A lot of what I’ve been listening to during the pandemic isn’t all that shocking (Nothing’s Shocking, I suppose). NIN, Rage Against The Machine, The Orb, Bad Religion, The National…a lot of the usual suspects I turn to when I’m looking for (need) the feels.

Don’t sleep on the new songs Bob Mould or Silversun Pickups. Different new songs, but meaningful.

I didn’t have Run the Jewels or Taylor Swift on my 2020 music bingo card at the start of the year, but…well, here we are. Taylor + Aaron from the National? Ok, fine. New Run the Jewels drops while the country is on fire? Yeah, the hype was true. RTJ4 has been on an endless loop for me. Yankee and the Brave, indeed.

Oh, and as a suburban YA asshole in 1992, I can fully admit I didn’t understand the scope of “Killing In The Name” at that time, when the censored version played endlessly on KROQ. The song is not for shouting along to blindly. That problem is real, and it has been real forever.