Something Beautiful

Beautiful Collision is the second solo album by New Zealand artist Bic Runga, released on 1 July 2002 in New Zealand, 15 July 2002 in Australia, and 5 November 2002 in the United States. Ken Goldstein of PopMatters gave the album a positive review, as did Emma Phillpott from NZ Musician. At the 2003 New Zealand Music Awards, Beautiful Collision was nominated for Album of the Year, Best Female Vocalist, Best Solo Artist and Producer of the Year. It lost Album of the Year to The Datsuns' self-titled album, but won the other three categories.

Coming in way above their previous effort, 1990’s Smooth Noodle Maps, Something for Everybody is the album Devo's fans had craved for 28 long years, or maybe 29, if you fall on the sour side of the iffy Oh, No! It's Devo. The synthetic, compressed, and punchy production – courtesy of producer and Bird & the Bee member Greg Kurstin – is a modern take on the sound of 1981’s New Traditionalists, and if you judge by hooks, this is right in line with their 1980 breakthrough, Freedom of Choice, although there’s certainly no “Whip It”-sized megahit here. Instead, there’s the opening “Fresh!” a herky-jerky, infectious number with lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh stuttering as if he just created New Wave’s “My Generation.” The wicked highlight “Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man)” (“They’ll hunt you down/And tase you bro/For playing with the rules”) is the album’s other key track, thanks to Mothersbaugh’s perfect framing of de-evolution’s give (hybrid cars) and take, take, take (Beltway snipers, overzealous cops, etc.).

For the past decade, Spirit of the beehive have honed an aesthetic like no other. They’ve chopped up samples, chewed them up, spit them back out again, baby birded it. Across four albums and a smattering of EPs, Zack Schwartz, Corey Wichlin, and Rivka Ravede have fully solidified their stance as some of rock’s weirdest and best deconstructionists. 2018’s Hypnic Jerks was a study in noise punk sampledelia. It was a breakthrough for the band. Frank Ocean became a fan, spinning “fell asleep with a vision,” on Blonded Radio. 2021’s Entertainment Death, was nasty dream pop by way of K-Mart realism and hitting the channel search setting on an old TV set.