I keep making my bed and it's become a real chore
Mix 43: Dua Lipa at her most bloodlessly efficient, Brazil in various states of beauty, Nigerian legwork, and some Daft Punk I can finally stand a decade later
Each week I skim through about 2,500 songs mostly from Spotify's company-curated New Music Friday playlists. Whenever I find 80 minutes worth of music I like, I make a CD-length mix and write a newsletter about it.
This week in my Taylor Swift series I wrote about Swift’s relationship to hip-hop, specifically looking at the melodic rap trend of the mid-10s I call modal rap and the ways in which the vocal range of singing rappers put me in mind of some of Taylor Swift’s melody patterns. Includes diversions into light music theory (to the extent you need to learn how to play modal rap on the piano) and the soaring chorus arms race of the mid-aughts.
I started thinking about this topic because I finally saw the Eras tour movie with my son, who let me know that it was “very Taylor Swift-y.” And he was right, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was so Taylor Swift-y about it. I thought it had something to do with the melodies, the way they were all sort of bleeding into each other. The 10-minute “All Too Well,” which required a brief trip to the cinema arcade and bathroom, cemented for me that I was experiencing the concert as drone. (Not unpleasant. I wonder if this is part of the alleged Taylor Swift amnesia effect.)
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MIX 43: I KEEP MAKING MY BED AND IT’S BECOME A REAL CHORE
1. Dua Lipa: Houdini
I’ll admit to being perennially underwhelmed by Dua Lipa, though the Barbie song gained something in context, and I’ve appreciated seeing people dancing to it in the wild. But this is perfect, calculated to make you dance with a bloodless efficiency that I appreciate.
2. Jlin: Fourth Perspective
Lots of nice plinks and plunks from an artist whose music I rarely seem to find any time for, even though other folks whose tastes I respect swear by it. Not sure why she’s never clicked, and also couldn’t tell you why this one did instead. Cool to watch a group orchestrate it live.
3. 070 Shake f. Ken Carson: Natural Habitat
I think I appreciate more than love Ken Carson’s less murky take on something like Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red entrancing hypertrap music, but here he’s featured on something with a plainer pathway to entrancing, via 070 Shake’s squall and electrochoir.
4. Daft Punk: Motherboard (Drumless Edition)
I remember really loathing Random Access Memories when it came out, but here I am giving a prime spot to the “drumless” version of a song I don’t really remember from it, except that it must have sounded worse drumful. To my mind the best thing to come out of RAM was the incredible Musicophilia tribute album The Gold and the Silver Dream, which you can still read about and listen to here.
5. Raf Saperra f. Taj Aulakh: Ranjha
Punjabi banger that manages to sneak Queen Latifah into the party.
6. Mulest Vankay f. Felo Le Tee, Mellow & Sleazy, QuayR Musiq, Vyno Keys, TitoM, Kensani & Bongs Ngwanamani: Xhibelanni
This might be my longest list of featured credits on an amapiano track this year. I don’t know production duo Mulest Vankay but they’re in esteemed company with Felo Le Tee and Mellow & Sleazy, and this is probably the best amapiano track I’ve heard in weeks, continues a (maybe?) trend of a harder-edged approach.
7. Slayyyter f. Lolo Zouaï: Makeup
Have wavered on Slayyyter songs from her 2023 album all year — have probably shortlisted three or four before deciding against them — because the quotation marks around TRASHY are a little too thick for my taste. But on this one she settles for an obnoxious hook and gets Lolo Zouaï, whose 2019 album and its single “Ride” I loved, a decent feature.
8. Tina Moon: 今生の喜
J-pop, noisier than it is playful, which is good because I prefer the noise.
9. QUBIT: Mr. Sonic
J-pop, more playful than it is noisy, which is good because I prefer the playfulness.
10. Lunv Loyal f. SEEDA & Watson: Acrophobia Remix
The one track this week I got from a best-of, from Ryo Miyauchi’s This Side of Japan newsletter’s round-up of Japanese rap songs of the year. Ryo sez:
Whether they hail from the corner of Thugger-inspired trap or soulful boom-bap, every other rapper in Japan are trying their best to adapt their usual style into drill beats. Lunv Loyal and SEEDA work in those respective lanes, and the production of “Acrophobia” push the former’s slippery, impish vocals and the latter’s measured, chill flow to fit into its peculiar wobbly grid. That said, despite the beat’s rugged, bumpy feel, Lunv Loyal approaches the song rather like a sleek and shiny swag rap track as he hums the titular chorus: “A fear of heights / but I’m still flying to the top,” he boasts. “I just keep going up / no way I’ll fall.”
11. mafalda cardenal: solo se que no se que
Madrid-based pop-punk with cheerleader background chants. Who needs Olivia Rodrigo?
12. Adelasia: Tre volte
Mononymic Italian indie.
13. OMIRI: Adeus Adeus
Interesting project where field recordings and collaborations with traditional musicians in Portgual are spliced together into something that moves with the logic of dance music but aside from a few editing flourishes doesn’t stray very far from the original instrumentation.
14. Shannon f. So Wood: Ou wont
Freestyle from a French rapper whose video clip is listed as très très explicite, but they must be talking lyrics—sorry, monolingual :( —since it looks to me like Shannon is just having a fun time lip syncing in the break room of her manager’s office building.
15. Heembeezy: Just Like Me
I’ve been looking for a reason to feature Heembeezy, who intrigues me because he raps like he’s always on the verge of swallowing his own tongue, but couldn’t find a song short and to the point enough. But this will do!
16. PEDRO SAMPAI & Mc Gw: SEQUÊNCIA REVOLUCIONÁRIA
Heard a lot of pretty good baile funk this week but went with this one, which does something interesting with the rave and EDM elements I’ve been hearing more of in baile funk this year, finding a way to give synth patterns and drum machines a little space to be themselves and then yanking them back hard into the clave.
17. Dj Yk Mule: Youngy Duu Cruise
18. Professional Beat: Aye lo so (mara)
Two Nigerian DJs who seems to be associated with high-speed zanku/legwork. Don’t know anything about this scene but I like it. Spotify’s algorithm put a mix of it together for me, but I’d put these two tracks together already for the mix without realizing they were both coming from the same scene.
18. Shallipopi f. ODUMODUBLVCK: Cast
Another strong Naija/amapiano mix (is this called something yet?) from what looks to be a rising Naija pop star.
20. Laura Jane Grace: Hole in My Head
It must be tough to write a bad song with “hole” and “head” in its title. In fact you can’t even mess up a cover of one: Highly recommend Tom Jones’s take on Malvina Roberts’s “No Hole in My Head.” And even Miley Cyrus managed not to screw up Nine Inch Nails too badly.
21. Hailey Whitters: I’m in Love
Been kicking around this slight, sweet country confection for months without a spot for it. Well, Hailey, it’s your week to shine!
22. Sun-El Musician f. Msaki: Amandla
More blissout from Sun-El Musician, the artist for whom words fail me most of the time and I’m left with stuff like “sumptuous” and “limpid” rattling around up there, yeesh.
23. Patrícia Bastos f. Caetano Veloso: Jeito Tucuju
Brazilian singer puts out a pretty duet with Caetano Veloso, based on a poem by Joãozinho Gomes extolling the beauty of the Amazon and its people. (Or something.) It’s nice!
***
Until next time, I hope you too can experience the joy of taking a six-year-old to the Taylor Swift movie, with the added bonus of knowing neither of you will likely have to sit through the whole thing (made it to Midnights, though, not bad!).
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Laura Jane Grace’s “Hole in My Head”