#we goin Brecht with this shit

[lemm-moxx]

I swear i need to stop procrastinating and actually post my cryptid writings abt my au's

[shawwillsuffice]

Every album and song referenced in every book by Hanif Abdurraqib

I decided to put together this list after finishing Hanif’s latest full-length book, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays. For those not familiar with Hanif, he’s a poet and essayist who really loves to talk about music. He writes a lot about hip hop, punk, and emo, but I also once texted him out of the blue to ask his opinion of the largely forgotten 90′s boy band O-Town and he had a number of clearly well-thought-out observations ready to go immediately. He writes about music in ways that are simultaneously about other very big things in his life and the society and communities that shaped it. It’s something I deeply appreciate, as a person for whom narrative storytelling is often the only way for me to express the things I’m thinking and feeling, for which simpler words just won’t cut it. His books are about fear, or heartbreak, or gentrification, or religion, or death and mourning, or hope, but they’re also pretty much all about music.

With that in mind, I decided to make it my 2018 New Year’s Resolution to listen to every album and song referenced in his books, and since I had to make this list anyway, I figure I’ll share it in case anyone else wants to do the same, or just wants an exhaustive list of Hanif’s music references for some other reason. 

For clarity’s sake, this list includes songs and albums, but not instances where musical artists are named without reference to any of their actual material. I’ve omitted names of individual songs in cases where the albums they appear on are referenced in the same poem or essay. I’ve also tried to include indirect references that rely on context cues without identifying actual titles or song lyrics, though I’m sure I’ve missed some. 

Of course, if any of this sounds at all interesting, I’d recommend buying the books themselves. The chapbooks are quite hard to find, unfortunately. Vintage Sadness famously sold out in pre-sale, even after the publisher more than doubled the print run due to overwhelming demand, and if there are any copies of Three Crosses or To Ex-Girlfriends to be had anywhere besides my bookshelf, I sure as hell can’t find them. However, both of the full-length books, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us are still very much available.

Three Crosses (2012)

- The Notorious B.I.G., Life After Death (”And it’s full. Been full. Stays full. Full since that ‘97 summer / When Biggie blared out of everything with windows. Everything that could breathe.”) - Johnny Cash, “Oh Bury Me Not” - Taylor Swift, “Last Kiss” - Michael Jackson, “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” - Stevie Wonder, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” (”Michelle Obama loves punk rock music. / Rolls her eyes backstage when Barack picks yet another Stevie Wonder standard to stroll out to during campaign stops.”) - The Clash, “I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.” - The Pogues, Red Roses for Me - Nirvana, In Utero

To Ex-Girlfriends (2014, I think?)

- The Who, “My Generation” - Johnny Cash, “John Henry’s Hammer” - Johnny Cash, “Cocaine Blues” (”In Folsom, they banged on metal tables / when you talked about that .44 you kept under your pillow”) - Jay-Z, Big Pimpin’ - The Notorious B.I.G., “Mo Money Mo Problems” - Diana Ross, “I’m Coming Out” - Johnny Cash, “I Never Picked Cotton” - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “No Church in the Wild” - Against Me!, “Thrash Unreal” - Van Morrison, “Sweet Thing” - Hall & Oates, “Sara Smile” - Hall & Oates, “Rich Girl”

The Crown Ain’t Worth Much (2016)

- Jay-Z, “Where I’m From” - Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’” - Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On” (”& he starts in on some marvin & the words ‘brother, brother, brother / there’s far too many of you dying’ crawl from his lips) - Fall Out Boy, “Saturday” - Jay-Z, “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” (”& Jay-Z called himself Hova / twelve times in one song”) - The Notorious B.I.G., “Mo Money Mo Problems” - Taking Back Sunday, Tell All Your Friends - Nick Drake, “Pink Moon” - The Notorious B.I.G., “N****s Bleed” - Something Corporate, “Konstantine” - Fall Out Boy, “Sugar We’re Goin’ Down” (”We wrote ‘IGNORE YOUR GOD COMPLEX’ in every bathroom stall on campus one of those years even though we knew the right lyrics”) - Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d. city - Whitney Houston, “How Will I Know”  - Third Eye Blind, “Semi-Charmed Life”  - The Temptations, “I Wish It Would Rain” - Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddamn” - Nina Simone, “Sinnerman” - Nirvana, “Lithium”

Vintage Sadness (2017)

