The Singles Jukebox

There’s little more nontroversial than drinking and being sad…

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[7.00]

Nortey Dowuona: Christian Nodal and my little brother are the same age. Nodal released his first album in 2017, when my little brother was still in high school. And in 2021, when my brother graduated, Nodal introduced the United States at large to norteño/mariachi with “Botella Tras Botella.” Edgar Barrera, who produced it, finally gets to work with both Grupo and Nodal. He blends Nodal’s low, thin tenor, which bellows so brightly it begins to grate, with the low, thin tenor of lead singer Payo Solis, who instead sparkles, gently riding the cresting wave of Alberto Acosta’s bajo quinto, Carlos Zamora’s loping bass and Carlos Guerro’s gentle, nimble drums. When they blend together for the chorus, they’re unstoppable, but Nodal’s abortive first verse displays little of the jawdropping talent that brought him to the fore. Solis gets more time to shine, but then ably surrenders the mic to Nodal, who finally seizes his opportunity, his voice sparking to life at last, the song soaring for a brief split second, before Julian Peña Jr. ambles out from behind the congas to remind them  there are other collaborations to be done. My brother is now working in a restaurant, hopefully making better choices than Nodal is.
[7]

Mark Sinker: Checking up on young Christian since we last wrote about him I see he has somewhat dedicated his life to the topic here (and indeed the topic of the previous release we discussed) = the dumb shit you do when you’re drunk. Like dialing that former someone or getting a tattoo. Christian has many tattoos, some adorable (the moon) and some inadvisable, such as his ex’s eyes indelibly depicted on his chest: ? ? ? Meanwhile the gently undulating, pulsating, staggering beat is a testament to how good stewed-you can feel as you commit further very bad choices, in that friendly bar-room space where everything seems so very delible. 
[7]

Ian Mathers: Having looked up the English translation of the lyrics, I’m just going to pretend this is an extremely scathing, cross-genre, long after the fact response song to the Pet Shop Boys’ “You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk.”
[6]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: It can be difficult to hit the tone of crying in your beer just perfectly, almost too easy to drift into irony. But it’s that combination of pedal steel, note-perfect accordion, and the end-of-chorus resolving couplet that truly elevate this for me. I could see myself singing along late into the night, if there was enough Don Julio to accompany me.
[8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Morose, lovesick men have always sung songs like this (references to Don Julio and liking old Instagram photos aside) and I suppose they always will. At least this one has some really good accordion! 
[7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The intermittent accordion is perfect, just the right amount of sweet fluttering to provide temporary solace. Drinking your sorrows away is fine and good, but it requires a chorus like this: easy to sing along to, swinging back and forth as you get the right amount of tipsy. It captures an oscillating desire: bursting into tears and staying composed. When men are sad like this, it’s often about that balance.
[7]

no blergs » Friday, April 5th, 2024 10:18 pm

Not a Robyn cover?…

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[6.47]

Hannah Jocelyn: This is “Dancing On My Own (Ariana’s Version),” so the floor is pretty high. It’s honestly so close to being a masterpiece on the level of “Into You” but it’s undone by the Robyn-shaped elephant in the room and some truly bizarre chorus phrasing. “Pre-e-e-tend” is not that many syllables! The original isn’t perfect; the chorus has little to no impact because it’s nearly the same arrangement as the verse. And yet, this remake has its own issues: the backing vocals are so absurdly loud they overwhelm the synths and the actual lead (maybe an attempt at Dolby Atmos-style depth), and when the Aris disappear we’re just left with empty space — not negative space, empty space. You have a whole orchestra at the end, use it! The lyrics are definitely not as memorable as “DOMO”, either; that song endures for its universal sentiment as much as its melody, and this is most interesting if you’re invested in Ariana Grande’s life. She is giving it her all, particularly with a soaring bridge straight out of Ellie Goulding’s Halcyon, but between this track and its inspiration, I’m not sure this is the song I’m taking home.
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I abjured this sort of thing when Georgia brought it to me; I cannot quite resist Ari’s own offering to the same extent (it has an actual hook, at least), but it still feels slightly hackish to make this sort of song in 2024. We simply must have some better way to convey the complex cocktail of melancholy and defeated joy that accompanies remembrances of loves just slightly out of reach than doing Body Talk cosplay, right? It’s been more than a decade! There are kids starting high school this fall who were born after “Dancing on My Own” came out! Let the past die; abandon the sophistipop trappings of this stagnant cultural moment; keep the bit where you say “silence” and then the beat stops, it’s cute!
[5]

Tim de Reuse: A catchy, flattened synthpop preset that never reaches for greatness or shows any restraint trudges along with all the emotion of an industrial process. For every moment of insight there is an Ariana-ism (“At least I look this good?” Come on, how is that relevant?) that flicks us away again. Paint-by-numbers unremarkable — and yet, somewhere in the glossy chorus there is the imprint of something truly pathetic; nothing in her delivery of “wait until you like me again” implies that things are ever going to get better, and for a moment the dullness congeals into something. We get a true, insistent flash of the horror of anhedonia, the dead-behind-the-eyes dread of a lonely weekend, the sisyphean task of rewiring yourself to no longer want. I don’t know if it’s deliberate. But it’s compelling, strange, sad.
[7]

Mark Sinker: Ariana has a kind of implacable wax-figure dizziness which is probably what I do think makes for good music, even when it distresses me a bit in people. 
[8]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: A Robyn track with none of the pathos, “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” is all shallow signification. Grande’s voice is too airy to be emotive, and she delivers every line with too much consideration for phrasing. Strangely, it doesn’t seem like she even cares what she’s saying, though though. And even the beat seems vacant.
[4]

Alfred Soto: In another demonstration of her newfound fealty to mild sentiments set to milder beats, Ariana Grande scratch-coos through a closing door that she leaves open at the last second. “You cling to your paper and pens” still stands out on the twentieth play — is it this kind of weirdness that redeems her boy?
[6]

