Joy Is in the Air

What you like makes you happier than what you dislike. So when the Balloon Museum’s Downtown Manhattan location opened, we wanted to be blown away. And we were, as you’ll see in Elke’s review in “Discovery of the Week.

But what about the things we don’t like? Music writer Poppy Platt published a negative review of Charli XCX’s new album¹. In her Substack post, she recounts receiving death threats in response. Of course, death threats are not okay, and she is right when she says: “It is depressing.” A lot of things on the internet are depressing these days, and it is wise to avoid places where people find hate funny and entertaining (X/Twitter comes to mind). But that also means giving up a large part of the audience, which a professional writer like Poppy may not want to do.

But this also makes me question the value of graded album reviews. There was a time when you would go through them to plan your next music CD investment, but these days you can simply listen to it yourself. If you like it, you may click “Add to Library”; if not, no harm done.

Poppy certainly put in the work. She listened to Charli XCX many times, which she obviously didn’t enjoy, before writing her critique. But what is her negative review good for, except to stir controversy? Charli’s fans will dismiss it and maybe go to X for a personal insult. Indifferent listeners might save a bit of time by avoiding the album, and haters probably feel a jolt of schadenfreude.

Positive reviews, on the other hand, could inspire you to discover something new and perhaps add some context to your listening experience. So why not just scrap the one- and two-star reviews and focus on the good ones? Of course, writers like Poppy want to review new albums honestly. That is what professional music journalists do. I’m just not sure whether that form of journalism still serves us well.

Discovery of the Week: The Balloon Museum

What if a museum asked you not just to look at the art, but to step inside, touch, listen, climb, lie down, and play? The Balloon Museum does exactly that. Its newly opened New York flagship brings together immersive installations by thirteen artists for “Daydream,” transforming the Tin Building into a wonderfully imaginative world where visitors become part of the art themselves.

And while balloons might suggest something lighthearted at first, air itself emerges as one of the exhibition’s most fascinating materials. Artists find ways of making the invisible visible, giving air shape, movement, and volume. Daniel Wurtzel sends delicate fabrics dancing on currents of air, while Cyril Lancelin turns it into inflatable architecture you can walk through and get lost in. Elsewhere, Marina Abramović invites visitors into a surreal imagined world, while Boris Acket’s beautifully titled “There, Where I Am Absent” only truly comes alive when you lie beneath its suspended mechanical wing. Reflected in the mirrored ceiling above, your own body becomes part of the work and completes the illusion.

We laughed so hard trying to find our way through giant balloons, rode a whimsical carousel, wandered through Abramović’s otherworldly forest playing with the “snow,” lay underneath Acket’s moving wing, and got blissfully lost in Cyril Lancelin’s black-and-white labyrinth. Some installations were exuberant and playful, others dreamy, beautiful, and almost meditative. What connected them all was the invitation to participate, to experience art with more than just our eyes.

We first admired the dancing veils of Daniel Wurtzel’s “Air Tables,” but once we realized we could pick them up and send them dancing on different currents of air ourselves, watching was no longer enough. And when was the last time you sat on a swing? Or tried to walk across a sea of giant bubbles? There is no single way to experience “Daydream,” and perhaps that’s part of its magic. For us, it was an afternoon filled with joy, wonder, and the sheer pleasure of playing.

For more of the experience, scroll down to this week’s Nine Photos, The Art of Playing.

Cover Song of the Week: The Gospellers - Up, Up and Away (ft. May J.)

Balloons have been on our minds this week, so it is impossible not to think of this song, written by Jimmy Webb and popularized by The Fifth Dimension in 1967. It was also featured on the first record I can remember: a compilation designed to showcase the stereo capabilities of your hi-fi, with a yellow-orange cover showing a bikini-clad woman.

It is impossible to pull “Up, Up and Away” out of the era it was written in. On the contrary, it is an immediate time travel back to the late 60s and 70s. While I’m sure there are some punk versions among the countless covers, I believe the song is best savored in an upbeat, happy version, like the 2012 version by the Japanese acapella band The Gospellers featuring singer May J. The retro music competition video is a lot of fun, too.

This Week in glamglare history

1 Year Ago: Dear Boy - After All (feat. Rocket)

We picked three songs from Celebrator, Dear Boy’s second album. “After All” features Alithea Tuttle, the singer of Rocket.

5 Years Ago: Hayden Thorpe - Parallel Kingdom

“Parallel Kingdom” is an atmospheric, haunting song from Wild Beasts’ singer’s debut solo album Moondust For My Diamond. We watched the mystical video on repeat when it was released.

10 Years Ago: ACRYLIC - Overrun

The Scottish quintet ACRYLIC shut down their website and removed “Overrun” from SoundCloud and YouTube. However, two years after we featured the song, they released the song again on an EP, All I Am (Spotify | Apple Music), so you still have the opportunity to listen to this melodic indie rock gem.

Song Pick of the Day

Listen to all seven songs on YouTube, or follow our daily updated Song Pick playlists on YouTube, Apple Music, or Spotify.

• Tanzana - Without A Sound
• MERCE - My Guy
• Spencer Sutherland - Somebody’s Gonna Love Me
• O Slow - NO BODY
• Art d’Ecco - The Death of Indie
• Empress Of - SYW (ft. Cecile Believe)
• Junior VP - Red Cardigan

We publish one Song Pick of the Day every day. You can subscribe to receive them by email.

The Art of Playing

Looking is only the beginning at the Balloon Museum’s “Daydream.” We climbed, wandered, touched, listened, lay down, got lost, and became part of the art ourselves. For more about our wonderfully joyful afternoon, see this week’s Discovery of the Week above.

(1) Martin Creed Work, No. 366: Half the air in a given space
(2) Valerio Berruti, The Carousel
(3) Daniel Wurtzel, Air Tables
(4) Alex Schweder, Our Breath, Her Joy
(5) Onionlab, Into the Cloud
(6) Boris Acket, There, Where I Am Absent
(7) Hyperstudio, Agosto
(8) Cyril Lancelin, The Forest of Endless Circles
(9) Marina Abramović, Snowy/Windy/Spring on the Planet Z

1. We are kind of Charli XCX fans after her Coachella 2025 performance. ↩︎