Take a Beat w/ Hovvdy's Self-Titled "Hovvdy" and Their Deep Appreciation of the Mundane

On 8/28/24 we are listening to quaint indie rock about quaint things, watching British financiers fully reject the notion of "quaint", and we're SITTING, Bits & Bobs-style.

Aug 28, 2024

Absolutely SEISMIC news for Take a Beat… I have honed in on a new-and-improved identity as well as an accompanying logline (!!!):

Unlocking previously inaccessible wisdom one life-altering album at a time. Take a Beat is a weekly release that explores an album and the existential insights it offers us, as well as bonus pop cultural recommendations, musings, and other Bits & Bobs.

Next time I see any of you Take a Beaters I will be asking you to recite the logline back to me on sight. Be prepared. But also excited!!! Cuz I for sure am.

To kick off the newly refocused Take a Beat, we are…

Learning how to appreciate the little things in life from some middle American indie rockers called Hovvdy on their self-titled Hovvdy
Queueing up Yaeji’s latest electronic banger of a single “booboo”
Watching the souls of young and sexy people corrode in high finance on HBO’s Industry (and relishing every caustic bit)
Devouring a rare and juicy profile of Darren Star, creator of Sex and the City and Emily in Paris, a couple of shows I enjoy a totally normal amount
Exploring sitting culture in NYC, Bits & Bobs style

Take an Album-Length Beat

Hovvdy by Hovvdy and Appreciating the Beauty in the Mundane

Some years ago Twitter honed in on the Midwestern “ope” phenomenon. If you are not familiar, us Midwesterners have a tendency to substitute “excuse me” with “ope, I’m just gonna sneak right past ya” when navigating around others in a tight space.

But until I saw these tweets, I had never been conscious of the “ope” context of all in which I lived — I was dumbstruck. As I navigated the world (and by “world”, I mean Kansas City), I found myself and my fellow Midwesterners ope’ing to high heavens. There’s pretty much no situation in which a Midwesterner can’t find a way to “ope” (but the highest occurrence has to be at the grocery store — s/o Hyvee).

(AS I TYPE THIS SOMEONE IN ONE OF MY KC GROUP CHATS OVERCAME AUTOCORRECT TO TYPE “OPE” (s/o City Gym miss you all 🥹🥹🥹))

More broadly, this was the first time I had seen the Midwest break into even a niche internet trend, something usually reserved for coastal cities and like, Texas (it’s big!). And what a fittingly cute, mundane way for the flyover states to find their way into the wholesome side of the zeitgeist?!

I have (famously) since moved to NYC, a city where “mundanity” is defined by loud noises, hustling to-and-fro, and bumping into others WITHOUT saying “ope”. And while I moved to NYC for exactly that type of bombast, both in the day-to-day and the many raucous, culture-shifting events it attracts, sometimes I have to remind myself that true fulfillment doesn’t come from the spectacles, but rather from the mundanity of our day-to-day interactions with loved ones.

TAKE A WISE BEAT
True fulfillment comes from the mundanity of our day-to-day interactions with loved ones.

When I need reminded of this bit of wisdom, I turn to the self-titled Hovvdy (2024) by Hovvdy. Hovvdy is comprised of two fellows named Charlie and Will in their late 20s/early 30s who met in Austin, Texas and now reside in St. Louis, Missouri and College Station, Texas. As the story goes, they met, became friends, and decided to form a band. No dreams of becoming rockstars, not motivated by getting laid by sexy ladies, just a couple dudes who decided it would be fun to make some music together.

And those humble and casual beginnings live on in their humble and casual music. Describing the music of Hovvdy would be like describing the street on which you live when bathed in a beautiful sunset — it’s just really pretty and really special. They strum guitars, they tap on the drums, they press some keys, and they sing. And sure, they do each of those things pretty well! But it’s really the earnestness with which they play their instruments and sing their Earth-bound lyrics that make the casual and humble nature of the music itself the reason to press play.

Hovvdy seem to use their songs not to memorialize the highest highs or vanquish the lowest lows, but to honor the beauty and validate the hardship that they, like us all, experience day-to-day. They sing, “You got a cousin / Says he can help me out” with such deep gratitude that you’ll want to call up your friend who helped you move a few years back to say thank you (“Jean”). They sing about an “old lady neighbor with her dog walkin’ by / Smile and a wave but you never get a hi or a hello” (“Big Blue”) with the dream of getting her to return the greeting one of these days — why do our goals have to be so goddamn big all the time anyways?