Michael Hong: The line about papers and pens is funny — strange enough to make you believe it’s specific without actually being much of anything. Not contracts and whatever the hell a real estate agent does because maybe Grande couldn’t figure out how to fit that into song or maybe, like me, she just doesn’t know. All throughout “we can’t be friends,” she hangs on this idea of herself being misunderstood: “I didn’t think you’d understand me” or “you got me misunderstood.” She craves the feeling of being understood, liked, and loved, without reciprocity in her mind. Perhaps that’s why sitting in her car right outside the club doesn’t feel like a revelation but a reminder of the vacancy that needs to be filled in. To that end, the strobe synth is a comfort, a sharp first breath away from the noise, a couple minutes of pleasure before the loneliness settles in.
[7]

Anna Suiter: Even if I had a huge crush on Elijah Wood as a teenager, I never actually watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Now I think I don’t have to.
[7]

Jackie Powell: When assessing the chart performance for both of Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine singles, Chris Molanphy astutely compared the general public’s response to Grande’s “Yes, And?” to Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do.” He explained that both singles didn’t last on the charts or in the cultural zeitgeist because they weren’t relatable to listeners. To complete the comparison, “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” has the potential of Swift’s “Delicate,” which was also produced by Max Martin and achieved incremental “narrative changing” success. The recipe is there: “we can’t be friends” is more introspective, vulnerable and polysemous than its predecessor. The track, heavily influenced by Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own,” is less catty than Grande’s last single; it reveals that she has the capacity to express and perform complex emotions. An issue I take with Grande as an artist is her struggle to lean into her performance, connect with her audience, and emote; she’s often just focused on how she sounds technically. (This is yet another reason why I believe she was miscast in Wicked.) She often struggles telling her story compellingly when she performs live. On “we can’t be friends,” however, there’s more of an effort to make the listener internalize the sadness and the longing. Her enunciation helps. When Grande performed “we can’t be friends” live for the first time on SNL, she was stiff and awkward and refused to look at the camera with open eyes — a trend during most of her live performances — until the final chorus, which seemed like a turning point for the track as SNL seemed like one for her career. Is this a preview of what’s to come this November in Oz? We’ll have to wait and see. 
[8]

Leah Isobel: Yes, Ariana, I also think “Dancing On My Own” is a great song!
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: I hope Davide Rossi has made back his money, because if I get credit for playing the violin, viola, and cello and have most of my work drowned out by Max Martin and Ilya Salmanzadeh’s limp, ED drums and only get 26 seconds of my hard arrangement to play, I’m going to be pissed. Oh, and if I hear it and it’s bad, I’m disavowing it completely.
[3]

Katherine St. Asaph: Everyone thinks this sounds like “Dancing on My Own.” They are wrong. What this sounds like is a “Hang With Me” chimera: the synths of Robyn’s track with the uncathartic energy of Paola Bruna‘s original. For this reason, and others that don’t need elaborating here, I can’t remember the last time I was so disappointed by a song.
[5]

Ian Mathers: I mean, genuine kudos to Grande for making a kind of passive aggressive breakup song with the press (and/or stans?) so genuinely affecting. I hope those crazy kids can make it work.
[7]

Taylor Alatorre: On paper, an anthem about a “break-up with the media” seems too-cute-by-half, a way of trying to hijack our neural pathways in order to smuggle in sympathy for one of the most inherently unapproachable pop star problems. But if “we can’t be friends” is nothing other than an attempt at manipulation, of getting the listener on Ariana’s side, it isn’t any more underhanded than all the little manipulations we use on each other on a daily basis. In fact, it’s surprisingly candid. There’s some diagetic honesty in her trying to critic-proof her message by attaching it to a more blatantly Robyn-derived template than anything Carly Rae’s ever put out, a move that expresses deference more than defiance. And the telegraphed moment of silence, though I laughed the first time I heard it, is a nice way of actualizing the meditative, acceptance-focused vibe while also, through the piped-in urban ambience, hinting at the unsettled feelings that still lie beneath. The grandiose strings of the finale, which in other contexts might ring false, are here used to show just how seriously Ariana takes all of this — a head-held-high defense of her own confessions of dependence and neediness. There will always be room for songs that admit we actually do care what the haters think of us.
[8]

Isabel Cole: Ariana at her most ethereal and Max at his most shimmering and sparkly make this aggressively me-bait, and that’s before the Robyn-reminiscent closer in which the synths fade to let the strings swell send us out. The track is just stupidly gorgeous, a lush soundscape made up of parts meticulously arranged exactly as they should be, each piece necessary, none of it overplayed. Ariana delivers her lines with almost no affect at all, steadfastly refusing to differentiate the lines in tone or intensity, which would normally be a deficit but in this case allows her voice to simply take its rightful place as one of many lovely noises making something wonderful; I like that her high note in the bridge is a little weak, a pleasant jolt of humanness in the midst of this impeccable construction. The lyrics are irrelevant, both because she could not sound less invested in them (compliment) and because every time that warm bass kicks in the language centers of my brain shut down to better appreciate details like that first descending synth line that kicks in partway through the first verse or the twinkling effect in the bridge; having looked them up, I have to say there are worse strategies for dealing with the haters than offering them the aural equivalent of a warm bath dotted with rose petals.
[9]

no blergs » Friday, April 5th, 2024 8:54 pm

We’ll need to frame this one…

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[7.44]

Alfred Soto: Ari Lennox and Victoria Monét have recorded similarly tasteful conceits in recent months, and if “ART” sounds as if Tyla hasn’t thought out her conceit — she’s a work of art painted by her lover, or is she painted on by a lover, and either way, is that cool? — she sounds as convincing. The rattling percussion creates a mild erotic simmer that warms up come-ons like “fresh out the gallery/can you handle me?”
[8]

