This week is a fantasy about an uninhibited emotional amplitude. A fantasy about a totally offline existence. About sadness that feels good.
Drive safe.
Get the full 2024 playlist here.
“If You Were A Song” by Abbey Cone
The ebullient platonic ideal of a truck song. A fantasy about a pre-Internet world: “I'd drive from here to Sedona / From Sedona to LA / Calling every local station / Just hoping and praying it comes on.”
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube
“Something’s Gonna Kill Me” by Corey Kent
Newcomer Corey Kent’s debut album Blacktop owes its name to the many miles he has allegedly driven to “build his audience.” Music made for the road.
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube
“Wish You Would” by Tyler Hubbard
I can’t even remember who the other half of former country duo Florida Georgia Line was. Tyler Hubbard just keeps churning out banger after banger; clearly, he was the hit machine.
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube
In the wake of Beyoncé’s country album announcement, there have been some great Twitter threads about race, genre, and country music. Here’s a roll of some prominent Black country stars, reaching back to the 1960s.
Rolling Stone research editor Jonathan Bernstein put together a thread on the country tradition of Beyoncé covers, then turned it into an article.
While she has not yet done much with trucks, Beyoncé definitely speaks cars. In a visual essay for The Drive, Ben Keeshin turns a car guy's eye on the music video for “Hold Up.” Beyoncé does everything bigger and better and more beautifully, including taking a Louisville Slugger to a cheating man’s headlights.
“Unlike the narratives in the other pop singers' videos, Beyoncé isn't just smashing some simulacrum of Jay Z's ride. The kind and number of cars Beyoncé destroys is no mistake… she's wrecking every cheating man's beloved hunk of mid-century iron. (There's nary a typically feminine car in the lot.)”
Keeshin’s breakdown is a fun read if you’re curious why a Chevy El Camino is the ultimate symbol of marital infidelity. Beyoncé’s music has traditionally contained these layers of meticulous symbolic detail.
Now, imagine what she’ll do with trucks.
Meanwhile, Christian Bale is still driving around in that 2003 Toyota Tacoma. Somehow, he makes that rear-wheel-drive PreRunner look good.
Love.
Laurie!