The wrap is staring at the sea

(1) The new Lorde album “Melodrama” truly is swell. I interviewed her recently – it’s the only interview I’ve ever done on the phone from a supermarket car park and it was a first for the interviewee too – and found her to be smart, sharp and savvy. As with our previous encounter, she also gave me some ace book recommendations.

(2) What’s it like when your job involves people shouting at you all day? A foreclosure agent, hospital nurse, restaurant manager, retail worker, security guard and call centre worker tell their stories.

(3) There’s been a lot of comment, speculation and what-have-you about Amazon’s bid for Whole Foods. Here’s a great profile of Whole Foods’ dude John Mackey compiled while that deal was going down.

(4) On the buses: “on any given Friday or Saturday night, the loudest and most public displays of bounce music come from eye-catching, brightly painted party buses. Over the past 12 years since Hurricane Katrina, the owners and operators of these buses have created their own thriving industry around bounce music in New Orleans.”

(5) Anyone for some playlists? The Dowsers collects the best of the thousands of playlists produced every week and tells you what they love and don’t love about them.
(6) If New Orleans has bounce, Washington DC has go-go. Superb long-read by Ericka Bount Danois about the rise, fall and afterlife of the Chocolate City sound.