5 June 2026 - Snocaps - Coast

One of those musical acts that I am supposed to like as an aging hipster is Waxahatchee.  

And I have TRIED really hard to like the Katie Crutchfield project.  And, well..... I just don't like Waxahatchee all that much.  But, I still felt like I had to listen to her projects... in a desperate attempt to like her music.

But when Katie got together with her twin sister Allison (and MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook) and formed Snocaps - a great indie power-pop band - THAT I could get on board with.  It's earnest, lo-fi fun!

The whole Snocaps album was one of my favorites of 2025, and although it missed the Wicked25, I feel like you still need to go listen to it. 

I hope there are more Snocaps albums, because, as this Tonight Show performance illustrates, these sisters can HARMONIZE!

4 June 2026 - Soccer Mommy - Abigail

I know I didn't make a 2024 list - but if I had, Evergreen by Soccer Mommy would have been one of the top 2 albums on it (Romance by Fontaines D.C. would have been the other) and probably #1. 

However, Soccer Mommy released an EP in 2025 - Evergreen (stripped) that had stripped down versions of a lot of those songs. THAT was good enough to earn an honorable mention on my Wicked25 last year.  I did an online listening party with Soccer Mommy the day before its release, where we listened to Evergreen and Evergreen (stripped) and I gotta say, that was a musical highlight of the year. 

For contrast, this is the original Evergreen version of "Abigail".....

.... and this is the Evergreen (stripped) version. 

There are a LOT of available live versions of this song, so I chose the easiest to hear - the one she did for Triple J. 

No word on whether or not she's doing any stripped shows. 

3 June 2026 - Blondshell - T&A

I had the entry for If You Asked For A Picture by Blondshell WRITTEN for my Wicked25. 

WRITTEN!

That's how close it was to making the list.  It was ON the list. 

Ultimately, it got pushed out because there was 25 albums that, on that day, I found more worthy.  

I have felt really guilty about this since that day.  The album deserved to be there - to the point where I have almost edited it back in. I still might do that.

Anyway, here's a single for you. This is pretty indicative of the songwriting that Sabrina Teitelbaum (who goes by Blondshell because it's a lot less wordy, I guess) brings to the table.  

Yes, the song is about tits and ass. 

While I love her KEXP performance......

.... the bluntness of this introduction during a live performance in the wild is a little more endearing.

2 June 2026 - Housewife - Work Song

 There used to be a great button on Youtube that allowed me to just make a post directly from there to this blog. 

They took it away in March. So doing this has gotten harder. 

Housewife is not an artist that has released a full album yet - but she did release a great EP in 2025 called Girl Of The Hour that was filled with so much 2000s goodness that it was absolutely worthy of its honourable mention. I say artist - it was a band, but Brighid Fry is the only member left.  They've been doing this for a decade but only the last few years solo.

Anyway, it's a great EP and you should go listen to it now. 

1 June 2026 - Ariane Roy - Âmes soeurs

You might remember my #Wicked25.  For the very first time last year, I listed my 25 favorite albums of a year.  I have been known to do one or two favorites, but never 25.

I also had a list of 25 runners up - honourable mentions, as you will.  Some of those, I felt very guilty about excluding.  I'm going to highlight those this week - because if I made the list today, these albums would be ON the list, not just honourably mentioned.  

I'm not going to highlight the albums that would have been bumped in most cases - because they were on the list because they were deserving, excellent albums. And no, you can't just guess it's 21-25, because that's not the case.  At all.   

This is the more egregious omission.  Because, if you look back at the list, you'll now see 26 honourable mentions.  I didn't listen to Dogue by Ariane Roy until January.  It was a terrible oversight on my part, because it not only would have made the list, it would have been a top 10 album.  This is EASILY the second best francophone album of 2025. 

Ariane release Dogue de Luxe in February of this year - probably because Dogue was so well-received - and used the extra space to make new versions of some of her songs with her friends.

If you didn't know this was coming, you aren't paying attention. 

Anyway, Alexandre Martel and Lou-Adriane Cassidy joined her on the new version. 

29 May 2026 - LE SSERAFIM - BOOMPALA

Dale a tu cuerpo, alegría indeed. 

Because yeah, this song by Korean girl group LE SSERAFIM, who have an inexplicable second S in their name, certainly DOES sample the wedding staple "Macarena".  And their latest single, from the album 'PUREFLOW', Pt.1, which is incredible, is very much fast Latin house - and very much in your face from the get go. 

The single was literally released last Friday, but is already on the Japanese charts.  Let's see where this goes.  I personally think they're poised for greatness.

It's a K-Pop girl group.

OF COURSE they have a performance video.

And by "a performance video", we mean TWO performance videos.  This one's in a quarry.

Now, you know I usually have to throw a disclaimer on "live" performances by K-Pop groups, but this performance - from earlier this week on Korean television - seems to be a little different - it's not the album version at all.  They seem to be at least PARTLY singing this. 

You may notice there's only four of them.   Kim Chaewon had to sit this one out and will be resting for a bit with neck pain. 

28 May 2026 - Kate Bush - Experiment IV

 "Hey, you know what would make this greatest hits album great?  A song about literally killing people with music."

And, indeed, that's exactly what happened in 1986, when Kate Bush released The Whole Story, and had a moderate hit song and arguably her biggest hit to date, finally getting significant overseas airplay and MTV rotation. And yes, it was about the military creating a sound that could kill someone from a distance, written and produced by Kate Bush. 

The video was directed by Bush herself and tells that exact story.