October 28, 2013

Best Coast Showcases Sweet and Sour Indie Rock on “Fade Away”

Courtesy of RiSH Publicity

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Best Coast
Fade Away
Jewel City

Bethany Cosentino, the higher-profile half of Best Coast, which also includes multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno, excels at mixing sour and sweet, writing shiny, angst-ridden guitar anthems that she delivers in a sunny, winning voice.

The seven-track EP Fade Away contains some of her most pungent work to date, from the toe-tapping self-analysis of “Who Have I Become?” and “Fear of My Identity” to the wall-of-sound epic “I Wanna Know,” on which she sings, “It’s alarming/How charming you can be,” before concluding, “Now it’s time to say, ‘Baby goodbye.'”

Adapting old-school pop conventions to the indie-rock landscape, Cosentino’s deceptively sophisticated tunes feel like uncensored diary entries writ large.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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