Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Car Seat Headrest “1937 State Park”

One of the many great things about Car Seat Headrest’s Teens of Denial is how the band rocks out in this very casual way that’s hard to come by in music released after the ‘90s. It’s not sloppy at all, but it has a very physical energy, kinda athletic in a way. They make playing a rock song sound like a fun activity, and listening to it gives a vicarious thrill that nudges you to mime along to the motions of playing the music in a non-ironic air guitar sort of way. I love that sensation, and it was such a big part of the rock music I bonded with in the early to mid 90s that listening to a record like this feels like going home again.

“1937 State Park” has the sound of something I would’ve loved when I was 13 – on a structural level it’s very Nirvana, but the vibe is a bit more early Pavement or Modest Mouse. But it also captures the feeling of being a particularly cynical and depressive sort of teenage boy, right on down to the line about avoiding graveyards because they’re a cliché of his “death-obsessed generation,” which is funny to me because I was exactly the sort of teen to extrapolate way too much from random people I knew just to find new ways to be snobby as an excuse to opt out of social situations. “Ah, I hate my generation, so obsessed with death!” Sure, dude! Whatever. Meanwhile you’re the guy singing about feeling a pressure to commit minor crimes so you can act out a “live fast, die young” narrative.

A lot of this song is a joke at a expense of the narrator, but it’s also totally heartbreaking because Will Toledo gives you so much emotional context for being this sort of mixed-up teen. He’s putting up all these walls, but he can’t hide his vulnerability no matter how hard he tries. The chorus kills me every time – “I didn’t want you to hear that shake in my voice / my pain is my own!” Again: I know this kid, I was this kid, I probably still am this kid. I know what it’s like to feel ashamed of feeling anything, and know how much energy can go into wanting all that to be private and trying to construct a better version of yourself for other people. From a bit of distance, it’s a comical thing to do, but when you’re inside that frame of mind, it’s just a survival instinct. It’s not always easy to learn that people are more likely to connect with the part of you that is crying as you walk home, especially not when you’re totally convinced that other people witnessing your weakness is the absolute worst thing that could happen.

Buy it from Amazon.

Chance the Rapper featuring 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne “No Problem”

The best word I’ve seen used to describe Chance’s music, particularly his third record Coloring Book, is jubilant. He’s working in a genre that goes heavy on party music, but he’s the guy in rap who sounds like he’s truly celebrating all the time. Celebrating life, celebrating God, celebrating family and love and creative independence and music and the past and the present and managing to survive against bleak odds. There’s a joy in his songs that is so strong and undiluted that I know some people can find it kinda corny and childish – one friend of mine who has generally good judgment dismissed Chance as sounding like Sesame Street rap, but hey, he’s a big Drake fan so I can see why he’d be defensive about the guy who’s basically set up to be the Nirvana to Drake and Future’s hair metal. I definitely welcome any sea change in hip-hop, especially if it’s a move towards joyful gospel and a richer, more harmonious sound after too many years of flagrant fuckboy bullshit over icy, depressive minimalism.

A lot of Coloring Book, particularly the sunny “No Problem,” call back to Kanye West’s most joyful ‘00s music, so it’s not exactly radical in the context of recent-ish rap history, but Chance’s character is substantially different. Kanye has always been at war with his own contradictions and conflicting social pressures, but Chance is a far more secure and coherent personality. He’s defined by this sense of clarity – he seems to know exactly who he is and what he wants and how to achieve his goals entirely on his own terms. Given that he’s mostly speaking to a generation of people who’ve built a lot of their identity around obsessing on anxiety disorders, his unshakeable certainty must seem like a superpower.

Get it from Apple Music.

R.E.M. “Electrolite”

The problem with writing about “Electrolite” is that Michael Stipe already did it, and he summed up the concept of the lyrics with such remarkable clarity and grace that I would find it very difficult to discuss the song without deferring to his explanation, or straight-up plagiarizing him. Back in 2006, he was asked to write about the song for an article in the Los Angeles Times about Mulholland Drive, which is the setting for the lyrics.

This is what he wrote:

Mulholland represents to me the iconic ‘from on high’ vantage point looking down at L.A. and the valley at night when the lights are all sparkling and the city looks, like it does from a plane, like a blanket of fine lights all shimmering and solid. I really wanted to write a farewell song to the 20th century.

