Billie Eilish Will Not Tell You if She Has a Horse, so Don’t Even Think About Asking
Billie Eilish subverts expectations, Willow Smith goes rock, Bennifer reunites, Bella Hadid starts a book club, Gizelle Bryant's surrealist tiktok, and more rated Top Shelf to Low Brow
Frenzied mania abound! Did you know each Monday letter starts with a rudimentary list of topics and their related keywords to cover in a notes app entry on my phone? Well, you do now. Also, I’ve recently realized that, while I make sure each newsletter doesn’t exceed Substack’s email limit capabilities, some letters still get cut off if you’re reading from your inbox on a desktop computer. If that ever happens, you can always come right to the source for the whole thing, baby! Just click here if so.
This week I got my second vaccination dose, which you might know if you already subscribe because of the delayed Friday post, which came Saturday, that you can read right here! It’s about Madonna’s Hard Candy, an underrated and undervalued album that still sounds fresh 13 years later. Other than that, I have no life updates this week and that makes me sad. Luckily, pop culture keeps my mind from collapsing in on itself. And with that, we charge forward into this week’s chaos, nonsense, and hijinx.
Top Shelf, Low Brow: April 26 — May 2nd
There is literally no way to know if Billie Eilish owns a horse…
Billie Eilish has a new album on the way in July and, naturally, a Vogue cover to accompany it. After announcing Happier Than Ever last Monday, Eilish debuted a new look on the cover of British Vogue yesterday, which quickly became the fastest photo in Instagram history to reach 10 million likes.
The article itself is great, with Eilish dissecting and directing narratives with much more precision than I had at 19. She’s so impressive! And part of that impressiveness is her commitment to wearing a hairpiece for 18 months. The opening line made me scream:
I was also hollering when the interview closed out with this, Ms. Eilish draws a line in the sand when it comes to the equestrian circuit:
I hope Happier Than Ever is a jazz album, which no one but me and my friend Jordanna seems to want. Are any of the songs released from the album so far jazzy? No. Do I still hold out hope that the album can incorporate elements of jazz, already a multifaceted genre with many different subgenres, which would perfectly suit both Billie’s lush voice and her visual aesthetic for the album’s era? Absolutely! The teaser for the album is giving me prolific jazz singer in a dimly lit, smoky lounge where the worn, cherry-red leather seats beget decades of glamorous yet ghostly crooners singing of their lost loves.
Maybe I just need Gaga and Tony’s Cheek 2 Cheek. Where is it! Anyway, I digress, love Ms. Eilish, can’t wait to hear the new record.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
We, as a society, must revoke PicsArt, Canva, and any other Maxxinista-favored photo editor from Lana Del Rey
Time is running out, but we can still stop her. Lana is a longtime, known internet troll, but lately, it can be hard to tell when she’s serious or when she’s joking around until it’s too late. Back in March, when Lana announced “Rock Candy Sweet” — which could be a song or the first draft of the album title — she posted another version of this selfie with a similarly gaudy but decidedly less offensive edit. We’re going downhill fast, and soon we’ll be rolling at an uncontrollable speed, screaming at the top of our lungs until we smack into a tree on the day of the album’s release — whenever that may be, as that also seems to keep changing. If we could bar her from all TJ Maxx, JoAnn Fabrics, and Hobby Lobby locations, we could head this off before it gets too out of control. Much luck to us all.
(Rating: Low Brow)
Our contender for video of the year has arrived…and she’s perfect!
Real Housewives of Potomac star Gizelle Bryant posted this TikTok last week. If you don’t know who that is, that’s fine, because this is a surrealist, postmodern masterpiece that requires no contextual knowledge but still must be seen to be understood.
This would be me in Gaspar Noé’s Climax while all of my friends are screaming and flinging themselves all over a room while tripping off of spiked sangria and I’m sitting in the corner recording a video and thinking I’m zooming the camera by moving my arms in and out.
(Rating: Top Shelf. This video is enough to sustain me at LEAST through the summer.)
Huge week for megastars from 2002!
On Friday, Page Six reported that Ben Affleck was seen exiting Jennifer Lopez’s white Escalade, which is a very Jennifer Lopez type of car to own. I maintain that she only listens to deep cuts of her own music while being chauffeured around. Reportedly, security picked Affleck up in the car and transported him to Lopez’s abode. A source for Page Six says, “They are friends…they’ve never not been.” Friends or lovers, whatever they may be, I’m very into this, because I get heated just looking at the photograph below, so I can only imagine what it’s like for J.Lo, ravenously on the rebound and trying to curb the creepily obsessive tendencies of A.Rod, who has probably been leaving voicemails on his phone where he breathes heavily and plays James Blunt songs in the background. Why shouldn’t she “hang out” with her “friend” Ben? If I can’t climb that tree, someone should!
Meanwhile, fellow ingenue of the late 90s/early 2000s Gwyneth Paltrow participated in one of my favorite Vogue retrospective series where she talks about infamous and underrated fashion looks from her career. When asked if she remembers any controversy surrounding the sheer Armani dress she wore to the Shakespeare in Love premiere, she simply says, “There probably was! But there was no internet at this point…so.” God take me back.
