fiction and creative non-fiction from Brennan Quenneville
Every word of Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness is burned into my brain. So too are the album's subtle motifs and, no less, its more obvious ones. This is largely because, for a spell in the mid-2000s, progressive rock concept albums—with their overwrought titles, literary [...]
The Queue is a recurring excuse for me to talk about songs or albums in short form. I'm bending that formula a bit today to discuss The Peer Pleasure Podcast which I've been binging lately. Let’s investigate a few of my favorite episodes. Ep. 147 – Bobby Darling (Gatsbys American Dream) The first episode of [...]
Like a lot of you, I often turn to music for escape when I'm stressed. I'm less interested in the science of why we do this than I am in the choices we make of what to listen to. Broadly speaking, classical music should offer the most stress release but—even though there are a handful [...]
We're five months into a global pandemic and the world is (still) on fire. If you listen closely, above the raucous tumult of daily news briefings and abrasively selfish protestors, you can hear the soft whine of every single person on earth collectively screaming through clenched teeth. We all need a break. We all need [...]
Like every other card carrying millennial, I was disappointed when HAIM delayed their upcoming third album, the aptly titled Women in Music Pt. III, due to concerns arising from COVID-19. Is there nothing that this novel coronavirus cannot ruin? The pain of this delay is made all the greater by the album's absolutely killer first [...]
Until the COVID-19 pandemic altered the entire global landscape, I had planned to post this quick album review on March 19th but then this novel coronavirus began to take over my corner of the world and I had some strong opinions that needed venting. Needless to say, the concert discussed in this review has long [...]
The Queue is a recurring excuse for me to talk about songs or albums in short form. This week I examine the second-best MCR record, a prog rock classic and a dumb pet theory about a beloved indie track. Let’s investigate. The Black Parade – My Chemical Romance It's not that Three Cheers for Sweet [...]
One of the certainties of writing year-end retrospectives—or decade-end ones, if you happen to share my particular brand of lunacy—is that, as soon as you've published your hard-wrought work, you'll find several albums that warrant inclusion on your list but that, for one reason or another, you missed. Maybe you had meant to listen to [...]
Simple joys are underrated. The buttery deliciousness of a grilled cheese sandwich, the optimistic first light of an early summer morning, snuggling in with a blanket fresh out of the dryer on a cold winter day—these things are easily replicable and even more easily overlooked but they are excellent. And they never fail to make [...]
The Queue is a recurring feature in which I discuss some of the music that I’ve been listening to recently. This week I examine a couple of very different tracks featuring Charlie Simpson and Microwave's ability to turn simple structures into winning songs. "Nostalgia" – Busted Falling in love and breaking up have long been [...]
