Video & Audio: Bachsterpiece theater
Too Baroque girls
Red Velvet: “Feel My Rhythm”
The single of the year frontrunner and the best thing K-pop’s done since imperial Sunmi uses the Baroque the way Coolio’s “C U When U Get There” does: primarily as a fount of melody and rhythm. The degree to which they and their intercontinental songwriting committee get “Air on the G String” in a mathematical sense is remarkable: their melody for the second half of the chorus (“follow, follow my heartbeat” etc.) in particular feels like a logical deduction. When they do the very pop trick of shifting up a tone for the last chorus, they’re returning Bach the favor. Secondarily, the Baroque is a demonstration of abundance, but not in an exclusive way: the long held notes “G String” that signified that ultimate 18th century luxury, time, are woven into a dense composition with trap drums and woggle-wuggle—not quite how the world is now, but a vision of how it could be. Sparkly outfits in giant ballrooms can be everyone’s in a post-scarcity society.
Selo i Ludy: “I Want to Break Free”
One of their more faithful covers, the “break free” thing hits different when you’re watching the bass player and the usually quiet balalaika guy sing along to “God know I gooooooot” to a happily grooving (if sparse) crowd in Ukrainian rock club Villa Krokodila, notwithstanding that the footage is from early 2014.
Tommy Womack: “Call Me Gary”
Jesus Christ. The song is barely bearable because of the monotony of Womack’s spoken delivery, flattening the punchline to emphasize that St. Peter doesn’t solve anything.
Gonora Sounds: “Go Bhora”
Hard Times Never Kill is the consensus traditionalish Afropop album of the year so far. So far I’m not quite so high on it, but have no argument against this street-sounding opener, which could hype up thousands queueing outside Harare’s National Sports Stadium. Fly, Golden Eagles!
Lucky Daye: “Fever”
A credible bid to be this decade’s Miguel (although vocally he sounds more Ushery.) Hearts skip beats, chemical reactions are catalyzed, the freaking goes back and forth.
Tems: “Free Mind”
She followed up “Essence” with a feature on a Future LARP that got her a first number one, but the range of Nigeria’s great female hope is better shown on this track from a mostly self-produced 2020 EP, on which she deftly handles a key downshift on the outro about “falling deep” so that the song does in fact deepen.
Charli XCX: “Baby”
Facing the prospect of being cut off from the major label gravy train, she cut down on the messing about with PC Music and worked at a 2008 Gaga cardio level to get her first UK number one album. That the sweat is evident is why she’ll never be Dua Lipa; instead, she’ll have to settle for being better.
Stro Elliot: “Coal Sweat”
Speaking of sweat, making one of the all-time greatest songs fresh again is certainly worth expending a lot of it. Coal, well, whatever it takes to get Joe Manchin to sign off on it, I guess.
GOT the Beat: “Step Back”
SM Entertainment’s version of the Avengers features BoA and members of Red Velvet, Girls’ Generation, and Aespa. A bit unimaginative, with too much unison singing, it eventually overwhelms through sheer gravity of star power like Grand Hotel (1932) does, but I wouldn’t blame the participants if they now vant to be alone for a while.
Terry Klein: “Such a Town”
The better of the two great songs on this sometime lawyer turned Austin Americana dude’s album (the other is “60 in a 75”) is about his hometown—“if I play this song in Boston, it might just get me killed”. Seems unnecessary when they can just price out singer-songwriters.
Heavy-K ft. Drumetic Boyz & MalumNator: “As’Buyeli”
South African house isn’t the continent’s most original genre (a few auteurs aside), but as usual Heavy-K brings the synth drama, as well as a near parodic frat-party-as-model-for-the-high-life video that features MalumNator doing a worse dive into a pool than even I’ve ever managed. Admittedly he sings better.
Goede Hoop Marimba Band: Vivaldi: “Gloria/Spring”
Melody! Rhythm!