If Billy Joel wrote a “We Didn’t Start the Fire” exclusively about the past week, you better believe he’s putting context-free references to Bari Weiss and Bad Bunny in there. Weiss, of course, is the right-wing “contrarian” (who’s curiously only contrary to beliefs and opinions from one side of the political spectrum…) who was put in control of CBS News by one of the richest men in the world. Bad Bunny, meanwhile, is the All-American singer/actor/multihyphenate from Puerto Rico who was announced as the halftime show performer at the next Super Bowl, prompting every conservative to reveal how disconnected they are from pop culture by dismissing the most popular entertainer on the planet. Of course Paste Media covered both stories in-depth, with Audra Heinrichs scrutinizing Weiss’s career for Jezebel and Jacob Weindling analyzing the right’s cultural cluelessness for Splinter. Meanwhile, Paste Magazine‘s Matt Mitchell profiled the Icelandic singer Laufey—who, as you’ll learn, once played cello for Billy Joel, hopefully on a particularly dramatic rendition of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Over at The AV Club Jacob Oller praised the bodycam true crime doc The Perfect Neighbor, which is a non-sensational alternative to the kind of true crime docuseries so popular on streaming services these days. And right here at Endless Mode our own Maddy Myers looked at the similarities between Sony’s brand new Ghost of Yōtei and this spring’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which both focus on heroines looking for revenge in different historical eras of Japan. It’s been a big week here: dive on in when you have a chance this weekend.
From Splinter
Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl Remind Conservative Media They Did Not Win the Culture in the 2024 Election by Jacob Weindling
“If Spotify’s most streamed artist in 2020, 2021, 2022 and second most in 2023 and third most in 2024 is supposedly alienating to conservatives, that’s just you saying that mainstream American culture is alienating to you. Which is kind of what American conservatism has been all about the last 75 years or so. This freakout over Bad Bunny is a tacit admission from conservative media that they did not conquer the culture like they thought last November, or how they claimed they did when they cynically used their colleague’s murder last month to try to further their own careers.”
From The AV Club
The Perfect Neighbor stares helplessly at a perfectly ordinary American murder by Jacob Oller
“There’s a level of wishful thinking that goes into The Perfect Neighbor. There’s nothing false about it; director Geeta Gandbhir’s crime documentary is almost entirely composed of bodycam and interrogation footage, 911 recordings and court appearances. But part of its narrative arc is predicated on a set of assumptions, on a social contract that no longer exists—or, for most people, never existed in the first place. To watch The Perfect Neighbor‘s racist murder unfold is to watch the notion that the police are here to protect and serve unravel. To see its inevitable conclusion coming, far in advance, is to understand what and who American laws legitimize. To exhale a faint sigh as its ending finds a bare minimum of justice is to acknowledge how rare even that has become. It’s a cold and angry film, effectively constructed yet not nearly as special as its harrowing case seems.”
From Paste Magazine
You’ve Got a Friend in Laufey by Matt Mitchell
“Last February, Laufey’s second album, Bewitched, nabbed her a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. It was an end-cap, she says, to ‘the nuttiest day,’ because she also played cello with Billy Joel that night, as he unveiled his new single, ‘Turn the Lights Back On.’ The category she won was announced during the pre-ceremony, which she performed ‘From the Start’ during. ‘I was jumping between two different soundchecks all morning, and the soundcheck for the main stage show was at the same time as the pre-show,’ she recalls. ‘I was running around that arena all day, switching outfits and switching instruments. I was a hamster in a wheel.’ Winning brought everything back down to Earth for her. ‘I got to play with the band that’s on stage during the Grammys, and they’re all so talented,’ she continues, touting the fashion and poshness of the ceremony as a new environment. But standing on a stage with some like-minded artists soothed the noise. ‘There were a couple of Berklee alumni there. I got to feel like a musician for a second, which feels very grounding on a day of glitz and glamor.’ Getting rock-ognized by Billie Eilish in the hallway after her win certainly didn’t hurt.”
From Endless Mode
Ghost of Yōtei and Assassin’s Creed Shadows Have Refreshingly Different Heroines by Maddy Myers
“Upon booting up Ghost of Yōtei, I started feeling just a touch of déjà vu. The game, set in feudal Japan, stars a woman on a revenge mission. Her family has been murdered, her home destroyed. There’s a flashback tutorial mission in which a younger version of the heroine learns, from her father, how to fight. And, of course, you ride on horseback to explore a picturesque open world with side quests alongside main story missions. Another game from earlier this year did all of that stuff, too: Assassin’s Creed Shadows. But after spending more time playing Ghost of Yōtei, I soon saw how different the two games actually are, even though I expect that many other people might make the same uncharitable assumption I did, perhaps even before buying either one of the two games.”
Laufey photo by Emma Summerton
Bari Weiss photo from Getty
Bad Bunny image is a screencap from SNL
The Perfect Neighbor image from Netflix
Video game screenshot courtesy of Sony
