Video & Audio: Let me get me
It’s ironic that only I feel that way
Sabrina Carpenter: “Please Please Please”
I hope everyone who prematurely shot their wad over the fun-for-three-plays “Espresso” is vaguely embarrassed now, UniMoth’s Spotify Payola Department very much included. Just as in “Feather”, she’s in the pocket here portraying a person with empathy that’s easily exhausted by stressful situations such as going out with an Irish person. Also: two distinct verse melodies and a bridge! Jack Antonoff arpeggios that aren’t phoned in! No final chorus because it’s assumed kids can’t pay attention for more than three minutes, yet the video runs five!
Katie Pruitt: “Jealous of the Boys” (live for NPR)
With country-pop getting structurally simplified, it’s left to alt types to update the narrative tradition. How can the meaning of the phrase “jealous of the boys” evolve over a lifetime from something very specific to something sociological? Helps that there’s a melody that wouldn’t be out of place on a Patty Loveless album.
Bizarrap & Lismar: “BZRP Music Sessions #60”
The most consistent brand in popular music keeps hitting, this time featuring an insanely talented rapper previously unknown outside of Hispanophone freestyle obsessives. Lismar does the Little Simz ultrafast monotone of a Little Simz, then puts on a blonde wig and effortlessly does a pop rap flow as well. There are some hints she can combine the two, and some hints she could get very rich.
Charli XCX: “So I”
I’m punting the probably goodish Brat into the fall because I don’t understand why this album is getting hyped over all her others. The reviews use suspiciously similar language: “vulnerable”, they say, when there are like two vulnerable songs, and this one isn’t as vulnerable as the Sophie track she’s quoting. The real tribute to Sophie: Charli bothers writing a tune.
Zinoleesky: “Element”
Afropiano that’s, as usual, extremely listenable rather than great, but Zinoleesky and Lekka Beats make it seem plausible the former could turn into the later. Zinoleesky’s lightly pitch-corrected vocals fit the glossy keybs quite well, and there’s even some hint of a song. The video’s “Make Zino Great Again” red caps don’t make sense at all, fortunately.
NLE Choppa: “Slut Me Out 2”
The self-love era at its most literal: “If I was a bad bitch, I’d want to fuck me too.” I mean it’s a reasonable position to take: Narcissus only needed a pool; imagine what he would’ve been like with mirror selfies and distressed leather. No matter how much of his attitude to sex is porn-derived, he does remember it has something to do with pleasure.
Dikgong Inc ft. Katlego Ramphaleng x Moologa: “Seanokeng Camp Festival Theme Song”
The Music of Africa Substack does a great job of finding things that give no consideration to optimizing for international streams. An ad for a bushweld party in southern Botswana that’s heavy on metallic whistle and bass-drone harmonies? More please.
NewJeans: “Bubble Gum”
With Min Hee-jin on the outs (see Vulture’s summary of the arcane controversy and let your eyes glaze over) it looks like their imperial phase is over, a feeling strengthened by this throwaway B-side being better than the event single. “Bubble” remains one of the great pop song words, and the little tunelet that Haerin imparts to it is a delight.
Aseel Hameem: “Mostafz Alnas”
Another entry in our regular “international superstars I wouldn’t have heard about if not for Dave Moore” series. Baghdad-born Hameem seems to be the biggest female star in an Iraqi scene that’s blowing up across the Arabic world. I don’t have the technical chops to clarify how snugly the very non-Western scales fit into a modern internationalist conception of pop, but it sounds cool!
Monsieur Périné: “Nuestra Cancíon”
In two weeks in Peru I got nothing musically—the tourist spots had pan pipers playing “El Condor Pasa” and “The Sound of Silence” on repeat, while all the young people listened to the same reggaeton derivatives that’ve taken over most of Latin America—whereas when I got to Bogotá, at the first cafe I went to I heard a song that made me go “ooh, what’s that?” Turns out it was an artist I knew whose biggest hit I’d never heard; maybe it’s a bit arch, but that’s nothing compared to Simon and Fjucking Garfunkel.
Maude Latour: “Too Slow”
Cheerleader song by a pop hopeful who is twenty four human years old. I’ll never quite believe that anyone of that age would look back positively at high school, but I guess if anyone did it’d be a nepo baby educated at a 50k-a-year private school. She followed that with a Columbia philosophy degree, which seems to have a better success rate as a place to learn hooks than the Clive Davis Institute.
Zach Bryan: “Pink Skies”
He’s just not the most intuitive musician: he shouts the climatic “I think I heard you coming” on the first chorus when it’d be the most natural thing in the world to wait for the repeat. But when the imagery is on point and the performance is so deeply felt only the most hardcore formalists will complain. Definitely the most vulnerable song in this column.