Beginning in 2010, BBC Books has published a series of "prestige" Doctor Who hardcovers, with different "big name" authors of various sorts, mostly a mix of authors with legit reps outside of Doctor Who (e.g., Stephen Baxter, Jenny Colgan), "celebrities" within the Doctor Who world (e.g., Tom Baker, Sophie Aldred), and people imitating the voice of Douglas Adams. I have previously read just one of them, a 2011 Christmas book, The Silent Stars Go by by Dan Abnett.
Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles; Or, Pirates of the Second Aether!! by Michael Moorcock
The very first of those, which I have had for a long time but never read, was The Coming of the Terraphiles, by Michael Moorcock. Moorcock is one of those authors I know of but have read very little of, just a couple short stories; the universe of print sf is so large and one only has so much time! Apparently this book's "Second Aether" is a milieu he has developed in his original fiction, and some of its characters and concepts span his wider multiverse.
As an experiment, I think it's a worthy one. BBC Books's tie-ins to the new series can be easily accused, I think, of being unambitious; of not really trying to be like novels but novelisations of unseen episodes that don't play to the strengths of the prose medium. Like, they are often fun enough, but often don't do what the best tie-ins do, refract the parent show though a different and interesting lens.
Moorcock definitely is doing that here... but I didn't find it worked terribly well in the execution. The book is meandering, which can be fine if you enjoy the diversions, but I don't know why there is so much P. G. Wodehouse pastiche when Moorcock is only "quite okay" at it. (I coincidentally read some actual Jeeves and Wooster shortly after this, and the difference was stark.)
The book is at its best when it's weird and big, like the diversion into the all-red universe depicted on the cover. Those are the coolest moments, when the book is audacious, but in a way that transcends the CGI ways in which a tv show can be audacious. There are lots of fun bits; I particularly enjoyed all the goofy sports the characters play, and the role of the Judoon is so very well pitched, having them do stuff we never saw on screen that totally fits with it. Those jokes were probably my favorite. I think Moorcock has a decent handle on both Matt Smith's Doctor and Amy Pond, though not a great one.
Overall, I'm glad this book exists, but I don't think I'm quite as glad about the actual process of reading it. Still, I look forward to reading future installments in this series.
This series of posts took a bit of a breather. Partially because I have to track down out-of-print trade paperbacks, but partially also because trying to read the stories in any kind of reasonable or accurate sequence gets much harder around this point! I had been using the Cosmic Teams timeline, but it has lots of placements that very obviously do not make sense if you read the actual stories, making me think it was done from someone's vague memories of the series. So I kept on reading, but put my writeups on pause while I tried to work out the best order.
Now, finally, I am back in action. It is interesting; this era gives you some signs that the Justice League family of titles was in trouble, in that approaches are constantly being jerked around and creative teams switching. But it also gives you indications things were going quite well, because a third ongoing monthly title was added to the lineup. Has there ever been any other era in the history of DC where there were four ongoing Justice League titles? (America, International, and Task Force all as monthlies, but also Quarterly keeps going, with three issues' worth of content every quarter, so essentially another monthly.)
This post covers the end of Dan Jurgens's run on Justice League America (collected in a book called Superman and Justice League America, Volume 2... even though Superman is dead for every single one of these issues!) and the first three issues of Justice League Task Force. Based on chronological considerations, it will be a bit before we get back to JLE, now retitled Justice League International. Plus, a single issue of JLQ!
from Justice League America #76
"Grieving" / "A New Look" / Destiny's Hand / Blood Secrets, from Justice League America #70-77 (Jan.-Late July 1993), reprinted in Superman and Justice League America, Volume 2 (2016) words/layouts by Dan Jurgens (guest pencils by Sal Velluto), finishes by Rick Burchett and Romeo Tanghal & Bob Smith, letters by Willie Schubert, colors by Gene D'Angelo
So, JLA #69 ended with Superman showing up to battle Doomsday. JLA #70 begins with him dead, having been killed off in Superman #75 as part of the Death of Superman story. The issue first focuses on the reactions of the various League members to the events of the battle with Doomsday: Ice, who had a crush on Superman, is devastated; Blue Beetle is in a coma; Booster is beside himself at both the injury of his best friend and the destruction of his suit. It then takes a broader approach, as other characters show up to grieve, like the Flash and Aquaman and Hawkman and Green Arrow. Even Guy Gardner is sad! It's fine, it does exactly what it should, I suppose. Dan Jurgens's art lifts his story; he's very good at classical heroic heroes emoting, which is exactly what this needs.