20th century go to sleep.
Really deep.
We won’t blink.

And nowhere seemed more perfect than the city that came into its own throughout the 20th century, but always looking forward and driven by ideas of a greater future, at whatever cost.
Los Angeles.

I name check three of the great legends of that single industry ‘town,’ as it likes to refer to itself. In order: James Dean, Steve McQueen, Martin Sheen. All iconic, all representing different aspects of masculinity—a key feature of 20th century ideology. It is the push me-pull you of a culture drawing on mid-century ideas of society, butt up against and in a great tug-of-war with modernism/rebirth/epiphany/futurism, wiping out all that that came before to be replaced by something ‘better,’ more civilized, more tolerant, fair, open, and so on … [see ‘reagan,’ ‘soylent green,’ ‘bladerunner,’ current gubernatorial debates]

The ‘really deep’ in the lyric is, of course, self-deprecating towards attempting at all, in a pop song, to communicate any level of depth or real insight.

Mulholland is the place in films where you get a distance, and the awe, of the city built on dreams and fantasy. Far away enough to not smell it but to marvel at its intensity and sheer audacity. Kinda great.

It says a lot about the mindset of Michael Stipe that he decided to write a farewell song to the entire 20th Century about five years before it was even over. The song memorializes the past, but it’s really about wanting to move on to the future, and standing in awe of the possibilities offered by the blank slate of a new era. Stipe’s sentiment is extremely optimistic — he imagines that it is possible for us to move on into a future that is not fully poisoned by even the best bits of the past. Over twelve years after the song’s release, and with only two years left of the century’s first decade, its hope for the future seems at once depressingly quaint and idealistic, and inspiring because we still have so much time left to make this era — our era — a time of progress, and a source of pride.

The music for “Electrolite” is gorgeous, albeit in a very low-key sort of way. It seems very likely that the arrangement was settled on before Stipe wrote his lyrics, but either way, it has a sound of recent antiquity that complements its concept rather well. It’s nostalgic for the past, but is firmly rooted in the romance of its present tense. True to the era, the band give the decade a perfect Hollywood ending, literally and figuratively. It’s one last slow dance, and a long, slow kiss goodbye before heroically heading off into the sunset, ready and searching for new adventures.

Buy it from Amazon.

This post was originally published on June 11, 2008 on Pop Songs 07/08, a site where I wrote about every R.E.M. song from 1980-2006.

Fascinations Grand Chorus “Welcome”

The best fun I’ve ever had has come on nights that feel ripe with possibility, but have no particular plan. You can definitely have fun without surprises, and fun on a schedule, but it’s never quite as pure as jumping gleefully into the unknown. That’s basically the theme of this song, but the singer announces this with a defiant tone, declaring the distinction between night and day fundamentally absurd and insisting that we’re all free to roam. This is all in a garage rock/60s R&B tune that sounds like driving around a city at night, and somehow every color you see is super saturated, and the air feels unusually crisp. It’s an extremely convincing argument. I mean, I’m totally sold! Pick me up in your car and take me with you. Oh, take me anywhere, I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Radiohead “The Numbers”

The first time I heard A Moon Shaped Pool I was walking through an unfamiliar chunk of West Hollywood at twilight, finding my way back to where I’m staying. I’ve only heard it in Los Angeles since, and I’m sure I’ll associate it closely with the city for the rest of my life. And sure, a lot of that is just how memory works, but I think it matches this setting rather well. There’s something in the negative space of this music that feels right here – other Radiohead records feel claustrophobic, but this is so light and airy, like it’s just drifting in a daze. The music is crisp and elegant, but Thom Yorke seems numb and disconnected. Most of the songs address his recent divorce from a woman he’s been with since he was still in school, and he sounds like a man who’s trying to figure out a new way to exist.

The circumstances of my life are very different, but that search for a new way of being in the world fairly late in life resonates with me a lot right now. One of my favorite things about my life in this moment is being pushed out of my comfort zone, and discovering that it’s not actually uncomfortable. I don’t think I’m about to make any major life changes, but it is nice to feel like I can change and adapt, and that there are other contexts I can feel at home in.