Kat Stevens: Is Tyla exploring art as an emotional outlet, a conduit for shared meaning in our humanity? The evidence for that is lacking here, while the clinical, understated tones of the Cassie-does-amapiano backing point towards formalism and modernism over expressionism or romanticism. Yet Tyla does not push the boundaries of a constrained medium, nor does she delve deep into the layers of societal collapse that surrounds us. Instead, the lyrics lean into audience-focused consumption: Tyla is merely art to be displayed, a pretty Rococo portrait to impress the neighbours. Reclaiming capitalist objectification might be the ultimate goal of 21st century art but it leaves an unsatsifying aftertaste to this feminist. Luckily for Tyla, Aristotolian mimetics tells us that true art is about making populist bangers, and “ART” does indeed bang.
[6]

Mark Sinker: A joke I like from old TV sketches is when the gorgeous model eagerly skips across the room to look at the canvas and discovers the painter is some rigorous modernist and it’s all yellow and black zigzags or whatever. De Stijl me like one of your Dutch girls. Tyla is very caught up in her notion here, and this song does not skip across the room. It sounds beguiling enough, but it discovers nothing.
[6]

Katherine St. Asaph: One Cool Trick to Troll the Artists in Your Life!
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: Tyla has such an arresting soprano that whatever kind of loose, wispy chords and heavy bass log drums you place before her, she can ride them, gently sculpting them to her use. Sammy SoSo, architect of “Water” (and “Me Pongo Loca” by Kali Uchis, “See Me Now” by Nasty C, “Playing Chess” by J Hus, and “Bare With Me” by Ms Banks — maybe a remix with her of this pls) leads the background vocals over light, airy synths but leaves them in the distance. Tyla leans on them for support, making her a stronger presence. Tyla you will always be loved but not famous cuz that is dangerousss.
[10]

Ian Mathers: In retrospect I gave “Water” something I’ll call “the gentleman’s [8],” here meaning “if I’d first heard the song maybe a week earlier it would have been a [10], easy.” “ART” only confirms that hindsight, because this is a very solid [8] and I feel a bit silly giving both songs the same score. Such is the agony and the ecstasy of the Singles Jukebox.
[8]

TA Inskeep: A fresh-sounding blend of amapiano and smooth R&B that’s subtly hip-shaking but also pretty damned sexy (though not as much so as “Water,” which I wish I’d blurbed, an easy [9] for me). Pray that Tyla sticks with this groove and doesn’t get sucked into the UK dance music machine, because this is where she belongs.
[7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Doesn’t go down as easy as “Water,” largely because the lyrics and delivery are clunky. But there’s an appeal to that, how in Tyla’s desire to entice, she sounds most at ease when going back to basics: “I’ll be your A-R-T” is, yes, an evocative message as simple as A-B-C.
[8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: An interesting exercise in expectations: if I encountered this in the wider world, shorn from the context of being a single off of an immensely hyped-up album from an artist who made one of this site’s favorite songs of last year, would I still love it? Part of me wants to say no – the things that truly endear “ART” to me, like the way Tyla’s voice intersects with the backing vocals or the soothing hum of the organ as it mixes in with the kick drum, are features that only reveal themselves with slightly closer inspection. But “ART” has enough in the way of immediate appeal to draw you in even if you’ve never heard “Water,” the depth of Tyla’s hooks pulling at me from even a moment’s listen.
[8]

no blergs » Friday, April 5th, 2024 7:31 pm

There is not actually a World Cup this year, but why let that interfere with putting out World Cup songs?

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[6.00]

TA Inskeep: A big-ass 2006 German World Cup anthem featuring Amadou & Mariam gets spun on its head to create a big-ass 2024 stadium hip-hop record, equally suitable for football matches. The key here is that producer Ericson keeps the drama in, with that giant chanted chorus, and pumps up the drums; I can’t imagine this won’t be playing across Europe all year. Works much better than it should.
[7]

Katherine St. Asaph: An interstitial-ready composition of crowd chants, synth daggers, sampled football lore, and DRAMATIC TENSION STRINGS that is ruthlessly manipulative yet not nearly huge enough to actually manipulate. Listening to an arena jock jam in isolation will obviously never feel as exciting as being at the arena, but it should at least feel as exciting as watching a pirated stream. (NOTE TO COPS: I have no idea what that feels like.)
[5]

Taylor Alatorre: Ill-fitting mash-ups of disparate dance genres, mindless rehashes of former World Cup glories, routinized rebel yells set to a faux-apocalyptic sound font, Americentric trend-hopping that resembles nothing that would ever come out of America: this is what the makers of “Planet of the Bass” should have taken aim at. Fun fact: though it’s hard to find confirmation of this in English, according to the German-language Wikipedia, RedOne (remember RedOne?) had a part in both writing and producing the original song being tormented here. Not that I’m a believer in inherited guilt or anything.
[2]

Isabel Cole: My first thought, once the beat kicked in, was, “haha what the fuck this rules,” and you know what? I stand by it.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: (Jason Bateman voice) I don’t know what I expected.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Rather too brief to impress itself, “Zeit, Dass Sich Was Dreht” uses the staccato strings of late ’90s Dre and the tics of Travis Scott to — what exactly? Often when I don’t speak the language I let the track explain itself rather than consult translations.
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Look I’m sure this is causing all sorts of discourse on German music Twitter or wherever they do inter-generational internet fights, but shorn of context, this just sounds sick as hell, like a Travis Scott song without the burden of context and ego. What’s left behind are a gargantuan hook that leaves me feeling like I could avenge 7-1, and raps from $OHO BANI that are just competent enough that they don’t distract from the upswell of energy powering this track.
[7]

Ian Mathers: One of the quintessential TSJ experiences for me is not knowing what the heck is going on in a delightful way. Often, I then try to figure out what the heck is going on in order to write the blurb. But sometimes you just enjoy the chanting Germans.
[7]

no blergs » Thursday, April 4th, 2024 8:00 pm

We like this era a bit better…

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[6.00]

