*What’s Lighting Me Up

No preliminaries today; let's just jump in. Roundup Music With the most interesting new album last week being by '00s indie act Death Cab for Cutie, the week was all about the singles. This was led by the new Taylor Swift single, "I Knew It I Knew You," from the soundtrack of Toy Story 5. After … Continue reading Culture Roundup (June 12, 2026): Initial Thoughts on ‘You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love’

I was away for about ten days (more on that in the focus on section), meaning I skipped last week's culture roundup. So I have three weeks of books and music to talk about today. Roundup Music As is probably apparent by now, I've been struggling to figure out the rhythms of 2026's music release … Continue reading Culture Roundup (May 30, 2026): Revisiting Very Old Stories

I'm in the midst of a fun, time-consuming, and slightly obsessive project doing deep-dives into the popular music of every year. (We all need hobbies!) I'm currently in the middle of 1986, but I recently finished recapping the 2010s on my books and music blog. And I thought, in the lack of anything interesting to … Continue reading Culture Roundup (May 9, 2026): Revisiting the 2010s

There's nothing in either my own pop culture engagement or in the general pop culture discourse right now that interests me (Coachella discourse? YAWN.) So today will just be the roundup. Roundup Music It's been a fun couple of weeks of new music releases, with some hotly anticipated (by me) albums, some pleasant surprises, and … Continue reading Culture Roundup (April 25, 2026)

Since I decided not to post one of these updates last week, on Holy Saturday, we've got three weeks of books and music to catch up on today! Roundup Music That said, it's been a surprisingly quiet few weeks on the music front. The most hotly anticipated album was Robyn's Sexistential. While I was underwhelmed … Continue reading Culture Roundup (April 11, 2026): The Life of a Showgirl, Six Months On