More popular with German Spotify than Fucking Drake! With us…

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[4.50]

Thomas Inskeep: Finally, proof that trop-house doesn’t have to be a four-letter term! This has a lovely samba feel to it, a groove that makes my hips move, and Edin’s hook vocals complement Olexesh’s flow quite nicely.
[7]

William John: “Magisch”‘s production is tactfully rendered; the delicate snares combine well with the synths, which rebound off each other like a game of Pong. The vocalists, however, are dispassionate and insouciant, which might work in other contexts but not when the subject is as rousing as a bewitching by a “Mädchen aus der Stadt” (city girl) who is “heißer als die Sonne” (hotter than the sun).
[3]

Will Adams: PzY’s production is the winning element here, with a surprisingly squelchy bass adding weight to the mallet synths. Unfortunately it’s not enough to elevate Olexesh and Edin, neither of whom can quite sell a sentiment like “Du bist so magisch.”
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Would a dodgy English-language pop song really make its hook “magical, magical, you are so magical?” Probably, and it’d sound just as silly as it does here in German, though I like the earnestness and wonder with which Edin sings it. Parts of the verses suffer from a marbles-in-mouth delivery from Olexesh, too. It’s just about saved by its production, which puffs its dated chest out with runty bravado.
[4]

Tim de Reuse: Making quips like “This glassy, bell-laden instrumental would’ve sounded passé in 2014” itself got old by 2016 or so. Olexesh himself sounds like he can’t be bothered.
[3]

Crystal Leww: Olexesh doesn’t do much for his verses, but Edin’s pre-chorus and chorus are pretty fun. I can sway along to the hook in the club, but you can bet that I’m probably going to stick around for it once before hoping that the DJ spins something else instead.
[5]

White goes first…

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[2.88]

Katherine St Asaph: Find the negation of the statement: There exists a rapper in the set of iHeartMedia beneficiaries such that any single they’re allowed to release won’t have Marshmello brought in to blandify it.
[3]

Andy Hutchins: I find Marshmello interesting because what I’ve heard of his production consistently clings to the loud-quiet-loud skeleton of pop music that his genre has reified as verse-drop/hook-verse, yet dares to put thought into what’s on the other side of the drop — sometimes with almost delicate elements, like the ethereal instrumental portion of the “Wolves” hook that has sounds springing skyward and seaward. For “Everyday,” he deploys chiming synths and alien pings in the distance, and gives rap’s reigning tryhard striver a soundscape that sounds so far from a work-ethic anthem that it almost works for its incongruousness. It doesn’t — Logic quotes Crime Mob, as if Diamond wouldn’t relocate his teeth to his uvula, and the hook makes no sense — but standing next to someone whose hustle is showing every other syllable, The Guy With the Helmet Who Isn’t deadmau5 seems almost a savant, his own efforts coming off as effortless in the best way.
[5]

Will Adams: I’m one of a few listeners who sees promise in Marshmello’s recent turn to radio pop, but it is concerning how quickly he seems to veer into material that’s barely worth commercial bumpers for the NCAA tournament.
[3]

Katie Gill: Where’s the traditional awkward Logic lyric? We’ve got nothing even remotely close to “who can relate? WHOO!” All of his songs had some completely incongruous lyric that makes the song screech to a halt as you think “surely he must have thought that over.” All we’ve got is a half-baked, half-assed song where Logic sings about his girl’s daddy issues and stresses that he works hard while not really telling us exactly how he works hard. C’mon Logic, at least be tacky over boring.
[3]

Alfred Soto: He really shouldn’t sing when singing comes as hard for him as working hard does.
[3]

Nortey Dowuona: Meh beat. Flat drums and paper thin synths just reveal all the repetitive, rigid flow patterns Logic stumbles through when he’s not singing tonelessly. Plus the really annoying mention of a random girl with daddy issues looks even worse now he’s divorced. Meh.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: Everyday, it’s my day, blah blah, some girl has issues, this is the very definition of not working hard. And that probably goes double for Marshmello here.
[2]

