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CHAPPELL ROAN - "HOT TO GO!"

2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate? You all! This wraps up this month's coverage -- see ya in November!

[7.00]

Alfred Soto: Chappell Roan's The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is a sparkling collection of moods and passing desires, best when euphoric. The ballads might have been even stronger had she spelled out their choruses. [7]

Dave Moore: Spelling is fun! [3]

Grace Robins-Somerville: It's been too long since we've had a "spell the words out with your arms" song in the zeitgeist, and seeing people do the H-O-T-T-O-G-O dance at weddings has cemented its staying power. It's nice that lesbians have their "YMCA" now. [8]

Katherine St. Asaph: "Hot to Go!" is a crowd chant-along that shouldn't work at all as one. The template is "YMCA," but the difference and the problem is that "YMCA" is instantly parseable when spelled out, while "H-O-T-T / O-G-O" takes a moment's reassembly. The other highlight line in "baby, don't you like this beat? I made it so you'd sleep with me" is endearingly blunt -- more musicians should be that honest -- but nevertheless cannot honestly be chanted by anyone but Dan Nigro or Chappell Roan. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that "Hot to Go!" is hugely effective at getting crowds to chant along. [7]

Aaron Bergstrom: Retroactively furious about the idea that one or more of the Village People potentially did or did not endorse Jimmy Carter in the 1980 Presidential election. [7]

Scott Mildenhall: Who or what is a hottogo? The chant falls short of total clarity by going two steps further than succinct, but therein lies the charm. Bursting at the seams of some slightly thin fabric, Chappell Roan carries this so far and fast that she might struggle to find her way back. [7]

Leah Isobel: There are about five perfect hooks on Chappell's debut album. "Baby don't you like this beat?/ I made it so you'd sleep with me" is one of them, precise and funny and melodically flawless. I think that was the moment that sold me on her whole project: the bluntness balanced by craft, the expertise made human by the raw and embarrassing vulnerability of wanting sex, wanting recognition, wanting anything at all. Also, have y'all heard the fanmade Rhythm Heaven edit for this? Banger! [8]

TA Inskeep: Every generation gets a new cheerleading-cheer anthem -- think Toni Basil's "Mickey" or Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" -- and here's the latest, with a bit of "Y.M.C.A." thrown in for good measure. It's hard to ignore Roan's joy on this chorus; this is also a rare pop single where its meme-ability actually draws me in (cf. "Call Me Maybe"). How can you not smile when you hear this? [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Of all the guises that Chappell Roan inhabited on her debut album, this always felt like the truest — she sounds like Devo if they slayed, still gawking and midwestern and not quite fitting a perfect archetype of pop stardom but still, nevertheless, a star. The weepy ballads (some of them great) fade away in the face of this, the goofy chant-a-longs and dance instructions wearing one's resistance down on the strength of pure charisma and craft. There are hooks upon hooks here — I think I've had just the synth chord on the prechorus stuck in my head before. [9]

Ian Mathers: I took the number of times I've caught myself humming this song since I first heard the record last year and divided it by a very large number and got this score. I am not currently interested in Discourse beyond that. [10]

Nortey Dowuona: You're trying to take out Chappell Roan the way you took out Amy Winehouse and I don't like it. Not one bit. Also, the '80s actually kinda sucked -- let's not go back. (This song is great btw.) [8]

Jel Bugle: I know everyone loves Chappell, and I’ve not really bothered to get too excited. I like the Casio keyboard sounds, and spelling out words in songs is always a good trick (see "D I S C O," and I’m sure Olivia has a spelling words out song?). I can see why Sabrina is winning the chart battle here in the UK. I just feel like this song is okay, warm rather than hot -- a sort of personality over the strength of the song. Plus, I’m getting tired of this song constantly being pushed to me by Spotify -- if it happens again the [6] becomes a [5]. [6]

Taylor Alatorre: For all the talk of Chappell Roan hailing the return of “recession pop,” this strikes my ears as more of a grasping imitation of the real than most of what PC Music was accused of putting out. Maybe that’s unavoidable given the generation gap, as well as the decline of the universal pop star – Chappell covers “Bad Romance” on tour, but she doesn’t exude the belief that she can be a legitimate successor to Lady Gaga. She’s ambivalent about the compromises required for mass appeal, even on songs like this one which are structured, at least internally, toward that end. It’s all the external festooning and DIY-style pageantry which redirect the song’s course toward a cozier ideal of attainable imperfection, a glitzy and glammy take on self-sabotage. Which, in the end, is its own kind of earnestness. “HOT TO GO!” is confident enough in its own gangliness to bill itself as a coming-out party where everyone, even the normies, is invited, despite the singer’s doubts about the long-term viability of this promise. [6]

Tim de Reuse: The appeal of "Pink Pony Club" was immediately evident to me on first listen. But this one's a silly Chappell Roan song: The narrative here is buried under catchy turns of phrase and the hokey pokey-ass pre-chorus, leaving us to wring pathos out of a few scant lines in the verses. So, what's the draw? The simple build-and-release drama of a I-IV-I progression? The energy of a jittery, unkempt synthesizer-driven beat? Is the chant of "H-O-T-T-O-G-O" sugary enough to overcome my pop-pessimist cynicism and light up my long-calcified dopamine receptors for once? Eh, kinda. It's well-constructed, but it just isn't aiming all that high. [6]

Will Adams: Silly fun pop that doesn't require much thought -- just do the little dance and enjoy yourself! [6]

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#music #pop #pop music #chappell roan #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #hot to go #Youtube

ROSALÍA FT. RALPHIE CHOO - "OMEGA"

Rollercoaster ride in the chill lane...

[7.43]

Jel Bugle: I like that it’s a mix of styles -- starts all glitchy, and then Rosalia does a nice bit of singing with acoustic guitars. Ralphie’s autotune bit seems superfluous, a bit of a passenger. I worried a lot that Rosalia was going to lose the fur hat on the roller coaster. [8]

Katherine St. Asaph: Pretty, plaintive, and slight. [5]

Harlan Talib Ockey: Big fan of the Coverdale Page guitars. After hearing Rosalía’s vocals shift so effortlessly between airy and foreboding, I was skeptical what Ralphie Choo could possibly bring to this, but his lower register is a valuable counterweight. (Until we get to the laughable Celine Dion line.) Lastly: does she know? [8]

Mark Sinker: Does Rosalía know what omega means? Do we? Even ignoring the wolf-bondage stuff (a good thing to ignore, especially with Ralphie Choo as the Céline Dion of the situation) it’s mainly a way to say “you’re my first and and my last" (and you have to couple it with alpha to make this work). Does this matter? I want to say “never fact-check a declaration of devotion” — and this even despite all the historical unhappiness that fact-checks might have helped people avoid. I also want to say that even if the Céline Dion of the situation’s voice is a bit meagre, Rosalía’s is honestly gorgeous. Let this prettiness stand in dynamic apposition to my small-minded pettiness. [7]

Ian Mathers: Given how the rest of the track feels so clearly structured and sang as a genuinely stirring, sincere ballad, it's kind of wild that those little munchkin-voiced "tell me that you care, you care, you care" don't mess up the vibe more. Mostly due to Rosalía's vocal performance, Choo is just kind of there in comparison. However, [CELINE DION MENTIONED] [7]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: Ralphie Choo didn't need to be here, but he doesn't take much away from the affair, giving Rosalía a sentimental vocal showcase backed by a guitar that was always going to speak to me. It just needs to stop adding things and recognize it peaks in the second chorus. [7]

Nortey Dowuona: Practicing love is a funny thing. You have to dive all in, ask the difficult questions of yourself you don't answer, learn to pay the mortgage on time and start stressing about that too. And you even have to reckon with even if the person, persons or yourself is worth it. Most of the time it's yes. half the time it's no. The rest is so murky that usually most relationships of any kind evaporate once these murky waters appear. Sometimes, you get so deep in that when you realize they don't actually want to keep making that investment, it's often too late. But within this brief bubble of bright, vivid Technicolor, your desire to make that investment, that first step, that deeply vulnerable act of letting a part of you be know, then showing more as time goes on, is rewarded, it is buoyed, it stirs you deeply. Rosalía's engagement to Rauw Alejandro unfortunately was made available on the belief it could survive our desire to see it fail and our excitement to see it succeed. Her voice oozes tenderness, joy, warmth, willingness to open up her heart once more to us. The result, however, is up to us. [10]

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#rosalia #ralphie choo #music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

DOECHII - "NISSAN ALTIMA"

Accelerating right to the top of our charts...