(Rating: Both Top Shelf! I respect Jen and Gwyn both being with large, broad-shouldered megababes.)
Batton down the fucking hatches, Gossip Girl returns to HBO Max in July (and a Big Shot with Bethenny update)
I’m quivering. It was fated that, just hours after my vaccination and still riding on the high of a CDC-approved burgeoning reentrance into society, I’d learn Gossip Girl would be returning in July. Loyal Top Shelf, Low Brow readers know that this is my most anticipated event of the year, one that will likely be as emotional for me as being reunited with my family for the first time in a year and a half. Gossip Girl is like my family, and I’m already learning about my new surrogate family members from their new Cosmo cover.
Elsewhere on HBO Max, The Big Shot with Bethenny is a wild motherfucking ride, one that you absolutely cannot miss. Come for the prospect of a crazed reality competition show led by a Real Housewife and stay for the Lohan Beach Club-style cultish induction and gaslighting of each contestant. It’s the craziest shit I’ve seen in a while, and by GOD I’ve been needing some crazy shit. One cast member has a grandmother who had 28 children — and I mean she gave birth to 28 children. In the second episode, Bethenny retcons the first episode and tells fellow Real Housewives alum, Dorinda Medley, on the phone that she eliminated five people because they showed up and got belligerently drunk, which did not happen! It’s wild. You must watch. Have ibuprofen ready.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Willow Smith doing Buffy-style altrock is a strong contender for song of the year
This, to me, is perfection. I love the late-90s indie rock sound so much. I feel like Lady Bird in Lady Bird watching L'Enfance Nue play at the cafe I work at. Yes, I know Lady Bird is set in 2002 but the vibe is there, you either get it or you don’t. I fucking pray that this can be the first single from a full rock-oriented project from Willow.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Huge Bella Hadid Instagram story update:
As many of you know, one of my favorite places on the Internet — one that has provided an endless wealth of discussion and pondering — is Bella Hadid’s Instagram story. You never, ever know what you’re going to get when you tip tap onto her account. It’s a surprise every time, and I’m never not fascinated by what I find. Yesterday evening, I happened upon a stack of books, which I can only assume is a collection of personal favorites that she admires so much that she has held onto them for years. The following could provide me with enough material to complete at least four graduate-level theses.
Like…what can I say about this? Where do I start? How has that James Frey book maintained such a death grip on the world after he got caught for straight-up lying? That was like, the scandal of ‘06. Obsessed with The White Album atop Valley of the Dolls. Erotic Poems atop The Art of the Date — celebs are obsessed with Rori Sassoon’s matchmaking! To say this is a pile of tomes that has deeply perplexed me would be a gross understatement. And yet? I identify with it completely. Bella’s not trying to get into anything too heavy, which I deeply respect as someone who barely reads. One of my worst qualities. Once again, my love of Bella Hadid deepens! We need Bella’s Book Club.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Citizen Lame, we got you, old bitch!
Rest in pieces, hag. I maintain that Citizen Kane isn’t that great of a movie. Yeah, I’m sure in 1929 it was off the wall, but in 2021? No sir. Paddington 2 is one thousand times more impactful and indelible, emotional and evocative, memorable and magical. Orson Welles couldn’t come close to anything the people at StudioCanal are up to.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
I ask you to open your hearts and accept “Flatline” by Porsha Williams as your song of the summer.
Did “Flatline,” both the debut and the sole single by Real Housewives of Atlanta cast member Porsha Williams, come out seven years ago? Maybe. But its influence and legacy live on! For some reason, I’ve been singing it nonstop lately, and I’ve decided it deserves a huge revival. Maybe not even a revival so much as the praise it never got. It may not be a good song, but it’s a song that has a camp level so high that it cannot be ignored or forgotten no matter how hard you try — much like this photo Porsha posted last week, which was photoshopped by someone who forgot about the horizontal lines. That is unless her ass has its own gravitational pull…
“Flatline” is mixed so poorly. Porsha’s vocals are tragically crunchy in the verses compared to the chorus, but oh well! Who cares about that when you’re got such mystifying lyrics as, “I need a shock to my chest, I just flaaaaaaaaatliiiiiiiiiined/…your heart isn’t here/it’s elsewhere.” It’s elsewhere! It’s elsewhere. It should also be noted that I literally just learned the lyric is “shock to my chest” and not shot to my chest and, you know, the former does make more sense…but I’m not looking for sense this summer. I’m looking for something that I can belt at the absolute fucking top of my lungs with my friends, something that’s the perfect mixture of comedic and corny. “Flatline” is that. It’s the R&B/pop crossover version of Natalie Portman’s “EKG” from Vox Lux. It’s a campsterpiece seven years in the making. It’s the song of the summer.
(Rating: A retroactive Top Shelf)
That’s it for this week! Thanks so much for being here. I’m going to hurl my Macbook against a wall because Photoshop keeps fucking me in the ass for no reason. Maybe it’s retribution for scamming Adobe out of 100 free trials, but when you’re still unemployed a year after graduating college, hustling for money wherever you can get it, and pinching every penny possible, that’s what you get when you make your fucking software $22 a goddamn month! Monopolizing leeches! Okay, I have to go before I spiral. I love you, see you Friday! 💖