. I’m extremely fond of “These Paths”. Karen O describes it as a “Dave Sitek heavily influenced medical marijuana track” and I just can’t top that. I can’t embed so listen to it here at the 26 min mark.
“Bottled Affection” – Cold War Kids
Cold War Kids wrote a song about my life. Crazy, right? It’s from their new album, Dear Miss Lonelyhearts, which was released last week. I haven’t heard the whole thing yet, I’m holding off on buying it until the Autostraddle Meet Me At The Record Store Day meet-up because it’ll sound a lot better that way. What album/s are you gonna buy on Record Store Day?
I also wanna give a shout out to “Loner Phase,” which is a stand out track and not just because it references aging and hibernation and being a loner. Dear Miss Lonelyhearts is the stories of our lives, basically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egh0zLdUGmU
“If” – Janet Jackson (Ellie Herring Remix)
Remember queer musician/producer Ellie Herring? You should; she made you this amazing Valentine’s Day mix and so there’s a chance that you’ve done it (or wept quietly) (or both) to the sound of her music. Now she’s worked her magic on Janet Jackson‘s “If”, which you can stream and download below. I really didn’t like Jackson’s original and so this remix is surprisingly enjoyable.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/85684033″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
If you like what you hear and happen to live in Kentucky, Ellie’s playing two shows this weekend and you should probably go check ’em out.
“That Was The Whiskey” – Antigone Rising
Does any of you listen to country music? I am uneducated on the genre. I met Keith Urban once. That is a weird name drop but also the limit of my country experience. Antigone Rising have been a Thing in country rock for a long time, or so the internet tells me. They were bought to my attention is because one of the members, Kristen Ellis-Henderson, is kissing her wife Sarah on the cover of TIME Magazine right now, which is really neat. But also! They’ve just released this song and I can’t stop listening for many reasons, particularly the handclaps and rousing chorus of “that was the whiskey”. Dare you not to get into it. Dare you.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/81926752″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Heard a great song? Shoot me the link via @trackstop or crystal at autostraddle dot com (please write “track stop” in the subject line).
Gosh darn it I just love the National’s lyrics so much
While we’re talking about music, Daughter’s debut album came out last month but they have yet to be mentioned on autostraddle, which I feel I need to rectify because if you haven’t listened to Daughter you are doing something seriously wrong with your life. Winding echoey guitar melodies combined with Elena Tonra’s perfect, hauntingly beautiful voice are some of the best things to ever happen to me and my ears
/fangirl episode
YES, yes, yes, yes. Daughter is great. I second your fangirling.
Unrelated: spell check has autocorrected fangirling to fingerling THREE times now and I just, I’m crying — I needed to let y’all know. *feelings*
My housemate at Uni, and best friend, is cousins with Elena from Daughter. :)
WHAT
so you could totally meet her at some point/get her to meet me/get her to come to my house and play guitar and sing to me forever and ever. right?
I have not heard this album! i will check it out for next week’s TS.
Even if they weren’t country, I couldn’t get into a band called Antigone Rising, it just gives me flashbacks to a horrible high school English class.
I did not realize Yeah Yeah Yeahs were streaming their new album, I’m so excited to listen it!
love Cold War Kids!! Also ELLLLIIIEEE!! You never fail. never never.
Super pumped for Mosquito, but is it sacrilegious that I find Sacrilege annoying? Well just the last few minutes.
it’s ok that you feel this way. the only thing i find annoying about sacrilege is that i can never spell it right.
Yes, I relied heavily on auto-correct to write the above comment.
ahhh i love the national. and i’m really liking ‘demons’. i feel like it has all this teen angst except that it’s for adults which is how i feel sometimes.
to be honest, i didn’t like ‘high violet’ that much. maybe it’s because ‘boxer’ was so good. but i’m still excited for the new album.
I thought ‘high violet’ was more consistently good than ‘boxer’ overall, but the best bits of ‘boxer’ were better than the best bits of ‘high violet’ if that makes sense
idk it’s all amazing
and I can’t stop listening to demons either
basically the national are the best <3
i love the national and i’m so obsessed with that song and thanks for bringing it to my attention because i didn’t know about it / hadn’t heard about it anywhere else?
crystal you are the best is what i’m saying
Crystal’s Track Stop is the highlight of my week! Fantastic sustenance for one self-proclaimed gormandizer of all the delicious sounds.
Thanks for sharing :)