🍑 a thousand troops of koopas couldn’t keep me from you

s3e9: polite society, favoritism, ultimate peaches, and a bleeding heart

This week is powered by all of the great album releases we got this past Friday. Seriously, there were too many. Pick a random link in Sonic Vibrations and you are bound to land on something worth a listen.

This issue is a bit short and rushed, but I hope you can still find something to look forward to this week.

I’m going to talk about it a bit more in tomorrow’s issue of foofaraw review of links which will be going out to everyone as a preview before becoming a paid exclusive moving forward. Everything else in this newsletter (the Monday and Friday issues specifically) will always be free.

what’s on tv this week

New Shows

📺 Mary & George S1 (Starz) — 4 March

Kicking off the week is a British production from Sky Atlantic starring Julianne Moore. I don’t think this is something that is going to get me to subscribe to Starz, but anything with Julianne Moore is worth giving a shot in my book.

📺 Extraordinary S2 (Disney) — 6 March

Full season drops at once for the second season of Extraordinary. Season one ended up being more enjoyable than I expected even if it still had a teeny bit an ABC Family feeling to it.

📺 The Gentlemen S1 (Netflix) — 6 March

A new series from Guy Ritchie, starring Theo James from White Lotus S2. I assume this has to have some similarities to Guy Ritchie’s 2020 movie of the same name (which I never saw…)

The Schedule

Days based on streaming availability

Monday

• Mary & George (Starz) 1:1

Tuesday

• Death and Other Details (Hulu) 1:9-10 [Finale]
• Constellation (Apple) 1:5

Wednesday

• The New Look (Apple) 1:6
• Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney) 3:5
  
• Shōgun (Hulu) 1:3
• Extraordinary (Hulu) S2
• The Gentlemen (Netflix) S1

Thursday

• Feud (Hulu/FX) 2:7
  
• The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin (Apple) 1:3

Friday

• Masters of the Air (Apple) 1:8

Sunday

• Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO) 12:6
• Last Week Tonight (HBO) 11:4
• The Regime (HBO) 1:2
• The Oscars

this past Friday’s best album releases

Waaaaay too many albums that are actually worth checking out this week. So many that I haven’t been able to give all of them a proper listen… I included a new section didn’t do it for me that includes some albums I still think are solid and worth checking out depending on your taste. Like I said, way too much.

Given all that, I’m only blurbing the first album below…

Release of the Week

💽 Playing Favorites by Sheer Mag

This was a super fun record from a new-to-me Philly band. This is their third record and first on Jack White’s Third Man Records, albeit, I feel like it could have been produced a bit better—while the vocals are wonderful, the drums are way down in the mix and there were some add transitions peppered throughout. Either way, I felt like this is what Heart or Joan Jett would have sounded like were they making fresh, new music today. That still feels like super high praise to me.

Runner-ups

💽 Parallel Realms by STRFKR

💽 Too Hot To Sleep by Daniel Romano

💽 Under the Light by San Cisco

The Rest

• I Got Heaven by Mannequin Pussy
• Overthinking Everything by FOOTBALLHEAD
• Where’s My Utopia? by Yard Act
• Underdressed at the Symphony by Faye Webster
• Life’s Going Great by Games We Play
• Third Wind by Gulfer
• The Rot by Abby Sage
• Liam Gallagher & John Squire

Didn’t Do it For Me

• Kaiser Chiefs’ East Eight Album by Kaiser Chiefs
• Beach Day by Another Sky
• Half Divorced by Pissed Jeans
• Mountainhead by Everything Everything
• How to Make a Master Peace by Master Peace

Bits and Bobs

• Bug0beat (EP) by Cool Sounds
• South Hill & Friends (EP) by The South Hill Experiment
• Invader (EP) by Philine Sonny

this weeks best comic releases

No. 1s

Ultimate X-Men (Marvel) #1

Peach Momoko has dominated the world of variant covers for some time now. I haven’t read any of her own work myself, but it clearly says something that she is tackling as both the writer and artist as the Ultimate world comes together again.

Night People (Oni) #1

Chris Condon (That Texas Blood, The Enfield Gang Massacre) tackles an adaptation of a Barry Gifford (Wild at Heart, Lost Highway) novel with a rotating cast of artists, beginning with Brian Level

The Last Mermaid (Image) #1

I’m not familiar with Derek Kirk Kim at all. He’s writing and doing the art on this new Image book. Most things from Image are usually worth at least checking out. And the cover is gorgeous.

the best

• Pine and Merrimac (Boom) #3
• Subgenre (Dark Horse) $3
• Kaya (Image) #16
• Void Rivals (Skybound) #7
• Underheist (Boom) #2
• Red Light (AWA) #3

the big two

• Batman (DC) #145
• X-Men (Marvel) #32
  
• Birds of Prey (DC) #7
• Poison Ivy (DC) #20
• Venom (Marvel) #31
• The Avengers (Marvel) #11
• Captain America (Marvel) #7

bigger books

• Mabel & Francine (Strangers)
• FatCop (Fantagraphics)

movies hitting the big screen this week

🎥 Love Lies Bleeding

I feel like this one has gotten tons of publicity already after some crazies went overboard for Kristen Stewart’s Rolling Stone cover. Plus it’s A24.

🎥 American Dreamer

I know nothing about this one, but it has Peter Dinklage. It also looks like it was originally slated or released at a film festival back in 2022. So if it took this long to release…

🎥 Imaginary

New Blumhouse horror about an imaginary friend? Teddy bear?

🎥 First Time Female Director

I’m a huge fan of Chelsea Peretti so it’s a little disappointed to see some not-so-great reviews for her directorial debut, but I hope she continues to work and try new things.

🎥 Kung Fu Panda 4

Some of ya’ll have kids, so…

Today hasn’t exactly gone according to plan so I’m going to cut this a bit short.

Stay sane,

—humdrum

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