30 Days in 60 Minutes: March 2020 (Part I)
Featuring Tame Impala, Grimes, King Krule and Car Seat Headrest in their "flop?" era
I don’t think there’s been a Twitter prompt I’ve answered more quickly or honestly - without question, it’s the Collard Melt at Turkey & the Wolf in New Orleans. Not just because it so far exceeded the hype that I was willing to overlook it being the product of a nepo baby (the owner has a last name I’d only seen previously on a UVA dorm). But I happened to have this sandwich on the eve of my 40th birthday - March 11, 2020. The specter of COVID-19 lingered over this entire vacation, but didn’t have any material effect…yet. SXSW had been cancelled a week earlier and we had no trouble whatsoever getting reservations at even the most hyped New Orleans eateries. It was all anyone could talk about whenever we took Lyfts, but the general vibe was “we’ve been through worse here, it’ll pass.”
Later that night, the NBA announced that Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID and that the season was suspended for at least 30 days. Most of the tourist spots were still unmasked and packed, and by the time we flew back to San Diego on the 14th, police were clearing out Bourbon Street. I went back to work on the 15th and instituted social distancing at a 12x6 dinner table. We could not find paper towels at any grocery store.
That Collard Melt, though? Great fucking sandwich. Also, maybe the last good thing that happened in 2020.
About one quarter of 2020 had already transpired before all of that, enough to get some sense in retrospect about the year people thought they were going to have. Judging by this mix (which is actually two hours, which will happen if there’s a flood of good new music), I’d have to say that things were looking up - I specifically recall feeling super stoked about March 13th, when I could listen to Dogleg’s Melee and Code Orange’s Underneath back-to-back at the gym. A week later, I stared off into the middle distance wondering whether I really would spend $200 on a bunch of resistance bands. Much like the previous one I posted on March 2016, this is one of my favorite mixes of the past decade or so, largely because of the discrepancy between the year it seems to predict and the one that actually happened.
Tame Impala - “One More Year”
I know all pre-lockdown 2020 albums need to be judged on a curve (obviously, most post-lockdown ones too), but…was The Slow Rush kind of a flop? Or, if not a flop, the 2020s equivalent of a mid-90s joint that would sell like 2 million copies and still be double-stocked at every single used CD store in America. That’s not to say it’s bad - I actually quite like it! But, man…I don’t remember the singles really moving the needle, so maybe The Slow Rush was Tame Impala’s answer to something like Adore or Monster, very good albums that sold maybe half of their blockbuster, game-changing predecessor and effectively ended their imperial era. I mean, some of our duller pop stars and A-list rappers still want to work with this guy to signal their fit as a Coachella headliner, and they probably will for the next decade. But does that even sound exciting anymore? Putting that aside, “One More Year” so perfectly encapsulates what I’d want out of The Slow Rush, I haven’t really bothered to revisit aside from a song or two, and it feels way longer than its 57 minutes. I tried a full-length listen the other week and I swear to god, I thought Apple Music snuck a few bonus tracks in there a la “Led Zeppelin” on Lonerism, you can’t tell me “Tomorrow’s Dust” and “Glimmer” existed in 2020.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Something On to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.