The next issue is one of those dull transitional issues, establishing the new status quo for the League: who quits, who joins, &c. Wonder Woman takes over as team leader. Ice quits. Booster and Fire are still around but neither has powers. A bunch of new members join, including the Ray (who lasts for quite a while) and two other characters who I honestly forget were even in the title until I went to write these issues up just now! These are Condor and Agent Liberty. Jurgens never really establishes their deals in an interesting way during his run, and they just vanish after it's over; I am pretty sure they are not written out, they just stop appearing after issue #75! I would say that's typical of the post-Giffen/DeMatteis JLA, which very much struggles to create a compelling mix of characters no matter who's writing.
At this point, Jurgens's run fizzles out. First we get a really boring four-part story about Doctor Dee dreaming a harsher Justice League into existence, which begins to bleed into the real world. It's just not a very interesting idea and it goes on far too long. The whole thing wraps up with a two-part story finally explaining what's been going on with Bloodwynd: he's the Martian Manhunter in the form of Bloodwynd. This is a great twist but not a great story because it turns out J'onn J'onnz thinks he's Bloodwynd so he's acting exactly how Bloodwynd would act. It tells us nothing about either Bloodwynd or J'onn as a character, so what's the point? I do like how Jurgens writes Blue Beetle, though, never forgetting that in addition to being a goofball he's also an obsessive genius.
from Justice League Quarterly #11
"Beautiful, Wonderful, Perfect" / "Heat Wave" / "The Damnation Agenda, Part 1 of 5: The Hiding Kind", from Justice League Quarterly #11 (Summer 1993) writes by William Messner-Loebs, Pat McGreal & Dave Rawson, and Michael Jan Friedman; pencils by Mike Wieringo & Lee Moder, Dave Cockrum, and Mike Mayhew; inks by Richard Space, Peter Gross, and Dan Davis; letters by Bob Pinaha and Tim Harkins; colors by Gene D'Angelo, Steve Mattsson, and Glenn Whitmore
The lead story in this issue is said to "take place before current issues of Justice League,"
but there's pretty much nowhere it could go, as it features both Wonder
Woman and Ice in the JLA, and Ice quit the same issue Wonder Woman
joined (JLA #71). Additionally, Beetle is unseen but mentioned as active, yet he was comatose from JLA #69 to 75. But it can't go later, once Ice rejoins (JLA #85), because by then, Crimson Fox has quit the League!
Anyway, the lead story here has potential but, like all of William Messner-Loebs's contributions to JLQ, is not very well done. The League is asked to protect the wife of a conservative Muslim prince, so only female members can be used. The main characters have to be pretty dumb and gullible for the whole thing to work. There are some decent character moments among the leads, but also I feel like Mike Wieringo and Lee Moder's art wasn't quite ready for prime time. (But then, I guess JLQ isn't exactly prime time.) There's also a flashback story about the Martian Manhunter in the 1960s, battling racism in the South. I wouldn't say it's great comics, but I thought it was solid, and surprisingly nuanced for the early 1990s. It's cowritten by Pat McGreal, who overall did some solid stuff for JLQ; I'd've liked to have seen more work from him. And the art is by the great Dave Cockrum; nice to see him get to cut loose with something other than standard superhero fare.
Lastly, this issue sees the debut of JLQ's first-ever ongoing feature. This stars Praxis... and if you're going, "Who?", I don't blame you. Praxis has a very flimsy JL connection; way back in JLQ #1 he was a member of Conglomerate. It would be quite easy to not remember him! (I see from DCUGuide that he actually debuted in a 1989 Spectre story arc, but I don't think that's ever mentioned in any of his JLQ appearances.) Why would he be picked up for a return appearance? Well, if you remember the 1990s, it's not too surprising: he wears a leather jacket and sunglasses and mostly goes around angsting. So totally of his time it almost reads as parody. Praxis was a cop who failed to save his niece from a serial killer and got superpowers; after Conglomerate fell apart, he returned to police work. The story here, told from the perspective of his female partner, focuses on them trying to stop a new serial killer with a grisly MO. It's by Michael Jan Friedman and Mike Mayhew, both solid comics creators, but I found there was a bit too much narration. Let the story breathe!
