By Dillon Schwartz, and Niko Stathakopoulous Contributors

Dillon

I’ve been meaning to write about Long Beach native Jade Lilitri’s work as Oso Oso for a long time. I love this band and I love the work they do. The View is a catchy and infectious song off Oso Oso’s full-length, Basking in the Glow, from back in 2019, and it’s finally got an absolutely excellent music video. It’s funny watching it now, toward the tail-end of 2020 knowing what’s about to happen to the NYC the video is being shot in, the filming for which literally must have been a week or two before the lockdowns began. The song and the video just exude this powerful wholesome nostalgia. Jade’s wistful vocal delivery keeps the ever hopeful lyrical work from becoming saccharinely sweet on “The View”. Just like every other song on Basking in the Glow, there’s something so comforting about Oso Oso’s songwriting and style, it just sounds like home to me.  

Niko

Dang, as someone who recently had to leave NYC because of COVID, this video hurts. This thing is bursting with the charm, heartache, and joy that only those weirdos who overpopulate the city can manage, which incidentally makes a perfect backdrop for Oso Oso’s longingly incandescent writing. Listening back, I want to take this opportunity to formally declare the bridge for this song to be the best one of 2019. Also, props to the band for committing to the news scroll gimmick and being able to consistently make their beats hit; that shit is hard to pull off.