“The Numbers” feels like it’s in motion, it sounds like a feeling mid-transition. The piano notes and guitar chords seem to float in mid-air, and drift by in slow motion. There’s a lazy drag to this song, and it’s slightly at odds with the majestic string arrangement that drops in about two thirds of the way through. It’s like stumbling around in the dark, and making a turn around a corner to suddenly behold a gorgeous waterfall or a stunning vista. The sense of implied scale seems important, particularly in the context of dealing with loss and change.

Buy it from Amazon.

Guided by Voices “Kid On A Ladder”

The thing I always tell people about Robert Pollard is that you don’t realize the extent of his genius until you realize that he’s written at least 100 songs you love. He’s written a lot of duds, sure, but dwelling on that distracts from the overwhelming number of great songs he’s written in the past 25 years or so. On the scale of quality in the Pollard discography, “Kid On A Ladder” probably rates a solid B. This is such a Pollard-y song, to the point that it can feel a bit Pollard-by-numbers on a structural level. The melody and rhythms are familiar, and the way the song moves through its parts efficiently before leading to a clear conclusion in just under two minutes. Having heard so much of his work over the years, I think one of the defining characteristics of his music is the way his songs almost always progress toward a definite ending, like they’re all well-formed little paragraphs of sound.

Buy it from Amazon.

Leapling “Alabaster Snow”

This is one of those songs that is slightly aggravating in that I swear it reminds me of something specific from 20+ years ago, but I can’t place it at all. It might be a lot of things at once – the vocal melody is very Elliott Smith, for example, but the shambling rock of it is more Sebadoh-ish. Part of what makes this exercise in trainspotting annoying is that it does a disservice to the song, which is very lovely and emotional entirely on its own terms. I love the vulnerability in this guy’s voice, and how the loud guitars are like this very flimsy armor for these raw feelings he’s expressing. You could dismiss this as wimpy or twee, but it strikes me as mature and brave for the most part. You can always kinda tell when the “sensitive, kinda broken” act is a cynical ploy, and I don’t get that vibe here at all.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Underworld “Motorhome”

The first half of Underworld’s Barbara Barbara… feels very dark and oppressive, and I feel stressed and claustrophobic just listening to it. The feeling disappears midway through the record, and the back half is much lighter and brighter. “Motorhome” is the first song after this transition happens, and it sounds like you’re coming out of a bad time and feeling cautiously optimistic but aren’t 100% certain you’ve escaped. Karl Hyde’s voice has a lovely tone, but he seems fragile and wounded, and even when he sings emphatically, he seems a bit shaken and unsure of himself. But as the song goes along, the pressure keeps releasing and by the time it ends that pressure is almost completely gone.

Buy it from Amazon.

Bas featuring Cozz “Dopamine”

“Dopamine” belongs to a long line of rap songs about willing yourself into a better life, and reasons to accumulate wealth that have nothing to do with cheap glory. Bas’ verses are mostly focused on a sense of responsibility to family and friends, and his eagerness to be generous is inspiring, but also weighed down with expectations. You can hear that weight in the song, and the way how even that gorgeous swell of spacey strings feels like this enormous thing relative to Bas and Cozz’s voices, which seem to rest at the bottom of the music along with the beat. It sounds like triumph just out of reach, and every time the sample comes in it’s like – is he gonna reach out and grab it this time? Or is he gonna wreck himself trying to do it?

Buy it from Amazon.

James Blake “Radio Silence”

James Blake’s deconstructed R&B has gradually shifted from strange outlier to mainstream trend over the past few years, to the point that his own music doesn’t quite have the same “whoa, what is this??” quality it had when he started releasing songs with vocals. He’s still a bit too weird to pass for normal, but his tracks are far more rich and sophisticated these days, with “Radio Silence” feeling so lush, dynamic, and emotional that it’s easy to miss how odd it is in compositional terms. Blake’s voice is great here, circling just a few sad sack lyrics with varying degrees of anger, self-pity, and loneliness as his piano and keyboard parts clank, hum, and sputter around him. The song captures the feeling of being stuck in a single negative thought, and your mind doesn’t just snap into a monotonous rhythmic pattern but instead makes the rest of your brain riff around it.

Buy it from Amazon.

Here’s the seventh in my series of 1980s survey mixes, which are moving backwards in time from 1989 to the start of the decade. These compilations are designed to give more context to the music of the ‘80s, and give a sense of how various niches and trends overlapped in this cultural moment.