Crystal Leww: “Logic & Marshmello” are already cursed words, but “Everyday” is somehow much worse than can already be implied! Marshmello producing a song where the hook is “I work hard every motherfucking day-ay-ay-ayyyyy” is some chef’s kiss level irony. Meanwhile, Logic has helpfully clarified that the second chorus about the girl with “daddy issues for days” is not about his ex-wife, but instead about ‘EDM Thots.’ Because he’s #woke, he does say that it does apply to dudes as well, but there’s something so gender-specific about ‘daddy issues’ that this just feels extremely disrespectful to the girls who spend their money to fill stadiums and fields in EDM that they somehow can’t get onto stages for. I mean…how many girls made this lineup that Marshmello is headlining? That’s what I thought. Fuck these dudes.
[1]

It’s spring, which means it’s time for us to like stuff again!

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[7.88]

Crystal Leww: Building a career from Chicago is a tenuous and difficult path for every Black girl in a way that feels incredibly unjust given what feels like an endless stream of coverage of the scene. Sure, some of that is media tastemaker hype, but Chicago has an abundance of talent that just seems unjust to keep in ~The Internet~ (no pun intended, even with the Steve Lacy connection here). “Sticky” slinks along, guided along by a groovy guitar and the warmth and weirdness of Lenae’s voice. The first bit of this chorus is so choked that I didn’t even know she was singing words at first, but these are all atmospherics, a vibe so well constructed and packaged together that it’s beyond what a teen should be consciously able to produce. I know that Lenae’s been here since 2015 — all Chicago teens seem to need a ton of lead time — but I’m still curious to see where she takes this next.
[7]

Julian Axelrod: Chicago’s golden child sings of an irresistible temptation over lush organs, like the most immaculately produced “u up?” text of all time. Steve Lacy’s rich backdrop sounds like blood rushing away from the head, while Lenae’s sidewinder vocal coils around it before devouring it whole. Like the tingle under your skin when you’re alone with the person you want, this is a full-body experience. If only all bad ideas sounded this good.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: Gooey, shiny and stick. Shimmering synth chords, slithering bass, glittering guitar and sharp, tear-shaped drums anchor the song, while Ravyn swims through the current with confidence and ease.
[10]

Alfred Soto: I’ve got students who adore her. Her ooh-ooh-ooh stutter plays lasciviously against hi-hat, bass, and a church organ. She can’t stop singing, no matter how prominent the clatter, and she inflects sex play like “Let’s play, let’s pretend” with the detachment of a person who knows she’s going to immortalize the fling in song.
[8]

Claire Biddles: The spacious, steady production is a gorgeous setting for Lanae’s unpredictable vocals — from the jarring cold-open of her whipped-up falsetto to the close harmonies of the chorus that unravel and zip away in all directions.
[7]

William John: A loop of the electric organ and Steve Lacy guitar scratches that open “Sticky” would be enough to keep me beguiled for days. But it turns out they’re mere prologue: Ravyn Lenae, stonewalled by love, gives the performance of a polyglot, shifting shrewdly from whirling dreamer to jaded enquirer to hopeless devotee; meanwhile, the track rotates around her methodically, keeping her in check. Her use of multiple voices is ingenious, and never reaches the point where it becomes affectedly obtuse; she instead transports us directly to her conscience, which, based on this evidence, appears to be brimming with ideas and predisposed to the sublime.
[9]

Micha Cavaseno: “Sticky” is a punchier sort of neo-soul/funk jam, reminiscent of Joi or the even more disconnected moments of the Minnie Riperton catalog — always interesting to hear from a generation that increasingly shirks traditional soul stylings unless reproducing them as a Tumblr-like xerox. It’s ambitiously florid and mannered enough that any moments that seem like missteps still show a level of character other acts are scraping the edge of their internal jar to offer.
[7]

Will Adams: As sticky as it is woozy, lovesick, sunsick and delirious. Ravyn Lenae’s falsetto pierces through the funk syrup in myriad ways: witchy “you-hoo-hoo”s, braided harmonies, and that light-stepping, two-note chorus. Some more contrast via her lower register wouldn’t have gone amiss, but a headrush at every turn is enough of a draw.
[7]

As with genetics, particularly under a Dawkinsian interpretation, a meme’s success may be due to its contribution to the effectiveness of its host.

