Video and Audio: May 2021
"Took the wretched out the earth and called it baby Fanon"
Baby Queen: “Dover Beach”
As if she wasn’t the pop wannabe most personally tailored to me before, now she’s referencing one of the few high-Victorian poems I like. What if the ignorant armies are clashing by night in your head?
Noname: “Rainforest”
Making anticapitalism conversational, although isn’t that what all her generation is doing? (Avenues other than art and public social media suggest: no.)
Sun-El Musician, Dafro, Simmy: “Love Is Blind”
The main attraction here is the buzzily warm synth that pitchbends through most of the song, dropping way low four minutes in to emphasize that even if you, personally, are not blind, there may be angles you haven’t considered.
R.A.P. Ferreira: “Cycles”
One of the great second verse openings: “But things go backwards/The wrong people get placards/You get a collection of spatulas”. The funny thing about pedalable cycles though is they don’t work backwards, except in art.
Dave: “Titanium”
“I got a house in the sticks, it’s awkward/I know that my neighbors are votin’ Tory, surely.” The latest YouGov polling suggests Dave is living next to a nursing home.
Lil Baby, EST Gee: “Real As It Gets”
An undulating six-note pattern as a victory lap that requires Lil Baby to conceal the personal growth he experienced in the wake of last year’s BLM protests. Some of us remember.
Joe Fahey: “Dante’s Inferno”
The chorus finishes on a low G for “home”, as if the ninth circle is the easiest place to settle. (I re-read Julius Caesar recently and putting Brutus down there is some bullshit.)
Jazmine Sullivan: “The Other Side” (Tiny Desk Home Concert)
On this NPR-funded recapitulation of her one great Heaux Tale, she dreams of store-bought booty, then near the end remembers she’s one of R&B’s most innovative singers, although that’s harder to monetize these days.
Brave Girls: “Rollin’ (New Version)”
Algorithmically-driven nostalgia moves quickly, this time thanks to members of the ROK Armed Forces reliving the halcyon days of 2017 though this time capsule from peak trop-house. Funny how cycles work.
Fousheé: “Single AF”
TV singing competition veteran puts her chops to stranger purposes. In this month’s “how come no one ever thought of this before”, she applies high coloratura to “fuck”, like it’s just another word.
EggPlantEgg: “Oh Love, You Are Much Greater Than I Imagined”
The “2004 guitar heroic dance-rock but in Taiwanese song” is fine, but the action’s in the “Hou Hsiao-hsien’s pretending to be Wong Kar-wai phase but on fast-forward” music video. Death! Sex! Moody color washes!
Beabadoobee: “Last Day on Earth”
You know you’re a wuss when you bring in The 1975-guy to toughen up your sound, and it works. As for the words, singing “Shoop doo ba doo ba doo/Wait, I got something to say” and then having nothing to say is pretty amusing.