Content Consumed: Bad Bunny, Drake, body horror, Julia Fox, and Iron Claw

Hey! Welcome back to Content Consumed. I didn’t post last week because it didn’t seem like a good week to post. Neither does this week, to be fair. But we continue.

In today’s edition of Content Consumed:
💃🏻 Bad Bunny’s new album (and Drake’s, I guess)
🩸 Penance, Salt Slow, and body horror books
🎥 When SNL becomes a Taylor Swift ad
📬 Julia Fox’s memoir, Posh and Becks, Iron Claw, and more

P.S. Don’t forget to bookmark the Content Consumed fall cozy-spooky watchlist!

New music: Bad Bunny (and Drake)

Honestly, I don’t think I have the bandwidth to even try reviewing Drake’s For All The Dogs.

I haven’t enjoyed a new song of Drake’s since “Champagne Poetry” so I’ll just move aside on this one. I think culture writer Hunter Harris put it best: “For All The Dogs, Drake’s newest release, is an album dedicated to deadbeats and incels, and the women that frustrate them.”

But this Bad Bunny album?! IT SLAPS.

Let’s talk about the smart sampling first. Bad Bunny wants to whine over the sounds of luxury in nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana and we love it.

Start from the top with me. “NADIE SABE” begins with the notes of Dalida’s “Histoire D’un Amour” and Bad Bunny explains his own pessimism over his public image and how much life has changed. It’s intense and a bit spooky, musically.

Then we transition into my favorite song in the album, “MONACO”, where he drops endless Formula One references and describes his life of luxury. This samples Charles Aznavour’s 1964 hit “Hier Encore”, whose lyrics reflect on a man who wasted his younger years on hedonistic pursuits.

By the time we get to the third track, we’re moving into more familiar hip-hop territory. Fellow Puerto Rican rapper Young Miko joins in and lends her sultry voice to the low-key, vibey “FINA”.

Another sample to watch for: Madonna’s “Vogue” in the seventh track “VOU 787”.

Of course, we have the hit single “WHERE SHE GOES”, which slots in perfectly with this multi-genre album as some electronic experimentation. It’s kind of a nice partner to the fourth track, “HIBIKI”.

If you’re expecting anything similar to UN VERANO SIN TI, you won’t find it with nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana. This isn’t hot Caribbean pop. It’s darker, more intense, genre-bending, and a bit more personal.

It’s just as lyrically horny, believe that. There’s not much depth to the stories told over the beats, which he actually acknowledges in “LOS PITS”: he could be “rapping about more profound issues, but the checks arrive and confuse me.”

Other favorite songs of mine from the album include “NO ME QUIERO CASAR” (do you think Kendall Jenner translated that one?) and the final track “UN PREVIEW”.

Pitchfork’s review? “El Conejo Malo’s fifth solo LP is a rap homecoming. It doesn’t possess the magic or sophistication of his best work, but it’s just as horny and cavalier. 7.4.”

And I’d disagree. It’s my favorite music yet from Bad Bunny.

Book chat: Penance, Salt Slow, and body horror

You know what I’m getting into, just in time for Halloween?

Body horror literature.

It started with Eliza Clark’s Boy Parts last summer. I continued in 2022 with Our Wives Under the Sea and The Torqued Man.

This year I’ve read A Certain Hunger, The God of Endings, and Salt Slow. I’d argue Ripe and Clark’s second book, the recently released Penance, could also fall into the body horror category.

Let me say that if you want to dive into this category with me, you should absolutely start with Julia Armfield. She’s the creative mind behind my favorite novel of 2022, Our Wives Under the Sea, and a powerful short story collection I just finished, Salt Slow. Both of them, especially if you’re a young woman, will haunt you beyond the pages.

And you know The God of Endings is a must-read for October. This novel leans into the supernatural as well, with a more unique vampire angle than most.

I will say: I just finished Penance, which I had been really looking forward to as a follow-up to Clark’s Boy Parts. But it fell flat for me. The formatting just didn’t work, unfortunately. It’s the type of novel where you get the same story told over and over again from different POVs with slight variations, and all the characters are awful people (not in an interesting way). The ending is sudden and doesn’t actually do much. You could’ve told me how it ended in the beginning and I wouldn’t have bothered reading the full thing. Pointless and boring, unfortunately.

So! Say it with me: The God of Endings for October, Salt Slow if you’re not ready to fully commit to the body horror genre, and Our Wives Under the Sea if you want to feel everything (emotionally and physically—your skin will crawl).

SNL was just a Taylor Swift ad—and it was weird

Saturday Night Live is back, this week with hosts Pete Davidson and Ice Spice. Pete Davidson gave a lauded cold open monologue about his experience with terrorism, praising comedy as a way to deal with tragedy. His self-referential Barbie parody was actually funny. Ice Spice made her SNL debut.

And Taylor Swift? Her name was in 7 of the 9 skits.

Yeah. It felt like a damn Eras Tour Movie ad. Not in a chill way. Both Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift also made actual cameos, Kelce during an NFL spoof skit and Swift to introduce Ice Spice. It was way too much. I understand everyone’s talking about Taylor Swift right now (even me!), so dropping her name in a skit or two and having her cameo is reasonable, but it was overwhelming and eye-roll-inducing.

Kenan Thompson might’ve saved it all with his Deion Sanders Weekend Update skit. Soooo spot-on.

Julia Fox’s memoir, Posh and Becks, Iron Claw, and more

Let’s touch on some hot topics really quickly.

• Julia Fox’s “masterpiece” of a memoir finally dropped this week and it’s getting rave reviews—and not just for its Kanye chapter. The Celebrity Memoir Book Club girls recapped the book and interviewed Julia Fox herself. Very cool.
• Posh and Becks are back on the scene thanks to their new Netflix show, where David’s keeping Victoria honest.
• The Iron Claw trailer just dropped and it looks really good. Not just because Jeremy Allen White and Zac Efron are in it! I swear!
• Annoying TikTok star Bobbi Althoff interviewed Scarlett Johansson for her podcast and… she completely drops the act(?!) Like, she acts completely differently around white women vs. the Black male rappers she usually interviews?
• Doja Cat went on Hot Ones and revealed herself to be a very fake edgelord. She just… acted normal. I guess she wouldn’t openly talk about supporting white supremacists in front of Sean Evans but… one has to wonder when her shitposting is genuine or fake.

And that’s it for today! Thanks for reading. Catch ya later!

Cheers,
Casey

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P.S. Don’t forget to bookmark the Content Consumed fall cozy-spooky watchlist!