Let me in your algorithm, please
Mix 23: Raye goes long, T-pop and J-pop and I-pop(?) keep it snappy, and don't call it a comeback, he...well, I guess you can call it comeback.
One of two quick ones in the next two weeks while I’m away. I have a Pop Pantheon post—describing why the podcast’s tier system breaks down as you move into the present—that I’ve been sitting on for weeks and still don’t really want to publish. I keep reading it and thinking, “OK...so what?” But I can at least share the couple of paragraphs that amused me:
What to do with the gaggle of dance-oriented pop strivers whose hits seem to be everywhere even though their icon presence seems woefully under-baked: your Duas Lipa, Sabrinas Carpenter, Avas Max, maybe even a Bebe Rexha? These are stars who seem to be at the apex of a particular vision of pop stardom in a tradition of past icons, or at least of those Tier 2 megastars nipping at their heels, but they don’t seem to fulfill some of the basic job functions of a proper ‘20s pop idol. Most of them can’t even come up with convincing names for their own fan bases. Rexhars? Loves? Avatars? Carpenters? Do these people even have publicists?
And:
Fears about a collapse in the established model for music sales finally came to fruition in the ‘10s: all of those horror stories about downloading killing music came true, but only after, in true Scooby-Doo fashion, the monster mask was ripped off to reveal colluding record labels as the culprit. Streaming is basically how the major labels figured out how to hoover up all the money in their own nightmare vision of piracy.
Unfortunately, a lot of the essay feels like retreads of ideas that I don’t think are very interesting, or maybe would be more interesting spun off into some other post. For instance, I’d like to think more about why the American pop landscape reminds me more of Eurovision now (so far I’ve written: “atomized, somewhat random, often either shamelessly derivative or prone to one-hit-wonders and novelties”), and maybe tie it in to Eurovision getting more popular in America. But I tried to write something like this already, and the results were mixed.
The other idea I have percolating is about what I think has happened to pop melody over the last decade — a combination of influence from hip-hop and the legacy of EDM. I want to introduce the idea that the so-called “top lines” of the last decade sort of short-circuited melodic development and replaced it with the cobbling of random melodic phrases. What you get now are lots of little melody fragments that are repeated again and again (e.g. the chorus of “Espresso” is just one melody fragment). But I haven’t really kicked the tires yet — more details as events warrant.
Mix 1 // Mix 2 // Mix 3 // Mix 4 // Mix 5 // Mix 6 // Mix 7 // Mix 8 // Mix 9 // Mix 10 // Mix 11 // Mix 12 // Mix 13 // Mix 14 // Mix 15 // Mix 16 // Mix 17 // Mix 18 // Mix 19 // Mix 20 // Mix 21 // Mix 22
MIX 23: LET ME IN YOUR ALGORITHM, PLEASE
1. Raye: Genesis
A tour-de-force single that’s really more of a “song suite,” with three distinct sections. Raye’s words are about as on-the-nose as Willow’s, but she can muster a few good lyrical left hooks: “the devil works hard, like my liver.” But it’s the musical turns that really sell it, from soulful spoken-word intro to post-Rihanna pop jam, to Broadway show-stopper closer. It’s like Janelle Monae’s first EP distilled into one song, minus robots.
2. Kaytranada f. Dawn Richard: Hold On
Speaking of artists with incredible debut EPs, here’s Dawn Richard on the easy breezy new Kaytranada album, whose sleek pop-house all-killer no-filler strategy nonetheless coheres as a whole, even when Childish Gambino gets involved (thankfully in singer rather than rapper mode, the lesser of two evils).
3. LL Cool J f. Rick Ross, Fat Joe: Saturday Night Special
Jonathan Bradley drew my attention to this one, of which he says: “I do appreciate that no matter how old LL gets, you can never discount the possibility that he might drop something hard af.” I think you could say the same of Rick Ross, who has been surprising me with his refusal to hit a sell-by date since at least 2010. And Fat Joe…er, also appears. Call this the Men of a Certain Age of rap comebacks.
4. Pretzelle: Cry More Baby (เสียใจกี่โมง)
5. 4Eve: Situationship
Two T-pop tracks — T-pop has quickly started to draw my attention as much as or more than K-pop, in part because there seems like less to keep up with, and also because there’s still something scrappy about it, auto-generating quick and dirty song ideas from slang phrases, not afraid of sounding a little cheap.
6. W.i.S.H.: Therapy
Spotify recently changed the name of its “New Music Hindi” playlist to “I-Pop,” which I was not aware was a common usage to describe Indian pop. But this definitely sounds like whatever the phrase I-pop should sound like, much closer to transnational pop melange than the ballad-heavy Hindi singles and film soundtracks that normally feature each week.
