How did we get here?
Mix 1: Dembow clicks, Francophone rap hits, Eurovision's slick, online platforms are shit
Welcome to 2024!
It’s the 20-year anniversary of two of the albums that mean the most to me in my music-critical writing life: Arcade Fire’s Funeral and Ashlee Simpson’s Autobiography. I might pitch a retrospective on one of these albums, and am cautiously optimistic that no one will ask me about the other one. Will also likely be pitching a book on Taylor Swift’s Fearless, which I now think I have a pretty good handle on after completing the Taylor Swift series. (Probably a long shot, but I think I have a hook.) So I may have my work cut out for me in the next few months.
Some newsletter housekeeping: There’s a new playlist for 2024, embedded below. I considered rolling over the previous playlist (here’s the full 2023 playlist), but I ultimately thought this would be easier.
Style guide updates: I’m going to be much less forgiving of annoyingly stylized all-caps or no-caps names and titles from Spotify (i.e., if there’s any instance of a non-stylized name outside of Spotify, I’m using that one). I’ll also be more conservative about listing credited artists, specifically avoiding the inclusion of producers and labels who shoehorn their way onto Spotify credits but aren’t on album art or YouTube videos.
I will continue embedding YouTubes when possible and providing the ongoing Spotify playlist each week, from most recent to least recent in descending order. I’ve been losing patience with both Spotify and YouTube recently (more so than usual), which brings me to…
Enshittification updates! (Enshittification is the predictable erosion of platform usefulness over time.)
Spotify: After concern last week that Spotify might gut their playlists along with their staff, I’m back up to about 2,000 tracks this week, compared to 1,000 tracks from last week. (I’m trying to keep more tracks in reserve and to write these newsletters a little earlier.) Not sure how their layoffs have affected curation yet, but so far it’s working OK.
Twitter: I’ll be weaning off of Twitter entirely over the next few months as the People’s Pop polls finally wind down. I’m over on Bluesky, which is a nice little social media retirement community if you’re so inclined. You can also find me on Discord under the same name as Bluesky.
YouTube: YouTube is quietly reaching a new level of enshittification, too. Their anti-adblockers are getting more effective, making the platform more cumbersome to non-payers, and they’ve started putting sponsored ads on top of relevant videos in search results (or else my new adblocker is now revealing these to me). I’ve found one mostly effective adblocker so far — Fadblock. I also tried and enjoyed the free trial for YouTube premium but it’s just too expensive.
In the event Spotify ever went under completely I might make the switch, but my paid Spotify account is mostly for my kids, whom I try to keep as far away from YouTube as possible. (The little one managed to search something last week on their school-issued Chromebook and got scared half to death by this dumb asshole. “I thought because of her hair it might be the girl from The Parent Trap.” Reader, I nearly cried. Consider the one song of his I reviewed revised to a [2] instead of the generous [3] I provided.)Publications for music writing in general: Not enshittification proper, I guess, but similar in spirit: news that Conde Nast just gutted the Pitchfork staff and will shove the whole thing under the umbrella of GQ just came through before this was scheduled to go out, so I figured I should at least mention it. …Let me know if you’re looking for 20-year retrospective pitches!
So yeah, bummers! But at least there’s no shortage of good music.
Mix 1 //
MIX 1: HOW DID WE GET HERE?
1. Young Miko & Bizarrap: Young Miko Bzrp Music Sessions Vol. 58
Another year, another BZRP session to kick things off (last year it was Shakira). This is something like the polar opposite: Young Miko has mastered a variety of contemporary rap styles and switches between them deftly, but without a feeling of lightness. She’s definitely post-modal (this is my most concise description of “modal rap”), although, like A Boogie or Drake, she has some facility as a singer to cover her tracks.1
2. Mesita f. Nicki Nicole, Tiago PZK, & Emilia: Una Foto Remix
This is a remix of a 2023 track by Argentine reggaeton artist Mesita that’s on top of at least one of the YouTube global charts I’m keeping an eye on this year. (So far it’s not a great way to find music, as most of the music is months or years old, and many regional playlists are swamped with selections that seem bot-influenced.)
There’s something about the beat that drives me absolutely crazy, not in an entirely bad way, because it sounds like it’s rushing by a sixteenth note at some point in the loop, giving it an oddly lopsided Frankenstein lurch, where you get a hiccup-like pause at the end of the drum pattern. But the friction in this choice(?) also keeps me paying attention to it, and also makes me wonder…am I just hearing things? (Don’t think so.)
3. Jey One: Tu Vera Lío
4. Dixson Waz: Turutu
5. Yomel El Melosis & Tokischa: Chivirika
Three dembow tracks this week, which is a promising sign given I had a hard time finding non-Angel Dior dembow I liked last year. The first builds on the Angel Dior sing-rap style and introduces some fun DIY-sounding percussion elements: handclaps, coke-bottle taps. The second is a Spotify substitute for an even better track by Dixson Waz from December, “Toroto (Desacatoto).” And the third is my first encounter with Tokischa, who is great. More women in dembow please!
6. Channel Tres: Walked in the Room
Given how prolific he is and how promising I thought he was the first time I heard him several years ago, I figured I’d like more Channel Tres songs by now than I actually have, but I don’t think his sound has budged much since way back when. Every now and then it works, though.
7. X4: Call My Bluff
LA rapper is as recessive as everyone else doing this style, but he seems to be starting a snap revival in the background, which is good enough for me.
8. Kerchak: 2006 - Opps qui court
9. Black K, La Team de Poy, & AB Le Superman: En Kabato
Two Francophone rap selections, one from France and the other from C’ote D’Ivoire. I think billdifferen shared one or both of these on Twitter, but I wound up noticing them in my playlsits anyway: Kerchak is the best thing I’ve heard on the New Music Friday France playlist in a long time, while AB le Superman is a C’ote D’Ivoire artist I started following last year when I first started the newsletter.
