2025 Mix 10: Setting the record straight on "Since U Been Gone" and indie, a classically trained opera singer reconstructs Soulja Boy from first principles, and good stuff from 15 countries
While I've always found "Since U Been Gone" to be more a great annoyance more than a great single, this digging you've done is fascinating. Partially because you looked beyond that assumed pop-culture explanation that now seems ubiquitous and seemingly the sole reason the song came to be (I can hear the people at parties chirping how much "Maps" lead to "Since U Been Gone"). But also, the minute differences in chords (F# vs. F, etc.) and how that matters. Though, I'll add that I've always liked how "Stroke of Genie-us" neuters the chorus
Yeah, I get why people like "Stroke of Genie-us" -- at this point in history you needed to have a little defacement in your mash-up! I think Girl Talk took it overboard, though, is a fascinating coincidence that a Girl Talk production showed up the same week. Girl Talk's defacement always struck me as arbitrary and lazy, even though the hit rate could be pretty high anyway.
See, I loved Girl Talk's messiness: it was a reminder of how much a continuum pop music is AND it was fucking fun. Who cares if the keys were off? Plus, I dug hearing aughties rap over classic 60s and 70s soul, pop and rock tunes.
Even as a kid I didn't like big pop choruses and have never knowingly written one - 6 bars is getting long for a chorus - and the middle 8 has always been dead to me (I love the way Dylan ruthlessly satirizes the middle 8, mocks its harmonic conventions and sings deliberately nonsensical words, all over Blonde on Blonde).
As an indie guy, therefore, I wholeheartedly approve of Jesse Reyes' latest 'Psilocybin and Daisies'.
Ooh, gotta check this out, title track having its way with Smashing Pumpkins "1979"? Yes please (though that was also what I liked about the "SUBG" wave!)
As your self-appointed ex-post-facto editor, I'll point out that the statement, "put a whole gaggle of amapiano producers on his weird spoken word track" doesn't explain itself. Had I not already seen your bsky convo w/ LokpoLokpo1 I'd have guessed you meant either (1) sampled a gaggle of amapiano producers without their permission or (2) added his own spoken-word (etc.) material to an already-existing track of a gaggle of amapiano producers, added his name to it, but didn't add "RMX" or "MTG" to the title to indicate this wasn't the original track, and may even have changed the title. If I'm reading the bsky back-and-forth right, what actually happened is (3) created his own mostly spoken-word track and added a gaggle of amapiano producers to the *credits* – even though they had nothing to do with the track – in order to get people to stream or buy the track. That is unethical, but not obviously more so than (1) and (2), which we've pretty much accepted and which may well have propelled some Brazilian tracks onto my and your eoy lists.
(I'm guessing you're miffed that Faizal conned you into repeating his lie, while in (1) or (2) you wouldn't have strictly speaking said something that was untrue. Question: if the Faizal track had been one of the slam-bang best so far this year, would've you nonetheless deleted it, or simply revised your writeup?)
I wouldn't have deleted it if I liked it more. I realized the only thing that really drew me to the Faizal track was that it sounded unlike the producers listed in the credits, and it wasn't a great song in its own right (I throw lots of stuff like that on at the end of mixes). I sort of wish it was BETTER so I *couldn't* just replace it without feeling like I've missed something. No reason why in principle a great song couldn't use extremely shady means of getting itself to my attention (in fact I imagine a lot of things like this happen regularly without me noticing)
While I've always found "Since U Been Gone" to be more a great annoyance more than a great single, this digging you've done is fascinating. Partially because you looked beyond that assumed pop-culture explanation that now seems ubiquitous and seemingly the sole reason the song came to be (I can hear the people at parties chirping how much "Maps" lead to "Since U Been Gone"). But also, the minute differences in chords (F# vs. F, etc.) and how that matters. Though, I'll add that I've always liked how "Stroke of Genie-us" neuters the chorus
Yeah, I get why people like "Stroke of Genie-us" -- at this point in history you needed to have a little defacement in your mash-up! I think Girl Talk took it overboard, though, is a fascinating coincidence that a Girl Talk production showed up the same week. Girl Talk's defacement always struck me as arbitrary and lazy, even though the hit rate could be pretty high anyway.
See, I loved Girl Talk's messiness: it was a reminder of how much a continuum pop music is AND it was fucking fun. Who cares if the keys were off? Plus, I dug hearing aughties rap over classic 60s and 70s soul, pop and rock tunes.
Even as a kid I didn't like big pop choruses and have never knowingly written one - 6 bars is getting long for a chorus - and the middle 8 has always been dead to me (I love the way Dylan ruthlessly satirizes the middle 8, mocks its harmonic conventions and sings deliberately nonsensical words, all over Blonde on Blonde).
As an indie guy, therefore, I wholeheartedly approve of Jesse Reyes' latest 'Psilocybin and Daisies'.
Ooh, gotta check this out, title track having its way with Smashing Pumpkins "1979"? Yes please (though that was also what I liked about the "SUBG" wave!)
So you're saying most people *don't* have a Brazil Funk Holdover playlist?
As your self-appointed ex-post-facto editor, I'll point out that the statement, "put a whole gaggle of amapiano producers on his weird spoken word track" doesn't explain itself. Had I not already seen your bsky convo w/ LokpoLokpo1 I'd have guessed you meant either (1) sampled a gaggle of amapiano producers without their permission or (2) added his own spoken-word (etc.) material to an already-existing track of a gaggle of amapiano producers, added his name to it, but didn't add "RMX" or "MTG" to the title to indicate this wasn't the original track, and may even have changed the title. If I'm reading the bsky back-and-forth right, what actually happened is (3) created his own mostly spoken-word track and added a gaggle of amapiano producers to the *credits* – even though they had nothing to do with the track – in order to get people to stream or buy the track. That is unethical, but not obviously more so than (1) and (2), which we've pretty much accepted and which may well have propelled some Brazilian tracks onto my and your eoy lists.
(I'm guessing you're miffed that Faizal conned you into repeating his lie, while in (1) or (2) you wouldn't have strictly speaking said something that was untrue. Question: if the Faizal track had been one of the slam-bang best so far this year, would've you nonetheless deleted it, or simply revised your writeup?)
I wouldn't have deleted it if I liked it more. I realized the only thing that really drew me to the Faizal track was that it sounded unlike the producers listed in the credits, and it wasn't a great song in its own right (I throw lots of stuff like that on at the end of mixes). I sort of wish it was BETTER so I *couldn't* just replace it without feeling like I've missed something. No reason why in principle a great song couldn't use extremely shady means of getting itself to my attention (in fact I imagine a lot of things like this happen regularly without me noticing)