from Justice League Task Force #1
"The Tyranny Gun!" / "Split Hit" / "Twisted Glass!", from Justice League Task Force #1-3 (June-Aug. 1993), reprinted in Justice League Task Force, Volume 1: The Purification Plague (2018) written by David Michelinie, pencils by Sal Velluto, inks by Jeff Albrecht, letters by Bob Pinaha, colors by Glenn Whitmore
Justice League Task Force is a new ongoing. It only has two consistent lead characters, Martian Manhunter and Gypsy; other than the two of them, each story arc sees a new team assembled every issue, from a broad mix of DC superheroes. Interestingly, this grabbag approach also extends to the series's writing: David Michelinie gets first author on the collection cover, but actually only writes three of the twelve issues it collects... but no one writes more than three. While ongoing comics with rotating creators aren't unusual, I can't remember another comic I've read where the writer is constantly changing, but the artist is not; Sal Velluto pencilled all but two of the series's first fifteen issues.
In the first story, the UN uses the newly formed Task Force to take down rebels in a Caribbean nation. In this one, in addition to Manhunter and Gypsy, there's the Flash, Aquaman, and Nightwing. I don't really care for it. Sal Velluto has done good work elsewhere but this isn't his best, leaning too much into the early 1990s grim-and-gritty style; the writing is like that, too, with the characters always barking and snarling at each other. I don't find attempts to insert mainstream superhero characters into "realistic" geopolitics very interesting. This must go shortly after JLA #77 for J'onn, but the trauma he went through there is never mentioned, and weirdly, the actual JLA series never mentions why J'onn suddenly never appears again after his return!
I feel like David Michelinie was probably meant to write more of this title than he did. He gets cover credit on the fourth issue even though it was written by someone else (more on that next time), and the ending of #3 seems to set up a recurring villain who never recurs.
I really enjoyed volume 1 of John Ridley's Black Panther run, finding it a return to form after Ta-Nehisi Coates's. It was interesting, from a character, action, and thematic perspective, surely the best work on the title since Christopher Priest.
So I was very much surprised by how much I thoroughly disliked this. The first few issues here wrap up the "Long Shadow" arc, and I found them dumb. I get that people might be mad at T'Challa having a secret plan of shadow agents... but I found the reactions here entirely disproportionate. The agents didn't even do anything. Can you get mad at the legitimate ruler of a country for having spies? Because that's literally all he did, yet everyone suddenly acts like T'Challa has committed the ultimate transgression. Yet he very much did "worse" things throughout Priest's run! And suddenly he's being deposed, being hunted by Wakandan police. Does it even make any sense? T'Challa is a popular ruler, you can't just politically turn on a guy like that. I didn't buy any of this at all, it made no sense. Clearly Ridley has a long game he's playing, and he's trying to get all the pieces into position for it, but the hand of the author is too obvious. To make all this work, you need to buy what Ridley is selling, and I did not.
A metaphor, you say? Surely not. from Black Panther vol. 9 #10 (art by Germán Peralta)
The rest of the book contains another story that actually reads much more like an Avengers story in its features, even if I would say it's a Black Panther story in terms of its project. No longer king of Wakanda, a depressed T'Challa is focusing on his duties as chairman of the Avengers when Earth comes under attack by the "Colonialist," an entity from another dimension. This is science fiction in the classic tradition of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds: what if the aliens did to the Earth (i.e., specifically white people) what white people have been going around doing to other people? The idea is fun enough, there's a couple good jokes, but I didn't find the actual story did as much with it as you might hope for; there's not really any interrogation on the part of the white characters as to what this says about them. I did like the "Buffalo Soldier" character a lot, though.
I was also glad to see Germán Peralta graduate from one-shot/back-up artist to the series main artist. He's good at action and emotional expressiveness; clear composition and good storytelling.
Visiting Grandma's yarn store in Grandma's sweater.
Our second kid had the misfortune to be born just a couple days before Christmas. This means his birthday almost always bumps up against our travel plans. I think across 2022-24, we were either driving on his birthday, or his birthday was the last Friday of school before winter break, the day before we drove.
