I miss your old molecules

2025 Mix 7: Attempting to crack the "Say So" code, punching oneself in the face with one's own little fist, a David Sylvian jump scare, and bliss-house for people on or off of drugs

I only want to _____ with friends

I’m currently trying to write a piece I can pitch to some non-blog outlet about A-pop. More on that later, maybe. I think it’s an interesting idea that deserves to have its tires kicked a little more.

One thing I’ve been thinking about is how a surprisingly formative song in the current A-pop wave —“Say So” by Doja Cat— might map onto the global pop landscape. The question that has always nagged at me is where “Say So” actually came from. The song was produced by Dr. Luke under an alias in 2019, and stories written about his involvement from this time focus on his ongoing controversies. But beyond its use of a prominent sample pack (h/t to Sam3K), I haven’t found much about the actual formal construction of the song.

“Say So” was hugely influential in its own way. There have been some dubious attempts to trace the lineage of this particular style of flat, summery disco-pop, like this essay by Dan Charnas on Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.” Charnas is much better on the past than the present, though, and mostly uses the “Espresso” phenomenon as a convenient news peg to talk about the boogie bust, a period in the early ‘80s when post-disco music by predominately Black artists was throttled by gatekeepers. I think the connection of this music to Carpenter is tenuous, though, not least because I don’t actually hear any of the cited post-disco records in “Espresso.” What I hear is “Say So.”

My working theory is that “Say So” isn’t borrowing as much as you might think from ‘80s disco and funk, whose sounds it’s using superficially without really capturing the spirit. Instead I suspect the influence may come from K-pop. It would make sense that Dr. Luke was, whether consciously or not, metabolizing K-pop back into American pop music. He’s had a major role in shaping previous pop eras by incorporating and mainstreaming sounds a bit past their zeitgeist: alt-rock and indie back in 2004 (he and Max Martin claim to have found inspiration for “Since U Been Gone” in “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and EDM around 2010. There may be some reciprocity, too; there is a lot of Katy Perry’s early ‘10s frothy EDM-pop in K-pop, like in Girls’ Generation’s “Party.”

I think the key to understanding what has changed in the post-“Say So” environment is a shift to jazz-influenced chord patterns and harmonies, but played without any sense of swing or funk (this is part of what differentiates it from genres where you’ll consistently hear lots of these chords, like in a lot of R&B).

These sorts of chords, both in instrumentation and vocal harmonies, provide a characteristic softness in K-pop songs, which also tend not to use heavy (or funky) syncopation. Instead, K-pop songs tend to use much straighter four-on-the-floor rhythms, and then set the warmth of complex group harmonies and those jazzy chords against the mechanistic throb of club beats. I’d say that “Say So” and “Espresso” go even further—despite having a certain rubbery bounce to them, they’re also extremely plodding and almost sound like they’re in two instead of four: THUMP clap. THUMP clap. THUMP clap. THUMP clap.

To get more technical for anyone familiar with chords: start with the most common pop building blocks (I, ii, IV, V, iv) and then add a major 7th to the I and IV chords, a 7th and/or 9th to the ii and vi chords, and a 13th to the V chord. That gets you something like what I’ve played out below. (This example is pretty close to “Say So.” It’s a pattern of ii-V-I-IV in C —that’s Dm, G, C, F. To jazzify, you make them Dm7/9, G7/13, Cmaj7, Fmaj7.)¹

To be clear, I’m not sold on this theory. Airless disco-pop was brewing in a few places circa 2020: see also Dua Lipa, whose “Don’t Start Now” uses the same “Say So”/“Espresso” sample pack but makes very different use of it. I just don’t really buy the direct influence of the post-disco and funk music of the early 80s as anything beyond a sonic palette. Those songs were funky in a way that post-“Say So” pop resolutely isn’t. K-pop seems closer to what’s going on, even if there’s no way to really know for sure.²

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Previous 2025 Mixes

Tidal || YouTube

1. Ural Thomas: America
US

Ural Thomas was a soul singer in the ‘50s and ‘60s, then “rediscovered” in the mid-‘10s, when he began writing and touring again with a Portland band as Ural Thomas and the Pain. His latest album is a bit of an oddity: several songs share titles with more famous songs (“It Ain’t Easy Being Green,” “Good Vibrations”), but all of them are originals that only seem to retain little bits of their referents. Nowhere is this more striking than this song sketch, “America,” which sounds like someone half-remembered “America the Beautiful” in a dream and then tried to record it into their phone in the morning as the memory rapidly faded. There’s an uncanny feeling to its invocation of hope, like someone is repeating the word to make it signify, but it still doesn’t quite cohere.

