Holiday’s are over and I have returned home saying the same things I say after every Italian holiday, namely I will learn Italian and I will learn to cook better. I will never do either of these things! It’s so relaxing to be this consistent. I didn’t really listen to much music while I was on holiday, but I did have a sort of Dr Seuss like listening festival to Charli XCX’s Brat: I listened to it on a boat, I listened to it on a plane, I listened to it on on a bike, while I cycled in the rain!
A word I don’t want to bandy about much is zeitgeist, but Brat is very much being embraced as, if not the spirit of the age, then at least the spirit of the summer. It’s an interesting album to examine because it’s different to say an album where the songs are all just very good; it’s different to an artist doing something different and everyone going oh this is interesting, because while Brat is about both those things it is very importantly about a feeling and that feeling is (on the surface level) FUN. Part of the reason people are reacting so powerfully to this album is that glamorously chaotic feeling, the call to going out, but it’s real success I think is that it’s also about the insecurities that surface no matter how much fun you’re having. The duality of seeking joy while grappling with underlying worries and insecurities is what makes Brat so exactly what people want to listen to right now. All that and over beats! It’s time to feel vulnerable in the club! That it’s a direct counterpoint to the therapy session pop that we’ve been sifting through for a while is also an absolute relief - the faux- relatability and faux-confessional tone that has been adopted in pop music seems almost embarrassing in comparison with this kind of texting / voice note style lyricism. The idea of an authentic pop star is negated purely by what being a pop star means, but there are levels of authenticity and it feels almost wholesome that an artist like Charli XCX making an album like Brat, can have incredible mainstream success; we should all enjoy every minute of it and beyond this album making you want to smoke cigarettes and go out late I hope it makes you think about how artistry and vision are as important as music when it comes to creating something impactful and defining.
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Sabrina Carpenter is surprising and charming and she’s keeps releasing great, interesting pop songs. She is also dating the mostly terrifying Barry Keoghan, who this song is inspired by. There are some fun lyrics here for example: “ I heard that you're an actor, so act like a stand-up guy/Whatever devil's inside you, don't let him out tonight/I tell them it's just your culture and everyone rolls their eyes.” Imagine saying about your oddly attired Irish boyfriend when he is very drunk at a party in LA and shouting at people that they should go boil their heads that it is just his culture. Amazing. I actually did read in a newspaper named Limerick Leader, that Irish people are not so happy about this line. I do want to note the key change in this song because I don’t think we hear a lot of key changes these days whereas about a quarter of songs from the 1960s to the 1990s included a key change. Key changes are used mostly to signify a mood change or to add a bit of energy to a song and there is a feeling that it’s a bit of a lazy way to do things, but when it’s done well, as it is here in a clever and subtle way it’s really fun.
Sometimes I read descriptions of songs and then I hear the song and I am SO disappointed! I think I might be guilty of this when I say that for me this song sounds a bit like Kate Bush meets Tracy Chapman. The tone of her voice really reminds me of Tracy and her phrasing of Kate, but this is a pretty tricky way to describe a song that doesn’t feel like it would come from either of them. It’s a song living in anticipation and slight breathlessness, the ticking piano on the first verse, the synthetic strings on the 2nd, but it gives way to itself and relaxes into the wonderful smoothness of the repeated over and over again chorus.
Big Boy is a southern rap-influenced track punctuated by braggy horn blasts and a Timbaland-y beat; imagine if Beyoncé had a sort of wild, paparazzi friendly sister. This would be her song. Normani first rose to prominence as a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony and musically we do feel a bit like we’re back in the time of the girl group and their break out stars.
Have there been a lot of songs written about enjoying using dating apps and having a good experience? I’m not sure, but here we have one and it has a very happy ending! Amber Bain, who records as The Japanese House says : ‘Smiley Face’ is a song I wrote when I was very excited about talking to someone off a dating app. She lived in Detroit and I was fantasising about flying to meet her. I was in a session at the time for someone else stuff but I couldn’t help this song spilling out of me, I was in some sort of frenzy. Turns out I did buy the plane tickets, now we’re engaged.”
I know absolutely nothing about this band except that I don’t think Wet is a good band name because when I googled “Double Wet” it was not a great search. Minor grievances aside this is a coldly energetic song that reminds me a little of a much cooler and “now” version of Return to Innocence by Enigma!