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[3.25]

Tim de Reuse: Ah, Muse, ever self-serious, ever the harbingers of unspecific doom. Decrying the way ideas go viral in this dang-ol modern age of ours, without providing any hint of context as to what these ideas are or why you ought to be worried about them spreading, gives you a shell of a complaint that the listener is free to project in a direction of their choice. Same Muse we know and love, right? But it’s 2018, their instrumental formula hasn’t appreciably changed, and I don’t have the patience for any music that wants to seem “political” but goes out of its way to avoid alienating Glenn Beck.
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: A good way to troll Matt Bellamy is to wait until this title comes up in conversation, then go, “Oh, so like a meme?”
[2]

William John: Muse’s intention behind the portrayal of a depraved, apathetic world on “Thought Contagion” might’ve been to incite resistance, but it seems unlikely anyone would be inspired to a revolution if it’s to be soundtracked by wobbles that might’ve passed as fashionable a decade ago and endless, migraine-inducing guitar squiggles.
[2]

Nortey Dowuona: Looping theremin synths leap over chugging guitars and thick, awkward drums, and out-of-place piano slides underneath pulsing bass. The background vocals drown out Matt Bellamy, which is probably for the best.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: Wearying pomp married to Scooby Doo theme-level theatrics, with none of the honest relation to camp. Matthew Bellamy sounds as preposterous and as deluded as any despot he aims to mock these days, and his band have long run out of ideas to flatly drill into their listeners’ heads. Incredible how a man who thinks he values free thought as much as he does is so demanding and petulant.
[2]

Alex Clifton: Did Matt Bellamy finally read 1984 and then feel possessed to write a song about it? That bassline is killer, but this is just too heavy-handed.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: I can’t hate this because that wobbly riff reminds me so much of “Time to Burn” by The Rasmus (lord, remember them? I sure do), only instead of relatable, crunchy angst, you’ve got Matt Bellamy babbling. That song came out in 2003, at a time when I still really liked Muse. Thinking about that, while I’m not old, I feel old, and while Muse were not always dreadful, they sure seem dreadful.
[4]

Will Adams: So much shouting, yet so little to say.
[4]

Will J Balvin continue his streak of being covered on Tuesday for a third consecutive week??? (Spoiler: no)

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[5.17]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Yes, the whole track is a spiritual child of producers AFRO BROS’ previous smash “18 plus“, but that main synth line gives away another probable inspiration: Romanian manele music; the sound of the modern Romani people in the Balkans. Manele has borrowed extensively from reggaeton in recent years, especially from J. Balvin himself — although Balvin’s “Tranquila” already feels like a Mr. Juve production — so it feels really cool when it seems that he’s returning the favor, when two genres from such different regions and with no apparent relation (except perhaps the fact that both were created by historically marginalized communities) seem to be having a conversation. Either way, this track slaps, and you should definitely go listen to more manele.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The squirrelly synth line that goes up the scale is an X factor I wanna hear on the radio, J Balvin keeps his playboy verse taut, and the rudimentary beat gives up not an inch to danceability by hinting at sundry musics from around the Caribbean. Programmers hungry for another “Despacito” would do well to give “X” a spin if they keep their grubby little remixer fingers off it.
[7]

Juana Giaimo: “X” is song based on its drop: the rest is just some noise to make it last longer — J. Balvin passes completely unnoticed and he could be replaced by any other singer. The problem is that the drop is awful: just because it is an ear-piercing melody, it doesn’t mean it’s good for dancing.
[3]

Claire Biddles: Middling dancehall that’s at least leant some, um, interest by that increasingly pitched-up farty synth horn.
[5]

Stephen Eisermann: Huge fan of the synth horn and the sexy percussion, but everything else is disposable. Nicky and J have performed songs thematically similar to this before, but they’ve never sounded this sexy. The lyrics are objectification at its finest, but the beat is so good it’s almost worth looking past the misogyny. Almost… but not quite. 
[4]