2. Miya Folick: Fist
US

It was about this time last year that Rosie Tucker’s “All My Exes Live in Vortexes” hit, and I would say that this feels urgent to the present moment in a similar way—that is, obliquely and uncomfortably, getting at the social vibe while the words are powerful but a little inscrutable. If “Exes” was a puzzle box, this one’s a punching bag. I want to applaud while I’m waiting for my wind to come back: “You’ve been losing weight like you said you wanted to / But now I miss your old molecules / I say that I’ll starve myself until I disappear / And you tell me that I frighten you.”

The chorus turns into a Modest Mouse angst-jam fronted by Dolores O’Riordan, repeating the striking image (no pun intended) of punching oneself in the face in protest of something big and close, but never clearly defined. My kid asked, “why does she want to punch herself in the face?” I replied: “sometimes you just kind of feel that way, I guess.” They understood. (I quickly clarified that this was a metaphor, and you shouldn’t really do that. “OK. What’s a metaphor?”)

3. Lucrecia Dalt f. David Sylvian: Cosa Rara
Colombia/UK

Found this minimal pop from Colombian artist based in Germany so subtle and beguiling that I wondered at the halfway point why UK avant-rock icon David Sylvian got a featured credit. I’d hate to spoil the jump scare, but, uh, there’s a reason.

4. Rexxie, Jeriq: Chisom (We Dem Boyz)
Nigeria

Effervescent Naija pop that isn’t afraid to give the spotlight to what sounds like a recorder but is probably an oja. Reminds me that my favorite J. Balvin song is his take on the “SpongeBob Squarepants” theme.

5. Junior, DJ SAURIER: Tagada
Réunion

Second appearance from Réunion artists Junior and DJ SAURIER, a song with its own little chirping background whistles to keep the theme going.

6. Ceri Wax: Libero
Italy

Incredibly, this is the second appearance from this spacey Italian dance producer even though I was all ready to praise its sleek anonymity.

7. Elkka: Make Me (Sofia Kourtesis remix)
UK/Peru

Less anonymous is this (still sleek) remix of Ninja Tune artist Elkka’s “Make Me” from last year, which in its original version is a bit rougher around the edges. I prefer what it sounds like after Sofia Kourtesis takes some sandpaper to it.

8. Tommy Genesis, Kito: Tempo
Canada/Australia

Is this what Tommy Genesis sounds like now? I remember her doing futurist raunch-rap, but I guess she’s ditched the raunch—and the rap—and has kept going with future, except now the future is the past again!

9. marr team, MOBYE, Kaew, Namneung, PUPE, SERTIST: สายตาของผมจะมองแค่คุณคนเดียว
Thailand

Was unable to figure out how this T-pop group came together after getting lost in a morass of Instagram pages. It was listening to this song that got me thinking about where “Say So” originally came from, thus inspiring this week’s opening. (You need to speed it up about 20% for the full effect.)

10. Shaydee’s, Maureen f. Mikado: Cvni
Martinique

11. Dj Leska, Shannon, Talixo Beatz: Capitaine
France/Martinique

Two crackling shatta tracks from a few playlists I can finally rely on for French Antilles pop. The first is a previously featured Other Dave dream team of Shaydee’s (“Soum Soum” from 2024) and Maureen (“Pum Fat” from 2023) with producer Mikado (“Anle En Jet” from 2024). The second is from a group of artists I’ve never heard of, but I dig the low-budget nautical video. No pashmina afghan, but there’s a treasure map and a captain’s hat!

12. Tanishk Bagchi, Akshara Singh, Raja Hasan: Faraari
India

Ah, the once in a blue moon Indian pop song that breaks through for reasons I find hard to articulate beyond “this one slaps more than the other ones do.” Sorry! It’s an ongoing blind spot I don’t see filling in anytime soon, but feel free to convince me to devote more time to it in the comments if you like.

13. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek: Direne Direne
Turkey

Less of a blind spot is this Turkish funk band, whom I’ve featured before. Sounds, as always, like something off of a compilation of lost Turkish funk and soul music from the ‘70s. Major Golden Beatology vibes—those are the songs that aren’t my personal favorites but that I believe would do well as Golden Beats (best song you’ve never heard) in a future People’s Pop tournament. I’m keeping a Golden Beatology playlist here if you’re into that sort of thing.

