Their lives are like a sweet biscuit
Mix 33: Qpop, Indian bort, Brazil and Vietnam outside the zeitgeist, Dragonette, Rubén Blades, and another banger from KylieAI
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.
I’ve started using my Substack to do some old-school blogging, which I haven’t bothered sending out by email. I figure you’re already inundated enough with content in your inbox. But! If you’re interested in my ongoing series on the history and prehistory of Taylor Swift, first few installments are here:
Part 1: Taylor Swift consolidates the entirety of teenpop and adult contemporary unto herself. (Contains Frozen content.)
Part 2: Taylor Swift has “Weird Al” Yankovic’s career, as posited by “Weird Al” in his absurdist biopic (i.e., what if “Weird Al” was Madonna?). That would mean at 15 years she’s only halfway done.
Part 3: Did Ashlee Simpson crash so that Taylor Swift could soar?
And you can follow along at the Taylor Swift tag. On deck: grappling with “Teardrops on My Guitar” and MySpace; the twilight of Radio Disney; how “Love Story” conquered the world but might not have(?).
You will find no Taylor Swift music or content on the mix this week, though. Enjoy!
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 // Mix 24 // Mix 25 // Mix 26 // Mix 27 // Mix 28 // Mix 29 // Mix 30 // Mix 31 // Mix 32
MIX 33: THEIR LIVES ARE LIKE A SWEET BISCUIT
1. Kylie Minogue: Tension
The Kylie Minogue tasteless robot renaissance continues! Had to take “Padam Padam” off of my kids’ playlist as I got a few too many pointed questions about what that part about “take off all my clothes” means — won’t bother playing them this one.
2. Mason & Dragonette: Sirens
When was the last time I cared about Dragonette? 2007, maybe? This is pretty good!
3. Nikhita Gandhi, Vaibhav Pani, & Vayu: Kyun Karu Fikar
Indian pop goes bort — i.e. takes a big mush of syllables and sculpts them into a chorus, as was the style at the time (c. 2018).
4. Slipmami & b o u t: BÔNUS TRACK
Self-proclaimed Brazilian “shit-rap” — charming freestyle that doesn’t sound particularly conversant with baile funk despite being on a label called Heavy Baile Sounds (I can think of heavier ones). Two tracks in one: I like it better at the switch-up at the halfway point.
5. CANDYGIRL: Flama
A J-pop group that sounds closer to K-pop than what I usually hear on the Japan lists. No idea how to gauge its popularity, but seems fairly underrated given its 15K Spotify listeners and middling YouTube views.
6. Ninety One: EGO
I have no background whatsoever on Qpop (Qazaq pop, i.e. Kazakhstan), so I highly encourage you to read Jessica Doyle’s post on Ninety One’s album GAP and then go back through the archives to learn more, as I have this past week. A sample:
So there’s a great many invocations of “the city,” and a desire to get away from a city full of zombies; a lot of references to fire, smoke, ashes, and the destruction of burning everything down; a number of references to the “villain”; a desire to be the villain; an idea that “the villain” actually gets things done, even if the actions are destructive. Otherwise it’s just running, hiding, retreating without fighting, and a subsequent self-contempt.
Y'all, if there’s an obvious candidate for “the city” in Ninety One’s work, it’s Almaty. And, for those of us who weren’t there, a reminder: this is what Almaty looked like a year and a half ago.
Another reminder: as best we know the guys weren’t able to do anything. “Batyr and I were going to go to the rally,” Ace told Elle last year, “but when we heard explosions outside the window we changed our minds.” (I’ve since heard that one of those explosions was near enough to Alem and Veronika’s home that they had to flee.) Their city was burning around them, and they couldn’t stop it, and they couldn’t get online, and whatever hopes they had for a better-governed Kazakhstan melted away minute by minute, and a year and a half later they still haven’t been able to do anything. In short: I think Gap is Ninety One’s reaction to Bloody January.
