It's personal, not business

2025 Mix 6: Paper planes, Sleigh Bells, horse girls, hyperbops, Belgians robbed, Misoverse, Lynchoverse, and the second ever "first ever" Other Dave Heidi Montag legacy poll

Industry jump!

I’ve been reluctant to read Liz Pelly’s Spotify exposé Mood Machine, because many of the excerpts I’ve read from it contain misleading information, from the purported “thriving” of alt-weeklies for independent music discovery in the year 2009 to describing Glenn McDonald’s genre mapping project at the company as close to the opposite of how it actually works, according to the book that he wrote about it.¹

But as always, Brad Shoup has done the lord’s work, which in this case means writing a subtle critique of the book in a way that doesn’t grind any axes (who wants to shill for Spotify? not me—honest!) and also pulls out some of the big picture shifts of the streaming era that are essential to understand the music landscape. I’m very slowly working my way through Streaming Music, Streaming Capital by Eric Drott, which seems promising on this topic—to be continued.

Instead, here is a topic I’m sure you’ll agree is extremely important: the major sixth interval drop that Chappell Roan sings in “Good Luck, Babe!” on the phrases “boys in BARS” and “just the way you ARE” in the chorus.

Writing about the song again got me wondering whether or not dropping down a major sixth like that is as uncommon for pop hooks as it seems. I assumed I’m just limited in my human Shazam abilities here and missing a bunch of obvious ones. The song that immediately came to mind was Billie Eilish in “What Was I Made For,” a song whose melody, contrary to “GLB,” is graceful in a way that makes me think of Eilish writing a new American standard like it was nothing, without even being the sort of star who says that’s what they’re doing.²

I did eventually come up with a few more examples. There’s “No Surprises” by Radiohead, which made me wonder if Olivia Rodrigo also uses the sixth in “Deja Vu”—nope, she sings around the inspiration. If you expand your search to the pre-rock era, plenty of songbook standards drop a sixth in the melody, including one of my favorite standards to play on the piano, “Weaver of Dreams.” But all of these songs tend to balance their sixth intervals with the subsequent melodic phrase— “Weaver of Dreams” rides sixths down the scale, while “No Surprises” goes from a sixth drop to a seventh drop (maybe an even rarer melodic hook?), and the result is a pretty striking melody in Radiohead’s catalogue.

Chappell Roan really strands her sixth at the end of the phrase with a thud, though, a move that seems rarer. I’ve always suspected she unconsciously got it from the verses of “Paper Planes,” which are hard to sing plainly but sound great in the talky see-saw feel M.I.A. gives it. I think that Taylor Swift could also do “Paper Planes” really well. (Like, extremely well.) She’d also do a mean “Good Luck, Babe,” especially if she played it straight (er…pun intended).

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Previous 2025 Mixes

Tidal || YouTube

1. Röyksopp, Fever Ray: What Else Is There? (Trentemøller Remix) (True Electric) [2005]
Norway/Sweden/ Denmark

It took me much longer than I care to admit listening to the original 2005 Trentemøller remix side by side with this rerelease from an upcoming Röyksopp compilation album (designed to replicate a high-energy live show) to determine that even though they’re not exactly the same, this shorter version doesn’t actually have any substantially new elements in it. I did not go so far as to break out the audio editor to figure out exactly where all the cuts are. But I did wind up listening to the song about a dozen times, so I think I’m justified in giving it the lead spot. Maybe it’ll be new to you.

2. Miso Extra: Certified
UK

Back into the Misoverse! Seems like a pleasant enough place to hang out as multiverses go. Very hard not to hear this through the prism of Heidi Montag after last week’s Montag excursion. “What if Heidi Montag treated that chronic sinus infection,” maybe.

Hey, that reminds me — I had to ditch my reconstruction of Frank Kogan’s 2008 Heidi Montag poll last week due to the vagaries of the email cutoff. But I didn’t remove my reference to it from the subhead, so now I feel obligated to give you all a chance to VOTE in the second ever inaugural Heidi Montag poll!

3. horsegiirL: materiaL hor$e
Germany

One of the two horse girls! The race between them has been neck and neck, but I think this past year—and one impressively competent new album later—horsegiirL (DE) is ahead of Horsegirl (US) by a nose.

4. Andrea Turk: Call Me on Drugs
Indonesia

Indonesian-Croatian musician/singer-songwriter/producer now based in the US, born and raised in Jakarta. I wasn’t kidding last week when I said that Katy Rose’s 2007 album was the future.

5. Sleigh Bells: Wanna Start a Band?
US

For Sleigh Bells, “return to form” isn’t a super useful concept, since the “form” that most people probably associate with them—from countless movie trailer syncs at least—was a bit of a lightning in a bottle moment for a band that has never made the same album twice, and has also never made a bad one. My personal favorite is Reign of Terror, which mellows the debut’s sound and ups the pathos, but I’m also a sucker for the quixotic journey to smooth noise they went on afterward, zigging and zagging to confound your taste for any given iteration of their work. So in some ways the return here is a decided lack of the restlessness that I like about them. (In fact, I tried to open the mix with this and it seemed a little too subdued to charge out of the gate, but it sounds good here.)

6. MODELKI, Vłodarski: WAYUP
Poland

Poland may well bring phonk (or phonk-adjacency) to the Eurovision masses depending on what happens at the finals tomorrow, but this sounds more like the Poland I’d expect to hear on the world stage: flimsy house-pop, the sort of thing you’d bump at a club in the Sims. And apparently my mental model isn’t too far off: the music video posits a dance club that fits about a dozen people, where the main attraction is a 16-bit arcade game that lets you INDUSTRY JUMP! to nowhere, and, despite being a side-scroller with seemingly no obstacles, still requires the help of a gamer nerd to beat it for you.