Nortey Dowuona: Slight synth stabs, nasal synth whirring and slight, whirling drums boost Nicky Jam’s flat, anodyne singing with the help of flat, near-invisible bass and anonymous whispering by J Balvin. Shrug dance music.
[4]

Our sidebar continues to fill out…

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[7.83]

Julian Axelrod: When we first met Natalie Prass, love had not been kind to her. She sang of fear and doubt and distance, the kind of casual cruelties we suffer with a rictus grin and stained mascara. These were songs about a love long past its expiration date, almost too painful for repeat listening. Fast forward three years and we have “Short Court Style”: a very different love song, but one that’s even more rewarding. Prass has said the song was inspired by a new relationship, and you can feel the heart beat stronger with every note. This is the sound of clouds parting, of hearts mending, of walking — no, dancing — on air. (Even the cuíca in the background sounds like it’s cheering her on.) Yet this is not a story of puppy love or the illusion of perfection. This is an ode to love that lasts, to hard-won happiness, to going through hell and coming out stronger on the other side.
[10]

Will Adams: What if the crushing melancholia of the last Niki & The Dove album were replaced with the warm contentment suggested by its lightly funky music? “Short Court Style” isn’t overly effusive in its celebration of newfound love, but it doesn’t need to be; it’s an ode to a good mood, the sense of peace as the new normal.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Clipped rhythm guitar, hand claps, a Rose Royce-indebted falsetto — “Short Court Style” flirts with the insufferable (imagine if Jenny Lewis had essayed something similar). But Prass has studied R&B’s terseness, and like early solo Raphael Saadiq she knows when to call it quits. 
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: Light airy pop with a soulful tint that reminds of the jokes Mayer Hawthorne was so crudely sketching a few years back, or of Hall & Oates jabbing at the arches of your foot when you weren’t looking. There’s a retroactive conservatism at play that at times feels dangerously close to being designed to serve as backing for moments of trite superficial technicolor sentiment, a pleasant antidote from the smudgy oily of the present with its sparse and crisp pristinity. Yet despite that troubling regiment, there’s a light airiness that manages to keep it feeling less about stance and more about softness.
[7]

Katie Gill: We really need a genre name for “cute, quirky, indie songs that will inevitably be in the background of an Apple commercial.” Because this is adorable! This is cute! I love the piano backing and the way Prass layers her harmonies! I am eating that vaguely 1970s throwback sound right UP. And that’s why I expect “Short Court Style” to be selling me iMacs or Diet Coke within the next month or so.
[8]

William John: Relationships can be completely discombobulating and upending, and most of us who attempt to engage in them are basically ignoramuses hoping we’re not the first one to muck it all up. So it’s rare territory that Natalie Prass finds herself in here — not because she’s surrounded by knotty guitar riffs, a cuica distorted to mimic an ecstatic yelp and delirious piano chords, but because she’s reached a point of romantic resolution, where all confusion suddenly dissolves, where cynicism is replaced by whimsy, and where you can employ sprightly confidence without reservation. It’s purposefully airy and slight — “Short Court Style” shows an understanding that these beatific moments are elusive, and best celebrated not with a run but instead with a smile and gentle skip.
[8]

In which we Feel Meh, Still…

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[4.75]

Micha Cavaseno: Y’all fucked up and let Portugal. The Man into the commercial sphere. Their sense of ambition and artiness is very welcome in the age of the inflated sonic sensibilities of pop-rock anthems in the post-Imagine Dragons era, but as much as Portugal have learned to do the most thoughtless of choruses meant for radio, the smeared edges of the bridge and that dizzying organ outro drone hint at their past. Still fascinating to think that a group as uncommercial as this is having such a big hurrah of money, and that eventually someone’s going to check out that early material.
[7]

Alex Clifton: “Live in the Moment” is a rich title from a band who titled their most recent album Woodstock, who seem to believe that computers can’t make “real” music, and whose lead singer’s style is a dead ringer for Kip’s from Napoleon Dynamite — a film that came out fourteen years ago. It sounds decent on first listen, but I feel like they haven’t read the room; most people I know are listening to pop music these days to escape the hellish reality we seem to have stumbled into. A couple lines stumble here, trying to engage with the political climate — the lynching line is weird — but I wish they’d go one way or the other. Instead, this gets lukewarm with the message washed out. I’d take computer-written EDM created with some forethought over this any day.
[3]