[8.44]

Ian Mathers: I hadn't forgotten "What It Is," but this one hits like Doechii wants me to. Two minutes (and it feels like it's that long because the job is done, not for some algorithm), high intensity, great delivery, and I think even a better chorus. Definitely the only earworm I've heard in a while prominently featuring the phrase "face fuck." [9]

Alfred Soto: With Rapsody and Noname releasing excellent work in the last two years, we're living in a fecund time for female-identifying singer-rappers. "Nissan Altima" proves she can do the slither-tongued swagger as well as anyone. "I'm the trap Grace Jones," she admits after a trip to Spain results in tsunami-ing someone's vagina. [9]

Mark Sinker: It’s like you can’t say "cunnilingus dalai lama” without me handing myself over to a Doechii YouTube deep-dive for hours on end, happy as a dim little lamb in some Cenobite Hellraiser dimension. Sometimes she’s even gentle and charming, like the director dropping out of character to explain the logic of a move. Not here though — and anyway those are never the best bits, though they are the most reassuring. The best is when her mind is flashing at frightening speed and the words and voicings and just grunts are breaking open into unexpected hidden corridors, running at angles behind the walls to energies you didn’t quite want to imagine, maybe. [9]

Katherine St. Asaph: It took me several (exuberant) listens to figure out what this reminds me of: the sparkly instrumentals and kinetic charismatic presence of early Azealia Banks, except better because to my knowledge Doechii is not a rampaging drama-seeking TERF. [9]

Al Varela: You know, we've had such a rough streak of terrible fast raps from Eminem and Eminem wannabes lately that it's easy to forget how fun fast raps can be when it's done well. Doechii immediately jumps in with this roller-coaster flow in the first verse after the chorus that's so infectious that if the song was just that verse and two choruses I would have been satisfied. But the second verse is just as good! Doechii is such a firespitter and some of her pop concessions make me forget that sometimes. Glad to have a song where she truly proves herself and reminds us she can and will take over the rap game when the time is right. [9]

Jel Bugle: A short rap song, not too bad. I liked the brief acapella bits, and change of speed. [6]

Will Adams: Initially the brief run-time felt unsatisfactory. But when you pack as many scorching lines (and line deliveries) as Doechii does in "Nissan Altima"'s 120 seconds, who cares? [7]

Taylor Alatorre: Even when listened to with intent, the refrain registers not as individual words but as a percussive barrage of obscenity, which is more or less how Doechii wants it. It can still be diagrammed if you're into that, but its purpose is to soften you up for the more stylish and surgically targeted body blows to follow. She's unsparing yet economical with her flows, always giving the impression that there's more to her than what she’s choosing to reveal at the moment. She uses the breaks in the instrumental to fool you into thinking a beat switch is coming -- it never does -- but when it starts up again the beat feels slightly fresher than it did a few seconds ago. "Give us nothing,” but unironically. [8]

Nortey Dowuona: All rise and put your sticks up for the motherfucking Princess and that short ass second verse. [10]

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#doechii #music #rap #hip-hop #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

THE CURE - "ALONE"

Making their very first Jukebox appearance...

[7.00]

Ian Mathers: I wasn't exactly waiting for new material from the Cure, but I still find myself feeling very sickos.jpg about the three-and-a-half minute instrumental slowcore intro here. Smith sings exactly like he always has, thank fuck, sounding wracked with anguish over the inexorable, weighty trudge of the song. The funniest possible thing would be for some snippet of this to just blow up on TikTok. [7]

TA Inskeep: Finally, new Cure music that sounds like classic Cure. That long intro, the extended keyboard chords, those guitar textures, and Robert Smith sounding despondent: yes please! As a Cure fan going back close to 40 years, "Alone" is everything I hoped for from their first new music in 16. [9]

Alfred Soto: The synths coast alongside the guitars like fighter jets leading a passenger jet to a runway, while the drums pound their irregular patterns. The slow opening crawl -- how Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me of them. "This is the end of every song we'll sing," Robert Smith lies. Not so long as he can thatch his hair, apply moist lipstick, keep his global audience, and keep writing and singing songs this confidently. [7]

Taylor Alatorre: I like the depressive realism here: the long awaited musical comeback as an occasion for apocalyptic dread rather than celebration. "We're older, we're frailer, we missed the boat, we'll never be able to match your favorite album from 1987 because we lack the nervous, buzzing urgency that glued us to our audience at a time when rock music was still the lingua franca of youth; please buy our merch." Bracingly honest! But it's one thing to assign conceptual purpose to a three-minute opener of dense ambient murk, and another to make the listener intuitively feel that purpose, in between wondering why the snare is so dang loud. [5]

Jel Bugle: I saw that lots of people were excited for the return of the Cure, like Gandalf swooping in at Helm’s Deep. I contemplated muting the word "Cure" just so I wouldn’t say anything mean about them, and I could keep my pals. I guess it has an epic feel, and I’m sure all the Cure fans will love it -- you’ve got to give the people what they want, after all. If, like me, you quite like "Friday I’m In Love" and that’s as far as you go with the Cure, then you are not gonna go crazy for this one. Sounds like a deep cut of an obscure album that is 3% of Cure fans' favourite. [3]

Nortey Dowuona: I've probably walked past a person who's died every day I've lived in Brooklyn. Sometimes, I looked them in the eyes and scurried away, trying not to think of my own oncoming demise and soothing my wounded heart with the lie that there was nothing I could have done. But there often is something -- sometimes just staying and talking them through it can be enough. In the end, each of us is alone, waiting for our life to ebb out of us. Those are the lucky ones. There aren't even a lot of lyrics in this song, Robert Smith's voice cries out in pain and despair as per usual and fades. But for the first three minutes, the band coalesces, the two chords constantly playing then resolving with riffing atop the mix, the snare cracking loudly in the corner, the piano tiptoeing towards the top then receding, but still, no voice. By the time Smith's voice appears, you have seen through the mind's manipulative trick and wail, gnash your teeth, howl, but your body won't fight anymore. As you finally accept your fate, the fluorescent lights start shutting down, the tables collapse. your heart slows, your lungs go flat, your mind shuts down. In the empty void, you finally stop being you. you finally stop being. [9]

Mark Sinker: Nearly 50 years since I first heard Bob sing: late night, I’m guessing, on the John Peel show, snuggled up under my bedclothes with my little handheld radio (a cartoon cliché that is also actually true). The Cure were disdained by the music press at the time so I wanted not really to like them — I was a very suggestible teenager this way — except secretly I did like them. What did I like most? The keening flat gloom in Bob’s voice — which for some reason I’ve never really identified brought me great joy. The group is very funny. Do they mean to be? Does this matter? The joy may be extremely goofy but it’s also extremely reliable: live versions of "A Forest" for hour on hour on hour, stretching out over days, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year (to where the goth dreams are). "Alone" is only six minutes long, but the three minutes Bob takes to start is an endearing nod to those long-ago live versions (and how we tested him about them). And it’s soooooo slooooow, and that’s pretty funny too. This is just Cure stuff: sometimes they are the Platonic form of themselves. I look into my heart and I find that one-note ridiculous as they’ve always been, I really do love them, after all. Here at the end of all things, as they say. [6]

Katherine St. Asaph: I will never stop loving songs so unabashedly sweeping, so full of sea-tossed dramatics, that they make a several-minutes-long, only subtly changing instrumental loop -- see also Stina Nordenstam's "CQD" -- sound like the heavily truncated edit of a song large enough to span the entire world. [9]

Aaron Bergstrom: I've never really gotten into weighted blankets, but for the people who love them, this is how I imagine it must feel. Whether it's the weight of the drums or the weight of mortality, we're all here because we want to get crushed by something. [8]

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#the cure #music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

GIGI PEREZ - "SAILOR SONG"

Not an attempted revival of the sea shanty trend but rather some lovely folk-pop!