Across the album, Hovvdy’s greatest concern is being there for loved ones in their times of need. On “Bubba”, they mourn those times they can’t — “Bubba you know I wanna fix it / When you need some help I’m not around / God I hate it” — voice aching with the small-but-mighty guilt that cares not whether being present was even a logistical possibility in the first place. The closest thing to a pop single on Hovvdy is the song “Forever”, where Hovvdy celebrate when they are able to be there for a loved one in need, the song gently crescendoing into one of the most heartfelt bridges I’ve ever heard: “Are you having another hard time I saw you / Hanging your head by the window saw you / Wipe your eyes, maybe some help is worth a try / Maybe some help will work this time / I swear I will always love you”. Hovvdy don’t reserve the climax of the song for some grand solution or major milestone, reminding us that progress is just as worthy of celebration.

To consider the inverse of the Hovvdy formula shows a striking list of subjects that Hovvdy don’t even so much as touch on here — sex, money, power, politics are nowhere to be found. In fact, on “Angel”, they sum up this core tenant of the Hovvdy project: “We’ll do a whole lotta talkin’ / Don’t a lot have to happen.” (Of course, these sweet bros are saying this in the context of relieving a loved one of their stress — they’re so goddamn darling!!!)

and not even in a thirsty way… well, thirsty for ADORABLENESS

In an interview on the How Long Gone podcast, hosts Chris and Jason joked with Hovvdy about how grounded they are, suggesting that maybe they rile up some bad blood in the style of old-fashioned rock titans like Fleetwood Mac and Oasis, to which Hovvdy retorted “Then we’d probably make an actually stimulating record instead of one you can just ignore.” While a really good joke, it is the antithesis of the Hovvdy project — the point is to STOP ignoring the mundane and appreciate its beauty, and with Hovvdy they have me tuned the fuck in to the wonders hiding in the plainsight of the everyday.

“booboo” by Yaeji

Speaking of gentle musicians, Yaeji is headed back to the dance floor with a banger where she explicitly announces that she’s not only ready to soundtrack our club nights again, but she’s also ready to claim her and her booty’s own space on the dance floor alongside us. Let this bouncy, then bouncier, then bounciest bassline and Yaeji’s steadily hardening verses guide you and your booty there too.

Take an Entertaining Beat

Industry on HBO

For those of you who have a Succession-sized hole in your heart, boy do you need to get onto the Industry train. A show that has young and sexy characters doing self-destructive things is always a good start for an entertainment recipe, but with Industry you also get…

Those same young and sexy characters hungover like 40% of the time
A show soundtracked by ambient electronics, causing the captions to sometimes say things like “ *twinkly synths* ”
Fascinating and confounding British social politics (so I guess to the English folks from Northern England and Scotland are like Southerners to Americans — British hillbillies??)
Fascinating and confounding trading floor politics (they all have like 8 monitors and have never shared anything in their life)
The schadenfreude of seeing “successful”, high-octane bankers get absolutely steamrolled by life
EXCELLENT TELEVISION!!!

Industry explained via closed captions and a tweet

Take a Literary Beat

The Master of Compulsively Watchable TV by E. Alex Jung for Vulture

An excellent, revealing, even a wee bit juicy profile on the man who brought us 90210, Sex and the City, AND Emily in Paris (!!!!). To whet your palette a bit, Darren:

Hints at his feelings about the ending of Sex and the City
Rebuts Jung’s attempt to talk about gay men’s connection to powerful women
Drops some wisdom about being single always reverting you back to your 20s
VINDICATES ME because he says the goal of Emily in Paris was to “make a show that [is] aspirational” — Darren that’s LITERALLY the word I use to describe your perfect show

If there’s a paywall, just subscribe to New York mag! It’s my CNN.

Take a Random Beat

Bits & Bobs of New Yorkers Sitting

New Yorkers can take a beat too, you know. In fact, I would venture to guess New Yorkers utilize more public spaces per capita for sitting than anywhere else in the United States. See some evidence below.