| I'll never forget that day at school when my phone wouldn't stop vibrating only to find out it was our band that was taking over my feed and that musicians like Flea and Questlove were sharing [our] video. | |  |  | | The Linda Lindas: Lucia de la Garza, Mila de la Garza, Eloise Wong and Bela Salazar. | | (Zen Sekizawa/Grandstand Media) | | | | quote of the day | | | rantnrave:// | Growing Up
One of my favorite stories about the LINDA LINDAS, the Los Angeles pop-punk prodigies, ages 11 to 17, whose exuberant, bubblegummy debut album is out today, is how their 2021 viral hit "RACIST, SEXIST BOY" came to be. Drummer MILA DE LA GARZA and bassist ELOISE WONG wrote it about an encounter Mila, the youngest member of the group, had with a boy at school who told her at the beginning of the pandemic that he'd been told to avoid Chinese people; when she said she was Chinese, he backed away from her. They originally called the song "IDIOTIC BOY," but Eloise was uncomfortable with the wording, which she thought was "ableist." "All the adults around us were like, no, the song is fine, you don't have to change it," she told the New York Times. "But, um, we didn't want to be the oppressors that we were, like, screaming about."
It would be so easy for some people to make fun of a 14-year-girl in Los Angeles who talks that way, but the thing is, 14-year-old girls in Los Angeles really do talk that way. Some of them anyway. They're kind, they're thoughtful, they're respectful and they're aware of the power of language to both inspire and hurt people. It would be so easy, I'm sure, for some people to make fun of *me* for trying to explain this. We live in a toxic world. The Linda Lindas—Mila, her older sister Lucia, their cousin Eloise and their friend Bela Salazar—refuse to give in to it. They changed the song's title and hook to "Racist, Sexist Boy," because, as Lucia explained to the Times, it's about what a person says and does, not who he is. No ad hominem pop-punk attacks for them. And the thing is, in their determination to make the song less offensive, they made it more specific, more detailed, better. The boy's crime is called out in exacting language in Eloise's cathartically screamed three-word chorus. They language-policed themselves into a pop-punk classic.
Further notes on the Linda Lindas' album, GROWING UP:
It was produced by CARLOS DE LA GARZA, a simpatico LA producer/engineer who's worked with the likes of PARAMORE, BEST COAST and CHARLY BLISS. He's also Mila and Lucia's father. All the LL's grew up in Southern California punk/indie/alternative community; Eloise's dad is MARTIN WONG, co-founder of GIANT ROBOT magazine. But before you try to work out how that obviously explains their accomplishments so far, please take note of how many rock star children, given every opportunity and every connection in the world, have made mediocre records and fashioned mediocre careers. That, in fact, is how it works out for most of them. The Linda Lindas are something special.
Plus, as Mila told MTV News about the joy of getting to record her band's first album with her father: "Before, we didn't really know what he did for work!"
All four Linda Lindas write and sing lead.
They cover BIKINI KILL and the MUFFS live. Their older, more polished pop-star peer OLIVIA RODRIGO covers VERUCA SALT and AVRIL LAVIGNE. This is one of my favorite new trends: young women rejecting boring old canons and creating fun new ones of their own. I feel better about rock and roll future than I have in a long time.
The SHONEN KNIFE-y "NINO," sung by Bela, is about a cat, "a savage cat, killer of mice and rats." The Linda Lindas are just as comfortable reflecting on their own outsider identities and/or expressing the joy of being young and making music together. Growing up, as the album title says. If they can keep this up and keep growing up, look out.
It's Friday
And that means there's also new music from FIVIO FOREIGN, the veteran Brooklyn drill rapper releasing his much-anticipated debut album at the unlikely age of 32. He's lived through a lot, he's seen a lot and he's trying, on B.I.B.L.E., "to maneuver an unconventional sound onto a more conventional path: smoothing down drill's street edge into something safely marketable," Joe Coscarelli writes. "I'm still rapping about my reality," Fivio himself says. "But at the same time, my reality is changing"... WET LEG, two women from of the Isle of Wight who "repel seriousness" (Pitchfork) in everything they do, is one of the most buzzed-about indie-rock bands in years, having already endured "the backlash, the backlash to the backlash, and so forth" (Stereogum) in the space of less than a year. The songs on Wet Leg's self-titled debut album, says Stereogum's Chris DeVille, are "sprightly little machines built from rolling basslines, driving drums, and guitars that shoot off at cartoonish angles, playing off the duo's droll turns of phrase." Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers like synths, too, and to mock their twentysomething peers... GIRL TALK's first album in 12 years is an album-length collaboration with WIZ KHALIFA, BIG K.R.I.T. and SMOKE DZA and a radical departure from the producer's previous three albums. This time, he says, he actually cleared his samples... The first new PINK FLOYD track in 28 years. "HEY, HEY, RISE UP" samples the voice of Ukrainian singer/soldier ANDRIY KHLYVNYUK and will raise money for Ukraine Humanitarian Relief.
