In 1998, Cornershop topped the UK charts with a remix of “Brimful of Asha” (that’s Asha Bohsle, the Bollywood actress — their schtick is a very groovy east-west indie rock situation). Twenty-five years later, Cornershop is still at it. This week they dropped “Disco’s Main Squeeze,” a sitar-laced little groove with vocals from the ’80s Hindi-language new wave cult group Pinky Ann Rihal. The comments on YouTube say it all:
“Sounds like The Goombay Dance Band doing Wooden Heart”
“I have watched the full video and am now pregnant thanks”
“The 80s were a trip man…”
We love to see a sensation endure. Listen here.
As a journalist, every so often you get a banger of a press release in your inbox, and the latest one from McDonald’s did not disappoint. “McDonald’s USA is Serving Up its Hottest, Juiciest and Tastiest Burgers Yet,” is the headline introducing how the company is glowing up virtually every element of its burger: softer buns, meltier cheese, more sauce..
Let’s break that down for a minute: Which part of the product are we improving? Oh, the whole thing? Right, so by “now even better,” we mean, “was previously only fine.”
And look, no shade. The point of McDonald’s is not culinary excellence; it’s reaching the limits of what capitalism can do with food.
I was visiting a friend in Durham, NC recently and I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that every stranger I met independently brought up the McDonald’s app. The girls at the grocery checkout insisted that we download it on the spot (the deals!). We did — there were shamrock shakes to be gotten — and when we got to the McDonald’s, even the girl working in the drive through went off on a streak about it as we were ordering: “Girl I come here even when I’m not working, with the app you can get like 24 chicken nuggets for $2.” I MEAN.
When the act of ordering is the dopamine hit, who really cares about the burger? But like sure melt the cheese.
If you’re not too fixated on McDonald’s, perhaps you’ll have heard of Crumbl, the cookie chain that’s gotten so big on Tik Tok as to open SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY retail locations since it opened in 2017. That’s a lot! For cookies! That are debatably even good!
But again, Tik Tok. Crumbl makes these big, photogenic hunks of dough, and they release new flavors each week so that people line up, Supreme-style, to get the new everything-bagel-flavored drop or whatever.
Mazel tov, well done with the lines, but queueing up to try the new cookie flavor seems like a fun activity for…. maybe three months? And Supreme thing aside because at least sneakers have resale value, let’s just think: where have we seen this before?
1. Anyone remember Crumbs Bake Shop? (Yes, yes, uncanny.) Back in like 2010, there was a cupcake store on every corner thanks to the hype around two-inch-tall frosting. Now, the Crumbs Wikipedia page reads in the past tense.
2. How about Pinkberry? (For reference, it took them 10 years to open 250 stores.) Or on a smaller scale, taiyaki? The cronut era?
What I’m saying is, desserts have their moment and triumph seems inevitable and then the world changes slightly and we move on to angel food cake. Which makes me a little concerned for Crumbl. According to the NYT, a lot of their locations are franchised, which means a lot of sweet, enterprising people are about to go down as soon as the cookie wave crests. Get your Tik Tok cash and get out, friends!