[7.12]

Hannah Jocelyn: I stumbled upon Gigi Perez in 2022 and she blew me away with her voice, which cut through the high-budget Manny Marroquin mixes she got at the time. Perez's contralto is obviously indebted to Jeff Buckley and more modern contemporaries like Lucy Dacus and Gordi, but her recent songs have her singing from a more nasal, high-pitched register that complements the more direct lyrics. From the first few seconds, that risk pays off: no better way to open a sailor song than sounding like a siren! The similar melody in the choruses and verses shouldn’t work, but make for an incredibly easy sing-along, like a campfire song lovesick lesbians. Some have compared this to other 2010s indie folk, but if there's a 2010s indie folk song with a line as feral and fanfic-ready as "She took my fingers to her mouth/the kind of thing that makes you proud/that nothing else ever worked out", I'd love to hear it. No, Hozier doesn’t count. [9]

Mark Sinker: For other uses, see Anne Hathaway (disambiguation). [8]

Ian Mathers: I'm a big fan of voice-and-acoustic-guitar production where they just whack a mess of effects on there until the whole thing attains a pleasing mass; on headphones my whole brain feels like it's reverberating to some divine frequency. I'm especially fond of what the saxophone adds here (including at the beginning) and how intense and specific most of the lyrics are; "the kind of thing that makes you proud that nothing else had ever worked out, worked out" is a haymaker. [9]

Jel Bugle: Once upon a time I might have liked this kind of thing. It’s a bit generic really -- shimmery acoustic shoegaze, I’d probably like it more if it were in a different language, as I quite like Japanese/Brazilian shoegaze stuff. I liked the trumpet-ity bit at the end, so a bonus point for that! [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Moving the 2010s nostalgia doomsday clock 5 seconds closer to midnight. [4]

Alfred Soto: I've never tasted a sailor but I've checked one out! Gigi Perez's intensity suggests they're a lot of fun -- she thinks of sailors when her lover sticks Perez's fingers in her mouth. The cumulative intensity complements the melodic sameness. By the time it's over it's as if we peeked into a friend hooking up. [7]

Taylor Alatorre: "Humans are endlessly fascinating," he mumbles to himself while scrolling idly through the YouTube comments. [5]

Nortey Dowuona: Adoration, obsession, projection; those are not love. They fade, or worsen, then are shorn once the things that inflamed them have withered away. Most of us live in relationships built on one or two or even all three, then when it fades we blame them for not being who we wanted them to be instead of accepting them. The vulnerable struggle to find those they can trust, the manipulative choose to lure them in then condemn them from saving them from themselves. But what does a random stranger on the internet know about love? I do know I wish for this, despite doing everything in my power to prevent anyone from choosing me. I can relate to having nobody to love you with their chest, until they're gone and you realize you let those bonds fray and despoil, now weak and thin, little worms eating through the soil that connected us. I desire love, I crave it, yet I do nothing to find it, nurture it, or even feed it other than the faintest, lightest touches. I am no sailor, simply a landlubber with chlorine pool sea legs who can't bring himself to crawl atop the waves through the muck to find someone who would want me to be a part of their life. I know there are, but that's different from cultivating them. I write about my personal desire and fear of love since the lyrics in this song firmly and gently shut me out -- it's not meant for me, someone will appreciate this more. Unfortunately I'll be 43 one day and that's not good enough for me. Gigi was willing to put all these messy feelings into this song and send it out there into the world for pennies to receive pennies; all I can do is scrawl on a scratched-up laptop. But I'm willing to scrawl until I can finally close it, gird myself, try to spark a conversation with anyone who'd like to talk. We can go forever until you want to sit it out. [10]

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#gigi perez #music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

POST MALONE FT. BLAKE SHELTON - "POUR ME A DRINK"

In a red solo cup, perhaps?

[3.22]

Ian Mathers: Barring a couple of minor signifiers this does not sound like country music; it sounds like the theme music for the most excruciatingly boring sitcom the "golden age" of ad-supported network TV ever produced. [0]

Taylor Alatorre: I don't know why Post would risk nationwide schadenfreude by carping about a close Cowboys loss, only to forgo regional specificity in the very next line by mentioning I-65 instead of I-45. I guess the thinking is that Texas pride doesn't sell as well as a denuded Southern or heartland identity -- except that Beyoncé and Miranda Lambert exist, and Twisters managed to spin box office gold out of its Oklahoma mythmaking. I stand by my prediction that F-1 Trillion was not going to be a Kid Rock re-enactment, because Kid, like him or not, never laid himself under the Nashville hydraulic press to this extent. In his heart, Post has to know that this isn't the only way, that real country boys are out here doing collabs not only with out-the-mud rappers, but with Underoath and A Day to Remember and the meme dude from Attack Attack!, that the stars were aligned for this project to be something other than replacement-level. His overriding desire to Become Product leaves all such options greyed out, which, under a more generous light, could be viewed as the self-sublimating act of a humble pre-Renaissance artisan. Ego death in the service of the ultimate tailgate, sponsored by Raising Cane's. [4]

Will Adams: If the prominent Bud Light placement in the video isn't evidence enough of this song's hollow center, consider how the cynicism in both Post's and Blake's performances is already apparent even before the dozens of bowl halftime shows they will undoubtedly be booked to play this at. [2]

Al Varela: Guess I should have expected that Post Malone's foray into country music would just be a trojan horse for Nashville to pitch their usual fare to a mainstream audience. I'd be more irritated if I didn't begrudgingly really like this. A lively fiddle and sweeping organ alongside Post Malone's expert chorus craftsmanship is an easy way to win me over with even the most generic country radio slop. Blake Shelton and Post Malone have like, no chemistry together but you know what they sound good on the hook so I wouldn't turn down that drink from either of them. [7]

Nortey Dowuona: It's good to see some, just, well, know their place. On an unrelated note, where is my cranberry canape? [0]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: To my great regret, I must note that I was unfair to Morgan Wallen a few months ago. As I heard it — nearly every time I went outside this summer, all up and down the west coast — "I Had Some Help" grew on me, an unwanted song of the summer affixing itself like a parasite to the various systems of my mind. I cannot be quite convinced that it's good but I likewise cannot be made to hate it; the strange chemistry between Post's reedy, saintly fuck-up and Wallen's honking misanthrope turns the song into a diptych far more compelling than originally intended. Case in point: Blake Shelton absolutely does not have the juice here, sounding for all the world like someone's uncle doing karaoke to a Blake Shelton song. Without an interesting foil, the entire Post Malone country enterprise capsizes; the guy seems pleasant enough but as he ambles through these verses my patience for his schtick erodes quickly. [3]

Alfred Soto: When Miranda Lambert made the grisly mistake of thinking she could spend her life with Blake Shelton, his glass-eyed mien gave the game away. She had married a streetlight that would never know the pleasure of a dog pissing on him. In this standard it's-5 o'clock-somewhere thumper he makes Post Malone sound like George Jones. [4]

Jel Bugle: A straightforward country song about typical country music things -- drinking and travelling about, drinking too much, and the need for another drink. A kind of escapism. [6]

Katherine St. Asaph: I cannot imagine this playing anywhere that alcohol is served. [3]

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#post malone #blake shelton #music #country #country music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebo #x #Youtube

FKA TWIGS - "EUSEXUA"

Forever 'til the end of time...

[7.70]

Ian Mathers: First part: I do wish more pop music sounded like its makers had heard "Windowlicker" at least once, yeah. Second part: why does it suddenly feel like we're freefalling without a parachute? Third part: you know what, they should have gone with "braindance" back in the day. [8]

Grace Robins-Somerville: Everyone should burn down their place of work and host a rave inside its charred shell. This song is so fucking good. Twigs can do whatever she wants forever. [9]

Will Adams: The office choreo clip that kept bouncing around my timeline upon the video's release was a fake-out; the stuttering boom-boom beat in the prelude is a separate song entirely, "Drums of Death." "Eusexua" proper is breathtaking in the way the best trance music is: strobing, nervous, euphoric all at once. The titular concept would seem overwrought were it not explicated as flawlessly as Twigs does here. Her voice is suspended in mid-air as the track swirls around her, until everything falls away and she is lifted to that higher state. [9]

Jel Bugle: It’s ponderous, and I had to google what "eusexua" is: "a state of being" and "the pinnacle of human experience." I didn’t really get to the summit of human experience with this one – it’s kinda Perrie Edwards x Yeule, and I feel this leaves a sort of electronic slop. Maybe it’s the kind of thing that gets played in a club, rather than on a cold drizzly afternoon, The last 40 seconds are good, where it’s more disjointed and ethereal. That should have been the whole song. [5]

Katherine St. Asaph: Putting my editor's cap on: Twigs used 167 words to describe the indescribable "eusexua" when one word existed and would suffice, "ecstasy." Zero words, even, would suffice: the last part of this song. [8]

Mark Sinker: Listening to this engenders a state of being and the description of that state of being is: pleasant! In a somewhat nervous and spooky way! It’s not really a new state of being though, because I’ve heard other songs by FKA Twigs. It seems a vaguely needless pressure for everyone to invent a whole new word for it. [7]

Taylor Alatorre: FKA Twigs is bad at naming things, including herself, but this is known. The syllables comprising "Eusexua" are an obstacle of her own making, which is apt for a song that portrays its (unfortunately) titular feeling as a state that must be fought and clawed for, even against one's better judgment. As depicted, the ascent to transcendence is a rather bumpy one, speckled with earthly crevices and frictions -- those chittering little clacks against the temple are what deny us an early exit from crass materiality. Twigs dances around her definitions because she knows that, despite what she says at one point, to transcribe would only tether her down further. She trusts in her voice, and its wide range of contortions, to do the real semantic lifting, and the trust pays itself back. Our reward for following her on this ersatz Eightfold Path is a guiltless surrender to the simple joys of trance, not in scare quotes but in full hands-up glory. It can't last forever, of course, but just long enough to have made the journey worth it under any name. [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Maybe my standards are too high for her — at this point, I expect masterworks from Twigs every time, songs that will stop you in your tracks through novel stylistic choices or sheer emotive weight. "Eusexua" is instead merely a case of well-executed contemporary sophistipop, hitting all of the right semi-nostalgic synth tones and rhythms to feel like a moment of ecstasy on the dancefloor. Even when it slows down I don't get any more out of it; she phones it in a little, which is to say she does better than most working pop musicians. [7]