Plus new music from COI LERAY, CAMILA CABELLO, SYD (of the Internet), BILLY WOODS, FATHER JOHN MISTY, CHLOE MORIONDO, ORVILLE PECK, COLE SWINDELL, VINCE STAPLES 42 DUGG & EST GEE, YUNG LEAN, CAITLYN SMITH, LUCIUS, OMAR APOLLO, KAE TEMPEST, JACK WHITE (first of two 2022 albums), HEALTH, ENVY OF NONE (Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson's new band), the REGRETTES, BANKS, WHATEVER THE WEATHER (aka London electronic producer Loraine James), OVERMONO, HAYDEN JAMES, FLOFILZ, NIK COLK VOID, ORANGEPURPLEBEACH (aka John Vanderslice), HIATUS KAIYOTE (remixes)m ANDY PARTRIDGE, CALEXICO, DANIEL ROSSEN, CAMERON GRAVES, FERGUS MCCREADIE, TORD GUSTAVSEN TRIO, GOLDA SCHULTZ, RENATA ZEIGUER, WET TUNA, LIZZY MCALPINE, OCEANATOR, DEER SCOUT, PENDANT, PICTORIA VARK, ROMERO, PAPA ROACH, JOE SATRIANI and ALBERT CUMMINGS.
Rest in Peace
KEN WEST, founder of Australia's Big Day Out festival... Israeli American concert pianist JOSEPH KALICHSTEIN, best known for his more than 40 years in the chamber group the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
| |  | | Smithsonian Magazine |
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| | Transitioning to Web 3 by building a research DAO with Cherie Hu | | By Holly Herndon, Mat Dryhurst and Cherie Hu | | This week we host the inimitable Cherie Hu to discuss the evolution of Water & Music into the first contributor led research DAO for the music industry, the changing definitions and focus of music & technology, Tik Tok and the politics (and occasional burden) of relatability. | | |  | | Billboard |
| | Why Everyone Wants to Work With Travis Barker | | By Lyndsey Havens | | The drummer has become one of music's most influential hitmakers, nurturing a new generation of stars and powering the pop-punk resurgence - but he'll never confine himself to one genre box. | | |  | | SPIN |
| | Artist x Artist: Kathleen Hanna x The Linda Lindas | | By Kathleen Hanna and The Linda Lindas | | The Bikini Kill/Le Tigre frontwoman and the LA pop-punk band exchange questions about their origins, how they discovered each other and describe what an "interview hangover" is. | | | | | | | | | | |  | | Midia Research |
| | The future of music consumption is (re)creation | | By Kriss Thakrar | | The rise in non-DSP streaming reflects the next generation of music consumers who want immersive and creative experiences with platforms. One way this is done is through recreation, where consumers add their own creations on top of existing content. | | | | |  | | VICE |
| | How UK Rap Fell in Love with Soccer | | By Cady Siregar | | Drill and grime lyrics are crammed with Premier League references, but the relationship between music and sport goes deeper than you think. | | | | |  | | HipHopMadness |
| | The Sad Truth About Female Rappers | | While the complex infrastructure that we know as hip-hop is a treacherous minefield for the men in the game to navigate, the difficulty increases tenfold if you're from the opposite gender. | | | | what we're into |  | | Music of the day | | "Growing Up" | | The Linda Lindas | | "We'll dance like nobody's there / We'll dance without any cares / We'll talk 'bout problems we share / We'll talk 'bout things that ain't fair." Title track from their debut album, out today on Epitaph. | | |
| | | | Video of the day | | "For Love & Country" | | Joshua Kissi | | Joshua Kissi's documentary on Black country artists is streaming on Amazon Music and Prime Video. | | |
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| | Music | Media | | | | | | Suggest a link  | | "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" |
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