Harlan Talib Ockey: In 2014, St. Vincent released a self-titled album, saying “the hardest thing for a musician to do is sound like yourself.” In 2017, she decided that was too hard and pivoted to glossy, scripted “pop-level intention.” (For the record, I still liked it.) In 2021, another pivot to ‘70s cosplay. (Not a fan.) Now, after ten years, she finally returns to something that sounds like an evolution of the St. Vincent concept. “Broken Man” is the primal, slow-burning, ‘90s-industrial brother of “Bring Me Your Loves” and “Birth in Reverse”. The bass is a half-dead cement mixer. The guitars are a cannon blast. The drums are pedestrian enough to have not required a celebrity guest, honestly. With “Broken Man” posing like St. Vincent’s last two albums never happened, you could argue that this is a strange and disappointing step back. And in some ways, it is; the idea that an artist might be disowning their own progress is upsetting, and I would feel a little better knowing there were signs of Masseduction elsewhere on the album. For now, however, I’m choosing to say “neat, I loved St. Vincent (2014), this seems pretty cool.” 
[7]

Katherine St. Asaph: An exhibition of sudden swerves: the thrilling swerve when the guitars come in to shatter the skeletal restraint, something you knew was coming but not that sudden or that big; and the slight letdown of a swerve when the song turns out to not be Annie Clark indulging her inner Trent Reznor, but Annie Clark indulging her inner Mac Aladdin.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Annie’s Clark restlessness is a strength regardless of the consequences. “Who do you think I am?” she asks wearily over skronked-up guitars, as if tired of reminding us. The rest of “Broken Man” uses Clark’s impatient jabbing warble as a series of provocations. It could move faster.
[7]

Leah Isobel: I don’t get it.
[5]

Hannah Jocelyn: For the last decade, if I’ve wanted to listen to St. Vincent, I’ve just listened to Torres imbuing Annie Clark’s fuzziness with extravagant theater kid energy (the highest compliment I can give). But Torres’ album this year was a surprising disappointment, so St. Vincent wins this round with a “Dance Yrself Clean”-sized volume jump and a crunchy, restless arrangement. Not to put two genderless guitar gods against each other, of course!  
[7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: At this point I’m getting nostalgic for St. Vincent albums I didn’t even like – the Goats Head Soup worship of the last record did not inspire joy in me but at least it was an ethos of some kind (and I’ll stand by “Down” as some of the finest electric sitar playing by a white person in the 21st century.) This is just rote alt rock fodder, a vague sketch of industrial textures without any hook or distinguishing characteristic other than the loudness of Dave Grohl’s fills.  
[3]

Nortey Dowuona: The drum breaks from Dave Grohl, Cian Riordan and Mark Gulliana take place in three places; the first drum fill, the second bridge programming, the outro groove. The final one swallows the first threadbare drum programming, largely unable to hold the weight of St. Vincent’s thin topline, bulky guitar and thinned-out synthesizers. The melody is novel, floating atop the simple synth riff and becoming foggy and weepy at the bridge. Then the sudden avalanche of sound in the outro groove kicks the song into gear, enlivening a tense arrangement and adding muscle to the thin synth riff that remains looping at the center. The sudden ending leaves you broken in half, staring at the concrete and not knowing whether to crawl or crumple.
[5]

Taylor Alatorre: The abrupt transition from abattoir atmospherics to an unchained “Get the Led Out” session brings to mind, of all things, the famously ambiguous ending of Taxi Driver. Did Travis Bickle really achieve a heroic redemption through the full flowering of his violent masculine instincts, or was it all a dying dream; and what lessons is the viewer meant to draw from either one? Whether Clark intended it this way, the heavy-blues riffage is bound to come off as triumphal after so much austere bleakness, and unfortunately it’s a bland sort of triumph that doesn’t feel fully earned, narratively or musically. It might have been a better illustration of the song‘s themes to reverse the sequence of the two main sections, so that the brokenness became more instead of less apparent over time. Would make for less of a concert crowd-pleaser, though.
[5]

Isabel Cole: St. Vincent channels both Karen O’s snarling, twisting yowl and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ glitter-grime ambience to craft something tight and tense, fun with an edge of darkness that keeps building as if the song is straining against itself until it explodes. Listening to this feels like watching someone strut down a runway built in a junkyard, rhinestones glinting off her dirty fingernails until she lights a match and sets fire to the stage.
[8]

Ian Mathers: I truly don’t know whether it’s her or me, but I used to hear a new St. Vincent single or album and feel the shock of the new, or at least of a distinctive voice. This is fine, and the guitar playing is certainly still bracing, but it just feels so much less… distinct. I don’t want something that sounds like “Cruel” or “Digital Witness” or “Actor Out of Work,” but I do want something that makes me feel the way all of those did.
[5]

1 blerg » Thursday, April 4th, 2024 5:35 pm

A sample that’s no stranger to you and me…

[Video]
[5.18]

Taylor Alatorre: “Even though the song does draw a fair bit from Phil Collins’s 1981 song, the tempo is much faster.”[1]
[1]

Ian Mathers: As is often the case with modern pop country, “I Can Feel It” evokes a rural area; here, it’s the Uncanny Valley.
[2]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: So dumb! I respect it more for not being coy about using its big sample – Kane Brown and Dann Huff (who actually played on hits from Phil Collins’ contemporaries, wtf) hit that big drum fill button over and over again, especially during the second half of “I Can Feel It.” Worst part is that it works every time – this is a meta-level arena jam, a crass play that goes beyond the normal nostalgia-worship of so much of the contemporary pop landscape (secularly, across nearly all subgenres in 2024) by virtue of sheer shamelessness.
[6]