Nortey Dowuona: I already felt constantly alone. It's my own damn fault. I'm getting older, so it's my job to fix it. That is when you reach eusexua. You finally hit the end of your excuses, rationalizations, punching up and down and delusions, and you swim free into your own eusexua. Fear is a common process -- it happens often when others are trying to drown you with their own despair -- but fear not; eusexua is here for them too. Look past yourself to see the despair and regret you constantly feel just for existing reflected in another's eyes; pull them too into eusexua. Eusexua will be our freedom, our community, our life. You will not have to be rich, you will not have to be handsome, you will be healed of your disabilities and difficulties, you will need no power or gratification, you will become part of us, and be a greater whole that will have you complete and loved. You will finally have help. [10]

Alfred Soto: Putting aside my FKA Twigs skepticism was easy: I'm a sucker for boom-clap stutterbeats. She channels K-pop and Fever Ray for the sake of inhabiting a reasonable facsimile of euphoria. She's always been reasonable. [7]

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#fka twigs #eusexua #music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

JAMIE XX FT. ROMY AND OLIVER SIM - "WAITED ALL NIGHT"

the xx but it's not called the xx but it's not not the xx

[6.67]

Nortey Dowuona: the xx reunion (neutral) [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Poses as the reverse of the Ship of Theseus — what if the band broke up but kept all of its same parts, making the same kind of music? Maybe this is reading too hard into the feature credit tea leaves, but "Waited All Night" feels in subtle ways weirder and more disjoint than the median xx single, less a carefully manicured garden and more something overgrown and unruly. Jamie's production threatens to swallow up the two vocalists, deep thrums of the bass jockeying for position. It's a better xx song than the xx, formally speaking, could be expected to make at this late date, a clever not-even-a-disguise that allows for something great. [9]

Alfred Soto: Reuniting with his pals for a dance jam, Jamie xx snaps and crackles the beats, speeds up the tempos, and coaxes Romy into cooing "Could I be this close to you?" like Tracey Thorn three decades ago, tired and drunk in the club but awake enough for possibilities. [7]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: There's a trick here where a vocal sample becomes a staccato Nile Rodgers guitar in my ear. It punches at the same weight as the drums under Romy and Sim's flowing vocals, adding something frenetic even as it repeats. [9]

TA Inskeep: Even though all three xx members are on this, this doesn't sound like the xx. It sounds like Jamie xx's solo work, just with vocals from Romy (whom I feel is the spiritual daughter of Alison Goldfrapp) and Oliver Sim. I'm a sucker for a well-made, subtly throbbing late-night house record, precisely what this is. [8]

Jel Bugle: Adult Contemporary Dance Music, the kind of music I just don’t like - it’s clinical and lacking any kind of joy for me. I am not going to the club, and I am not going to dance. [1]

Kat Stevens: It seems fair to expect Jamie xx to produce some gloomy textured beats to accompany the scene where a miserable protagonist is sat on the platform at Hackney Central, pointedly ignoring the trains and passengers streaming past at 10x speed, slowly looking down and cupping their chin in their hands and regretting their life choices. It also seems fair that I'd much rather listen to the shameless weekend-finally-here euphoria that is somehow also on the Jamie xx album. [5]

Ian Mathers: It's not that the appeal of the xx eludes me; every time I've listened to them I feel like I should enjoy them more. If they made a whole record that sounded like this, I feel like I might get there. [7]

Katherine St. Asaph: Immaculate set filler. Fade it after Romy's verse. [7]

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#jamie xx #romy #romy madley croft #oliver sim #the xx #music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

LAILA! - "NOT MY PROBLEM"

Mos Def's daughter gets a TikTok hit -- no, come back...

[6.18]

Julian Axelrod: "The self-produced bedroom pop nepo baby who went viral after being sampled on a 15-person Cash Cobain posse cut is good, actually" is an unbearable sentence, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. If "Espresso" is the beverage-based hook of the year, "I got the juice/Passion fruit and guava juice" is a close second. [7]

Tim de Reuse: Any song whose thesis is "I don't give a shit" has to answer for itself; why did you write a whole song if you're so over it, huh? Most fail at this. Laila attacks this particular slope by writing half a song. "Not My Problem" has the air of something chopped and screwed together in an afternoon; the one-measure loop of reverberating synth arpeggi, the stream-of-consciousness tropical fruit catalogue, the beat that consists of a single, ugly little kick drum thrown dry and uncompressed in the middle of the room. Success at the first hurdle: I believe wholeheartedly that you are over it. Second hurdle: would I ever listen to this faint gesture of a tune more than, like, twice? [6]

Ian Mathers: A commendable message and production that makes a virtue of menacing, nocturnal stasis. Whether this works for you might come down to how you feel about songs with lyrics that feel about 90% song title by weight. [6]

Taylor Alatorre: There’s a spare yet fully realized track on Gap Year! that has an “(interlude)” parenthetical despite being two seconds longer than this one. It is unclear why the reverse should not be true. Is a Cash Cobain remix really worth this much? [2]

Alfred Soto: Borrowing an amapiano tip-tap for its drum loop and a maximalist synth line from one of Billie Eilish's psychodramas, "Not My Problem" puts its trust in its repetitions. The grain in Laila!'s voice suggests not defensiveness so much as affirmation. She's serious about being taken seriously. Snatch her guava juice, and she'll fuck you up. [7]

Katherine St. Asaph: Redolent equally of amapiano and Rihanna's ANTI in its immersive, sink-into-able atmosphere. Nepo is good actually? [8]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: It drones on without droning, keeping you moving as you stand in the same place, trapping you in molasses at the very end, the constant refrain washing the stickiness off. [6]

Jel Bugle: Was a bit surprised by the number of streams, 33 million -- I’ve heard similar things with 1K streams. Very computer music: it’s like the new lo-fi, people still in their bedrooms making songs, but not a 4-track to be seen. It has an amateurish charm, and as an expression of joy at making music it’s nice, but not gonna buy the CD. [4]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Occupies a fun double-life — melodically and lyrically, this is basically a song you would sing to yourself as you do the dishes. In practice, Laila!'s charm as a vocalist and her tense, spare production creates a sort of halo around the song, taking it from petty, passing grievance to a grander statement of independence. [8]

Nortey Dowuona: Still can't think of us as humans? Still can't accept the multiplying sexual and gender identities in the world now? Can't accept now that black on both sides is old enough to buy himself a ticket to fly to Accra now, and you are even older than that? Well.... [10]

Kayla Beardslee: Totally lacking personality, ambition, or intent. Why is she singing about guava juice? Girl, check your ingredients before you start blending! [4]

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#laila!#music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

LINKIN PARK - "THE EMPTINESS MACHINE"

In which we are raged against...

[5.11]

Ian Mathers: To the extent that Linkin Park ever were/are cool, it's at least partly because they absolutely do not seem to care if some people find them cringey. The teenagers (and others) who resonated with "One Step Closer" et al, and now find that the lyrics here touch on the pain and grief of living in our increasingly/eternally dystopian times, don't need the band to be less sincere. Recruiting a new singer who was inspired to both sing and scream via her love of Hybrid Theory (and who has apparently distanced herself from Scientology, or else my tone would be... different), but who doesn't sound like she's just doing a Chester Bennington imitation, is probably about the only way to handle this short of going the Shinoda-only route. Slightly to my surprise, I find that I'm happy they're back. [7]

Alfred Soto: Aptly titled. [3]

Mark Sinker: Genius dot com tells me this song is about the CRITICS and how all they want to do is TAKE YOU DOWN -- but I prefer to believe that it’s an intransigent Adorno-esque critique of administrated present-day life, its lures and its hells. Emily Armstrong has the kind of voice I unreservedly love (and Mike Shinoda does not). [7]

Harlan Talib Ockey: No one else is ever going to sound like Chester Bennington, and the (poorly-considered) choice of Emily Armstrong implies that Linkin Park wasn’t looking for an impressionist anyway. But their first single with a vocalist who is very audibly not Bennington is the blandest possible version of Linkin Park, including the right ingredients to show fans they’re still the same band while filing off just enough serial numbers that it doesn’t sound retrograde. There aren’t any concessions to Armstrong’s vocal style or musical influences, either of which could’ve made this less slick and more distinctive. I do appreciate how Linkin Park has grown up with their listeners, as the teens raised on Hybrid Theory are now the prime age for an anthem against soul-sucking corporate adulthood — that still understands audience calibration and brand identity. [4]

