Staff Picks and Good Shit for the Week of January 30 with Joanna Angel

Joanna Angel, photo by Drew Millard

Every week, the Noisey editors compile everything we’ve been listening to and dump them out here. We had a pretty big week here. We went to a porn convention, we met teens… wait, those sound gross when paired together. Anyway, please don’t report us. Here’s some good music. …We cool? Oh also, joining us this week is noted pornography woman, Joanna Angel. Start us off, Joanna…

I play this every morning and it makes the day start off great. It's by Tegan and Sara and The Lonely Island. They made it for The Lego Movie. It's really good. Everyone should listen to it when they wake up in the morning.

Joanna Angel, DIY Porn Mogul
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I'm on a train to Montreal right now and I had to wake up very early to be on it. Since my phone can't hold a ton of music at a time, I frequently have to swap out the entirety of my music collection and replace it when I get bored. Since this trip requires me to both stay alert and entertained, I decided to get reacquainted with the Jay Z projects I most often ignore: Vol 1. - Vol. 3 and have been listening to nothing but for the last few hours (and The Dynasty compilation, but those tracks keep getting skipped over for some reason). I'm going to offer a very controversial take right now: In My Lifetime Vol. 1 is Jay Z's most under rated body of work. It's an album that's aged pretty well: between Pusha T reworking part of "Medley: Intro" for "Numbers on the Board" and Lil Wayne reciting the last verse of "Lucky Me" verbatim on his best album's best track, Jay Z's project has become better as time continues to go on. The best track on this album is "Where I'm From", a song that's so menacing, I've tripped four people in the aisle of this train and then held their eye contact afterwards until they back down. I could listen for days to Jay Z rap about environments where drugs czars evolve and thugs are at odds, and I probably will, because it looks like there's a delay on the tracks.

Slava Pastuk, Canadian Editor
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…That thing when you are talking about a song with some friends and realize it's not on Spotify. This happens to me more and more lately (thankfully I have a bit of a vinyl collection) and this Van Morrison jam is the latest track that I couldn't find on the otherwise rather extensive streaming service (I did find the Dexy's Midnight Runners version, which is no where near as grand).

Anyway, this track reminds me of driving around in my dad's car when I was little, cranking classic rock and pop. I was fortunate enough to hear Zeppelin and Floyd and Sabbath when my peers were glued to Sesame Street, so a lot of this stuff brings back strong childhood memories. Classic, classic shit.

Fred Pessaro, Noisey, Editor-in-Chief
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I took a real deep dive into Bandcamp this week and somehow came up for air holding a big bag full of weird shit. Like this compilation of Russian bands covering Orchid, for example. It sounds pretty much like exactly like the Orchid records I’ve been listening to for the last 15 years but it’s Russian so I feel “cultured” and “smart.” With a similar intent of making myself seem smarter, I also listened to this whole nonsensical Sarah Palin speech where she sounds like a substitute teacher who came to work hungover.

Dan Ozzi, Cultured Editor
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I saw Sam Hunt last night. It was sick. When he played this song he rapped part of it over "Like a Pimp" by David Banner and Lil Flip. Watching him work a room full of 350 or so screaming fans who knew every word, I got the sense that Sam Hunt will never play a room this small again. He covered Drake, Destiny's Child, and Cyndi Lauper throughout the show, which should sort of give you an idea of the vibe he's going for. Also, Sam Hunt is hot.

Drew Millard, Sam Hunt Editor
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I turned 27 this past week, which is not very old, but not very young, either. It just sort of is. Instead of getting wasted on my birthday, I went to a museum to look at skulls, ate doughnuts, and drank wine with the dude I love. The passage of time is a constant, inescapable truth, so you might as well enjoy it. It did make me think back a bit, though, to what I was doing ten years ago. I was a junior in high school, dreaming about escaping my tiny rural town and becoming a writer. I spent most of my time writing for zines, fretting about college scholarships, visiting my mother in the hospital, and listening to Darkthrone. The latter two went hand-in-hand; ever since I first discovered its cold, distorted howl, black metal has gotten me through the worst (and the best) periods of my life. Now, ten years later, I am happy that I did get out; I've traveled the world, and made a good life for myself far away from where I started. Over the course of a decade, I moved to Philadelphia, to London, and to New York City, kept writing, landed my dream job… and I still really, really love Darkthrone.

Kim Kelly, Contributing Editor
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The original version of Philly rapper Chynna's "Glen Coco" was an awesome, ominous, trap-leaning track, but this remix knocks it out of the park. All new and stripped straight back, Chynna flexes over a booming beat that consumes and destroys.Yes girl, go.

Kim Taylor Bennett, Style Editor
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The last time Jessie Ware put out an album, I knew from the way people described it that I would be way into it, but that didn't stop me from completely ignoring her for several months before (predictably) getting way into it. Stupidly enough, I let the exact same thing happen with her most recent album. But if there's an upside to doing that, it's that there is nothing better than listening to giant, cavernous, electronic R&B about heartbreak when it is dark and you're walking in the snow. The synthetic, stuttering sounds of this song and "You and I (Forever)" feel both completely isolating and totally reassuring—yeah, you're listening to this song about everything falling apart, but at least Jessie Ware gets it! At least she has the wherewithal to make a dark joke about the phrase "tough love!" And, appropriately, while you're listening to this song about how tough love is, with that little slice of noir humor in the chorus, it is its own kind of tough love, which asks you to just get over whatever feelings you have and enjoy what a great fucking song this is.

Kyle Kramer, Editor
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Yeah, yeah, make your jokes about twee culture and Urban Outfitters. Got it out of your system? OK, sweet. This past week, I saw Death Cab perform at Music Hall of Williamsburg and it was great. Just flat out great. They performed all the hits—the ones that make us feel the feels and hate the hates. I went to the show with one of my best friends, and we sang along to every word and felt like we were discovering skinny jeans for the first time. This culture didn't exist where I grew up. Death Cab was one of the first bands that I connected with in a way where I felt part of an alternative culture that wasn't driven by Top 40 pop music. I've been listening to them all week. Nostalgia is so fucking dope.

Eric Sundermann, Managing Editor

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