Let it go and I'll feel
2023 Mix 12: Barbie convertible pop, hedge fund indie, Côte d'Ivoire surfaces on Spotify while Russia disappears, and a baile funk track so good I couldn't share it
Each week I skim through about 2,000 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.
The Barbie convertible meme (“What song is Barbie singing along to? Wrong answers only”) is one of the worst-engineered ones I’ve seen in a while, since anything you answer feels like the right answer. She could be singing along to anything on this mix—even squealing to the 8-bit synth line in the nine-minute avant-goofball instrumental, as I was tempted to do in the car—and it wouldn’t seem the least bit “wrong.”
But I suppose that’s also what makes the meme work: it captures what makes music good, the way any song can potentially put a rainbow at your back. But don’t worry: there is some literal Barbie convertible pop on the mix, too. You may not be surprised to learn that it comes from Armin van Buuren.
Oh, and I’m trying out crypto-Twitter Substack Notes if you’re into that sort of thing.
Mix 1 // Mix 2 // Mix 3 // Mix 4 // Mix 5 // Mix 6 // Mix 7 // Mix 8 // Mix 9 // Mix 10 // Mix 11
MIX 12: LET IT GO AND I’LL FEEL
I haven’t formed a solid opinion on Yaeji’s album With a Hammer yet. Yaeji’s pop instincts are more interesting to me than her experimental ones, but the confluence of the two seems to be her whole deal, which is how you get “Christina Milian goes to art school.” You can hear her knack for sonically intriguing pop sabotage when the song bursts into a messy drum n bass climax.
2. Nonso Amadi & Zinoleesky: Lock Up
I always tell myself that when I miss something in my weekly roundup, the hand of fate will eventually guide me to the good stuff I left behind. I always bet on serendipity, and don’t have much choice in the matter since even having a hyperactive metabolism for music listening gets me engaging with a minuscule fraction of a percentage of available new music. “Lock Up” showed up last week in the New Music Naija list and I remember liking it (it featured Zinoleesky, whose adolescent quaver is my favorite vocal timbre in Afrobeats right now) but ultimately I skipped it. Then for whatever reason, I messed around in the awful “For You” tab on Twitter a few days ago and saw Lokpolokpo call it the Naija song of the year so far, which was all I needed to give it the proper listen it deserved.
3. Tierra Whack: Millions (Jumbo Sounds Mix)
Jersey club is the original sped-up TikTok, and it’s as quintessentially Philly as Wildwood day-tripping or contrarian Cowboys fandom, so this pairing with a 2021 Tierra Whack song is both timely and regionally appropriate.
4. Adriana Vasques & Maria Chiara Argirò: b5 (Maria Chiara Argirò Remix)
A dreamy sunshine pop tune by Vasques, an Italian artist based in London, is given pleasant pulses and clacks on a remix by Argirò, another Italian ex-pat.
5. Future Utopia & Biig Piig: Your Love
One side effect of Japanese meta/metal idol group BiS making such a strong impression on me with “STUPiG” in 2014 is that every time I see Biig Piig, I figure it’s related, like BiS sequel group BiSH, and am then surprised to remember it’s just the awkward name of an Irish singer. This couldn’t be further from BiS (or BiSH), but once you distinguish between your Biig Piigs and your STUPiGs, you might dig this little wisp of a song.
6. Mari Kraimbrery: Какая крутая жизнь [Kakaya Krutaya Zhizn’] [2022]
7. Usha: Зацепил [Zatsepil]
Two picks from the scant few reliable playlists I’ve found of Russian songs from 2023. Two years ago, there were multiple Spotify-curated playlists for Russian pop, but now there’s only a New Music Friday list for Ukraine (though I think one of the old “Russian” lists tilted heavily Ukrainian, too). No idea if it’s down to geopolitics or something more picayune, but it’s catch as catch can. Mari Kraimbrery is a Ukrainian-Russian pop star of some regional renown, while Usha, who has basically zero Spotify footprint and is tough to Google, remains a mystery. Both songs sound great together, same key and tempo.
8. Armin van Buuren f. Punctual & Alika: On & On
This is what Barbie was really singing in the car, right? I thought this song was probably bad and purgatoried it for two weeks, but it was nagging at me, so I played it in the car with the windows down and the kids dancing in the backseat and they said I was wrong and it was great. They requested it three times in a row today, and when I mentioned the meme, they were absolutely unwilling to believe that anyone could make a Barbie movie that’s not for kids. “Is it that it’s inappropriate for kids or that kids just wouldn’t understand it?” We’ll see!