Nortey Dowuona: The frustrating part about the brouhaha about Emily Armstrong is that whatever her affiliations, she understands becoming part of a cult formed out of the wound of abuse and the agony of cutting yourself out. We are only social creatures, many of us choosing unhealthy groups to find our own identities, only for the lucky few to get free and enter a healthy community -- or, more likely, loneliness again. Perish a thought for those who can never get free. [7]

Jel Bugle: I like their new singer, she’s adding some much needed energy – I’m not sure if Mike’s opening lines were deliberately dreary, to highlight Emily's power? Anyway, it’s a smart move by Linkin Park. Musically, it’s alright, not that exciting – they should go more metalcore rather than pop nu-metal. But as a radio-friendly unit shifter, this will do well! Music for traffic jams. [6]

Jeffrey Brister: I liked them more when they were “Refused for teens who have absolutely no idea who the fuck Refused is.” [1]

Taylor Alatorre: Packaging your radically rebooted line-up in an unadorned riff repeater is the alt-rock version of the median voter theorem -- you can't be seen as going too far too fast, and reassurances must be given to key voting blocs. Of all potential compromises, though, this one is far from the worst, and it reinforces the band's preferred narrative in subtle ways. The dry, compacted production lends the feeling of a group restarting from scratch, huddling in the proverbial garage as they try to figure out what works and what doesn't, which elements are central to the Linkin Park sound and which are secondary. The album title From Zero nods to the band’s late-'90s predecessor, and there is indeed a sense of pre-history here, mixed with alternate history -- what if Hybrid Theory was the sophomore sellout album, and this was what the originalists had clamored for all along? It's an intriguing little fantasy, and it becomes more credible when Emily Armstrong is given her cue to explode, fulfilling in an instant the dreams of a generation by making a million bedroom cover songs canon. The lyrics are not so transferable, though, given how clearly LP-centric they are -- no one could ever think that "your favorite point of view" is about overbearing parents or high school backbiters. But it would be absurd to a expect a "view from nowhere" account from a band whose identity is suddenly a melee free-for-all. [6]

Katherine St. Asaph: More like the empty content machine. The band couldn't have predicted -- or, at least, hopefully didn't predict -- that the "fuck the haters" lyrics would sound offputtingly defensive in the context of the Emily Armstrong backlash. (It's irritating how people see her as some rando and not the frontwoman of a long-running band, but man, between that and later singles, Dead Sara's reputation has just cratered.) But given that Armstrong's role here seems to be sounding as much like Chester Bennington as possible, was it all necessary? [5]

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#linkin park #music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

COLDPLAY FT. LITTLE SIMZ, BURNA BOY, ELYANNA, AND TINI - "WE PRAY"

Who is "we"?

[3.60]

Harlan Talib Ockey: I pray that someday I’ll be able to score a Coldplay song highly. The generic hype strings make “We Pray” feel like a particularly boring commercial. Or something Hillsong-adjacent, given that the lyrics sound religious, even though this song is about so little I’m not sure they entirely are. The problem with “big idea” songs that try to enumerate everything wrong with the world is that they rarely have room for an actual message. What is “We Pray” trying to say? “I hope literally everything bad gets better soon”? Coldplay does name a few specific things (Virgilio Aguilar Mendez, “Baraye”), but it’s not obvious why Chris Martin connects them here other than the general idea that oppression is bad. Meanwhile, the rest of the lyrics are just vaguely inspirational soup. “Pray that I can lift up, pray my brother is blessed”? What? Elyanna and TINI seem to only be on here for a single line of backing vocals, and Burna Boy is surprisingly scarce too. Little Simz’s verse is as aimless as the rest of the song, and a large chunk of it is verbatim from her feature on Sault’s “Free.” It’s not hard to guess that a song with four featured artists might sound unfocused, but then again, it’s never clear what “We Pray” wanted to tell us in the first place. [1]

Aaron Bergstrom: Coldplay debuted "We Pray" at Glastonbury, prominently featuring the lyric "pray Virgilio wins," four months after the state of Florida dismissed all charges against Virgilio Aguilar Mendez. Rare good news from the American judiciary, and you just know Chris Martin believes he somehow deserves some credit for it. [2]

Nortey Dowuona: Don't worry, Chris, he did! Song's cool. Simz' verse is good. [6]

Katherine St. Asaph: Equating "my friend will pull through" and "Virgilio [Aguilar Mendez] wins" with "some records to play" as prayers is the kind of megastar musician grandstanding we haven't seen since Bono. [2]

Taylor Alatorre: The near-opposite of Flo Rida's "I Cry," a song whose fidgety energy and unassuming nature allowed it to wring a skewed kind of poignancy out of the usual nonsense (as well as sneak an Anders Brevik reference onto Top 40 without anyone noticing). "We Pray" is also founded on placeholder lyricism, but it's far less kinetic than the Flo Rida kind, and the stilted ballroom pace puts the hollowness of its sentiments front and center. Little Simz and Burna Boy are all too capable of blending into the blandness, which doesn't help Coldplay but does serve as useful advertising for their own crossover services. Instant global village, just add vocalist. [3]

Will Adams: Not much of note about this piece of inspiro-dreck besides the fact that Coldplay released a few variants of "We Pray" in which either Elyanna or TINI take the second verse. They also released a version where the second verse is left blank for, in the band's words, "your own inspiration." I believe this is a cheap ploy to get people to perform unpaid labor in order to improve their bad song. Don't fall for it! [3]

Mark Sinker: No one is ever going to say that Chris Martin has an exciting voice — and maybe that’s alway been the point, why not? Just treat the long-gone Eno era as their true template: this sound and this song as nothing but by-the-yard generative ambient backdrop, with some actual throats and tongues and lips dropped in front of it, to be the real element that you remember. [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: All of this mustered effort to create something only moderately more interesting than the median late-period Coldplay single. This aims for planetary benefit show largesse but instead feels like what would happen if Civilization got to commission e-sports jock jams the way League of Legends does — grand global gestures, hollow at their core. [6]

Ian Mathers: Surely he/they can't need the money, right? Even the bits where more interesting vocalists are performing, this just feels so hollow and perfunctory. It truly takes all kinds, but from over here it's hard to imagine anyone felt the white-hot heat of artistic inspiration driving them. More like it's designed to be minimum viable product to keep the Coldplay name alive and then be forgotten. [3]

Dave Moore: Credibility: borrowed. Feelings: expressed. Dragons: imagined. [3]

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#coldplay #little simz #burna boy #elyanna #tini #music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

PLAYBOI CARTI - "ALL RED"

Settling into spooky season...

[4.33]

Alfred Soto: In honor of its 10-year anniversary I listened to Rich Gang's Tha Tour Pt. 1, a model for Lil Uzi Vert and other rappers in Young Thug's wake. Playboi Carti's weed-raspy baby voice made him part of that lineage. It's gone for "All Red," where he sounds so much like Future it's like his engineers used AI: Future without the affect-free declarations of variable weirdness, that is. There ain't much to hold on to here. [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: For a moment there, Carti looked like some kind of savant — a novel sound generator so potent that he could cause otherwise thoughtful critics (myself included) to forget or ignore a noxious personal life. "All Red" instead asks: what if he just made the 30th best Future song of the year? [4]

Nortey Dowuona: Most of this song is a damn near perfect Future impression with worryingly thin lyrics which gain no strength despite the voice. Also flimsy attempts at satanic panic schtick. [0]

Ian Mathers: The first YouTube comment along the lines of "this new future single goes krazy fr" might have been moderately funny, but god they've really rendered that particular dead horse down to its constituent atoms over there. This is still more fun to listen to than the last couple of Future songs we've covered here anyway. ("Like That" doesn't count and you know exactly why.) [6]

Jel Bugle: I really enjoyed Playboi Carti’s rap on Camila’s magnificent "I Luv It." I like this one: it’s quite sinister, all sinister vibes, It’s short and just ends, but maybe that’s the moodiness Playboi Carti is trying to convey. [7]

Mark Sinker: Always when I hear Playboi Carti I want him to be taking what he does -- re-processing speech into weird absurdist fragments -- as far as he possible can. So far he hasn’t and this, once again, is not that. [6]

Taylor Alatorre: What's black and white and red all over and lacks a clear reason to exist, other than to swap out an aging yet still exploitable vocal gimmick for a considerably less distinctive and personable one? [3]

Dave Moore: Oh no, this time Playboi Carti accidentally launched his time machine into the past instead of the future. (I was wrong, by the way -- "@ Meh" is a [9], not a [6]. I suppose we all get turned around sometimes.) [5]

Katherine St. Asaph: Needs more B-movie schlock. Needs more, really, in general. [3]

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#playboi carti #music #rap #hip-hop #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

TATE MCRAE - "IT'S OK I'M OK"

No, really, we're fine. We're FINE.