Isabel Cole: Nothing we haven’t heard before, more literally than usual, and obviously it’s dumb, but sometimes you don’t want smart, you know? It hits all its marks cleanly, and I like the weirdly roiling, tempestuous drama the track brings to a lightweight song about a drunken hookup (possibly why the hilariously incongruous video contains neither whiskey nor dancing — just a mechanic with a past and a dream).
[7]

Katherine St. Asaph: The annoying hackwork here isn’t the Phil Collins sample. It’s that songwriting affectation, rampant in modern country, of awkwardly wording things that are phrases — in this case “this is turning into a we-should-probably-get-up-out-of-here.” (Why does this exist? Is there a thinkpiece?) The Phil Collins sample is, in fact, what makes this not suck.
[7]

Mark Sinker: Time for every single song ever released to get its talking-point kinda-cover version. Time for “Weird” Al to become a worm-man god-emperor and rule over the charts for 3,500 years. A Million Golden Hits on the Golden Path. 
[5]

Alfred Soto: Kane Brown shows the apparently infinite ways in which “In the Air Tonight” adapts itself to whatever sized foot you stick into it: instead of a cheatin’ anthem, “I Can Feel It” focuses on the nervousness of would-be lovers courtin’ on the dance floor. Almost everything works except for the guitar solo, an example of premature ejaculation.
[7]

TA Inskeep: Theoretically this fusion of banjo, big-ass drums, and an interpolation of Phil Collins’ most iconic song should be a lot of fun — and Brown’s winking voice would seem to be the right fit for it. But it all feels awfully forced, especially when Brown actually sings that he “can feel it coming in the air tonight” in the bridge. It’s too obvious by half, not remotely country save for that banjo (which would be fine except that it’s being billed as, y’know, country), and even though it’s a clever idea, never fully gels. 
[4]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: I’m tired of interpolations that aren’t interested in engaging with their source. It’s just so blandly tactical to put on the trappings of a hit to ensure the boring ditty that you’ve done ten ways to Sunday gets airplay. 
[3]

Hannah Jocelyn: Everyone misses the kicks between the toms when they do “In the Air Tonight”! That’s what makes it distinctive! “One Mississippi” was legitimately incredible (would have been a [10] from me) and a massive step up, this is trying to be some kind of epic tough country song but that clashes with the uninspired, lovelorn lyrics. By the way, Kane, you’re no mister Kingston.
[5]

Nortey Dowuona: Gabe Foust, songwriter/producer for “Trailer Park Barbie” and “Bake It,” lets Aaron Sterling handle the drums, and man, does he handle them. His take on Phil Collins’s iconic fill kicks the song in the ass and brings it swimming up to Kane’s deep baritone, buoying it as the second verse begins, keeping the song steady as Rob McNelley’s seething solo dives below the chorus and surfaces on the bridge. The song relies less on the kick of “here’s the Phil Collins drum fill, please clap” and more on “here’s Kane Brown using one of the best baritones in popular music; leave with him and go steal that money.” And Brown is in fine form; his quick trot then strolling delivery of the first verse snatches you up and leads so smoothly into the chorus that you are swept away, your hair flying in the wind, your eyes full of the moon before you can blink. The bass, played by Mark Hill (yes, that Mark Hill !!!?) comfortably purrs below, interlocking with the kick. It pushes Brown into picking up the pace at first, then smoothing out and sliding during the chorus. He delivers spurts of melisma briefly but remains in control of his voice despite the rising waves of the mix. It drifts away into the sky, but you’re on a string, lazily drifting behind it.
[10]

no blergs » Thursday, April 4th, 2024 4:27 am

JUKEBOX TRIVIA TIME: Despite her decades of songwriting, prior to today Priscilla Renea’s only mentions on the Jukebox were in reviews for Sabrina Carpenter, Shontelle, and Akon…

[Video]
[6.55]

Nortey Dowuona: Priscilla Renea had two solo records in 2009 and 2018, both good, but they sank into the ocean. In between, she wrote “California King Bed,” “Who Says,” “I’m a Diamond,” “Worth It,” “Bottom of the Bottle,” and “Love So Soft.” Then out of nowhere, a simple little ditty called “Hrs and Hrs” turned Priscilla Renea into Muni Long, 2000s R&B lifer. Priscilla seized her chance, dropping an EP and album both called Public Displays of Affection — neither of which you have heard or have heard described to you until now. “Made for Me” is a neat, well-made version of what Renea was writing for Tamar Braxton, Monica, Mary J. Blige, K Michelle, Fantasia and Ariana Grande, and it wouldn’t have been as good if they sang it. Her voice, wispy and light yet sharp and tight, navigates smooth little runs that allow her to slip out little phrases and simple words and imbue them with weight, where someone like Grande or Michelle would oversell or crumble. “Twin…where have you been” is such a potent, aching plea in her voice that it started another massive trend, led by this absolute icon and culminating in this little gem and this excellent performance. Muni Long is made for this moment. I hope her next album is made to be remembered.
[10]

TA Inskeep: An elegant, piano-led R&B ballad reminiscent of Toni Braxton’s Imperial Phase work with Babyface, this is incredibly lovely.
[8]

Alfred Soto: I can hear Keyshia Cole singing this sturdy ballad about a dozen years ago. 
[6]

Jeffrey Brister: I have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve heard this kind of soft-lit, radio-ready-for-2000 R&B. It’s a really nice replica of a form I don’t really hear much anymore, but nothing about it is particularly distinctive, no twists or winks or nods to modern production beyond a rolling kick in the chorus. There’s a bit more polish on the metal, but it’s the same shape as always.
[5]

