We're singing along: "Can you do no harm?"
2023 Mix 3 [Originally published Feb 03, 2023]
Each week I skim through about 2,000 songs 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.
Hello!
A thoughtful reader of my first two newsletters in this series noted that I needed some regular formatting, including an introduction where I remind you of what the hell this newsletter is. They also told me I should probably link to individual songs on YouTube along with remembering to post the playlist link each time. Thank you, thoughtful reader. I love you and cherish our partnership.
Here's the ongoing playlist on Spotify.
Let's jump in!
MIX 3: WE'RE SINGING ALONG: "CAN YOU DO NO HARM?"
1. P!nk: TRUSTFALL
P!nk returns with Fred Again, and he brought a sequencer! Reminds me of Katy Perry's collaboration with Zedd, who I STILL cannot believe made the best album of 2015. Of that Katy/Zedd song, "Never Really Over," Isabel Cole once wrote: "Easily the best single of Katy Perry's career" before giving it a 5 out of 10 at the Singles Jukebox.
This is easily NOT the best single of P!nk's career, and part of me wishes the song went to a singer that could hit the interesting jump up to the sixth in the chorus melody -- that's the note she struggles to reach on the second "TRUST-fall, baby." Katy Perry wouldn't hit the note without yelling. I guess that means...Ava Max? Nah, I prefer P!nk smuggling in some pathos.
2. Akuvi: Triumph
Rihanna simply will not release new music for less than a gazillion dollars, good for her. This is the same woman who sang "bonds is what I got!" on the eve of a global financial crisis, not a bad investment strategy. But it means every Rihanna impersonator should be champing at the bit to fill the void.
Akuvi's from Norway and took this anthem all the way to the semi-final of Melodi Grand Prix (the Norway competition to decide who goes to Eurovision), where she lost to two other singers' worse ballads, plus one decent song from a drag queen named Skrellex (with an "e").
3. Aya Nakamura f. SDM: Daddy
Aya Nakamura has consistently put out good Afrobeats-influenced(-I-think?) R&B that kind of fades into the background of my albums playlists. I enjoyed her record label's compilation album, Rec 118's 20/21, more. "Daddy" is typical of the Spotify trend of offering up random album tracks that I end up liking more than the singles.
4. PVRIS: GODDESS
I can never tell when a BVND ("buh-vand," like "chu-vurches" or "puh-varis") is real or the generic BRVND equivalent being shopped in the "indie" and "fresh finds" playlists. But I can at least google a band's Wikipedia page, and Puh-varis has been a going concern since 2014, which practically makes them a legacy act in Spotify's dog-years of New Music Friday relevance.
5. WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA: 赤ずきん
Wednesday Campanella has the distinction of making a song I have probably listened to hundreds of times with my kids, since the older kid was obsessed with "Aladdin" (the song, not the movie, which he hadn't seen yet) a few years ago. "Aladdin" sounded like someone stuck "Thriller" in the blender. This one ("Little Red Riding Hood") features the same conversational rap-patter style with a less frenetic backdrop.
6. CHAMELEON LIME WHOOPIEPIE: LaLaLa
Can't just dunk on PR writing all day, especially when it's translated from another language, but I do want to preserve "The Chameleon Lime Whoopiepie is an incredibly esoteric unit."
From the same PR interview, lead singer Chi reveals that the other kids in school said she had eyes like a dead fish and that she always longed to be a water flea. But here she is, all grown up and sounding like Cibo Matto -- a big step up from dead fish or water flea, that's for sure, if not incredibly esoteric.
7. LE SSERAFIM: Blue Flame (2022)
I am informed this K-pop group chose their terrible name in the most exhausting way imaginable, anagramming the phrase "I'm Fearless." They could have called themselves AIMLESS REF or the EMAIL SERFS. Or they could have used the phrase "I am fearless" and unlocked SLAM FAERIES and LESSER MAFIA.
8. Fiore di Luna & Deville: Rattattata
Italian hyperpop. Moves fast and goes ratatat. Tick and tick.
9. Alice Longyu Gao: Hëłłœ Kįttÿ
American post(?)-hyperpop, gec-adjacent. Moves fast and goes oompah-pah. Tick and tick.
10. Йо: Дiзaнa
Found a few new Russian Spotify lists to pull from. Йо (Yo) sort of lands on a hip-house sound, if the "hip" in hip-house referred to modal rap, which the Russians are getting more life out of than the Americans these days.
11. Ruby: Namet Nenna (2022)
An Egyptian hit from last year showed up this week. Hope it's new to you, too!
12. Ahmed Saad: El Youm El Helw Dah (2022)
Another delayed Egyptian hit from 2022 -- will need to check the provenance of the stuff on the two lists with North African/Arabic language stuff, but glad I'm finding some huge regional hits I missed last year with nothing more than a secret algorithm and my ears.