[4.69]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: She's on a world-conquering run as our least essential pop star -- the sounds here are big and confident, but everything else seems actively anti-hook; her delivery swallows up all her best lines, the frantic intonation on the hook less indicating a louche coolness and more sounding like she realized midway through she was slightly offbeat. At its best, this sounds like a demo for some more charismatic figure -- a remix could give this a purpose! [4]

Will Adams: Tate assures you she's fine, but the beat says otherwise. The gigantic drums recall the of crowded-ness of "Tipsy," the pecking synths recall the laser-focus of "Me & U." "It's ok, I'm ok" is, well, okay as mid-aughts throwback; it could've been better with some intelligible vocals. [5]

Alfred Soto: How you respond to this Ariana Grande-fied example of post-therapy pop will depend on your taste for Tate McRae's barely there squeak. She shows more panache in the video, where she moves like a practiced TikTok influencer. [6]

Harlan Talib Ockey: “It’s ok I’m ok” suffers from “Look What You Made Me Do” syndrome, where a strong, dramatic pre-chorus collapses into a repetitive chorus with far less energy. The lyrics do have an interesting premise, with McRae warning another woman about her useless ex, but the entire second verse could’ve used a line editor. Actually, the pre-chorus is the strongest part lyrically, too. And vocally, since McRae sounds like she’s struggling to keep up with some of the vocal runs in the verses. And production-wise, with its lightly menacing synth pads. In short, keep the pre-chorus, maybe rework everything else. [4]

Taylor Alatorre: The title, with its double-talk defensiveness, reads less like a confident strut and more like a shaky reply to the new girlfriend's debatably sincere attempts at consolation ("sorry I took your man…?"), which puts a damper on whatever karmic power play is meant to be felt here. And if McRae doesn't want me reading that much into it, she should consider singing in a way that makes looking up her lyrics sheet feel less like uncovering the Rosetta Stone. [3]

Grace Robins-Somerville: This is beyond cursive singing -- it's like the paper's been soaked through and the cursive ink is running to the point that it's indecipherable. Every time someone tries to push the Tate McRae second-coming-of-Britney narrative that's been forced in waves over the past two-ish years, it's the closest we get to living in a real-life version of HBO's The Idol. Remember The Idol? I kinda miss The Idol. [2]

Katherine St. Asaph: Extremely 2000 Max Martin in sound -- those synth stomps are vintage "It's Gonna Be Me" -- but not in structure; Cheiron-era Max would never have allowed the final chorus to dissolve into ether. I'd love to hear the song where she realizes she isn't ok and snaps. [7]

Jel Bugle: It’s very Britney! I don’t think Tate is going to trouble the upper echelons of pop with this one. It’s a pleasant enough bop, but somehow the title of the song describes everything perfectly (was this intentional?). I wanted to like this more, but there is nothing that hooky here. [6]

Dave Moore: Louie from the Pop Pantheon podcast went viral the other day pointing out that this sounds less like Britney Spears and more like Ashley Tisdale, but a seasoned mid-aughts C-list teenpop connoisseur could tell you this song would have gone to Vanessa Hudgens. And the shoe fits -- "basically what we're going to do is dance" is Tate McRae's whole thing! [5]

Aaron Bergstrom: Faithful "Me & U" homage over store-brand "Grindin'" drums, a perfectly fine idea for a pop song that doesn't seem to have moved beyond the idea phase. [4]

Nortey Dowuona: Is Ilya secretly on pgLang? Is this pgLang trying to make a play for the pop charts? Cuz it's well produced, slick too, but the main voice is so thin and childlike it doesn't register. pgLang could've just released the Bri Steves and Baby Keem song instead. [2]

Ian Mathers: Pre-COVID, for years, I used to do a lot of music trivia at bars. My team was pretty good! I've got a trophy from when we won the summer-long tournament run by the hardest one we went to. There's a fair amount of "name that tune from a snippet" type questions in those. This feels like one I would have a tremendously scoring any points on, even for artist. [5]

Mark Sinker: Don't care was made to care. [8]

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#tate mcrae #music #pop #pop music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

BON IVER - "S P E Y S I D E"

"Speyside is not a place; speyside is a person that you get stuck with; speyside is a pain that you cannot erase." - /r/boniver

[4.77]

Tim de Reuse: For Emma, forever and ever, ad infinitum. A tedious spiral of Emma, on and on, rhyming "good" with "could" with "stood", rhyming "me" with "sor-Ry," wallowing in unspecific folksy grayness, cashing in on his own bubble fifteen years too late. For Emma, an ourobouros. [2]

Taylor Alatorre: Leaning into it, playing to type, giving the people what they want -- there's something about hitting age 40 that brings out public displays of commitment to an inescapable bit. As with Vampire Weekend's latest offering, "S P E Y S I D E" is built on the idea that what has been deconstructed can be reconstructed again, using the master's postmodernism to bring Ithaka back to its pre-violated state, or something like it. The title and artwork are fake-outs, as is the producer credit for Jim-E Stack, whose role is to engineer the kind of quarantined sparseness that's traditionally cast as the arch-enemy of artifice. It never was, but it's still fun to pretend, and Vernon's lyrics retain their power even when interpreted as a self-conscious bid for authenticity. If you've ever sent a decade-late apology letter to someone, you know that honesty is a fool's game there, that every attempt to avoid trickery will lead to it popping up in some other sentence. "I hope you look" is not a good enough reason on its own to hit "send," but if you can turn a good phrase and do a good falsetto, it sometimes can be. [7]

Alfred Soto: Satisfied with their 2023 Pitchfork Music Festival appearance after years of mockery, I sat down, linen napkin folded on my lap, awaiting tastier goodies. "Tasty" is right, or, rather, "tasteful": acoustic guitar and strings! This isn't for me, but I'll note that "What is wrong with me/I'm so sorry" shows a humility absent from his passive-aggressive peers. [6]

Andrew Karpan: Described by Mr. Iver as “an apology to a couple of people he loved and hurt,” the idea conceptually brings to mind the indy rock generation’s version of Em’s Recovery. [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: smh I can't believe another white electronic pop artist is pivoting to mid acoustic folk music in his late career. what happened to integrity? this Justin Vernon guy is such a culture vulture. [5]

Nortey Dowuona: Bon Iver's plaintive, taut guitar playing seems at first to provide wrenching emotional bloodletting, but the lyrics quietly cloak it behind metaphor: "as I fill my book, what a waste of wood," "I can't rest on no dynasty, yeah, what is wrong with me?". The gentle string arrangements from Rob Moose weep where his words are not allowed to. The 4/4 line verses feel more and more apologetic as they go on, but the apology is still cloaked, hidden despite the light, frail feeling of the music. The deeper you dig into the words, the more they scarper, the more they obfuscate, until you throw up your hands. It is a message for someone, but that might only be you if you were offered a parley at a quay with someone who just kept retreating from you the closer they got. [6]

Jel Bugle: I have to admit that I got chills when the guy started singing -- not good chills, to be fair. I just can’t get into this country music that isn’t country music, I’d rather listen to Brad Paisley or Zac Brown, someone who could sing this kind of thing with a bit of pep, a bit of sparkle. The wail of modernity is just not for me, the new shoegaze, staring inconsolably at your shoes and airing your most miserable of thoughts. [2]

Mark Sinker: Bon feeling sorry for himself, me not feeling even a bit sorry for him. Yes I do interpret “Speyside Quay” to mean he was on a whiskey-fuelled bender and did something unacceptable. The words are bad, and so is the treatment on his voice. [2]

Aaron Bergstrom: If Justin Vernon has a little dial that goes from "Haunting" to "Haunted," this may be the furthest into the red that he's ever pushed it. [6]

Dave Moore: Docking a point for the annoying stylized spaces between each letter. Not as bad as "L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N." in title formatting or sound -- inoffensive somber busker shit -- but not much to recommend it, either. [4]

Ian Mathers: Hi, it's me! I'm the guy who didn't pay much attention to Bon Iver until something made me check out 22, A Million, and it kind of blew me away. I'm a real person, and I exist! Then "Hey, Ma" had none of that record's weird power, and I stopped paying attention again. Is this what he sounds like these days? It's pretty, and the lyrics are decently moving, but it's kind of boring. [5]

Harlan Talib Ockey: Instrumentally direct like For Emma, Forever Ago, lyrically direct in a way Justin Vernon almost never is. Perhaps not distinctively Bon Iver, but still well-crafted. [7]

Katherine St. Asaph: 2:00. That's when you realize that this surprisingly stately grown-folks folk was Bon Iver all along. [5]

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LE SSERAFIM - "CRAZY"

So confusing sometimes to be girling...