14. Shaunmusiq, Myztro f. Scotts Maphuma, CowBoii, Kabelo Sings, Mbuxx: Yini Ngathi
South Africa

Have started doing a direct genre search for quantum sound, one of many offshoots of amapiano. My algorithms have started shoving older quantum sound from the past two years at me, and I might put some of it on a mix at some point. Generally, quantum sound incorporates harsher percussion—a kind of halfway point to gqom’s cold clanging steel—without really softening or integrating the noise but keeping the amapiano party going in the background (or is it foreground, aha, that’s the trick). But these distinctions can be hard to parse.

And further complicating these observations is the fact that—twist!—this particular song is not quantum sound at all, as far as I can tell! Was just caught in the “quantum sound” genre net over at Every Noise, which categorizes by artist and not by song.³

15. Dor, Oluwadamvic: Gaudi
Nigeria/Turkey

Bliss-house from Nigeria. I would have guessed it was from somewhere else, or an international collaboration. Bass line reminds me of Erlend Øye’s Smiths cover, but the real star is the horn section. [EDIT: Lokpo points out I got Dor wrong — he’s a Turkish producer. Glad to know my ears are still well calibrated]

16. Luke Alessi: Day Dreams of Beaches
Australia

Speaking of bliss-house, here’s Australian DJ Luke Alessi, whose sunny eight minutes convinced me it probably wasn’t the sort of fake DJ stuff that usually shows up on Spotify dance playlists (those tend to max out at three minutes). So I looked up a DJ set and was sleepily transfixed for about half of the near-two-hour runtime before I started to drift off. Imagined it was probably better to hear as a member of a group of sunburned festival-goers on drugs, but I enjoyed it off of drugs in the shade, too.

17. Darque, Mthunzi: Bayeke
South Africa

This was one of the tracks I found after deciding that I need to treat Afro house as a proper dance subgenre rather than rely on it as an umbrella term. This one’s from a sometime collaborator with producer Black Coffee.

18. Prepared: Modul Drei I
Germany

Some avant-fusion from a German trio—Flo Riedl on bass clarinet, Chris Gall on piano, and Christoph Holzhauer on drums. I’m most drawn to the wild bass clarinet tone here. From the Bandcamp bio: “A clarinetist who plays more bass than clarinet in the depths of his bass clarinet.” (Clunky prose, but this is nonetheless an apt description.)

19. Johuš Matuš f. Kámen Osudu: Chcípnem
Czech Republic

Singer Kámen Osudu sounds stranded in a desert of washed-out synth until some semblance of a beat stumbles in around the two-minute mark, and even then it sounds like the whole thing was slapped together, a pleasingly threadbare experience.

20. Country Girl Kay: Montana Rockies [c. 1961-1964]
US

Yet another Numero Group crate salvage from an artist who, it says here in the bits of bio I found, stopped recording in 1964, even though at first blush the recording fidelity on this sounded later than that to me. It’s very annoying that Numero Group releases metric tons of these unearthed records but don’t seem to provide even the most rudimentary information online for about half of them. Oh well, a good closer is a good closer.

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That’s it! Until next time, try to make sure you only punch yourself in the face with your own little fist metaphorically.

—Dave Moore (the other one)

Title from Miya Folick: “Fist”

1. Technically “Say So” repeats the Cmaj7 (I) at the end of the pattern. You could change out what I’m playing as Fmaj7 for an Amin7 or an Amin7/9. That would get you ii-V-I-vi, the “Good Luck, Babe!” chord progression. I voiced the last chord in such a way that the bass note will determine what the chord “reads” as, though technically I think I stuck an “F” in there somewhere that wouldn’t be in the A minor chord (an A minor chord is the top three notes of the Fmaj7 chord).

That is a longwinded way of saying that you could sing “Good Luck, Babe!” along to those chords if you want to hear what it would sound like as lounge, or maybe as K-pop or post-disco with the right beat.

2. For what it’s worth, in LUNA’s K-pop cover of “Say So,” you can spot some divergence from what you’d expect in a K-pop song. For me the biggest difference is the perfunctory harmony of parallel fourths on the chorus, which were clearly not designed with a group in mind. They may not have even been designed with much of a singer in mind. (In fact, the part of the song that sounds the most like K-pop is the rap.)

3. In other categorization news, I’ve stopped using “afrohouse” as a catch-all umbrella category for South African dance music. Afro house is a subgenre in its own right, so I’ll put all of it—amapiano, quantum sound, 3-step, gqom, afrotech, Afro house, etc.—under the broader category South African house. (This will have to suffice even for music that does not technically originate in South Africa—will see if I have to change things again next year.)