Djo

I’ve wanted to get back to writing again for a while. I definitely overdid it during covid when I was posting 5+ times a week. There’s a bit of a balancing act between writing regularly and consistently and actually caring about it. Reading back over old posts, I can see the points where I was hitting my flow and writing things that I felt were authentic and worth reading and I can see the points where I was writing to be able to post. I can only get better with consistency, but I’m not going to want to do this if it becomes a chore. I’m trying again anyway. We’ll see if I can find that balance.

Here’s what I’ve been listening to in January and into the start of February. The Spotify playlist is attached at the end.

I listened to more Djo. That was kinda covered in my roundup from last year. Still listening, still enjoying. The track for January was I Want Your Video from his second album Decide. It’s a little funkier than his other stuff, a bit more dancey, but still very 1970s-inspired and 1970s-inspired-inspired. Where other tracks are Tom Petty via The Strokes, this feels like something else via Scissor Sisters. The Wikipedia article for the album talks about a Cameo influence which I can see.

I listened to quite a bit of the Rage Against The Machine album from Rage Against The Machine. It felt like the right choice in a month where global politics seemed pretty fucked, but it was initially because the price of Mini Eggs has increased again. Mondelez said it was to do with costs but their profits keep rising so I think it’s actually corporate financial bullshit. And that’s why we need to take the power back. Take The Power Back was the track I listened to the most. I think this is an essential album. I can’t be the only person who went back to it in January.

I also went back to Alien Ant Farm’s Anthology. A really solid nu metal album. It has the big hits on it – the Smooth Criminal cover and Movies, but it also has Wish, which featured on Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3. It’s an album I listen to straight through every couple of years. I feel like the puns go against them in terms of being remembered in the same vein as other nu metal bands, but Dryden Mitchell has a classic nu metal voice and the songs are bangers. My favourites at the moment are the third single, Attitude and the album opener, Courage.

At some point in the future I’m going to make a list of the best songs by bands with the worst names. I’ve been aware of Post Sex Nachos for a while and I’ve been avoiding listening to them based on the name. I think it’s so dumb. I know nothing about them as a band and that has been by choice. Everything We Used To Do appeared on my Spotify Release Radar and I love it. I was so annoyed when I saw who it was by. It’s a great song. It’s dreamy pop rock in a really classic way. It feels like a song I’ve known for my whole life. The vocals are the right level to make it an easy sing along. It also feels like a good montage song – we’re feeling pensive, a bit remorseful, we’re determined to make things right – I can see it. It’s a great song and I’ve been looping it for the last while.

My favourite cover of 2025 was Gasoline – originally by Haim, covered by Djo. I really like Djo and Joe Keery in general. I wasn’t sure about The Crux, his album that came out this year, when it came out. There were some stand out tracks and some parts I didn’t love. There were songs that were heavily inspired by other artists and I felt like the album didn’t fully tie all those elements together. I had some good conversations about the album that made me return to it a little less cynically. It’s good fun and you can see what he’s doing. He’s making music independently, writing songs that sound like what he likes, without the curation that would come from major label involvement. It’s a cool thing to be able to leverage his acting success to make what he wants.

I hadn’t heard the Haim version of Gasoline when I heard Djo’s version. I was a big fan of Haim’s first singles back in 2012, but by the time the first album came out I think I’d heard too much of them. They were too cool. I was definitely a little hipster dork about it, but I was only a little boy (I was a 20 year old man) at the time so I can be kind to myself about it now. We went our separate ways, they had major success, I had lesser success, and I was always roughly aware of what they were putting out. But it was only after hearing Djo’s cover that I really went back and listened – and enjoyed – what Haim have been doing since Don’t Save Me.

I like how stripped back Djo’s cover is, almost making the original version sound overproduced. It’s an easy one to sing along to. It’s got nice quiet parts and they resist the urge to blow it up. They manage to maintain the dynamism that is often lost when traditional bands cover pop music. They build layers and Joe Keery lifts the vocals when it needs to be brought to the next level. It’s a cover that stands on its own as a nicely constructed song.

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January plus a week- What I’ve been listening to

My favourite cover of 2025: Gasoline – originally by Haim, covered by Djo