In the last year, the mystery band Sault has dropped two excellent albums without anyone managing to figure out who they are. But at least we can know them through their music. On their debut, 5, a track called “Why why why why why” creates the same brain space as “Dancing On My Own” through totally different means: the insidious disco-funk anthem about not being able to quit an illicit lover sends the vocalist, whoever she is, meandering through chord changes that hook their way into your brain and your flesh, which means you could dance straight through its sad, sad lines: “Old habits, you’re one of them (you are my weakness) / Take my heed, this has to end (you are my weakness).” Form follows function, I suppose; this song is hard to quit.
Not to be left behind by every company in 2020, McDonald’s getting a minimalist rebrand. As you can see above, they’re trying out a Snake-people*-friendly Helvetica with burger-ish colors, and on new ads like this, their logo is nowhere to be seen— if you get it (“it” being the product assembled by “muffin-egg-sausage-cheese-muffin”), you’re in the club. On that note, the rebrand hasn’t changed the menu at all— it’s not Sweetgreen we’re dealing with– but I do hear the serif cuts calories by half.
*Millennial
Still not swayed to team Micky? Perhaps you’ll be interested in a McDonald’s scented candle. “What an awful sentence,” you may be thinking; “what smell could McDonald’s possibly put in a candle?” The answer, I’m afraid, is: quarter pounder. But that’s only if you burn them all together. Individually, the scents are things like “ground beef,” “onion,” and “ketchup,” each of which is totally inadvisable. Not to mention, if you have some free hours to burn, you can get paid to smell like the real thing.
Before you trash this email, because all of this information is indeed garbage, know that McDonald’s coffee arm is testing out reusable cups (alongside their big buddy Starbucks). And when we say they are testing, we mean that they’re watching other people do the tests to see if they want to adopt cup return systems systems. For the pilot, two startups, Muuse and CupClub are supplying independent coffee shops with reusable cups that can be tracked to measure how many people return them to their dropoff points. If people actually participate, we may see something similar at our favey fave chains; until then, you’ll have to to bring a thermos from your quarter-pounder-scented home.
