Insult to Injury: Week Ending 5/30

Welcome to Insult to Injury, the place where the Noisey editors gather to dump out everything they’ve been listening to lately while simultaneously mourning the loss of our dear friend, phrosties. Here is the soundtrack to our grief this week…

John Mayer – “XO”
Since we can’t write about Vic Mensa’s “Down On My Luck” for three weeks in a row, I’m going to plug John Mayer’s cover of a Beyonce song. John Mayer is an oddly polarizing individual because he makes cheesy but beautiful music while doing and saying things that make it really easy for people to hate him. Most recently, John has infused Beyoncé’s celebratory love song with enough harmonicas to make you feel as if you’re on a river bend with a string tied around your big toe and a straw hat shading your eyes from the summer sun. The song is so good, I can only assume that we’re about two weeks away from John saying something terrible in an interview. PS, John, if you’re reading this, let’s set up an interview, bro!

Slava Pastuk, Canadian Editor
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Kyle Kramer, Guest Editor
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Cousin Fik – “Sickest Nigga Healthy II Intro”
Super crazy that nothing controversial and rap-related happened on Noisey this week! Anyways, I’ve been diving into various Bay Area slappers, and the intro of Cousin Fik’s Sickest Nigga Healthy II is one of the best rap-related things I’ve heard in a goddamn minute. The beat, this wonderful little number tying together chipmunk soul to that hazy ambient thumb-snap thump that they kids these days seem to like, is done by Droop-E, the wonderously talented son of E-40. Cousin Fik—who is actually E-40’s Cousin, in case you were wondering—goes in like somebody lit him on fire and the only way he will survive is by rapping real well.

Drew Millard, Features Editor
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Fred Pessaro, Noisey, Editor-in-Chief
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The Futureheads – The Futureheads
Last weekend I went to a log cabin with no internet, a great record collection, and a swing. On the drive back to reality I had listen to music that made me amped on life again. And people. No one likes a misanthrope. So I played the first two Futureheads records and remembered how, when I first heard them in 2003, they made me feel unstoppable and weirdly in love with the world. Wryly observant songs about the pointlessness of false conversations, new jobs, and robots delivered via glorious four-part harmonies, at a breakneck pace, with guitars lines that are all elbows—The Futureheads’ first record is just perfect.

Kim Taylor Bennett, Style Editor