13. STOSLIV: Кішки-мишки
As far as I can tell this is a play on the phrase "koshki mishki" (in English, "a game of cat and mouse") used memorably in a song by Kuba from 2007 that would have been right up my street if I'd heard it at the time, as it sounds like Fefe Dobson.
14. Bktherula: TAN
Loved the deranged HOOK album from 2022, so here's Bktherula doing less deranged stuff less well.
15. EMJAY: UZI
Mexican rapper sounds like the sort of fake-it-'til-you-make-it striver in the online trenches who dreams of one day embodying the effortless entitlement of a celebrity moonlighter. Y'know...Doja Cat.
16. Rx Papi: Stop Me Wen I'm Lieing
Can't claim to follow the prescription duo, Rx Papi and Rx (RXK) Nephew, as closely as I'd like to, partly because they seem to release a new song every day.
Their rap style has a disorienting rubato to it: lines rush the tempo pathologically, then comes a procrastination, which necessitates another last-second barrage of syllables for everything to scan (and even then sometimes the lines don't totally scan -- they'll rhyme one word with the same word, sometimes multiple times, or they won't bother rhyming at all).
The effect is of a rap that's been recorded without a reference tempo and then pieced together against the beat line by line in a messy decoupage. Frank Zappa used to do something like this, especially with his guitar solos, in a process he called "xenochrony" -- he would take previously recorded instrument tracks and graft them on to new songs in different tempos and time signatures, synchronized through editing or serendipity.
17. EST Gee: BLOW UP
Rx Papi makes EST Gee sound fastidious. But this one reminds me a little of the now-bygone era of mumble-rap, and specifically of 21 Savage, who made my #1 album of 2018 and of whom I wrote: "21 Savage raps slowly, sloppily, not unartfully but certainly not impressively. He sounds like a guy who’s forgotten what it feels like to cry." EST Gee doesn't get there -- there's a mellow sweetness in his voice, undercut a bit with the buzz of vocal fry. At one point he literally growls, which I think is intended to be intimidating, but it sounds more like he's finally clearing his throat.
18. Mr Eazi: Werser
The first 2023 amapiano track I enjoyed, this one entirely in English, and maybe not coincidentally one of the rare amapiano vocals I've heard that threatens to grab a spotlight for itself instead of sharing equal space with, say, those synth samba whistles -- a tone that drives me crazy when my kids play it on the keyboard, here mixed to evoke birdcalls in a rainforest.
19. Samia: Honey
This is what I imagine Kacey Musgraves would sound like if her greatest aspiration was to open for Angel Olsen. It's overwritten (I can relate!) and is very close to being too irritating (I can relate!), but I respect that it never crosses the line.
20. Aly & AJ: Baby Lay Your Head Down
Aly & AJ are now back...Back...BACK! on a roughly biannual basis -- which is to say they're prolific now! This is a lovely alt-country number that's a relief after their various forays into electropop started to bland out a little for me.
21. Alana Springsteen: you don't deserve a country song
The first appearance of a Springsteen! (No relation.) A lot of the music on the New Music Nashville Spotify list is insipid, so it's a bright spot when, every so often, you get an artist who opens her music video with a home movie of herself at age ten (in 2010! can you imagine!) promising her dad she'll play the Grand Ole Opry someday, and it sounds kind of like she deserves it.
22. Bonnie Guitar: Hello, Hello, Please Answer the Phone
The requisite Numero Group archival release, a lonesome country ballad from 1956. I seem to remember Rob Sheffield once writing that there are no bad songs about waiting for a phone call -- this does not disprove that thesis.
23. Daniel, Me Estás Matando: Sólo Tú
Mexican act that calls itself "bolero glam" -- wouldn't have thought there was much contemporary about them until you hit a sample right at the end. (Still not sure where the glam is.)
24. Lin Pesto: Üzgün
Lush Turkish indie sounds like what I was hoping that orchestral Angel Olsen album from a few years ago would sound like. Samia should open for Lin Pesto instead! Gorgeous.
25. José González: Visions (Flanger Version)
I keep thinking to myself that this guy is cringe and I don't like him, but then I keep liking his songs anyway. This song got me the first time I heard it, on his 2021 album, and now here I am giving the remix a pass, too. I'm even listening to his "Heartbeats" cover again and my only thought is that it's nice. Am I cringe????
There are three remixes of this song, including one by Dungen, but only the Flanger remix is any good, so good for Flanger, whoever that is. In fact, the Flanger remix sounds like what the Dungen remix should have sounded like. I don't know who the hell the Dungen remix is supposed to sound like -- it sure doesn't sound like Flanger!
That's it for this batch -- if you enjoyed this, tell your friends. If not, tell your enemies.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title lyric from Samia: "Honey"