Music Molly

music for changing your mind (megamix 16)

Bonjour mes amis. Let's get into the mix...

The Perennial Sound in the Valley

I've really liked Perennial since I saw their album Art History getting talked up amongst my music loving internet peers. They take midcentury modern vibes and run them through the punk extruder...

...Motown goes CBGBs...

....combining the principles of "twee" and "rage" beautifully. And oh ho ho, they were playing in my town! Well, sort of—in the San Fernando Valley, at a venue called The Shed. Even better, Mike Huguenor, who has made several nothing-but-guitar albums that rule, was opening for them.

I cruised over in a zero-traffic, post-rush hour situation. Extremely rare, very blessed; I listened to a live recording of a DJ set from the German artist called BUNT. on the way. The Shed is indeed a shed, but kitted out with great sound and a nice lighting/projection/fog situation that levels it up from your normal DIY stage setup. Mike Huegenor bounced around charmingly while looping and layering his guitar licks, so buoyant that he would have made a great advertisement for the shock absorbency of his sneakers (Reeboks? Onitsuka Tigers?? I should reach out for comment).

Perennial ripped, so much charisma and verve and zest. Great stage bits including Chad Jewett and Chelsey Hahn walking around and getting everyone to help sing "Up-tight," plus a roaming a capella cover of "Heard It Through The Grapevine"; great banter ("We're not resting on our laurels...we've been in the kitchen...we've been testing recipes"); and absolutely batshit drumming from Ceej Dioguardi, who I overheard at the merch table speaking of a possible broken finger, which would track with the performance level. I bought a purple Perennial shirt with a cat on it. Incredible night, so blessed the Perennial Sound buzzed through Southern California.

a face-melting 2manydjs mix for romantic millennials and those who love them

I started running again for the first time since being pregnant last year, and that means I need good running music. 2manydjs is one of my favorite DJ acts of all time, certainly since they played "The Safety Dance" at their post-LCD Soundsystem gig in San Francisco on New Year's 2024, and every so often I just search "2manydjs live" on YouTube to see if anything good pops up. Lucky me, their Rock Werchter set from last year got uploaded a couple months ago, and I played it for a training run for a 5k.

If you saw me on the streets of Northeast L.A., leaping over cracks in the sidewalk, holding a single lemon that I grabbed from a neighbor's Free Lemon pile and making an unabashed soyface...yes you did because this mix is insane. It's a music enjoyer's paradise especially if you're a millennial who has never gotten over the Girl Talk style of unorthodox mashup. I don't want to spoil it for you but just as a breadcrumb...the Soulwax remix of Klaxons "Gravity's Rainbow" into Donna Summer "I Feel Love" instrumental with Olivia Rodrigo's "bad idea right?" vocals on top. WOWOWOW.

**The Heated Rivalry Wolf Parade needle drop to workout TikTok pipeline**

By this point we all know how good/millennial/Canadian the music supervision on the horny hockey show is. I'm over the moon that, as Such Great Heights author Chris DeVille discussed in a recent newsletter, not everyone has forgotten how to do music supervision that feels more curated and purposeful than just Scenic Emotion At Sensible Background Volume.

Amusingly, the famed Wolf Parade song cue has expanded beyond the boundaries of sensible indie rock fandom and is now soundtracking all kinds of content. My FYP delivered me a video of a fit young woman doing "deficit squats" to the rhythm of "I'll Believe In Anything," which is something I wouldn't have imagined in 2005 even if I had been assigned to imagine something extra weird back then. There are also Heated Rivalry club nights where people dance to Charli XCX and Robyn while watching footage of the two hunky stars of the show getting it on. And they say there's a loneliness epidemic.