Katie Gill: I haven’t forgotten “no computers up here, just live instruments.” It’s sad when a band’s obnoxious posturing is more interesting than their middle of the road, kind boring output. Can’t I live in a different moment instead?
[4]

Stephen Eisermann: Like a night full of hallucinogenics, alcohol and a live band at a bar on Haight Street in San Francisco, this track is a mess of sounds and emotions that blend together wonderfully. This is the feeling of being high in song form.
[7]

Alfred Soto: I’m up for more counting stars even if these dudes do it on a Sunday morning, and it’s a helluva hook they got there, pompous and loud and everything.
[5]

Will Adams: The punchier sound — provided via sharp shuffle drums and a quivering organ hum — makes for more engaging listening than the oil slick that was “Feel It Still,” but the la la’s in the chorus are an odd choice that betray their crossover aspirations.
[5]

Eleanor Graham: Good: “Black Skinhead” drums and something intangible in the chorus melody that leaves the words “moment” and “morning” wide open like a highway at sunrise. Weird: the fact that this Portland indie-rock band have released what could quite feasibly pass as an upper-tier Olly Murs song. Like probably his second best, after “You Don’t Know Love”. 
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: The “Rock and Roll Part 2” drums approximate a hook, I guess, but the dull-eyed croon that complements it barely approximates a tune. We should demand more from indie rock than showing up. 
[3]

And here’s that mid-range [7] we’ve been looking for…

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[7.71]

Alex Clifton: Sexy and taut; Monroe commands my attention the whole way through, as does that guitar line. The producers of Fifty Shades could stand to learn something from Monroe’s three minutes, because they couldn’t even produce anything remotely this arresting over the span of three films.
[8]

Alfred Soto: It’s hard to be levelheaded about Ashley Monroe: when she unleashes her high steady tones on a twang-insistent fuck-me plaint she can sound like the most sympathetic singer in the biz, not to mention a person who understands the politics of sex better than most of the men fortunate enough to receive her concentration. 
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: The divide between trad- and bro-country, as these divides typically are, tends to be talked about in terms of stuffy vs. lusty. But here’s Ashley Monroe with a decidedly old-fashioned plaint, that nevertheless comes across way more familiar with actual sexual desire than the whole group of dudes talking about tight jeans or whatever. There’s no soft-focus — a bathroom stall shows up in verse one — nor any coyness or flirtation: just nerve-level regret, loneliness, and want that Monroe draws out far longer than lesser artists might. The tinny bridge should really be a guitar solo, but that’s a quibble.
[9]

Will Adams: “Hands on You” singes with the regret of sun rays waking you before your alarm, when you’re hungover and sprawled on your bed, alone again, wincing as you review last night’s memories and mark them with red pen. While I wish the song hadn’t bothered with the extraneous strings and synths in the third act, it’s captivating material that Ashley Monroe lives in.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Monroe doesn’t pursue the Gothic undertones of this simmering groove, one that, at times, threatens to complete its transformation into a Bond theme or Nancy Sinatra track. She does well playing it straight, apportioning her lusts in soft and sleepy measures, as if she were singing from a bed, alone, and taking great pauses to draw out the desire. I can’t help but be distracted by the other meaning of laying hands, though. 
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: Very There’s More Where That Came From, this has a late ’60s country vibe with a dash of Chris Isaak and some amped-up sex appeal. And Ashley Monroe’s voice is divine.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Normally my teeth would grind at a line like “I wish I would have laid my hands on you,” but instead I’m taken by Monroe’s ability to sing her regret at a tryst not taken in a way that makes it feel like a huge tragedy being retold. Not just retold, though, her performance utterly drenches itself in desire.
[8]

If country music told you to jump off a bridge, would you do that too?