10. Omo Ebira Beatz: Afro Marakosa
Not sure where this one came from, but I might be getting more Nigerian cruise music recommendations after trying to listen to more cruise and legwork music last year. (Not sure if this is cruise proper, though the genre tag says it is.)
11. Takanome: Northern Light (垂直落下 DE 脳震盪 Remix)
Japanese rap that sounds like it’s trying to re-create the beat from VIC’s “Wobble” on a bunch of cartoon ribcages.
12. noa: Any Angle
How to remember the difference between ano and noa? …ano sings in a higher register, but is lower in the alphabet?
13. Margaret Berger: Oblivion
14. Ingrid Jasmin: Eya
Two entrants from Norway in the Melodi Grand Prix Eurovision qualifiers. Of course my heart body and soul is with Margaret Berger, whose 2006 Pretty Scary Silver Fairy is still a totally perfect album, even though she was only that good again once, in her 2013 Eurovision entry “I Feed You My Love.” But of these two I might like Ingrid Jasmin’s Indian-inflected “Eya” better. I’m heartened to see they both made the final, along with a Lordi-esque joke-metal guy whose act, I’m afraid, is VERY Eurovision and could knock them both out (though I’d still put my money on Berger).
A stub for a future Eurovision paragraph, perhaps: Tom Ewing was thinking about why he doesn’t like contemporary Eurovision over at the People’s Pop Polls, to which I replied: “Current Eurovision feels like moneyball for novelty music.”
15. Alastair Lane & Sarah Degny: Roman d’Amour
Lite disco pastiche that succeeds where so much lite disco pastiche fails (is French).
16. Heleza: Mitte Kuskil
Finnish electro that according to YouTube is big in a country that is not Finland, though I forget which one. Sounds Russian (complimentary).
17. fkbambam: Hit That!
I am told this is phonk, but phonk is a scene/genre/whatever that I have only a nebulous understanding of so I don’t know if I’d be able to pick it out of a lineup.
18. Dj Tobzy Beat f. Rahman Jago & DJ Tobzy Imole Giwa: You Look Like Metro Beat
More Nigerian cruise, which so far is catch as catch can in my playlists. I suppose you could read Pan African Music or Bandcamp on the scene, both from 2022. I tend to be a year or two late to these sorts of things.
19. Deejay Telio, Rennan da Penha, & Savanah: Pega Minha Picareta
My notes say Angolan DJ working with Brazilian MCs, I’ll take my notes’ word for it.
20. Peipper & Callejero Fino: Vida Bakana
More solid Argentine pop, this one splitting the difference between reggaeton and a hard baile funk clave.
21. JÃO DJ f. Mc Mr. Bim: Joga Que Eu Dou Presente
Weird one — samples “We Belong Together” (no, the other one) but when I try to find it on YouTube I get a different JÃO DJ track from 2021 that samples “Stand By Me.” I can never seem to work out legitimate provenance in baile funk, so it’s possible that this is a quick remix to incorporate a TikTok fad (the first Ritchie Valens hit I got called it a “Tiktok Song”). Anyway, knowing nothing about other JÃO/Mc Mr. Bim collaborations or “We Belong Together” as a TikTok meme, I liked this one just fine.
22. Ahadi-k f. Trio Mio: Jipende
Fun Kenyan pop-rap, punctuates verses with what sounds like “hater!” in a way I think sounds great.
23. Brevis f. D3MO: Kokaina
More phonk, this one sounds much more Russian than the previous one but is, as best as I can tell, Bulgarian.
24. Genesis 99 f. Shaunmusiq, DJ Maphorisa, xduppy, Mellow & Sleazy: Kwela Re-up
Maybe I’ve been spoiled by 3-step, or maybe Mellow & Sleazy are settling, but this is somewhat representative of Mellow & Sleazy’s more staid end of 2023 and beginning of 2024. Amazing to think I’m bored at an artist that put out some of the most exciting music I’ve ever heard in the same calendar year, but South African dance music moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop to look around once in a while, etc.
25. Julita Ziela Zielińska: Sztuczne Ognie
Even the boring indie music in Poland sounds provocatively weird around the edges.
26. Snõõper: For Yr Love
Was a big fan of the Snõõper album from 2023, which clocked in at a breezy 23 minutes for 14 songs. This track, a quick and dirty Yardbirds cover, stretches out to nearly the 2-minute mark, which is practically an eternity in Snõõper-years.
27. Bibi Club: Le feu
Feather-light indie pop of the sort Montreal seems to crank out like bon bons on a conveyor belt. (Just showed some I Love Lucy clips to the kids, and “Do you pop out at parties? Are you un-poop-ular?” might be the funniest thing they’ve ever heard.)
28. ЩукаРиба f. Bunht & Yevhen Puhachov: Ой на горі
Ukrainian folk-pop with an organ in the background. Who could ask for a better closer?
***
That’s it! Until next week, I hope that you avoid the traps of enshittification and, as a German translation of a review I wrote once claims I wrote, find a way “to fully rehabilitate the innocence of the genuine feelings.”
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from Young Miko & Bizarrap’s “Young Miko Bzrp Music Sessions Vol. 58” (“¿Cómo llegamo' aquí?”)
Drake is a subject for research on this subject: I know he has modal stuff along with everyone else after 2014, but I don’t associate him strongly with the strict modal style, only with sing-rapping (a hodgepodge of R&B hooks interspersed with rapping) that may have had some influence in setting rappers on their path. If I ever cover a proper Drake song (stranger things have happened!) maybe I’ll investigate.