But the way these things move around finally worked out to his advantage this year, as Son Two's fifth birthday came three days after the last day of school. So we could spend two days travelling and then celebrate his birthday on a day with no driving... and even be with my family when we did! This coincides with his increasing awareness of his own birthday; this is the first year, I think, where he's been anticipating its arrival for a sustained period of time.
(At first, he was opposed that he wouldn't get to celebrate with his friends on his actual birthday, but he came around eventually, though he keeps referring to the party we'll have now that we're back home as his "fake birthday party.")
Indeed, it was nice to celebrate. We were at my parents for Christmas, so they were both there, plus my sister and my brother's ex-wife. Son Two got some good presents, and for once, I felt like the presents of the birthday were well-separated from the presents of Christmas... three whole days! And then, instead of just getting to pick what fast-food restaurant we stopped at on our drive, he got a proper meal, generously prepared by my mom. He picked one of his favorite foods, pizza with black olives. And my mom also make a rainbow cake, which totally delighted him.
Son Two is at an interesting age (aren't they all?) where he is incredibly creative and playful but also desirous of a high level of autonomy that he doesn't get to receive. Lots of times his playfulness can be leveraged—he loves to use his turboboosters to race you to the bathroom—but other times it gets in the way—he might not stop playing with a cat toy long enough to actually do what he's supposed to do.
But I think our relationship is improving. He's more like me than Child One in some ways, especially his sense of humor and his desire to tease and be teased. For a long time, I think I often ended up focusing on Child One while my wife focused on Son Two, for lots of good and understandable reasons, but I've been trying to redress that balance a bit. He's into playing games like "hug monster" and he likes spinning imaginary stories with me; he had fun pretending we were driving a stolen car when we were doing Christmas shopping, for example! Some of his bad tendencies he definitely picks up from observing his older sibling, who struggles with violence.
He's starting to figure out reading; he knows all his letters and the sounds they make, but we haven't hit that phonics breakthrough of putting them together to sound out words. Of course, he's only in pre-K, so that's fine! His favorite "treat" is chocolate. Santa (i.e., my mother) put a bag of chocolate chips in his stocking, and never was a kid more ecstatic on Christmas morning.
I look forward to seeing how he continues to grow up over the next year. Hopefully he gets a real birthday again.
Pick of the month:BBC VFXby Mat Irvine and Mike Tucker. I read mostly tie-in fiction and comics this month, so nothing was terribly great, but I did find this a pretty effective piece of nonfiction squarely in my interests.
All books read:
Black Panther: All This and the World, Too by John Ridley and Germán Peralta
The Worthing Chronicle by Orson Scott Card
Star Trek Into Darkness by Alan Dean Foster
Wesley Dodds: The Sandman by Robert Venditti and Riley Rossmo
Milk for Gall by Natalie Louise Tombasco
The Lonely Computer and Other Internet Doctor Who Short Trips, 2004-21
Gabriel Gale’s Ages of Oz: A Fiery Friendship by Lisa Fiedler, illustrated by Sebastián Giacobino
Star Trek: Khan by Mike Johnson, Claudia Balboni, David Messina, et al.
Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth by Karen Miller
Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 2 by Mike Johnson, Ryan Parrott, Stephen Molnar, Erfan Fajar, Claudia Balboni, et al.
Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 3 by Mike Johnson, Erfan Fajar, Yasmin Liang, Joe Corroney, et al.
Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 4 by Mike Johnson, Tony Shasteen, Cat Staggs, Rachael Stott, et al.
Black Panther: Reign at Dusk, Vol. 1 by Eve L. Ewing, Chris Allen, Mack Chater, and Craig Yeung
BBC VFX: The Story of the BBC Visual Effects Department, 1954-2003 by Mat Irvine and Mike Tucker
Baby Cat-Face by Barry Gifford
Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1 by Dan Vado, Kevin West, Rick Burchett, et al.
In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle
Black Panther: Reign at Dusk, Vol. 2 by Eve L. Ewing, Chris Allen, Craig Yeung, Mack Chater, et al.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
Justice League Task Force, Volume 1: The Purification Plague by David Michelinie, Sal Velluto, et al.
Star Trek / Green Lantern: The Spectrum War by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez
First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan
Ultimate Black Panther: Peace and War by Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, and Carlos Nieto
Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds by Mary Shelley, edited by David H. Guston, Ed Finn, and Jason Scott Robert
Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume One: Aflame by John Jackson Miller, Federico Dallocchio, Ivan Rodriguez, et al.
Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller
Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Two: Deluge by John Jackson Miller, Sergio Abad, Iban Coello, et al.
I have not had a month this productive since reading for Ph.D. exams, back in January 2013!
That was, of course, counterbalanced by all the books I got! I can't blame Christmas for this; presents (#12-17 and 20-23) weren't even a majority of what I acquired.
Currently reading:
Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 5 by Mike Johnson and Tony Shasteen
S. by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
Ultimate Black Panther: Gods and Kings by Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, and Carlos Nieto
Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 2 by Dan Vado, Mark Waid, Marc Campos, et al.
Justice League International Omnibus, Volume 3 by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, et al.
Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller
Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Three: Escape by John Jackson Miller, Marco Castiello, Vincenzo Acunzo, et al.
Star Trek / Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez
Up next in my rotations:
Formerly Known as the Justice League by Keith Giffen & J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Joe Rubinstein
Getting There by Manjula Padmanabhan
Carpatho-Ukraine in the Twentieth Century: A Political and Legal History by Vincent Shandor
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Starcrusher Trap by Mike W. Barr
Star Trek: The Next Generation #2: The Peacekeepers by Gene DeWeese
Published: 1988 Acquired: ??? Previously read: September 2005 Reread: October 2025
This is an old The Next Generation novel, the second original one ever published. At the time Gene DeWeese wrote it, I am not sure he would have even seen any episodes of the show, probably just read scripts. I felt like the influence of "Heart of Glory" was particularly obvious here: like in that episode, a significant early sequence is about Geordi going aboard a derelict vessel, his VISOR allowing him to see what others cannot.
I was surprised to see on LibraryThing that I read this before. Admittedly, it was exactly twenty years ago, but there are Star Trek books I read longer ago that I still have detailed, vivid memories of. Even as I reread this, absolutely nothing struck a chord of familiarity.
I assume this is because the book is dead boring. It's slow, agonizingly so, like DeWeese realized he had a 200-page idea but had to turn it into a 300-page book. Characters have long conversations, the action is repetitive for no purpose. The alien society is not at all interesting, nor is the dilemma that the book tries to set up, even though I feel like it could be. I think it would take a lot of reworking to make these basic ingredients come alive.
Written by Roseanne A. Brown Illustrated by Dika Araújo, Natacha Bustos & Claudia Aguirre Layouts by Geoffo Colors by Cris Peter Letters by Arianna Maher
This YA graphic novel takes us back to the childhood of T'Challa and Shuri, after the death of their father T'Chaka, before T'Challa ascended to the throne himself. The two children fight and argue, and both seem somewhat ill-prepared for their future responsibilities; T'Challa is a bit pompous, and disdains his younger sister, while Shuri would rather be doing science and thinks she's smarter than anyone else.
Only at a Wakanda ceremony both are ill-prepared for something goes horribly wrong, and people—including their mother, Ramonda—are infected with a mysterious virus. Could the work of T'Challa's birth mother, herself a successful scientist, lead them to a cure in the mysterious heartlands of Wakanda?
The result is a decent book about the two siblings going on a quest together along with a talking jerboa with a mysterious past. Like the flashback story in the recent Long Shadow collection, this leans more into the African storytelling traditions more than many Black Panther stories, and I very much enjoyed that aspect of it. The art is pretty typical for a YA superhero comics, sort of anime influenced, but I particularly enjoyed the vibrant coloring of Cris Peter.
I was a little disappointed in how the character of T'Challa himself was handled. I feel like the story turns much more on Shuri's decisions than his, and would have liked to have seen him project the commanding presence he's more commonly depicted as having.
(Lots of people on the Internet, including the Hoopla catalog, call this book "Shuri and T'Challa: Into the Heartlands," but the "Shuri and T'Challa" part of the title appears nowhere on or in the actual book as far as I can tell.)
I've been a devoted listener of NPR's weekly news quiz Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! since around 2010; it's one of three podcasts I listen to most weeks. I've been a listener of NPR for even longer; I got into it in high school because at the time I was a pretentious swot who only listened to classical music and so I tuned into Cincinnati's local NPR affiliate, WGUC, when driving. So Carl Kasell's voice was in my ears for a long time, first as a broadcaster on NPR News and then as Wait Wait's scorekeeper, a position he held up to 2014. He had a great voice, which was why NPR used to offer it as a prize for Wait Wait listener-contestants; one of my friends in grad school said it was his dream to tune into NPR and hear Carl Kasell introduce himself by saying, "This is NPR News from Washington. I'm Carl Kasell, and I'm not wearing any pants."