You’re probably instantly going to be like “Rosalía” when you hear this. Don’t worry, me too! This is grimier though, something closer to industrial reggaeton, more chaotic and dark. Akrilla and Taichu hail respectively from Chile and Argentina, both rising stars and this is their first collaboration.
I really love how vulnerable this song is and it’s neat that its vulnerability manages to coexist with the remix’s club beat without in anyway feel like we need to change worlds. There’s a really weird packaging of feminism that has happened in pop music, a sort of rara women we are all together and we are so powerful kind of thing, which is mostly embarrassing so it’s really refreshing to hear two women working out problems of miscommunication in such a simple and honest way here, without placing blame and without reverting to stereotypes around female power, rather it’s an exploration of that space of jealousy and insecurity done in a way that doesn’t feel bitchy or victimy, it just feels like figuring things out. I also wonder if we’re going to see a new Lorde album sometime soon as this seems like a perfect opportunity for her to reenter the scene with a very different sound post-Solar Power.
The absence of another should technically open up space, but when you’re used to being with someone initially all that alone-ness and silence can feel like a constricting of space and of yourself. This beautiful song about being left by someone you love with it’s soft, muted sonic backdrop sinks into that heaviness, which Orion Sun has described as silence that becomes “heavy like water.”
This sounds like it’s going to be used in the opening of a detective series à la True Detective any minute now. The organ arpeggios, bass and drum machine steadiness make up the creeping saucy base of this track. He’s asking Nancy for forgiveness in this track, but I think he has the voice of a man you shouldn’t trust so I wouldn’t fall for it!
Oh man this song is so great and simultaneously really embarrassing. I think it’s just the very lively horn samples reminding me of going to clubs called things like “The Fez.” It’s slightly in the world of the dj and the saxophone as duo and daytime dancing in swimwear. Robyn’s vampy non-sequiturs are incredible specifically “You’re giving me strong torso.”
A Dog’s Chance,from which this track is taken, is the debut collaborative full-length album from three artists in hip-hop’s new underground, New York’s Polo Perks, Milwaukee’s AyooLii, and Atlanta’s FearDorian. This track effectively samples Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole’s Somewhere over the Rainbow (thank you to Jasper for knowing this!) and the whole album is sample heavy, unpredictable and a little chaotic.
The new Raye release is a 7 minute track entitled Genesis. Since we no longer have attention spans the song is divided up into snippets and when you hear those snippets alone you might wonder how they could all be one song, but it really makes sense, like a story with various themes. The whole 7 minutes is great, but since I know you need to pay attention to something else asap part 2 is where it’s at imo.
Back in 2014, Kali Uchis sang a song called “Never Be Yours” on a podcast, and the video of that performance got millions of views. Now after all that time, Uchis has finally released a newly re-recorded version of “Never Be Yours.”It’s a naively coy number, summery and sweet.
James Blake released CMYK in 2010 and it felt at the time like something really special and different. His voice and the moody, soulful world he was creating felt like wandering around a new planet. He has been quite clear about this EP release not being a follow up to that album, but rather a new release on his own imprint that goes by the same name. It does still feel like we are safely in his fragmented and lonely world though, and it’s wonderful to pay it another visit.
Of all the possible things Suki Waterhouse could have named her upcoming album she is going with Memoir of a Sparklemuffin. It’s a very actress SLAaaaSH musician thing to name your album and I’m sure it’s very funny hahaha but I all around hate it. I do like this garage rocky anthem though and that’s what matters!
There are some bands that just sit around in my brain, but I actually have no idea about them beyond their band name and whatever I have made up about them that suits me. So I was totally shocked for example to find that Hiatus Kaiyote are from Australia, basically making them my enemies.* I’m just joking. Australia seems great. We’ll work it out on the remix.
*this is just a boring joke for South African’s and it’s mostly to do with sport!
Pale Jay; a enigmatic, romantic in his red balaclava ( the least romantic item of clothing that exists?) has just released this new single and it’s such a delicate, tender tune that even a balaclava can’t spoil it
Sorry I know this song is impossibly cheesy and it sounds quite dated, but I am so into it. It’s all those predictable chords and the predictable “being a woman” lyrics, but mostly I like how they sing the word "F*CK so I’ve just been roaming around the house with headphones on not singing along and then singing F*CK v loudly.