Dessa - Good For You / Grade School Games - 7-INCH SINGLE [7 inch Vinyl Disc]

The 90's punk classic returns! Includes Satan, Speed Demon, Dairy Queen, Lucky Tonight. Reissue expanded to include bonus tracks and new art.

Dessa, the rapper, singer, writer, academic, and all-around polymath, who NPR hailed as a Inchnational treasure,Inch will her first solo full-length album in five years, Bury the Lede, September 29th, 2023 on Doomtree Records. It's an eleven-track project of hard-hitting rap verses, big, catchy pop hooks, and a couple melancholic tracks. Dessa (an anthropology and psychology-enthusiast whose 2018 album, Chime, was inspired by neuroscience) conceptualized Bury the Lede as an examination of human nature and mortality. Reflecting on the pleasure-seeking and loss-aversion that define us as a species, the album ultimately endorses a Camus-with-a-lime-twist take on life. InchIt's about indulging in a measure of hedonism even as the threat on the horizon mounts... Survival is, at best, indefinite. So maybe get a cocktail with an umbrella in it,Inch says Dessa. The new album leans into the light more than past projects-more moments of levity and abandon, more danceable-but it's still very much a product of Dessa's lyrical style, writerly and multi-layered, and meticulous. Executively produced with longtime collaborators and friends Lazerbeak (Doomtree, Lizzo) and Andy Thompson (Taylor Swift, Dan Wilson), Dessa and company's indie-rock, soul, and Swedish-pop inflected rap on Bury the Lede create an album that's hard to imagine hearing from anyone else. And, despite the wide range of influences, it's also one of Dessa's most cohesive albums to date.

The merch line at a Dessa show often contains people with lyrics tattooed on their forearms or ribs or shoulder blades. The strength and quotability of her lyrics-from rap punchlines to elegantly tooled extended metaphors-is a hallmark of Dessa's work. InchCamelotInch is one of the few explicitly political songs in her catalog. In 2 minutes and 53 seconds she sketches the contours of a troubling American zeitgeist, delivers a chorus that's both haunting and catchy, and comments on the tendency of consumer culture to breed apathy (That's the thing about the lap of luxury - the lap of luxury can't stand up). InchCamelotInch calls attention to the irreconcilability of two facets of the national self-concept a) America is a miraculous shining city on a hill; and b) the neighbors are dangerous and crazy. The song doesn't scold or preach, which was important to Dessa who says, InchI hate being lectured. I assume most listeners do too. This song doesn't aim to teach anybody anything-I think most of us know better already. It's about trying to rally the nerve to act on our best impulses. Inch