All The City Lights

Remember her name: Aliya Rahman

Her testimony is everything and it deserves to be heard, by everyone. Decide for yourself.

It’s powerful. It’s gut-wrenching. And no one should have to survive what she did.

ICE MUST GO‼️

Graph showing FAIR plan liability growth rising 230% since 2022.

The current exposure for the California FAIR plan (California’s insurer of last resort) sits at $724 billion. Its liability almost doubled in two years and is now more than double the state’s annual budget. In its most recent financial reporting it had about $1.5 billion on hand.

Actually, you should all vote for option #2 because I've got a great joke all lined up about "finally a Metal song in the finals!"

VOTE BETHS!

I'm sure that if, as people keep suggesting, Will just kept silent about this whole situation, nobody would have noticed or questioned why he was no longer doing the thing that he'd been posting about 3,000 times a day for several weeks.

Not seeing Maren Morris listed in either place, but I'm assuming she goes in the 💀 pile based on a third-place finish in that match behind Tautumeitas, yeah?

Imagine doing things the way we did up until a few months ago!

#TheTenX5
#MusicChallenge

Day 3

48. "Drunk Girls"
LCD Soundsystem
2010
single ✅
PC ✅
NKC ❌

Tough choice between this & "Dance Yrself Clean," which will probably get an HM. I went with the dumb, short one with an all-time metaphor: "Love is an astronaut. It comes back but it's never the same."

"𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘐 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵⁣
𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘈𝘴𝘩𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘦?⁣
𝘐 𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘣𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥⁣
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘪𝘯'𝘵 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘰𝘱 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘦⁣
𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘮𝘪𝘹𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘥⁣
𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘥."

#FebruaryIsForLoversNot
#MusicChallenge

Day 3 - "Pretty Girl from Cedar Lane," The Avett Brothers

This is one of at least 10 songs in the "Pretty Girl from ..." series that the Avetts have done over the years. Most, if not all, end in disappointment, solitary longing and/or awkward apologies.

Ah! So if prices decrease at a lesser rate, it will take longer for prices to go down. Very insightful!!

??????

But they were trying to shoot* the agents!

*(with cameras)

wow, it's almost as if all of those other universities that poured hundreds of millions of dollars into god knows what could have just told them to shove it instead

Sounds like we should do a challenge where we challenge the #MusicChallenge community to post their original material. Might be the most challenging challenge yet.

QuakeBot spamming my timeline because there is an earthquake every 2 minutes in San Ramon smdh

"Sunrise into sundown, sending out for takeout, sharing inside jokes now
He finally tries to kiss her & she says that it's not like that
Now he wished he wouldn't have done that
'Cause everything is awkward and the conversation slows
She cleans off the countertop & said that she should probably go"

#FebruaryIsForLoversNot
#MusicChallenge

Day 2 - "Sixers," The Hold Steady

More subverted expectations & an almost-hookup. Craig Finn sure can spin a yarn about sympathetic losers, and this one is heartbreaking. The finance bro and the burnout girl seem destined for romance until she chickens out.

#TheTenX5
#MusicChallenge

Day 2

49. "Anymore"
Goldfrapp
2017
single ✅
PC ✅
NKC ✅

My Goldfrapp knowledge is spotty, so I have no clue how this stacks up to other singles from the '10s. There's probably more popular stuff from earlier in the decade? I just think that distorted synth riff is badass.

It's probably the best example of me scoring an interview with somebody for whom I was a legitimate fanboy. Barnes was a little disengaged over the phone, probably unsure about why he was talking to a small-town reporter, but I felt like I broke some news about the album! A career highlight fo sho.

I got to interview Kevin Barnes just before this album came out. He talked about wanting to make an album informed by G-funk and '70s R&B without abandoning his art-pop inclinations, and how Jon Brion helped beef up the low end using techniques that went beyond his own home-studio knowledge.

I was so pleased (and surprised!) to see this on the Your Picks list prior to me submitting my list. It’s going to be well into next month before you see it in my ranked postings.

Some say it’s too North Dakota!

Just realizing that our characters in this fling-that-wasn’t are named Seth & Beth.

It never woulda worked.

#FebruaryIsForLoversNot
#MusicChallenge

28 days of songs about love affairs that end poorly

Day 1 - “Someone to Love,” Fountains of Wayne

Some classic Schlesinger narrative mischief. Sets you up to think the 2 lonely urban professionals are gonna have a romcom meet cute, then pulls the rug out.

PART II #THETENX5 – RULES These are the official rules for: #TheTenx5 Part II of the overall MU21CVS project. Covering January 2010 – December 2019. Running from 1 February to 20 April 2026 (including picking and para…

Check the rules for a detailed explanation, but

PC = Poppy Clause compliant, i.e. is this a song by artist born or a band formed within the last 30 years

NKC = Neil Kulcarny Clause compliant, i.e. is this a song not credited exclusively to white men

mu21cvs.com/2025/08/18/t...

I submitted an advanced list, but I'll be daily-posting my picks for #TheTenX5 (the next mu21cvs.com #MusicChallenge), 50 songs (mostly but not all officially released as singles) from the 2010s, starting with a sexy duet!

50. "Sex Karma"
Of Montreal [feat. Solange]
2010
Non-single
PC: Y
NKC: Y

#RadioheadTop30
Here’s the final sixty track playlist from all of the votes cast. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to the challenge.

Radiohead
open.spotify.com/playlist/7jc...

#Top30FirstAlbumFirstTrack

Congratulations to R.E.M., who were voted the best artist to come flying out of the blocks with Radio Free Europe.

Below are the 120 most picked choices, and a Spotify playlist containing them all.

Thank you everyone 🙏

open.spotify.com/playlist/5Cn...

#MusicSky

Putting in my plug for The Ophelias. If you have any predilection for dark, chugging, guitar-driven indie rock from Cincinnati featuring feminist interpretations of biblical figures, they could probably use your vote!

I gave Kathleen Edwards my bonus.

“Owie, it burns!!”

Come on, man. Shut it all down.