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[4.00]

Katie Gill: Are other genres of music so self-congratulatory and masturbatory as country music is? I’ll admit I don’t know much about jazz or reggae, do they have songs like this? Are there songs where someone sings about how ska music helped push them to a music career or how new age made them fall in love with a boy? Anyway, it’s a middle of the road song which is to be expected from a middle of the road subject.
[5]

Will Adams: The subtext being, “[The] Country Music [Industry] Made Me Do It [By Which I Mean Glorify The Genre In The Blandest Possible Way Thereby Ignoring All Of The Real Reasons People Love Country].”
[4]

Alfred Soto: Country music did not inspire these generic chord progressions.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: Though this country music wouldn’t make me turn the radio off, it also doesn’t make me want to turn up the volume and sing along, and that seems a little disappointing for a song about the power of the genre. The pat rhymes of the chorus torpedo the uplift the music strives for, not that it quite gets there either.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: An earnest and accordingly plain mid-tempo account of effort and endurance, with none of the shit-kicking the title anticipates. (Imagine this title in Miranda Lambert’s hands.) Country music should make one do wilder things than this.
[5]

Alex Clifton: Soaring, but not really stirring; “My Church” did it better.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Patrick was nominated for Songwriter of the Year with co-writer Chad Kroeger at the 2016 Canadian Country Music Association Awards for her song “Bow Chicka Wow Wow.” Country music has some explaining to do. If not for that, then for this most “Drunk on a Plane,” “Drinkin’ Town with a Football Problem,” “Body Like a Back Road” gonzo-bro-country of titles attached to pat, premade Hobby-Lobby-stationery glurge. Like all glurge, it conceals a certain subtext; here, that the relationship metaphors she reaches for are a twinge controlling, that maybe country music steered her life straight into heartbreak. A story straight out of a country song, even.
[3]

As the video helpfully reminds us, this is their 51st single…

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[5.71]

Jonathan Bradley: Whether in the form of high-energy punk-pop or high-energy dance-pop, AKB48 songs tend towards the interchangeability characteristic of a product line with a solidified customer base that it wants to keep it happy. That doesn’t have to mean the music is awful: when all the components sync up correctly, this group makes sense as a phenomenon for reason beyond canny chart manipulation or dubious deployment of adolescent sexuality. Songs like “Aitakatta” or “Gingham Check” still sound absolutely fantastic, even while the formula, as manifested in something like “Labrador Retriever,” produces music too banal to last until the next release. “Ja-Ba-Ja” is welcome for mixing the formula up a bit; it’s not so out there as “Uza” was, but sounds a touch more distinct than the average AKB48 release. With its tinny brass and funk-R&B vibes, this retro pastiche recalls the disco ebullience of “Koi Suru Fortune Cookie” — and even if it isn’t quite as marvellous as that was, it remains a charming effort from a group that always benefits from straying from its set path. 
[6]

Tim de Reuse: The arrangement is undeniably exuberant, and the constant presence of that brass part does a lot to make sure every single second feels overstuffed — in a fun way, generally! Unfortunately, there’s a gigantic hole in the mix between the bass and the vocals, and the brass exacerbates this by making the whole construction even more top heavy. I can excuse bad ear-feel if there’s a good groove under it, but the presentation here is so papery that it’s hard to ignore.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Was the brass arrangement written for the song or were chords and singers found for the brass arrangement? Ebullience as end in itself.
[5]

Will Adams: The energy is there, but unfortunately the mix is so canned that it feels like I’m listening to it with cotton stuffed in my ears. 
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: I will never love this, or anything, as much as “Dr. Jabaja, PhD” would (if they remembered writing that 10 years ago). But I love it way more than I expected from the J-pop version of “Calling All Hearts.”
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Perky and energetic, but not in a “massive pop orgasm” sense, more in a “get some girls to make up a song on the spot to a zippy bit of canned brass and hope for the best” sense. You don’t get the best, but it’s certainly listenable.
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: Nice synth trumpets. Nice punchy bass. Sharp and barely audible drums. Nice harmonies by AKB48. Really nice in a way that seems too unreal. Not in a nice way, though.
[7]