9. ONJUICY, Nakamura Minami, & Masayoshi Iimori: Cho-chocolate drip
Wouldn’t call this the most audacious hip-hop allusion I heard this week — that would be the baile funk “Mec Life” by DJ ESCOBAR, which cranks the “Still D.R.E.” piano plinks to double speed, but also features a mix-killing 45 seconds of silence at the end of the track and is thus not represented here. But this is probably the goofiest one: bops around like nerds on a behind-the-scenes studio tour of the “Drop It Like It’s Hot” set. Features a bunch of Japanese rappers I didn’t learn much about.
10. Nardo Wick f. Lil Baby: Hot Boy
Here the allusion is more homage than interpolation, with Nardo Wick applying his sleepy mumble to a harshly affected whisper on “hot” that sounds like an asthmatic trying to fog up a car windshield. Lil Baby sounds good against the cartoon bounce of a vintage Cash Money beat, too; the contrast gives him some texture to work against instead of swallowing him.
11. Mzbel & Quabena Benji: Fufu Funu
Tasteful Ghanaian highlife—I usually use “tasteful” as a pejorative, but this is right on the line. Apparently it’s a diss track against a rival singer.
12. DJ Muggs: There Are Other Worlds
DJ Muggs from Cypress Hill has put out two albums this year so far. One is a collaboration with Madlib, but this song comes from an album-length sketchbook of jazzy sampledelica with a schmear of Sun Ra. And if the vibes weren’t clear enough already, the album comes paired with an eponymous wine from a Berkeley vintner.
13. Sidhu Moose Wala f. Burna Boy & Steel Banglez: Mera Na
Sidhu Moose Wala was a Punjabi music heavyweight before his murder in 2022, and he has fittingly been posthumously paired with another transnational titan. Burna Boy sounds like he’s having a lot of fun riding the circular melodic hook, which mimics a flute figure.
14. James Holden: Contains Multitudes
Probably the centerpiece track on an eclectic, meandering album that once upon a time I might have called pop IDM. It’s silly but short of cloying, propulsive but short of funky. It has the courtesy to go places in nine minutes; it gets a second wind when the pianist stumbles in.
15. Mc Larissa & DJ Arana: Famoso Machuca Xota
My baile funk find of the week is DJ Arana. He has a demented streak, evidenced here only in the way he uses the turntable fader on his vocal to introduce the beat, making the silence the drums, but it’s on full display in an even better track that I couldn’t put on the mix because it inexplicably opens with a found footage style recording so disturbing I felt physically ill listening to it. (Fair warning: “O Invasor - Eu So o Mago - O Returno.”)
Mc Larissa is also a good find, lots of personality in whoops and hiccups.
16. Mc Rd & DJ Bill: Te Boto de Ladin
Less adventurous funk with a fun sample of the “Rumpshaker” sax.
17. Ab Le Superman f. Safarel Obiang: Kabato
Some regions of Africa seem better represented on Spotify than others. I heard the first of two of these Côte D’Ivoire songs over a month ago and it only showed up on Spotify last week. Still waiting on my favorite song from Côte D’Ivoire to show up, though: “Pouyou Paya” by Kevin Chambala, Bokra Djoman, & Bebi Philip.
19. WITCH: Waile
WITCH (We Intend to Cause Havoc) is a Zambian rock band from the 70s who have new material out this year. Great psych-rock track, seems to have been part of their repertoire as early as 1978 but was only recorded and released this year. Curious to hear their earlier stuff.
Thanks to the absurdly detailed and sometimes (probably accidentally?) passive-aggressive Wikipedia page no doubt put together by an overly zealous street teamer, I know far too much about this person (Dalton prep school, daughter of a hedge fund manager) and her journey from dissatisfied aspiring pop star to indie breakout. I don’t begrudge whatever path takes you to just under two minutes of sounding a little bit like a Colleen Green who can’t really write.
Another good ‘n’ screamy one from half of the Black Dresses duo. I had the Black Dresses album on my top ten of last year, but just as easily could have swapped it out for Ada Rook’s [deep breath] UGLY DEATH NO REDEMPTION ANGEL CURSE I LOVE YOU. I’ve never done much of a deep dive on Black Dresses, but there’s a good profile from the Fader back in 2018.
22. Mazey Haze: Back to the Start
Cheerful indie-pop by Dutch singer-songwriter Nadine Appeldoorn.
23. Dexys: I’m Going to Get Free
You’d think for all my UK Charts Anglophilia I’d at least know or care more about Dexys, but when this popped up I wouldn’t have been able to even hazard a guess if they’d been releasing material unabated this whole time or reforming for the first time in forty years. But it feels like a comeback.
24. Erlend Øye: Two Chord Samba
Yeesh, I even like Erlend Øye when he’s not trying at all. True fan. Good post-script for the mix.
The end! I hope that you will all try a little harder to muster a third chord. Until then, tell your friends on [checks notes] Notes about what we’ve got going on over here!
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from “For Granted” by Yaeji.