7. Duran Duran: DANSE MACABRE
I’ve never been that big on Duran Duran, but I did like their big dumb comeback song with Nile Rodgers and Janelle Monae in 2018, “Pressure Off,” and this song is even dumber (though considerably smaller).
8. Maladroite: Chills
Netherlands garage throwback with piano-plinks borrowed from “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by the Stooges — not daring enough to also borrow the sleigh bells, though.
9. Moann: Не ок
Ukrainian alt rock with a bit of a Garbage vibe. Don’t hear much straightforward rock from Ukraine on Spotify, so this was refreshing.
10. KinAhau: Pronosticos Cachito
House track by a Mexican DJ, the vocals carry a genuine melancholy and the drums sound great, have some muscle and acoustic grain to them.
11. $A Milo, Gxxfy, & F2Hz: Tại Gia
Indie rap from Vietnam, like the Brazilian track hews more to a somewhat outdated Soundcloud style rather than its local zeitgeists, as far as I can tell, but this is also what made it stand out, so who knows.
12. KEIK.O, ALEX GZW, & Wuja HZG: SLAY KINGS
This one, by contrast, hews well to to its local zeitgeist, screaming Polish weirdos. Still can’t find anything at all about this scene (is it a scene?) anywhere.
13. Kataomoi: 市井のディスコ [Shisei no disco, “Street Disco”]
Billed as a “chamber-pop octet,” I could as easily imagine this band being brand new or going for 40 years — I don’t see a long track record, not that I searched very intently for more information.
14. Kamo_ww & Chley: Chommie
Amapiano that rose to the top of the heap this week, thanks mostly to Chley, who also appeared on the Mellow & Sleazy x Felo Le Tee album The III Wise Men (now a certified Brad Luen “A” album!).
15. Black Motion f. Osaze & Andrea De Beatboxer: Teka
The rare South African house inclusion on these mixes that isn’t amapiano proper, a good reminder that there’s a wider scene that I’m still learning about in dribs and drabs.
16. Gian Marco & Rubén Blades: Aún Me Sigo Encontrando
Two generations’ South American superstars team up for a pretty duet that opens with a poem, apparently inspired by Marco’s recent cancer scare. I’m more interested when the drums pick up, manages to get a surprisingly hard clave going for a song whose vibes veer toward jazzy and maudlin but never get stuck there.
17. Maha Ftouni: سافرت بعيد [Safert B3eed]
More good Egyptian pop from the Spotify lists.
18. Marina Herlop: La Alhambra
Enjoyed but didn’t love Catalan artist Marian Herlop’s kitchen sink electro album last year, but this song is promising: a little less self-consciously odd (not to say not that), considerably less electronic, great harmonies, the song unfurls at its leisure.
19. Ahmet Kaya: Seni Anlatabilmek/Hasretinden Prangalar Eskittim [1986]
A recovered snippet from the Turkish-Kurdish singer who died in 2000. Something about the warped, watery audio is really hitting for me, maybe because I’ve spent my fair share of time editing from Hi-8 cassettes?
20. Luzmila Carpio: Chakana Sagrada
Bolivian singer seems a little world music woo-woo for my tastes — she’s endorsed by UNICEF for cryin’ out loud — yet the double-tracked voice against the music box is striking and a little eerie. Turns out those UNICEF tapes are, in fact, pretty great: I love this song where she’s both Snow White and the little bird singing back to her.
21. Aoife Nessa Frances: Fantasy
Swirling harps, chamber strings, and maybe a synth choir (wasn’t realy paying attention): an indie-pop slow-burner from an Irish artist I think I’ve maybe heard one or two things from before but nothing that’s stood out until now.
***
I hope you enjoy my ongoing musings on Taylor Swift, who more than any other celebrity makes me feel like I am either living in a glitch in the Matrix or avoided a worse glitch. Which I guess is just a way to say that she’s, like, probably a big deal. (But you already knew that.)
Goodbye!
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from Ninety One’s “Ego”: “būlar jandaryn satty / Ömırı tättı biskvittei”