Have a Cigar

Roy Harper's delivery is so conversational it nearly disguises how scathing the lyric is — a record executive offering congratulations that curdle into condescension with every verse, the cigar a prop in a performance of power. The band plays with an almost cheerful efficiency, funk-adjacent and rolling, which makes the satirical content land more sharply than it would set to minor-key gloom. The guitar solo is compact, not indulgent. It's the album track that sounds most like something you could hear on the radio, which is appropriate for a song about the machinery that decides what gets heard on the radio. There's a particular pleasure in hearing artists with the cultural leverage to mock the industry doing so with this much craft rather than just grievance.