Pricey listeners,

An extended awaited day has lastly arrived: the cinematic collision of matter and antimatter represented by the 2 largest and maybe most thematically divergent summer season blockbusters opening on the identical date. To all who rejoice, a really glad Barbenheimer to you.

The dialog round “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” runs the danger of counting on lazy stereotypes about gender essentialism and style: males are from Mars, and girls are from Venus; “Oppenheimer” is for boys, and “Barbie” is for women. However what I discover so amusing about lots of the “Barbenheimer” memes is the best way in addition they subtly make enjoyable of these assumptions and deal with the thought of “masculine” and “female” aesthetics as one thing extra synthetic, interchangeable and downright laughable than they may at first look like.

I admit that the Barbenheimer memes are nonetheless making me chuckle. (Effectively, the good ones.) Even the jokes about how ridiculously overdone the Barbenheimer memes are at this level are making me chuckle. I needed to make my very own contribution. So, behold — Barbenheimer: The Playlist.

Typically a very good playlist is all about cohesion and tonal similarity. However when compiling a group of songs, I additionally love taking part in round with aesthetic contrasts — the wilder, the higher. And I undoubtedly went a bit wild on this one.

Sure, this playlist segues certainly one of Leonard Cohen’s most miserable songs ever into Natasha Bedingfield’s feel-good mid-aughts radio hit “Unwritten.” It additionally follows a 9 Inch Nails track with a pretend pop track that interpolates (a beneficiant phrase on this context) that very same 9 Inch Nails track. One factor it doesn’t include is “Barbie Lady.” Even I do know my limits.

However for all its zany juxtaposition, I hope you discover one thing to take pleasure in in every of this playlist’s extremes. All of us include multitudes — in every of us, an internal “Barbie” and an internal “Oppenheimer.” Right here’s a soundtrack to fulfill of each them.

Hear alongside on Spotify as you learn.

1. Dolly Combination: “Child It’s You”

The Shirelles had been the primary group to report the sweetly swooning “Child It’s You” — written by Burt Bacharach, Luther Dixon and Mack David — a success, however I like the driving tempo of this model from 1980, by the underrated British post-punk band Dolly Combination. (Get it? Dolly?) (Hear on YouTube)

2. 9 Inch Nails: “Head Like a Gap”

Trent Reznor’s recording profession started with a gnashing roar, as this pummeling monitor kicked off 9 Inch Nails’ 1989 debut album “Fairly Hate Machine.” The refrain feels like somebody upending a complete drawer of cutlery, and it nonetheless completely and unequivocally guidelines. RIP J. Robert Oppenheimer; you’d have cherished 9 Inch Nails. Possibly. (Hear on YouTube)

3. Ashley O: “On a Roll”

In a 2019 episode of the sci-fi anthology present “Black Mirror,” Miley Cyrus performed Ashley O, a fictitious pop star with a Barbie-pink bob and a creepy holographic alter ego. One in every of Ashley O’s hits, hilariously, interpolates “Head Like a Gap” and modifications its most brutal lyrics to empty, #girlboss-worthy slogans: “I’m on a roll, using so excessive, reaching my targets.” (Reznor, a fan of the present, accredited the usage of his music, together with a rework of “Harm” known as “Flirt,” which, tragically, didn’t make the episode.) “On a Roll” is so dystopian and absurd that it’s legitimately pleasant — or not less than catchier than something heard on “The Idol.” (Hear on YouTube)

4. Mclusky: “To Hell With Good Intentions”

“And we’re all going straight to hell!” yells Andrew Falkous, from the center of an inferno of guitar noise, on this propulsive and darkly humorous single from the Welsh rock band’s beloved 2002 album “Mclusky Do Dallas.” (Hear on YouTube)

5. Hannah Diamond: “Each Evening”

Excessively sugary, synthetically shiny and barely uncanny, “Each Evening,” from 2014, sounds as if it had been written and carried out by an AI program schooled on ’90s Jock Jams and Max Martin hits. But it surely’s really the work of Hannah Diamond, the British musician and visible artist who has labored with the experimental pop collective PC Music. (Her latest single, “Affirmations,” has a slight Ashley O vibe about it, too.) (Hear on YouTube)

6. Leonard Cohen: “Avalanche”

The morose opening monitor of Cohen’s “Songs of Love and Hate,” from 1971, “Avalanche” is … undoubtedly one of many songs of hate. (Hear on YouTube)

7. Natasha Bedingfield: “Unwritten”

If ever a CW coming-of-age dramadey is made about my life (it gained’t be), I really feel this must be the theme track. Curse “The Hills” for getting there first. (Hear on YouTube)

8. Lou Reed: “Waves of Concern”

Right here’s Lou Reed doing his greatest Danzig, from his 1982 solo album “The Blue Masks” — one of many middle-period gems buried in his huge discography. The track is each cartoonishly macabre and a really convincing evocation of an nervousness assault: “Waves of worry, pulsing with demise/I curse my tremors, I bounce at my very own step.” (Hear on YouTube)

9. Sophie: “Immaterial”

The nice digital performer and producer Sophie, who died in 2021, seems past the constraints of the fabric world and reaches for one thing transcendent and liberatory on this swirling pop fantasy. It’s from her first and solely full-length album, “Oil of Each Pearl’s Un-Insides,” from 2018. (Hear on YouTube)

10. The Hole Band: “You Dropped a Bomb on Me”

That is the best way this playlist ends. Not with a whimper, however with a jam. (Hear on YouTube)

I’ve obtained extra songs than a track conference,

Lindsay

The Amplifier Playlist

Hear on Spotify. We replace this playlist with every new publication.

“Barbenheimer: The Unofficial Playlist” monitor listing
Observe 1: Dolly Combination, “Child It’s You”
Observe 2: 9 Inch Nails, “Head Like a Gap”
Observe 3: Ashley O, “On a Roll”
Observe 4: Mclusky, “To Hell With Good Intentions”
Observe 5: Hannah Diamond, “Each Evening”
Observe 6: Leonard Cohen, “Avalanche”
Observe 7: Natasha Bedingfield, “Unwritten”
Observe 8: Lou Reed, “Waves of Concern”
Observe 9: Sophie, “Immaterial”
Observe 10: The Hole Band, “You Dropped a Bomb on Me”