@angelinanicollle
he is my glute goals #connorstorrie #heatedrivalry
♬ I'll Believe in Anything - Wolf Parade

i changed me mind about Lola Young

I did not care for the song "Messy" by Lola Young when it hit big. I thought the melody was boring and lazy, and I thought the lyric about "pulling a Britney" was hackneyed. Thus I wrote off the song's singer entirely...for a while. Lola Young won a Grammy (on Music's Biggest Night!) for "Messy" and her acceptance speech was so jubilant and genuine that it got me to listen to her album from last year, I'm Only F**king Myself. And guess what...I really liked it. It is "alt rock" in a way that feels genuine and not posed, very Daughter Of Linda Perry, if there's anyone out there who enjoyed Pink's Missundaztood as much as I did.

"SPIDERS" is the standout song to me, containing the modern angst of the second half of Billie Eilish's "Happier Than Ever" with VINTAGE GRUNGE set to high and Young's powerful vocals on full blast. I have learned a valuable lesson: don't write off people on the basis of their most viral hit.

A Y2K pop playlist with enough wet-dry cymbals to last the rest of your life

I was so pleased to see this Fluxblog/Nicstalgia playlist collab: "💖Y2K POP 1999-2002💗" aka the music I listened to with much fervor from third grade to sixth grade. When I first got the link, I scrolled until I saw the song that I knew needed to be there, which is "Faded" by the Canadian boy band SoulDecision.

My first ever concert was Christina Aguilera at the Champlain Valley State Fair in 2000, and SoulDecision was the opener. Not only is "Faded" still a bop (the random-ass horn blats on the bridge don't need to go as hard as they do), it also represents a crucial learning for young Molly, which is that concerts had opening acts. This floored me on a business sense alone. I got extra value for my ticket? I thought I was seeing one concert, but I was actually seeing two? Cash back! SoulDecision instilled a deep appreciation of opening acts in me, which continues to this day.

**entertained by The Moment / freaking out over the Industry soundtrack**

Reviewed Charli XCX's mockumentary for GQ.com, which I thought was a tonally weird but structurally confident self-skewering of the job requirements of pop stardom, especially from a marketing standpoint—subject matter to which I have been historically receptive. I also tied in her pivot to Substack and tried to figure out what it means when someone who has been famous for being an Aperol-slurping party girl is now cracking the books, visiting the repertory theater, and BLOGGING.

Also got to interview Ollie White, music supervisor for Industry! And wrote about the best needle drops of the show....

I listened to music because I saw people saying it was good

Eavesdropping time.

I listened to "No Sex For Ben" by The Rapture after reading a great Bungalow Magazine piece about it, featuring an interview from Mattie Safer about the recording process, including getting to collaborate with Timbaland. I listened to WIXIW by Liars on the recommendation of @doppeldingus (deliciously chilly, moody, imperious). I listened to Maddy Hellstrom's Biblionaut EP on the rec of Kabir Kumar (INTERESTING GUITARS). I listened to Houmeissa by Hama on the rec of my friend Morgan (the album art is really good). I listened to Divorce's Drive to Goldenhammer because it was in NME's 20 best debut albums of 2025 and it blew me away. I listened to Vanities by Malibu because an employee named Matt at a record store called Josey Records put it in their end-of year list on TikTok. I listened to Dove Ellis's Blizzard because Steven Hyden wrote about him (it did not quite hit for me, but I was playing it while also trying to distract my baby from wanting to go to bed too early ("eeeeooouuuuuwww 😫 " - my daughter) and maybe I need to give it another chance). I listened to the song "If You Know Me" by Hudson Freeman because it was the song Nick Sylvester shared the most with others last year.

And how about some new music from past I Enjoy Music featurees?

I really want this segment to get longer and longer as I keep blogging, until it's just so fuckin' long because it's full of great music from artists I have covered in the past. It will be like a freakin CVS receipt, only good....

...I ask again, who is doing it like Amelia Riggs?

...NEW MISERABLE CHILLERS!! I never regret a single minute of listening to the lush "sophistipop" of this project. The new album is sick, out 4/3....