Anyway, after Carl (I don't normally refer to people I don't know by their first names when writing, but it feels weird to call him "Kasell," who does that?) retired from Wait Wait in 2014, he soon published a memoir, which I am pretty sure I acquired by pledging to the Connecticut NPR affiliate. Carl passed away in 2018, but of course it took me another seven years to get around to reading it.
It's only 239 pages, and a lot of that is essays by friends and colleagues; I read the whole thing in a single night when I couldn't fall asleep due to the pain of shingles. Carl grew up in rural North Carolina, and the book starts with a lot of affectionate memories of his family. He knew from a young age he wanted to be on the radio, though he envisioned himself more as a DJ; in high school, his drama teacher was Andy Griffith! He didn't finish an English degree in college because he was drafted and posted to Italy, where he met and fell in love with his first wife, who came back to the States with him.
The book chronicles his ascendant professional life, from local radio to becoming a cornerstone of the early, almost fly-by-night NPR News operation, to finally getting to unleash his inner ham when being tapped for Wait Wait. One doesn't get an impression of Carl as a complicated man: he was a hardworking, generous professional with a talent who lived a fulfilling life. Perhaps there are skeletons in his closet, but I guess an autobiography isn't the place they're going to come out... but I hope not, because I don't want my mental image of him punctured! Anyway, it's a fun, light read; I don't think you're going to find anything deep here, but you will find some interesting anecdotes, both personal and professional, from a life well-lived.
Also some good jokes from colleagues. No one has a bad word to say about him!
In this volume of the Temeraire series, Captain Laurence—along with Temeraire, of course—has been exiled to Australia following his betrayal of Britain back in book four. Laurence must find some way to navigate no longer being allowed to serve technically, while still also being of use to his country.
I think this is probably one of the lesser installments of the series, but I still enjoyed it immensely. Novik conjures up character, place, and society with skill in equal measure; I love Laurence and Temeraire, of course, and the bits with Captain Bligh are fun but also kind of horrifying. The worst part of Temeraire's world are of course part of ours as well. Like with Throne of Jade and Horn of Ivory, some of the book hinges around discovering that a non-European society makes its own complex and interesting use of dragons. I have to say, an anti-orientalist bent is honestly not what I expected from this series going in! But it very mush is interested in using dragonriding to interrogate the way Britain sees the rest of the world. I think what hold this one back is it's more of a travelogue, without a strong sense of climax, but it was a journey I enjoyed nonetheless.
Every ten months I read an installment of Temeraire. Next up in sequence: Crucible of Gold
As previously mentioned on this blog, I've been getting back into music over the last year, having not done much listening to music since my first kid was born in 2018. Some of what I've been doing is picking up albums by new-to-me bands (The National, Belle and Sebastian, My Friend the Chocolate Cake). That I will probably make a different post about someday. But the other thing I have been doing is collecting albums that bands I listened to pre-kids have put out since I had kids. I am seven years behind, so there is quite a lot to catch up on!
Florence + the Machine, High as Hope (2018)
This is the fourth album by Florence + the Machine, an alternative rock band (I think? I am so bad at genre) from the UK. I think their most famous album remains their 2009 debut Lungs; certainly "Drumming Song" is probably their most famous song. Lead singer Florence Welch has an amazing, powerful voice, and I would say the band's sound is often distinguished by big, powerful arrangements. My favorite song by them is actually the title track from their 2015 album How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, which features both powerful lyrics from Florence but also a beautiful trumpet solo.
High as Hope is actually a bit different, with somewhat less emphasis on the powerful stuff. There are a couple stripped back songs about the necessity of faith and grace that really resonated with me: "Big God" and, in particular, "Grace."
Kate Nash, Yesterday Was Forever (2018)
I think it was my sister who got me into Kate Nash, another female vocalist from the UK. In particular, I love her song "Foundations" from Made Of Bricks (2007): "My fingertips are holding onto / The cracks in our foundation / And I know that I should let go / But I can't." Her songs alternate between this very earnest emotion and cheeky irreverence that appeals to me; she has weird and fun lyrics but also a lot of anger and energy.