7. Niall T: Ellie Goulding
UK

8. Autohacker: I Think I Like You
Sweden

9. AVAION, Sofiya Nzau: Wacuka
Germany/Kenya

Three more flimsy house-pop tunes while we’re at it. The British one name-drops Ellie Goulding but doesn’t, as far as I can tell, sample or interpolate her, though it does sound like a double-speed Frou Frou (complimentary). The Swedish one is chirpy post-Pantheress pop with a bit of unfashionable dubstep coloring and the central personality airbrushed out (neither complimentary nor derogatory). The final collab lets the vocals bring out how pretty the wallpaper is (semi-complimentary).

10. Le Manou: Fille à papa
Belgium

This was far and away my favorite Eurovision competitor for Belgium, an irrepressible little Robin S rip, and I was saddened but not surprised to see it come dead last. Doesn’t compare to my disappointment with Spain’s final, though, where personal favorite Mel Ömana won her semifinal only to lose the final to the person who took second place!

11. Serebro: Надоело (105)
Russia

Serebro is still BACK! and seem to have gotten all of that goth out of their system, so are back to making the sort of 6.5/10 light Russian pop that I tend to round up to a [7] to sneak onto a mix.

12. KAF, Moe Shop: My Life
Japan

Back into the world of VTubers, a scene I seem constitutionally incapable of understanding no matter how much I hear or read about it. Does it all go this hard? Subject for continued research that I fear will never penetrate my long-term memory.

13. ICM, Thoại Nghi f. Mhee: Dắt Anh Về Nhà
Vietnam

The sort of saccharine (but it works) melody I’ve come to associate with Vietnamese pop, along with light trap frills on the beat to usher things along, like they’re taking a slow stroll in the park but there’s also a moving walkway, or as British people apparently say, a travelator. (I thought I listened to enough British podacasts that I would have heard this word before, but clearly not.)

14. Shaamar: Amin
Nigeria

Another week, another random Naija pop track grabbing my ear while the popular stuff floats by. 111 views as of this writing!

15. Saint Levant: WAZIRA / وزيرة
Palestine

Have admired but not particularly enjoyed Jerusalem-born and Gaza-raised pop star Saint Levant’s work that I’ve heard to date—what I heard tended too close to wishy-washy modal rap fare. But this one stood out, closer to a pleasant cosmopolitan packaging of Arabic pop for a humble tune-seeker like myself.

16. Hustle, Valentino Ignoto: Baroud
Algeria/Italy

The Saint Levant tune also segues well into this Maghreb pop that has figured out that log drums make everything better, as does having lots of horses on the beach in your music video. (Horsebeachboys?)

17. The Pro-Teens: Peach Fuzz
Australia

Surprise—more Surprise Chef! One crossover member, anyway. I don’t hear a lot of this bump music for Adult Swim programming on my playlists (you can now listen to over 400 tracks of Adult Swim bump music if you were so inclined) and don’t consider myself such a fan of it. But, as Adult Swim understood well, it’s really helpful if you need an easy transition.

18. Wrong Way Up: Sweet Sweet Music
Australia

My grumbling at how successful this modern take on “vintage” Afro boogie is—a simulation of hitting crate digger pay dirt—is exactly the sort of response that I’ve learned to suppress and then share the track with the folks who participate in pop polls online. (It’s more thrilling when I actually uncover something myself.)

19. Jaco Jaco: Woman
US

Philly-based indie act does the AM pop reclamation thing that I usually don’t like, but isn’t particularly cute about it, lets the song be what it wants to be without hardening into stalecore or, god forbid, dissipating into stallcore.

20. Ashley Campbell: Wish We Were Having a Good Time
US

Another keeper from Don’t Rock the Inbox. Glen Campbell’s daughter!

21. Satoko Shibata: Passing
Japan

Lush soft pop with gentle twists and turns of rhythm throughout and sweet multilayered harmonies that remind me a little of The Bird and the Bee. Was surprised at how stacked the credits were: produced by Takuro Okada, whose own work in jazz and pop seems pretty accomplished, and mastered by Dave Cooley, who mastered J Dilla’s Donuts.

22. Plastic Cavern: หยาดน้ำค้างเเห่งความสุข (Flawless)
Thailand

A nice Angelo Badalamenti-esque closer from Thai indie group Plastic Cavern. Even when it switches over to sunnier pop, it still falls more or less into the Lynchoverrse, like the kind of earnest jangle that James sings at the point at which Twin Peaks has really bottomed out in season 2, right before it pulls itself back together.

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That’s it! Until next time, if you find yourself bottoming out, try to pull yourself back together.

—Dave Moore (the other one)

Title from Sleigh Bells: “Wanna Start a Band?”

1. I have my own critiques of the genre machine, but they’re mostly philosophical objections and not industrial ones. The claim that this genre mapping was a top-down effort to merely target rather than describe listening audiences seems dubious or at least overly one-sided, not least because they eventually fired McDonald and are in the process of ripping up the genre project by the roots.

2. The difference is that when Billie Eilish goes down a sixth, she comes back up a third to complete the major triad (on “used to,” in “I used to float,” she’s singing the root, then the third an octave lower, and the next note, “float” comes up to the fifth). It’s balanced where Roan’s melody is all wobbly—though that wobbliness is yet another choice that I’ve come to like for its suggestion of fierce insecurity.