Video & Audio: Chuds in love

Hey Kendrick what are these greens, are they kale or collards or

Ella Langley & Riley Green: “You Look Like You Love Me”

The year’s most trad country radio number one is a paean to casual sex. Langley’s part of the long tradition of country singers whose voice may be even more characterful when they’re speaking, and it’s not like the chorus mini-melismas (‘bla-a-ame”) lack character. Green, who’s made good if dystopian songs before, is a chud here, but sometimes you want to fuck a chud.

Zee Nxumalo, Goldmax & DJ Tira ft. Boity, Dee Koala, Zulu Mkathini & Ney the Bae: “Drip Juluka”

Eswatini-born Nxumalo is the year’s most valuable singer on Southern Afrotronican singles (“Thula Mabota” and “Ama Gear” have previously been covered in this column.) GoldMax is a rising producer who made a telling contribution to the best song on the year’s best album of new African music, Thukzin’s Finally Famous Too. Don’t ask me what everyone else does. More recently Zee’s dropped a (shockingly avant) collaboration with McDonald’s Grimace; the division of labor is even less clear on that one.

Alice Longyu Gao: “Little Piggy”

Let’s quote my favorite Dave Moore sentence of the year: “A horrifying tale of suffering the abuse of bullies and lashing in instead of lashing out, but the song lashes out, not just in telling the story, but in making the insult boomerang back onto its source—you can see them all transforming into little piggies, trapped on the twisted little Pleasure Island Alice Longyu Gao built.” (Let’s quote his content warning as well : “strobe in the video and eating disorder content in the lyric”.) Is all this citation an attempt to avoid talking about multiple generations of Chinese body shaming? You bet!

Kendrick Lamar: “TV Off”

I wrote a whole Duckworth Family Thanksgiving playlet on Bluesky for one (1) like, so I guess I should tell you all to follow me on Bluesky.

Gracie Abrams: “That’s So True”

As somebody who’s strongly anti-nepo in all aspects of public life, I take little pleasure in reporting that this my-ex-and-his-dumb-face is good. As with all the rest of 2024, it’s Taylor’s fault: there are modal verses and a big enough chorus, and there’s a pause in “I did that once… or twice” that you know she got from running the WWTS Do emulator in her head. At least she didn’t get her dad to make the horrendously edited lyric video. <remembers Rise of Skywalker> Wait, maybe she did.

Tyler, the Creator & Doechii: “Balloon”

With third-hand Rob Base providing the helium, Doechii first anchors in song in lines that end on low syllables before getting near 2010 Nicki levels of unhinged on the outro, in the process advertising both Tyler’s fragrance line and her own pussy, which she has enough confidence in to eschew plastic surgery. As for Tyler, he’s fine!

Josey: “Tout Laisse”

Ivorian hits are about as currently reliable a source of joy as I have: loud percussion that occasionally resolves into an electrofart; solid singing that respects a tune that does, you know, exist; “Viva la Vida” riches-to-rags lyrics but meaner about it; nothing too tainted by goings-on elsewhere in the continent although the Donk is rearing its head everywhere.

Óscar Maydon & Fuerza Regida: “Tu Boda”

This year’s “pleasure is nothing to feel guilty about, but this might be” hit has been number one in Mexico since forever thanks to the sousaphone rhythm and twelve-string accompaniment and, right, Maydon’s plausibly deniable threats to shoot up his ex’s wedding, which blunt instrument Fuerza Regida’s Jesús Ortíz Paz then removes the plausible deniability from. What might be mitigating is that Maydon is the dorkiest of trap corrido breakouts, meaning his threat to pull a red wedding isn’t credible: this is closer to Olivia Newton-John’s “Banks of the Ohio” than the Blue Sky Boys’. Sure isn’t healthy, though.

Mello Buckzz: “Move”

I spedrun half Pitchfork’s year-end singles in half an hour and got this with its gang chant about Chicago-style ass-licking out of it, so that was worth my time. Thanks Pitchfork!

DJ Arana, MC Fabinho da OSK, MC Tavinho, & MC PG: “Automotivo Toma Karen x Só Tem um Mago”

Some years ago Fabinho had a car-sex hit with “Toma Karen Toma”, and after some genealogical process I don’t understand we’ve picked up several collaborators and here we are. What it functions as is a summation of what Brazilian funk sounds like in 2024: like someone heard a vuvuzuela and thought, you know, that’s not quite annoying enough.

Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (Exit) Knarr: “Dylar”

Standout from a brief but worthwhile album named for and dedicated to Jaimie Branch. This one’s built around a repeating figure that trumpeter Erik Kimestad Pedersen solos over before a resolution into a South African-style melody fragment that the collective improvises around freely. Flaten, Nordijazz’s premier bassist, holds everything together for as long as anyone could.

Kelompok Penerbang Roket: “Sesa(a)t”

Now that Scandinavian savants have cut back on its faithful recapitulations of ’70s rock subgenres (why bother when there’s won to be made in Seoul?), it seems Jakarta’s the place to find fake proto-doom. They’re not foolhardy enough to directly imitate Ozzy, instead including falsetto oohs which are kind of, uh, pretty. The title translates as “momentary”, which is funny.

MC Lyte, Ghostface Killah, Lil Mama: “Lyte Ghost Lil Mama”

Maybe the most hard-won financial advice in a rap song; take that, Lonely Island. Ghostface’s chorus: “Make sure you own all your masters/They wanna pile slaves up in the basket/And put what you worked for in a casket/Rich bastard”. Lyte and Mama, arguably screwed harder by the biz, show the wisdom of diversifying one’s revenue streams beyond recorded music.

Jax Jones & Cascada: “Never Be Lonely” (remix)

Of the original, Jones wrote: “This collaboration with Zoe Wees and Pikachu represents a dream come true for me.” The Cascada remix is faster, which means it sounds more like “Rhythm Is a Dancer”, which is all I want out of Eurodance, lack of Pokémon notwithstanding.