Five Obsessions (June 2025)
Five Obsessions covers five of my favorite songs or albums each month. Some new, some old. Some new to me, some revisited. Published in the middle of every month (typically on the second Saturday).
You can listen to the running list of Applied Science favorites in the Spotify playlist below and read about this week’s specific picks below that.
Eli - Marianne
A new take on the torment of unrequited love.
Clipse - “Ace Trumpets”
The Platonic sound of disdain remains unchanged (2002 - present).
a.s.o. - “My Baby’s Got It Out For Me”
Sometimes, for a morbid laugh, I imagine certain pop songs as if they were written by a serial killer (think about Drake’s “Hold On, We’re Going Home” for example). Sometimes, little imagination is required.
Bickle - “cry on the dancefloor”
I long for an alternate reality in which “My Boo” is the seminal text of pop music, rather than a song that other songs sometimes remind you should be the seminal text of pop music.
Blaxian - untitled
A real winner at the only BBQ I’ve had this year.
Bonus: Sly Stone - “Luv N’ Haight”
R.I.P. to the late, great innovator. A singular force forging a vision of equality that understood death so often plays doula to freedom. The Family Stone catalog certainly has bigger songs than “Luv N’ Haight,” but as the rattling opener to seminal album There’s A Riot Goin’ On, it always felt to me a sonic statement of purpose. A warbled confession of a striver on behalf of the promises of the ‘60s, hollowed by bad omens and violent ends that summoned the cynical ‘70s. It is hard to listen to “Luv N’ Haight” now and not hear Sly’s tortured, reclusive later life prefigured in sound by a band at its peak power, his wailing after the two minute mark giving way to a jam that feels like the catharsis he sought in life. A pioneer whose true impact can be felt across the entire scope of popular music that followed, particularly opening visions of new selves for Black musicians to explore (as Questlove explores in his succinct, tragic documentary Sly Lives!, released just a few months back).