2025-08-15 22:55:00
Consider this a sister piece to the list of "The Worst Songs That We Love So Much" that ran yesterday, with a slightly different conceit. I asked some of my music and culture writer friends to confess their soft spots for songs that reek of corniness and cheese—the ones that might make them cringe a little, but still feel like a knife to the heart. I was looking for love songs that could easily soundtrack a teenage rom-com or land on an algorithmic playlist where Ed Sheeran and Coldplay were held up as the pinnacle of romance. Maybe the melody is syrupy sweet, or the writing overwrought—I'd take melodramatic ballads, saccharine pop, or anything soaked in '80s and '90s nostalgia. It didn’t matter to me if they provoked tears because of pure sentimentality rather than visceral, sonic, or lyrical power; some songs are devastating simply because they remind you what it felt like to be the one that got left behind.
As I wrote earlier this week: August is the month of bittersweet reflection, caught in the tension between the low-key end of summer and the anxiety about what comes next. (It’s the emotional equivalent of the twilight of a relationship—when you know something is wrong, or the end is near—but want to savor what’s left just a little bit longer.) Some of these songs capture that feeling exactly. Please enjoy, and tell me yours too.
2025-08-15 21:57:27
Some people are fans of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This 2025 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: DOINK!
2025-08-15 21:06:57
The moment I had long dreaded finally arrived: the day I’d have to dismantle my childhood. I suppose I should consider myself lucky. It took 43 years to get here, to this spring day in 2025, standing in my nearly empty former bedroom in my mother’s house in Philadelphia, wearing a Mitski T-shirt, ratty yoga pants, and the glasses I only have on when I’m beyond exhausted. And lucky, too, that after the end of a 19-year run at a music writing job that shaped my identity and devoured my time, I was finally able to help my mom move out of the big old house that had become much too much for her.
But I didn’t feel very lucky—not with the encroaching phalanx of contractors, movers, and junk removal guys, and a seven-year-old daughter back in Brooklyn growing increasingly anxious for me to return home to her. I had only two days to pack everything up, including the painstaking task of taking everything off of my bedroom's walls. At work, I had been a master of efficiency and organization, coordinating a team of writers and wrangling the many moving parts of editorial projects into manageable timelines. But standing there in my room, I was at a loss.
2025-08-15 02:24:41
A few minutes into her Aug. 13 appearance on New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift said, “This is my first podcast.” I thought she was making a little joke—surely she’d talked to Marc Maron, Bowen Yang, or those two exasperated, newly popular ladies who look like Karens, but actually want all Karens brutally annihilated. But there was no laughter. Not from her, Travis (her boyfriend of two-ish years), or Jason (her boyfriend of two-ish years’ older brother). This was in fact her first appearance on a podcast. And over its 104-minute runtime, I was begrudgingly in its grim, peculiar thrall, watching both a version of Swift I was prepared to see—the ruthless, narrative-driven capitalist—and one that repeatedly surprised me: a funny, frequently dull late-thirties girlie who would come this close to relatability if not for her billion-dollar net worth.
Ever the fan of announcing an announcement, Swift told the world she would be revealing the title and cover of her forthcoming album on Wednesday, which explains why somewhere between 1.1 to 1.5 million hyped-up viewers were watching the New Heights stream alongside me. I’ve never listened to the podcast before this episode, for two simple reasons that I hope won’t offend any of Defector’s blessed readership: 1) I know enough about CTE to believe football shouldn’t exist, and 2) It’s hard for me to listen to straight men talk to each other about anything other than movies. If I’m to endure a story that begins with “A buddy of mine,” that kindling that ignites 80 percent of straight-guy tangents, both the speaker and his buddy had better know Lydia Tár’s birth name. But this episode wasn’t about sports, at least not in the way I assume most of the others are. Taylor is introduced within the first four minutes, and stays on mic and on camera for the duration. She's dressed in business casual while visiting her boyfriend’s office, wearing a loose-fitting white button-down shirt, khaki bottoms of an indeterminate style and shape, subtle orange tint on her lips, almost certainly a nod to the glittery album she's about to unveil.
2025-08-15 00:55:06
I've always struggled with the idea of a "guilty pleasure." Truly innocent pleasure shouldn't come with a side of shame. Most guilty pleasures are purposely private, indulged alone or among the friends who are safe enough to confide in. There are adults who skip social obligations to play video games in their underwear all day. People devote weeks of their lives to hilariously deranged dating shows—The Ultimatum, Love Is Blind, Married at First Sight, and Love Island—but engage in cultural discourse only when it's around something more acceptably "meaningful," like books or politics. There are those who obsess over their frenemies' social media, but love to declare at parties, "I don't really use Instagram anymore."
A guilty pleasure is something you genuinely enjoy but might die before admitting to, simply because it doesn't align with the image of "good taste" you've imagined—or spent time curating—for yourself. The guilt isn't moral—it's not wrong to enjoy the thing—but it's socially contextual. It's not that you shouldn't enjoy it; it's that someone you've deemed cooler, wiser, or more informed might judge you for doing so.
2025-08-14 22:42:30
Some people are fans of the Seattle Seahawks. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Seattle Seahawks. This 2025 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: Seattle Seahawks.