Though I like her a lot, I did kind of worry she had a very specific, period-based vibe. Like was that angsty, late 2000s/early 2010s vibe still going to hold up in 2025? Well, I guess I don't know about 2025 (she has a 2024 album I haven't got to yet), but 2018 was a good year for her because I think Yesterday Was Forever has a number of strong tracks. In particular, I like "Karaoke Kiss":
To be honest, like many songs, I'm not sure I could totally tell you what it's about, but my vibe is that it's about new love, and how meeting someone can fill an emptiness in you even when it's not necessarily the right thing for you: "Kiss me in the karaoke bar / I need something, I feel so dark."
Lena, Only Love, L (2019)
Look, they can't all be quirky UK female songwriters; some of my favorites are quirky German songwriters. I discovered Lena Meyer-Landrut back when I was in grad school, thanks to the magic of Pandora. She's probably worth a full post someday, because I think she's had an interesting trajectory, from her early work which has this kind of "I'm so cute and quirky and wholesome vibe" that I associate with mid-2000s female singer-songwriters (though she was always more poppy)—see for example "Satellite" or "Caterpillar in the Rain" from her 2010 album My Cassette Player—that transitioned into more traditionally sexy stuff—I am a huge fan of "Taken by a Stranger" from 2011's Good News.
Of all the albums on this list of five, this is probably the one it took me the longest to warm up to, and I do think some of it is pretty generic pop, not as fun or interesting as the work Lena was doing earlier in her career. I was thus a bit surprised to find myself coming around to and then actively enjoying the track "skinny bitch," which is about a far from wholesome as you can get!
However, there is something kind of freeing about the chorus, which I enjoy belting along with: "When life gives you lemons, mix it up with vodka soda. / Love your imperfections, fuck the haters, they don't know ya!"
But just not when my kids are around!
Ingrid Michaelson, Stranger Songs (2019)
See, some of my quirky female vocalists are even American! Ingrid Michaelson has had what feels like a kind of typical trajectory for an artist I am interested in, which is from very quirky, stripped back stuff to more overtly poppy material. I feel like there's a world of difference between her strumming the ukelele on "You and I" from Girls and Boys (2006) to pop anthems like "Girls Chase Boys" from Lights Out (2014), even if I like both. I do have to say I don't really get why the conceit behind this album is that they are all inspired by Stranger Things, but it did result in some good songs nonetheless. My favorite from the album is "Jealous":
(What I did not know until just now is that "Jealous" has a music video with art by Amanda Conner, one of my all-time favorite comic book illustrators. What a weird and unexpected collision of two totally different worlds.)
Regina Spektor, Home, before and after (2022)
I swear do I listen to songs with male vocalists, but indeed, you will find none of them in this post. Once again we have a quirky 2000s singer-songwriter... perhaps the most archetypal quirky 2000s singer-songwriter of them all! If you didn't listen to Begin To Hope (2006) in college, are you really a millennial? So much good stuff throughout her career; I would be hard-pressed to pick an album as a favorite. I do have to say that 2016's Remember Us to Life is my least favorite; it has some good tracks but it's certainly the one I relisten to as a whole the least. Thus, I was a little trepidatious about her newest album after a six-year gap, Home, before and after, but it won me over basically right away, and I have been listening to it quite a bit since I picked it up earlier this month.
Lots of great stuff here, but I have particularly enjoyed the desperation of "One Man's Prayer" ("I just want some girl to talk to me / And tell me that I'm different or say that I'm the same. / I don't care what she thinks, just think of me.") and the extravagance of "Spacetime Fairytale" and the weirdness of "SugarMan."
But the one that knocked me over was "Up the Mountain," a kind of creepy song with very tantalizing lyrics:
In the ocean there’s a mountain. On the mountain there’s a forest. In the forest there’s a garden. In the garden there’s a flower. In the flower there’s a nectar. In the nectar there’s an answer. In that answer there’s another And another and another And another and another.
Not only did I love it, but it came on my iPod when I was driving my seven-year-old somewhere, and once it was done, they demanded I go back to the beginning so they could hear it all! If you know my seven-year-old, you'll know that it rarely gets better than that.
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