[6.15]

Mark Sinker: You wonder sometimes when time is going to get called on K-pop’s vast factory of choreographed prettiness: when the sugar-spun cornices, colonnades, spandrels and turrets on the Hansel-and-Gretel house finally fall away to reveal the same-old-same-old beneath, the ancient shrivelled industry rooted as ever in who gets to devour whom. With an anagram as a cryptic band-name and hyper-choreographed blankness as a attitude branding (of course they dimple up and giggle sometimes, but you could never call it unscripted), Le SSerafim often make fun gestures at refusal — “I wish for what’s forbidden!” in a 2023 song called "Eve, Psyche and the Bluebeard’s Wife." But as Solomon taught us, the rivers all flow into the sea, yet the sea can always swallow more. You want to refuse too! You want to follow the logic: to imagine the cyborg psychosis unleashed by the machine, the robo-gogo pleasure dancers advancing in your direction, Westworld-android style, insanely beautiful cyberpunk sex-cuties Terminator-trained and complete with in-brain targeting overlay, with crosshairs and scheming calibration figures up the side, until no one even grasps any longer who ordered what. “All the girls are girling girling all the girly girls” (first of all in a Southern accent, as “gals”, and afterwards in posh English diction). You want to read clues into the teen-goth Kraftwerk-style threat that’s kept out of the translated lines: “renew the neuron system / I broke out of the prison in my head." Revolution of the Relentless Mannequins, as they break the glass and swarm through the city. And yes, I love this amping up of the menace; I love the promise that all can be overturned and changed in a moment; in our programming is your doom — to me this is a heartening fiction. So good at what they do! What if they did… something else? Who gets to devour whom? Who gets to dethrone whom? But it’s just pop, and its tremors are painted on air. [10]

Kayla Beardslee: [A whiteboard with “Le Sserafim voguing????” written on it and nothing else.] [4]

Jessica Doyle: With Blackpink seemingly done as a group, it makes sense to try and take the trendy-dancing-model-dols slot while it's open. I just wish HYBE hadn't thrown out their previous approach to song selection when they made the pivot. Songs like "Antifragile" and "Eve, Psyche, and the Bluebeard's Wife" had verve and fun to go with the required pose-striking; "Crazy" consists solely of poses. (And this isn't about their vocal performances; a good deal of the charm of "Antifragile" lay in Eunchae's not having to sing "??? ?? like a lion ? ??? ? ??? desire ?".) We don't even get "Where the heck is Saki? / She's waiting down in the lobby." [4]

Andrew Karpan: A sort of loose fabric of a song, more a dreamscape of crossfaded bounce symbology than a statement about anything in particular (non-derogatory) [8]

Alfred Soto: The synths wander in from early '10s grime, the beats are in place, the vocals are adequate, but it doesn't stick. [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: A [10] in terms of grist for the fancam mill ("girls are girling" alone!) but unremarkable in all other regards — tips my scales for a shockingly well-executed reference to Galileo's trial. [6]

Katherine St. Asaph: The girls are girling, the funk is funking, the pace is racing. Learned from "Meet Me at the Loveparade" the power of slightly sinister synth riffs and from Lil Jon the power of dropping in a "WHAT?". [8]

Dave Moore: Love the house music 5th synths against the dah-dah-dah hook, but the whole thing is a bit stagnant. They should stick to what they do best -- arty alt rock. [5]

Anna Katrina Lockwood: The sublime and the ridiculous would coexist here peacefully, were it not for a meme being beaten to death to punctuate every eight count or thereabouts. Still, it makes more sense than most of the 4th/5th(?) generation non-sequitur clamorousness, though that is faint praise indeed. [5]

Taylor Alatorre: That the song's signature line has the reedy, metallic tone of a computer status update is appropriate, given the dependable K-pop release schedule of a new project every six months. The girls are all girling now, and they require additional supply depots. It hardly matters that the "craziest" deviation from the house-pop formula is found in the rising-pitch imitation of a mechanical overload, a fearlessly campy sci-fi take on the buildup/drop sequence. Such literalizations are welcome in a single with perhaps the most overused title in pop music; if you're gonna grab the low-hanging fruit, you might as well squeeze it for all it's worth. [7]

Jel Bugle: The beats are good, a robotic voice informs us that “all the girls are girling,” and this is a good thing! But Le Sserafim are not good as my fave K-pop Trinity – (G)I-DLE; Itzy and Asepa – and this song lacks a certain sense of dynamism and excitement. It is cold and robotic and not that crazy. [6]

Ian Mathers: I mean, it's not a great sign when the best parts of the song are the ones where the vocals feel like they're samples dropped into an EDM track and the verses kind of drag. But still, fun! [6]

Nortey Dowuona: Having a nuanced take or going "da." Going "da." [5]

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THE WEEKND - "DANCING IN THE FLAMES"

Now rank "Dancing in the Sheets"!

[5.23]

Harlan Talib Ockey: Dancing in the Dark > Dancing in the Street > Dancing in the Flames > Dancing in the Moonlight. [4]

Alfred Soto: An OK example of Abel Tesfaye's rattling electro-pop, though I get no hint from the singing and the arrangement that he has any acquaintance with flames except what he sees at the end of a lit joint. [6]

Katherine St. Asaph: Juddery synthpop that's peppy and soulless and fine. The challenge with music that evokes actual danger -- e.g., the Weeknd's offerings until "Can't Feel My Face" -- is that it requires constant, believable escalation to work; Abel fumbled those stakes sometime around Kiss Land. Music that evokes fake simulacra of danger, though, can stay the same forever and be just fine. [6]

Dave Moore: You know, the Weeknd turned into Spotify playlist wallpaper so gradually I didn't even notice. [4]

Taylor Alatorre: You have to listen a second time to recognize that Abel has just given us a bimbofied reskin of "Understanding in a Car Crash," and you have to listen a third time to recognize that no, of course he hasn't; whatever highfalutin' concept this ends up buttressing on the album, the shattered glass imagery is really only there to cover his candy apple melodies in the thinnest latex coating of Old Weeknd edge. "Love," "beautiful," "radio," "switching lanes": those are the words that stand out amid the streaks of passing tail lights and the rush of oncoming wind. They are footholds of pop familiarity, mental permission slips for the listener to kick back and let the jet-propulsion synths carry them to the next highway mile marker. Any loss of control is only nominal -- this is cruise control working as the good Ralph Nader intended. The Weeknd puts in studio hours to dutifully turn out yet another "Blinding Lights" variation, and we forgive him because the almighty driving song (much like the teenage tragedy song) is not a thing to be reasoned with, only turned off or fully locked into. Which side of the windshield are you on? [7]

Ian Mathers: He should have pivoted (pivoted back to?) full-on synthpop sooner, honestly -- this feels like his best chorus since, what, "Blinding Lights"? So many of the last [x] number of Weeknd songs and appearances have felt tedious or fraught in various ways; it's a surprising relief to hear one where I mainly just want to hum along. [7]

Hannah Jocelyn: The last line of this chorus is a meme in a Discord server I'm in (god I feel so "how do you do fellow kids" saying that, I'm 27!), but even after hearing this multiple times, when someone says "it's unremarkableeee" I still can't piece together what they're referencing. As someone who was teased for liking Coldplay in high school while other kids were getting into the Weeknd, it's incredibly funny that the two have converged: with its oohs and kitschy synths "Flames" could have fit on Moon Music. [3]

Will Adams: Close enough: welcome back CHVRCHES. [6]

Nortey Dowuona: The Weeknd is a lithe, agile vocalist who comfortably floats atop the tenor range, but the song he gave producers Max Martin and Oscar Holter needs to soar into the heady, vacant stare of the hypnotized, then fly into the focused, intense glare of the excited. They needed to cast a glowing spotlight upon his voice that doesn't expose its lack of depth or power, but also doesn't isolate it in a way that makes it clear the music accompanying is meant to be incidental. So they settled for a simple kick/snare/kick pattern and a bland bassline that lurks beneath the heavy cloud of synthesizers, which seize the bridge to make their play for attention. They do their job. Unfortunately, the lyrics The Weeknd wrote are so vapid that their careful work is completely wasted -- at least, if you are paying real attention. If you in fact heard this while crashing, my condolences: you will survive, thus hearing "Out of Time" instead when you get driven home. [3]

Mark Sinker: There’s a rhythm shape that seems to be all over the place at the moment: two measures, one of two long syllables, the second of four short syllables. Poetry nerds would calls this a “spondee” followed by a “tetrabrach,” and I’m getting technical only because I had to hunt around for “tetrabrach,” which makes me think it’s rare (or anyway used to be). This is what gives the chorus its push-push-push feel: I – CAN’T – WAIT (to-see-your) FACE – CRASH – WHEN (we’re-switching), etc. I associate it with Taylor Swift -- which may not be fair, I don’t suppose she invented it. Even more unfair, maybe, is me associating it with childishly sulky foot-stamping, but that’s what it sounds like to me. It adds a curious and not very likeable flavour to the perky beat of this already quite anxious song. [5]

Andrew Karpan: I’ve long stopped liking using iPhones, or even many of Apple’s products generally, but I remain attracted to the faint nostalgia for a time when that felt like the future. The same can be said of the Weeknd, whose latest piece of heartpounding softpop kitsch doubles as an advertisement for the iPhone 16 Pro. But that's okay, I'll still keep drinking that garbage. [7]

Jel Bugle: Coming on like a latter-day Cher, like a popstar from the algorithm. A very easy-listening modern pop tune, and I did enjoy it. We still need things that are safe and sound like now, the past and forever. [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Dazzling — the legendary showman and pop icon unveils himself, shedding layers of artifice and mystique. He is free now, untethered to the personas of the past. He is revealed anew, fresh in the light of dawn, as his final form: the most boring man alive. [3]

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SABRINA CARPENTER -"TASTE"

That's a wrap on September! But don't fear, the wait until we return in October will be short (and... sweet? This sounded better in my head)...

