Obsessions (October 2025)
I started Five Obsessions as an homage to my long defunct Pigeons and Planes column “5 On It.” But why confine myself to five of my favorite songs or albums each month when I could simply list more things I like? Each month, typically every second Saturday, I’ll share some new songs, some old. Some new to me, some revisited. All the music I have on repeat.
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.
Geese - “Bow Down”
Every great story about the past is apocryphal and all our heroes were just humans once.
Jean Dawson - “Darlin’”
This is a very good song.
Junii, Kaelin Ellis - “jinx!/weplayedthegame”
I remember the first time I heard Doja Cat and I can tell you very few people thought she’d host the VMAs one day.
Eddie Valero - “Lero Bandplay”
Don’t think about the Pitchfork Best 100 Rap Albums list, just listen to this song (and if you haven’t read the list, don’t worry about it).
Corridos Ketamina - “CEPILLIN”
Can’t understand the words, don’t need to understand them to feel it
sosocamo - “keep steady”
Can’t get this out of my head.
S.A.M.N X - “STADIUM”
One of the best videos of the year?
CARRTOONS, Phonte, Topaz Jones, BeMyFiasco - “Tightrope”
The existential shuffle!
Miguel - “El Pleito”
Spooky season is upon us!
Bonus: System of a Down - “Aerials”
Still going through a compulsive rediscovery of System of a Down’s catalog. In the midst of Geese-mania, I have been thinking a lot about Mark Fisher’s writing, about notions of invention versus the repetitive synthesis that defines so much of pop music in the 21st century, about ideas that stick around because they sounded like nothing before and little after. So much of what fascinates me about System of a Down is that the particular conditions of their creation (four Armenian guys in Los Angeles form a band during the nu-metal explosion, get signed by Rick Rubin, sell 12 million albums in spite of gate keepers thinking their music is wildly uncommercial) breathe through the music. It is in parts punishing and gorgeous, a combination of thrash metal, Armenian folk melodies, political fury, and absurdist imagery. If you listen without listening, you might easily write it off as akin to anything from its age, loud and ridiculous. If you give songs like “Aerials” or “Holy Mountain” a closer listen, you might still hate them, but it becomes easier to see the singular characteristics that have inspired feverish devotion, enabling System of a Down to continue selling out stadiums without having released a new album since 2005. Their career is a testament to inventive synthesis, a reminder that even through recombination new ideas are possible. And they last.
(Also going back to my essay about human creativity, I would definitely have listed them as generators, or synthesizers whose synthesis comprises a kind of invention for merging sounds no one else could have.)
Bonus #2: Mobb Deep - “Win Or Lose”
I’m glad the new (final) Mobb Deep album Infinite is a mostly faithful entry in their catalog with a few highlights worthy of repeat listens. Its release has naturally made me revisit their catalog, which I do often regardless, growing more resolute in my impression that The Infamous is the best rap album ever as years go by. Here’s a great song that’s not on Infinite orThe Infamous, but is an old favorite I’ve been running back a lot this week.