I can’t tell you how nice it is to get out of the mid-’80s after spending months focused on that period for the past few surveys. The early ’80s have a very different vibe, and are much more rooted in elements of disco, new wave, and punk that have aged better than the cheesy extremes of the mid-80s. There’s a lot of great stuff going on in this set, and I think when this project is complete, this will end up being one of the most listenable surveys.

Thanks to Paul Cox, Chris Conroy, Chris Ott, and Rob Sheffield for their help in compiling this survey. All of the previous 1980s surveys are still available: 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, 1985, 1984. The 1982 survey should be ready sometime in the middle of June.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Michael Jackson “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” / New Order “Blue Monday” / David Bowie “Let’s Dance” / Human League “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” / Eddie Grant “Electric Avenue” / Stevie Nicks “Stand Back” / Loose Joints “Tell You (Today)” / ESG “My Love for You” / Liquid Liquid “Cavern” / Herbie Hancock “Rockit” / Run-D.M.C. “It’s Like That” / Donna Summer “She Works Hard for the Money” / Prince “Little Red Corvette” / R.E.M. “Pilgrimage” / U2 “New Year’s Day” / Echo and the Bunnymen “The Cutter” / The Smiths “This Charming Man” / Spandau Ballet “True”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

Madonna “Borderline” / Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers “Islands in the Stream” / The Isley Brothers “Between the Sheets” / Mtume “Juicy Fruit” / Talking Heads “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” / Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson “Say Say Say” / Huey Lewis and the News “Heart and Soul” / Billy Joel “Uptown Girl” / John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band “On the Dark Side” / New Edition “Candy Girl” / Naked Eyes “Always Something There to Remind Me” / Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” / “Irene Cara “Flashdance…What A Feeling” / Yazoo “Nobody’s Diary” / Cybotron “Clear” / The Cure “The Lovecats” / Culture Club “Karma Chameleon” / Ludus “Breaking the Rules” / Cocteau Twins “Sugar Hiccup” / Siouxsie and the Banshees “Dear Prudence” / Sonic Youth “Making the Nature Scene”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

Styx “Mr. Roboto” / Yes “Owner of a Lonely Heart” / The Police “Every Breath You Take” / Elton John “I’m Still Standing” / Genesis “That’s All” / Miles Davis “U n I” / Bob Marley “Buffalo Soldier” / X-Visitors “The Planet Doesn’t Mind” / G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid “Play That Beat Mr. DJ” / Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force “Renegades of Funk” / Gwen Guthrie “Padlock (Larry Levan mix)” / Beastie Boys “Cooky Puss” / Vanity 6 “Nasty Girl” / Pat Benetar “Love Is A Battlefield” / ZZ Top “Sharp Dressed Man” / Suicidal Tendencies “Institionalized” / Circle Jerks “Parade of the Horribles” / Bad Brains “Big Takeoever” / Minor Threat “Out of Step” / The Minutemen “Sell Or Be Sold” / The Verlaines “Death and the Maiden” / Bauhaus “She’s In Parties” / Einstuerzende Neubauten “Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