Katherine St. Asaph: Priscilla Renea’s breakthrough arrives, by… changing her name and making a Babyface homage with few concessions to modern R&B? Given the industry’s bifurcation of years-past debut artists into either successful or failed-to-launch brands, creating a new identity makes unfortunate mercenary sense. (The “Muni Long” moniker is, according to Renea, the “protector of Priscilla.” My grand theory on this — which, to be clear, is 100% absolutely not true — is that the quote isn’t in fact Vogue-feature woo, and instead she’s just a Dark Souls stan.) As for the latter: Like Jack Antonoff (and unlike, say, Bonnie McKee or Ester Dean), Renea was chameleonic as a songwriter — compare any given three tracks, say Train’s “Drink Up,” Selena Gomez’s “Who Says,” and Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It” — and comfortable adapting to any genre that solicited pop songs. (And she knows it.) That’s perhaps why she can merge so well into this vintage-Monica guise. Just, uh, assume that when she says “twin” she means “twin flame.”
[7]

Ian Mathers: That piano sound is Adult Contemporary enough it sounds like it drives a sensible sedan, and I mean that as a compliment. As a twin myself, I continue to be quietly freaked out whenever the word is evoked in a romantic context, but other than that this is nice, especially when she gets impassioned on the chorus.
[6]

Taylor Alatorre: There’s a lot of work that goes into constructing a memorable hook consisting of a single word, and unlike Muni Long I’m not a songwriter by trade so I can’t tell you exactly how it’s done. But in architectural terms, it seems to be comparable to the laying of a cornerstone, in the modern ceremonial sense rather than in the older, Biblical one. The rest of the building has to come first, and only then can the stone be slotted into its designated place of prominence. Muni enunciates the word “twin” like a child pointing at an object that she’s just learned a new word for, and the quiet simplicity of this moment, brimming with a well-earned sense of sureness, seems to embody all of the song’s desires and inspirations within itself. 
[8]

Isabel Cole: A competently executed heartbreak jam about being unable to let go, maybe the first Big On TikTok song I’ve encountered where I get the appeal. “Body to body / skin to skin” is a nice interjection of remembered intimacy in the plaintive wail of the chorus.
[6]

Oliver Maier: Sweet but not remotely moving. Nothing here sounds bad, but it’s painfully anonymous.
[3]

Dave Moore: I keep forgetting that Muni Long was once Priscilla Renea, one of my favorite under-the-radar singer-songwriters from the late ’00s (Jukebox is a stone cold classic), in part because I don’t usually hear her ear for a killer hook in her more recent R&B material. But this song, which sounded unremarkable when I heard it in its original flavor, turns out to be fantastic remixed into amapiano and Atlanta bass, so clearly it has good bones.
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: By the time we get to the final chorus, “Made for Me” crosses over from dutiful but indistinct Babyface-core to something greater – an act of pastiche so complete and artfully struck that it acquires a majesty of its own in the act of copying a lost golden age. 
[7]

1 blerg » Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024 8:43 pm

Catch an idol by the toe…

[Video]
[6.56]

Kayla Beardslee: Chung Ha knows how to sell glitzy seriousness, but a goofy hook that unironically uses the phrase “eenie meenie” isn’t really her forte, and the YG party chorus at the end doesn’t do anything to redeem it. The pre-chorus is the best part because it briefly allows her voice to soar instead of holding back. If only there was another more show-stopping, dynamic track that could have taken “Eenie Meenie”‘s place… imagine an explosive dance-pop number with a blistering vocal performance and voguing and waacking galore… if only such a thing exis-why was “I’m Ready” not the single???
[4]

Isabel Cole: As a concept, “sexie eenie meenie miney moe,” played absolutely straight, sounds like a chapter from Jenna Maroney’s music career on 30 Rock (perhaps a Woggles collab?), but somehow I actually kind of love this? That bass line hooks me at the start, and every time I start to worry the song’s not going to live up to it something different starts happening. Despite taking the silly hook dead seriously, to my mostly monolingual ears, Chung Ha sounds like she’s having so much fun it’s infectious, spreading to both the featured rap and to me; when I put it on while washing dishes last night, I found myself dancing along unconsciously, hands covered in suds.
[8]

Ian Mathers: Yes, pop music has a rich history of repurposing nursery rhymes and the like but I have a rich personal history of not living it when it happens. I do like that bass sound though — sumptuous!
[6]

Taylor Alatorre: I enjoy the way that this starts off sounding like a mid-2000s Pharrell beat given an exfoliating spa treatment, and ends up sounding like a mid-2000s Pharrell beat that someone pushed down the Odessa Steps.
[7]

Katherine St. Asaph: Bratz: Genie Magic type beat.
[6]

Danilo Bortoli: It’s 2024, and the horrors of the world have almost obliterated my ability to grasp pop and my sensitivity to it. Maybe it’s for the best. Which brings me to say that I see “Eenie Meenie” as an act of extreme competence. A neatly packaged deal made from the finest sound engineering – the best and most obvious picks at hand combined and arranged to form a pretty pricey toy. I’m not complaining. Quite the opposite: I’m just a happy cynic.
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: you can rap that fast wtf is this man a sorcerer or a missing member of freestyle fellowship wtf wtf wtf also how are people calling themselves billen ted involved in this and why is this so good
[10]

Mark Sinker: The burden of the lyric is so much about not caring to connect — you the audience and you the love interest just so many randoms to her — and the chorus is so divinely glidingly self-involved and then all the mounting quirks and squirks to the building weave of the backing, and the build too of the voices behind her many voices, likely a perfectly blank porcelain-eggshell-candy palace of serene diffidence, all so much that I can’t even locate what comes after the modal verb, because look, she’s just looking the other way anyway…
[7]

Will Adams: Fourteen years later is enough time for the following theory to be confirmed: you cannot base a pop song on the nursery rhyme “eenie meenie miney moe” that isn’t laughably silly.
[4]

no blergs » Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024 6:30 pm

“Andrew! Andrew! Andrew! You’re gonna love meeeeeeeeee…”

[Video]
[6.36]