[7.47]

Julian Axelrod: Sabrina Carpenter must have been a pro wrestler in another life. How else did she learn how to pivot personas this quickly and effectively? After spending years clawing her way out of the Disney trenches, she's perfected a puerile pop princess pose at the unholy intersection of Madonna, Mae West and Michael Myers. Upon first listen, "Taste" checks all the newly minted boxes of a Sabrina song: sun-baked synths, big vocals in a small body, and production choices commenting on lyrics commenting on her public persona. Upon second, fifth and tenth listen, you pick up on the inside jokes you missed the first time: the height jokes, the "la la las," the tone that lands somewhere between sapphic and homicidal. Upon hundredth listen, you remember the ultimate Sabrina Carpenter signifier: Underestimate her at your own risk. [8]

Katherine St. Asaph: Carpenter releases another Haim-esque conglomeration of pop-rock hits past: Sheryl Crow (sunny clapalongs), Gwen Stefani (safe shiny tude and various vocal intonations, like on "exact"), and frenemy Olivia Rodrigo (subject matter and vibe). On her album, she has better. [6]

Alfred Soto: I can hear the money: the guitars on “Taste” twang with more color than on any pop single since Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U." This time her single entendres eschew the affectedly sultry for the self-aware gadfly. [8]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: A retconned version of "Deja Vu" — wow, that feels like a lifetime ago? — where instead of feeling pain in the boy’s propensity for repetition, you’re content with rubbing in the other girl’s face how you got there first. It pulls off a funny trick: I can marvel at the music video and metanarrative in group chats, and have the clever lyrical conceit stuck in my head, without remembering what it sounds like at all, save for the heavenly “la-la-la-la-la-la”s. It’s actually really difficult to make songs as clever as “Taste” sound so dumb and simple. [8]

Ian Mathers: It's not a problem that the video is more fun than the song, but it does increasingly feel like "Espresso" was a fluke. [6]

Nortey Dowuona: Toddstradamus called it. For once, he was right, and thank God he was. Also, Julian Bunetta with another hit. Is he a good luck charm? [8]

Mark Sinker: A strong way to understand pop music in the UK right now is via the medium of sonorous Victorian poetry about ancient classical Rome, in which the forces arrayed against all that is noble can be held off by a courageous few at the head of just one slender bridge: “In yon strait path a thousand / may well be stopped by three!” In this reading Noel (or Liam) is “Lars Porsena of Clusium” and “False Sextus” is Liam (or Noel, look it doesn’t matter, no one cares); the bridge is of course the Top of the Charts, and the “dauntless three” are Sabina’s singles since "Espresso" in April, right now clustered there, battling away. “The Great House of Tarquin should suffer wrong no more!” Let’s hope it shall, though! Or must the Republic of Pop fall? [9]

TA Inskeep: Sharp songwriting -- that lyric in the chorus is so smart, so very Heathers -- paired with just the right touch on Carpenter's vocals. I'd normally say "+2 for the superb Death Becomes Her tribute video," but the song is so good it doesn't need it. [8]

Will Adams: On Short 'n Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter comes up with a hundred ways to call her lover a fuckin' dumbass, but on "Taste", she takes aim at her ex's rebound. This time, the daggers are dipped in honey; she tells the new girl that she'll just have to taste her on his lips, but the subtext is that Sabrina kinda hopes she enjoys it. It's wonderfully bratty (NB: not brat, but bratty), and the gleaming, if slightly generic, pop-rock arrangement helps make it her punchiest single to date. [7]

Jackie Powell: “Taste” has what’s best about “Please Please Please” and “Espresso” wrapped up in one 2:37 minute song. The melody and rhythm are addictive and combine disco (thanks, Ian Kirkpatrick!), a bit of country twang and "slacker rock,” which I guess is the title given to any song that sounds chill, sunny and easy-breezy. But in classic Sabrina Carpenter fashion, what sounds relaxed and light really isn’t, and the combination of seemingly frivolous surface and deeper lyrical meaning that she has mastered is on full display. Case in point are the laughs that she recorded right after she sings the final line in the bridge, "I've been known to share." With the help of Julia Michaels -- another songwriter known for more complex lyrics -- Carpenter takes the narrative that Olivia Rodrigo played with on “Obsessed" and alters the conversation, talking directly to the other woman rather than about her. Sure, there’s been a lot of speculation about truly how fruity Carpenter is — the fact that she had women on the walls of her room growing up is a whole other story — but I leave each listen of “Taste” thinking about the mystery behind her intent. Why does she want the other woman to know how truly great she is? Is it platonic? Is it more? That confusion is what makes “Taste” as relatable as it is realistic. [8]

Jonathan Bradley: I wasn't sure before, but OK: I'm on board with the Sabrina Carpenter character. She’s a fantastically campy high femme train wreck: neurotic but assertive; condescending but kinda dumb herself; uptight, but doing her best to be flirty. As an introduction to an album and a persona, "I leave quite an impression/five feet to be exact" is an all-timer, up there with "Teenage angst has paid off well/now I'm bored and old" or "Been through the ringer a couple times/I came out callous and cruel." On "Taste," Carpenter is sunny and mean, like a great soap opera villain, and she accentuates her '70s adult-contempo arrangement with some great melodramatic touches: the Greek chorus appending "la-la-la-la-la" to the description of cunnilingus, say, or the sudden appearance of a girl gang to turn "know I was already there" into a shouted accusation. (It tries for the gleeful kitsch of Chappell Roan, but it's really bratty in an Olivia Rodrigo sense, which is delightfully unbecoming for a 25-year-old.) The theme of possession so intense it takes sensory form, as Britney Spears demonstrated on "Perfume" can be serious emotional territory, but Carpenter is happy to be frivolous with it. It's fun to be bad, and pop's Julie Cooper is ready to do her worst. [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Diminishing returns for her schtick continues — this is a sturdier song than “Please Please Please” but Carpenter’s charisma as a writer and interpreter has waned (the la-la-las behind “makes painting with his tongue” are dire.) She’s a star — there’s nothing here that doesn’t move through her — but heliocentrism does not guarantee success; hacky short jokes and come ons cannot be sustained as a model for pop excellence. [5]

Taylor Alatorre: Sabrina Carpenter has seen the Google metrics for "sabrina carpenter height," among other less Jukebox-safe search terms, and begins her album by graciously giving her audience, actual and potential, just what they want. Yet she's also adept at giving them what they don't yet know they want, in this case a weather-beaten chunk of the side of late 1980s pop-rock that even Haim are sometimes afraid to touch. Syrupy melodies and "la-la"s are carried by production that's audaciously lo-fi compared to other Main Pop Girl contenders, or indeed the rest of Short n' Sweet -- guitars that languish in late summer heat, a drum sound straight out of a sweltering practice space. Sebadoh Carpenter this is not, but the demo-like qualities lend an added sense of immediacy and closeness to a performer who knows when the time is right to make oneself seem small. Even when she steals Olivia Rodrigo's flow on the bridge, it's not out of ill will but rather the inherent comedy of copying from a song titled "deja vu." She laughs at pop music jokes in her own music -- that's called meeting the consumer where they are. [8]

Edward Okulicz: If Katy Perry is fundamentally a nasty girl who occasionally plays sweet, Sabrina Carpenter is probably a sweet vacuum who does bitch cosplay. It doesn't exactly suit her, but if the mask gives her the confidence to unleash a monster wave of pure smug contempt like this, then more power to her. Whether it's the pilfered hooks or a few groan worthy lyrics alongside the baths that hit, I welcome a pop star who isn't afraid to swing for the fences and make you like her at the risk of thinking she's desperate. Here, she's the audio equivalent of staring directly into the midday sun, in a good way. [8]

Dave Moore: This song is, annoyingly, perfect. [7]

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