Video & Audio: New capitals

Plus: 1974 poll announcement!

Cash Cobain, Bay Swag, Ice Spice: “Fisherrr” (remix)

I am 100% fo’ shurr behind Sexy Drill displacing the non-sexy variant like Omicron wiped out Delta. Though Cash Cobain has some rizz and Bay Swag is at least easy-going (“fuck my brother, I ain’t mad at you”), the song does work better upon adding a woman who eats her vegetables, and Ice Spice is the current champ of getting shoehorned into a song and making it sound like she was there from the beginning.

Belén Aguilera, Julieta: “Thelma & Louise”

Aguilera and the hard-to-Google Julieta are Barcelonan; no idea about their sexual orientations unless “actress” counts as one, but there’s no man in sight, presumably because he’s dead. Despite the gun-reloading FX and the hyper- nods, it still has Eurodance at its heart, as evidenced by the key change up for the final chorus.

4EVE: “Situationship”

I still sometimes-to-often love K-pop, but Dave Moore is doing a good job of selling me on T-as-in-Thai pop as a scene that avoids the feelings of overworkedness and overmanagedness that more lucrative national song machines can generate. All 7-not-4 Eves (don’t ask me how math works) make an “it’s complicated” relationship sound as simple as possible. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a ton of background detail, like a piano tinkling all over the place in an inhuman way.

Pson ft. Mobeti Beat: “Maman Leki”

Amapiano with Afrobeats trappings (or vice versa) is by now familiar, except (i) this is from Kinshasa, which is a turn after so many decades of the Congo being a net exporter of musical innovation, (ii) it’s the avant-curious strain of amapiano (c.f. DJ Black Low) that seems to be drying up in South Africa, with distorted bass and ghost-kid vocals echoing the grown-ups in the room, and yet Mobeti Beat’s aim is unmistakably pop.

Melt-Banana: “Flipside”

Had to think about why this worked for me when most two-minute slices of noise punk don’t. I think it’s just that here, the noises sound like they’re fun to make—the guitarist sliding basswards along the neck, the singer getting closer to actual notes as she shrieks higher, the drummer happy to work for what must be a terrible Yen per note wage—whereas so much noise-punk sounds like work.

Zouhair Bahaoui: “Magdar”

28 million YouTube views for the video, which starts out like a Asghar Farhadi divorce movie before flashing back to a gigantic teddy bear. Whatever bad times there might have been are retconned out of existence by Arabic melodies and Auto-Tune. In its contemporary romantic intimacy, this feels spiritually as close to bachata as to anything else. 

Sorry Mom: “But I’m a Quarterback”

Queer pop-punk that nods towards emo when the singer breaks down into a non-rhyming “that’s not how this works” (which isn’t even as good a line as the chorus’s “you’re just like being seventeen again”) while the drummer continues banging out double time, unperturbed. As funny as Blink-182 without the baggage, and as serious.

The Neptune Power Federation: “Let Us Begin”

Australians who make what in the early ‘80s we’d have called “metal”, with a vocalist named Screaming Loz Sutch, who thankfully mostly sings here, getting her cords around somewhat odd, wide-ranging melodies: there’s a moment in the second verse where the tune drops unexpectedly that makes the song. Moments of insane guitar shredding are there; a snare drum gets hit hard.

Mary Halvorson: “Desiderata”

I left Cloudward off my midyear Jazz Critics Poll top ten because it was marginal and I figured it was going to place first or second anyway, but the album is typically fine and this is the best thing on it. Approaching the three minute mark, Halvorson hits her distortion pedal and tears the place up, in a, like, intellectual way. Patricia Brennan’s subsequent eerie vibraphone work reinforces that this is a ghost-echoes column this week.

Ura Koyuki: “フリック入力オールデリート (Flick Input All Delete)”

Occasionally it can be useful in pop-rock to have more than four chords. A very likable vocal performance, with gradations of soft and loud, with the latter making it sound like she’s really, like, trying. Plus: the greatest train music video of all time (sorry Chemical Brothers, but you didn’t have a sparsely-animated fish-cat.)

Ayra Starr ft. Seyi Vibez: “Bad Vibes”

I do worry that African pop is getting a bit too focused on “vibes” (or “vibez”) over songs, but it works here: the slinky minor key chords and massage-percussion create a mood and Ayra and Seyi easily satisfy their primary job of not wrecking it. Potential vibe-spoilers Hennessy and God are mentioned in the lyrics as if to appease them.

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Announcement: A 1974 poll

I’ve long held 1974 as the nadir for Anglo-American music in the rock era, and when it came to selecting a year for this year’s summer poll, I didn’t hesitate to let my masochism win out. So please list:

• Up to 20 of your favorite albums from 1974 (EPs can count too.) I suggest dating by first commercial release date, regardless of country. Assign them a total of 10 points per album listed (e.g. 200 points for 20 albums, 100 points for 10 albums), with the usual Pazz-rules maximum of 30 and minimum of 5 for an individual album.

• Up to 10 singles from 1974. The intention is physical singles only, but I’ll lose it if I try to fact-check every vote. Use a year-of-impact argument if you wish. Double-sided singles count as one entry. Put an asterisk by one single for an extra half-point (if you don’t asterisk anything, the half-point will go to the first single you name.)

Electoral commision-approved ways to vote:

1. Public ballots: COMMENT on this post right here.

2. Private ballots: EMAIL your ballot to bradluen@yahoo.co.nz with “1974 poll” in the subject line.

Deadline: Friday 23rd August.