Jeffrey Brister: Platt’s an incredibly talented vocalist, there’s no doubt there, and a good performance can do a lot to elevate average material — like, say, a pleasant but unremarkable folky song about being sad and gay. His delicate falsetto dancing over top of the guitar, how the chorus blooms with yearning in a name, staying away from theatre kid pyrotechnics — it’s a laundry list of good choices, and I’m just bowled over by its simple and straightforward beauty and earnestness.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Depending on my diet that day I can embrace this unmitigated schmaltz or vomit at the sight of it. Neither the falsetto nor the lyrics have heard of subtlety. I am past the age when unrequited lust wears the drag of lachrymosity, but I hope I’m not callous enough to understand when young adults need it.
[6]

Hannah Jocelyn: A friend and I made a list of songs about unrequited queer love, specifically when it comes to incompatible orientations. This is Ben Platt’s entry in the canon, and it’s the best song I’ve heard from him, the first that doesn’t sound like rejected tracks from either Dear Evan Hansen or Blue Neighborhood — it starts off very Simon & Garfunkel, but the more ambient Sufjan Stevens territory on the chorus fits him shockingly well. One problem: the Melodyne detracts from how sincere and pure the writing is (isn’t Dave Cobb known for his authenticity?), to the point where Platt sings “if I can’t get closer then I am destroyed” and sounds like a Dalek. Normally that would be a dealbreaker, and maybe I would dismiss this if I hadn’t, in fact, had an Andrew or five. Cobb’s production is gentle and tender enough that I can just lie back and think of all the pretty girls.
[7]

Isabel Cole: I do appreciate the concept of this aching little ditty about the specific wrenching futility of crushing on a straight guy, and the idea of “wasting heartbreak” on someone who would never even be able to grant you the dignity of being rejected for your actual self is poignant. I can imagine the teen for whom this hits at exactly the right time, and that’s not nothing. But the first-love adolescent yearning of the lyrics fits oddly with the meandering melody and the folky arrangement (it’s giving Harry Styles Presents VH1’s I Love The 60s), and Platt… listen, whatever you think of  Dear Evan Hansen, no one’s ever denied that the guy can sing. Here, it’s hard to shake the sense that he’s deliberately trying to differentiate his solo work from his Broadway past by avoiding sounding too musical theater, choosing instead to flatten his clear, resonant tone into a dull, nasal drone that feels like he’s playing Barefoot Guy With Guitar in a mockumentary about hippies. It doesn’t really work — his falsetto sounds grating, and like a lot of stage singers trying to branch out, there’s a certain mannered quality he can’t quite shake — and the few more vibrant lines towards the end make me wish I could hear a version of this aiming for the cheap seats.
[4]

Ian Mathers: As someone who has disliked Ben Platt in everything I’ve seen or heard him in, I was absolutely prepared to reject this song from its Cat Stevens-ass opening, but then I kept listening and… I don’t know, I keep thinking about that classic tumblr post that ends with “I am cringe, but I am free.” I listened a few more times and… it’s kind of lovely? Something about it reminds me of Gordon Lightfoot? I remember how much songs that seemed to speak to my particular romantic torments meant to me as a teen and I can absolutely imagine the kid who is going to play this on a loop like I did Sloan’s “Deeper Than Beauty” or whatever? Don’t make me regret this, Platt.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: The frustrating parts of this song have nothing to do with Ben Platt’s voice. Whatever his faults in Dear Evan Hansen, Ben has a mellifluous tenor that comfortably floats in the higher parts of his range, allowing certain lines that feel clunky (“what a time-wastin’, sweet happiness-takin’, self-esteem, mess-making, heart-breakin’ shame”) to float past so pleasantly that when your own voice begins to sing them, they jumble together in your throat until they all flow out with the delivery of “Andrew.” Producer Dave Cobb’s helium guitar chords are also not the problem — they lift Platt’s voice and remain so close to it that when they lean back and let him take center stage, they allow Platt to send his melody up and catch it comfortably. The frustrating thing is the drums; they are so thin and yet so rigid that when they enter, the song loses the butterfly subtlety it needed to soar. Derrek Phillips, who has played with Vanessa Williams and Rahsaan Barber, somehow had to anchor the song in a way that would give it heft and keep its light, breezy charm, but instead he reinforces the dull structure of a second-verse drum groove, and all the hard work done by Platt and Alex Hope is squandered. A bolder choice by Platt or Cobb would’ve been to lean into the acoustic guitar arrangement by adding the bass and keyboards, and maybe the percussion (also done by Phillips) would act as the anchoring factor. Instead, the rigid structure kills probably the second-best thing Ben Platt has done.
[7]

Jackie Powell: Ben Platt has had difficulty translating his vocal talents from film soundtrack music (the Pitch Perfect trilogy) and show tunes (The Book of Mormon and Dear Evan Hansen) into pop music. On songs like “Grow as We Go” and “Rain,” he sounded like slightly more adult versions of the characters he played. He’s leaned into motivational songs without any sort of foundation. “Andrew” works better than his previous pop offerings because of the story he paints of falling for a straight (or maybe not) friend who has led him on. A lot of these stories are coming out of the woodwork as of late with tracks such as Reneé Rapp’s “Pretty Girls” and Fletcher’s “Two Things Can Be True.”  These stories need to be told and provide a certain type of respite for queer people who too have felt a similar level of pain. Platt calls the situation a “cruel joke” and self-deprecates in a witty but incredibly depressing bridge. He’s not questioning whether falling for “Andrew” wastes his time but rather declares the infatuation as a time vampire that robs more than it gives. What’s less than desired, however, is the Simon & Garfunkel cosplay he attempts in the verses. The Auto-Tune that helps layer his vocals isn’t needed. The folksiness in “Andrew” is a step in the right direction for Platt in his journey to translating better into pop. I just wish he could have paid homage to Simon & Garfunkel in a way that didn’t come across as just another Broadway character he’s playing. 
[7]