- Blood Orange ft. Carly Rae Jepsen, “Better Than Me” - Kanye West, “Only One”  - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “No Church in the Wild” - Duran Duran, “Girls On Film” - Carly Rae Jepsen, “E*Mo*Tion” - Ginuwine, “Pony” - The Four Seasons, “December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)” - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “Illest Motherfucker Alive” - Aaliyah, “Rock the Boat”  - Soul Decision, “Faded” - Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” - Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle” - Kelis, “Milkshake” - Jay-Z, “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” - Bone Thugs N Harmony, “Crossroads” - Next, “Too Close” - Olivia Newton John, “Let’s Get Physical” - Cutting Crew, “(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight” - Soul II Soul, “However Do You Want Me”  - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “N****s in Paris”

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us (2017)

- The U.S. National Anthem - Bruce Springsteen, “Born in the U.S.A.” - Lil Uzi Vert, “XO TOUR Llif3″ - Fetty Wap, “Trap Queen” - Chance the Rapper, Coloring Book - The Social Experiment, “Sunday Candy” - Chance the Rapper, Acid Rap - Drake, Views - Bruce Springsteen, The River - Carly Rae Jepsen, E*Mo*Tion - Carly Rae Jepsen, “Call Me Maybe” - Semisonic, “Closing Time” - Marcy Playground, “Sex and Candy” - Prince, “Baby, I’m a Star” - Bob Dylan, “All Along the Watchtower” - Foo Fighters, “Best of You” - Prince, “Purple Rain” - ScHoolboy Q, Oxymoron - The Notorious B.I.G., “N****s Bleed” - The Weeknd, Kiss Land - The Weeknd, House of Balloons - The Weeknd, Thursday - The Weeknd, Echoes of Silence - Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On - NOFX, “Don’t Call Me White” - Brand New, “Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades” - The Wonder Years, Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now I’m Nothing - The Wonder Years, The Greatest Generation - The Wonder Years, No Closer to Heaven - Constellations, Alpha - Twenty One Pilots, Regional At Best - Rihanna, “Work” - Cute Is What We Aim For, The Same Old Blood Rush with a New Touch - Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blank Generation - My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance, May Death Never Stop You - My Chemical Romance, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - Defiance, Ohio, Share What Ya Got - Defiance, Ohio, The Great Depression - Fall Out Boy, Folie a Deux - Fall Out Boy, “Saturday” - Fall Out Boy, Infinity on High - Fall Out Boy, From Under the Cork Tree - Bobby Womack, “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” - Fall Out Boy, “Dead On Arrival” - Three 6 Mafia, “Star Fly” - Willie Hutch, “Tell Me Why Has Our Love Turned Cold” - Michael Jackson, Thriller - Ice Cube, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted - Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly - The Impressions, “People Get Ready” - “The Gospel Train” - “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” - Sam Cooke, “A Change Is Gonna Come” - “Wade in the Water” - Foxx, “Wipe Me Down” - Webbie, Savage Life 2 - Lil Boosie, Incarcerated - Boosie Badazz, Touch Down 2 Cause Hell - Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac, Rumours - Atmosphere, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold - The Notorious B.I.G., Life After Death - Diana Ross, “I’m Coming Out” - Big Pun, “Still Not a Player” - Bertolt Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann, The Threepenny Opera - Nina Simone, Nina Simone In Concert - Nina Simone, “Baltimore” - Nina Simone, “Sinnerman” - Lupe Fiasco, Food and Liquor - Migos, Culture - Migos, Juug Season - Migos, “Versace” - “When the Saints Go Marching In” - Johnny Cash, “Folsom Prison Blues” - Johnny Cash, At Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash, “Hurt” - N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton - Ice Cube, “No Vaseline” - 3rd Bass, “Pop Goes the Weasel” - Bone Thugs N Harmony, “Thug Love” - Bubba Sparxxx, Deliverance - Asher Roth, RetroHash - Asher Roth, “I Love College” (”Saw him in 2015 at some festival and a drunk white woman kept yelling at him to play the college song.”) - Macklemore, The Heist - Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d. city - Macklemore, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made - Future, Honest - Future, Dirty Sprite 2 - Future and Drake, What a Time to Be Alive - Future, Evol - Future, Beast Mode - Future, 56 Nights - Future, Purple Reign - Future, Future - Future, HNDRXX