7. Baby B3ns, Yung Hurn: Liebe in Stereo
What seems at first to be German landfill hyperpop zags into full-blown Europop territory, which seems obvious in hindsight given that perfect(ly annoying) accordion hook.
8. Bianka: МУГУ
Belarusian Russian pop star incorporates reggaeton into her new single, complete with “ay papis.” This is one where I’d really love to know a bit more detail about the singer’s background, but alas, my two minutes of Googling elapsed without any more clarity.
9. Dina El Wedidi: Bebeh
Another good one from Egyptian pop artist Dina El Wedidi, whom I’ve featured in the past, this time with some nifty psychedelic flourishes—think I even heard some reverse tape in there.
10. Tshepang Ramoba: re Romilwe
South African drummer with some throwback South African pop — he’s produced Moonchild Sannelly and played with Hugh Masekela, but this sounds more straightforwardly traditional than anything of Masekela’s I’m aware of, let alone anything by Moonchild Sannelly.
11. Sorry Mom: But I’m a Quarterback
12. Charly Bliss: Nineteen
Two from Isabel this week (check out her reecent dictionary of existential scientific and medical terminology), who is keeping me well-stocked in bittersweet and/or ironic and/or righteously furious reflections on teenaged angst. “But I’m a Quarterback” earns its title allusion, while Charly Bliss, a group I usually don’t love, proves that there has never been a bad song written about being nineteen.
13. El Michels Affair f. Piya Malik: Lal Mahal
My youngest saw the title Boy Kills World and started speculating with his brother on what the film (whose soundtrack this comes from) might be about. Younger heard horror elements in the church bells in the chorus, but Older disputed that and thought the sound was a little eerie but not scary, so maybe the film was more action than horror. I wasn’t ready to explain the post-Tarantino soundtrack environment to them—we’ve only recently graduated to the occasional PG-13 indulgence, and even then they were both unsettled by Nicole Kidman’s performance in Paddington this week, as weren’t we all—but I did explain that sometimes when they make a song sound like it’s from a long time ago on purpose, they might be playing with film history and genres. Having now watched the trailer, “post-Tarantino” is probably closest (it’s very Kill Bill) but I bet we all got partial credit.
14. Ahmed Malek, Aïda Guéchoud: Thème Djalti [c. 1978]
Keeping the film soundtrack streak going, here is the “Algerian Ennio Morricone,” getting his second compilation from Habibi Funk. Wasn’t able to date this particular track, so am basing it on an early compilation of his film work (his soundtrack career spanned the 70s through the early 90s, but the compilation features his late 70s and early 80s work).
15. De Qualite, Mc Koruja, DJ Rafinha Duarte: Cachaça, Pinga e Puta
16. Djay L Beats: MTG Já Que Cê Gosta Tanto de Rua
Two from Brazil. The first I’m reluctant to even classify as “funk,” even though I think it came from a funk playlist, as it does a bit of a bait and switch into a straight EDM remix with funk vocals and leaves no room whatsoever for clave. The second has the vocals you’d maybe expect to go with the EDM song, given a (somewhat) harder funk treatment.
17. Omo Ebira Beatz: Leave Am for Me
The algorithm keeps giving me Nigerian cruise music, a scene I seem to enjoy 100% of the time without exploring it any further or having any clearer handle on it.
18. Yuri: Peaky Peaky
19. Hakushi Hasegawa: Departed
A one-two punch of cracked (but brief) avant J-pop assaults, the first irritating at the syllabic level and the second in an overall wall of noise sort of way.
20. Pond: So Lo
An Australian band who I think has maybe crossed my path before, tends toward gauzy post-MGMT rock but on this song gets a bit closer to the ur-text of some mythical late period Talking Heads deep cut.
21. Alameda 5, Phelimuncasi: Um’khonto
South African noise-gqom(?) powerhouse Phelimuncasi joins forces with a proggy Polish group and splits the difference, but in a lopsided way that seems more in South Africa’s favor.
22. Tony Conrad, Jennifer Walshe: In the Merry Month of May
And why shouldn’t I end the mix with 8 minutes of violin and vocal drone from experimental filmmaker and composer Tony Conrad (this is his final studio recording— he died in 2016)? Conrad’s film work has historically fallen into an OK, I get it category for me, but I like the way Walshe’s singing gradually blends in with the strings and then falls slightly out of melodic sync again.
***
That’s it! Until next time, if you’re going to drone on for eight minutes, at least keep it textural.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Raye’s “Genesis”