Taylor Alatorre: I feel the exact same way listening to this as I do when reading the Urban Dictionary definition of any relatively common male first name.
[3]

Katherine St. Asaph: What is it about guys named Andrew that inspires plaintive folk songs? Having no longings for any Andrews, I can only connect to these songs through my nostalgia, and thus Platt’s is my favorite because it navigates those channels best — which is to say it sounds exactly like Simon & Garfunkel.
[6]

Mark Sinker: Not sure I remember a song where the jump from chest voice to head voice for the high notes feels so extremely foregrounded as a DECISION NOW BEING TAKEN. AND IT’S DONE! I can imagine arrangement where this works with the content: except here’s it’s like literally everything else about the song is funneling your attention to this choice instead, and I don’t think it’s what I’m meant to be thinking about? You have a nice voice mate, sorry your crush didn’t work out, that sucks. 
[5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Every time I’ve tried to write this blurb it’s come out too ironic — couching my appreciation for it in my disbelief that Dear himself could make such a perfect rendering of the version of Sufjan Stevens’ music that exists only in the minds of 2014 Tumblr users, things of that nature. But let me meet sincerity with sincerity and say that “Andrew” wrecks my shit completely every time I listen to it, every achingly beautiful guitar arpeggio and breathy note from Platt activating all of my sentimental impulses. Most of all I admire the commitment here — there’s never a moment of performance from Platt or his producers that shies away from the full teenage gay melodrama of the lyrics. Weaker souls would have tried to subvert the maudlin stuff here. I’m glad they didn’t.
[9]

no blergs » Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024 8:00 am

Shakira makes comments about Barbie, we make comments about Shakira… Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie you have 24 hours to release a statement about us to complete the circle…

[Video]
[5.62]

Harlan Talib Ockey: “Puntería” is a no-thoughts-head-empty ode to sex. Without context, it’s fun, but it’s hard to forget that it just doesn’t have anything like the righteous fury of “Bzrp Music Sessions” or the caustic groove of “Te Felicito.” Cardi puts in an MVP performance, breezily singing a third of the song herself, and it’s ultimately their chemistry that makes this worth it.
[5]

Claire Biddles: This only really livens up when Shakira and Cardi sound like they’re in the same room — I’d love to hear a song where they’re riffing off each other the whole way through.
[5]

Leah Isobel: Something about this brings out my cynicism. None of it is bad, and some of it is quite good — Shakira singing about her G-spot, for instance. I like the trancey “Realiti” synth in the chorus, too. But mostly when I hear this I hear an attempt to recreate “Kiss Me More,” and I’m a little Kiss Me Bored.
[5]

Dave Moore: It didn’t seem like rocket science to just give Shakira more of the sound she perfected on her Bzrp Music Session (check), then make a mini-album out of it (check) and tack on all the great stuff she put out in the last year or so to fill out the runtime (check). But I would not have guessed the secret weapon on this particular song would be Cardi B taking to the proceedings so naturally that you start to lose track of who’s singing when they start passing melody lines back and forth in the second half. So now I also want Cardi B to make a Shakira album.
[8]

Will Adams: Neither disappointing nor surprising that Shaki would follow up an international smash with a redux that sands off its predecessor’s edges for the palatable lite-disco of “Say So” or “Lottery” or “Kiss Me More” or (or or or or). The real crime is for a duo of performers as vibrant and charismatic as Shakira and Cardi to sound this boring.
[4]

Isabel Cole: Two stars known for more dramatic modes turn up the sweetness for a frothy little bauble, like the aural equivalent of girls’ night. No one sounds like they’re working very hard, in a good way; they’re having fun, and so am I!
[7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: “Say So”ification comes for even our most charismatic pop stars — lite retro production, indistinctly horny sentiments, a vague malaise creeping up even as the beat loops jauntily. It’s not bad per se — I will hear this at parties for the next six months and bop my head along without a second of regret tied directly to the song — but I can’t help but feel like there ought to be something more; I’d rather have an ambitious failure of a crossover track (remember the Shakira-Rihanna Ska Explosion?) than a distinctly unmemorable set of pleasantries.
[6]

TA Inskeep: A mildly sexy empty-calories jam that I can’t remember I heard five minutes later.
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: David Stewart, who is possibly a millionaire from producing a BTS song you don’t know (unless you are hardcore ARMY or a person who listens to a radio station) has now created another song for Shakira you won’t remember after this year (unless you are a hardcore Cardi B fan or a person who listens to a radio station). Will this one make him a billionaire? Find out on: BIG, MEGA, FORGETTABLE, RADIO SMASHER. Hosted by Cardi B.
[4]

Ian Mathers: Cardi B singing in Spanish is surprisingly close to Shakira here, when she just takes a chorus near the end if I hadn’t been watching the video I might not have noticed the switch until she mentions her own name. Which is not a criticism! I wish I could fit in on a Shakira song, especially a decent one like this, so neatly. 
[7]

Alfred Soto: I hear voices like theirs at checkout lines and on FaceTime chats: two distinctly Hispanic lilts crashing against each other like sea spray against rock. Listening to each other is besides the point. “Puntería” reminds me of those exchanges. Pure idiomatic expression for expression’s sake, it puts an arm around the listener then ignores her.
[6]

Kayla Beardslee: Apparently scientists still have not found a cure to the “Say So” substitutes epidemic since I last did this bit two months ago. Everyone, our time on this planet as a species is finite: it’s up to us to band together and figure out how to de-chintz the pop girl singles before it’s too late. “Puntería” is an extremely average addition to the “Say So” imitators’ shelf, but having Shakira on a track will always be worth an extra point. At least I learned a new Spanish word!
[6]

Katherine St. Asaph: EDITOR’S NOTE: Due to an oversight in the selection process, we have covered “Not My Fault” twice. We regret the error.
[4]

no blergs » Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024 6:50 pm