Lionel Richie “All Night Long (All Night)” / Cyndi Lauper “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” / Def Leppard “Photograph” / John Cougar Mellencamp “Pink Houses” / Elvis Costello “Shipbuilding” / Tears for Fears “Mad World” / Depeche Mode “Everything Counts” / Laid Back “White Horse” / Shriekback “Lined Up” / The Fall “Eat Y’self Fitter” / Weird Al Yankovic “I Love Rocky Road” / The Replacements “Color Me Impressed” / The B Boys “Rock the House” / Kurtis Blow “Got to Dance” / King Sunny Ade “Synchro System” / Steps Ahead “Pools” / Shalamar “The Look” / UB40 “Many Rivers to Cross” / Bob Dylan “Jokerman” / Holger Czukay, Jah Wobble, and The Edge “Snake Charmer” / Jandek “If Your Fortune Fails You”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five “Scorpio” / Rammellzee Vs K-Rob “Beat Bop” / Orange Juice “Rip It Up” / The Fixx “One Thing Leads to Another” / Fun Boy Three “Our Lips Are Sealed” / Kajagoogoo “Too Shy” / Grace Jones “My Jamaican Guy” / Don Carlos “Spread Out” / Black Uhuru “Big Spliff” / Daryl Hall and John Oates “One On One” / Marianne Faithful “Blue Millionaire” / Oingo Boingo “Good For Your Soul” / Jeffrey Osborne “Stay With Me Tonight” / James Ingram & Michael McDonald “Yah Mo Be There” / The Motels “Suddenly Last Summer” / The Kinks “Come Dancing” / Stray Cats “(She’s) Sexy + 17” / Tracey Ullman “They Don’t Know”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Quiet Riot “Cum On Feel the Noize” / Mötley Crüe “Looks That Kill” / Big Country “In A Big Country” / The B-52’s “Legal Tender” / Public Image Ltd “(This Is Not A) Love Song” / The Glove “Punish Me With Kisses” / Laura Branigan “Deep in the Dark” / Killing Joke “Let’s All Go (To The Fire Dances)” / Sparks “Lucky Me, Lucky You” / Air Supply “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All” / Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack “Tonight I Celebrate My Love” / Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton “We’ve Got Tonight” / Emmylou Harris “Like An Old Fashioned Waltz” / Bryan Adams “Cuts Like A Knife” / Red Rockers “China” / X “The New World” / Jonathan Richman “That Summer Feeling” / Paul Simon “Train in the Distance” / Randy Newman “I Love L.A.” / This Mortal Coil “Song to the Siren”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Metallica “Hit the Lights” / Dio “Rainbow in the Dark” / Billy Idol “Rebel Yell” / Greg Kihn Band “Jeopardy” / Class Action “Weekend” / Malcolm McLaren “Double Dutch” / Lex “Fourteen Days” / Olivia Newton-John “Twist of Faith” / Rufus & Chaka Khan “Ain’t Nobody” / David Joseph “You Can’t Hide (Your Love From Me) (Larry Levan mix)” / Chaz Jankel featuring Laura Weymouth “Whisper” / Whodini “Magic’s Wind” / William Onyeabor “Good Name” / Robin Gibb “I Believe In Miracles” / Shakin’ Stevens “Cry Just A Little Bit” / The Call “The Walls Come Down” / Pink Floyd “Two Suns in the Sunset”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Kraftwerk “Tour de France” / Duran Duran “Union of the Snake” / Wham! “Club Tropicana” / Michael Sambello “Maniac” / Peter Schilling “Major Tom (Völlig Losgelöst)” / Heaven 17 “Temptation” / XTC “Wonderland” / Liliput “Yours Is Mine” / Dub Syndicate “Drainpipe Rats” / Ministry “Work for Love” / Lou Reed “Legendary Hearts” / Pulp “My Lighthouse” / Tom Waits “In the Neighborhood” / Journey “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” / Jonzun Crew “Pack Jam” / The Rake “Street Justice” / African Head Charge “Timbuktu Express” / Marshall Crenshaw “Whenever You’re On My Mind” / Madness “Tomorrow’s (Just Another Day)” / Violent Femmes “Blister in the Sun” / Bonnie Tyler “Total Eclipse of the Heart”

Elijah Blake “Whatever Happened”

“Whatever Happened” is right on the edge of self-parody, with vulnerable sentiments about being rejected presented in a way that seems like it’s at least partly meant to be taken as a self-deprecating joke. But…maybe not? Some guys are not very self-aware. Elijah Blake is singing about a college girl he hooked up with after a Future show at SXSW in Austin, and he’s totally incredulous that she’s ghosting him now after he spent so much money on taking her on trips to Paris. (Three times, exactly.) “I was ’bout to pull you out that dorm and put you up in a suite,” he sings. “It could have happened!” Blake is totally flabbergasted that this young woman – possibly a teenager still – didn’t just drop everything to live a fancy life off his money, as if desiring some agency or following through on her own ambitions are totally outlandish concepts. I’d like to think that the joke’s at his own expense, and that we’re meant to laugh at his thinly veiled insecurity and his inability to deal with being used by this girl when he thought he had all the power in that relationship. But he really does seem upset about this, and I’ve come to side against men in most contemporary R&B songs, so who knows.

Buy it from Amazon.

Little Scream “Dark Dance”

“Dark Dance” is essentially about the private moments of clarity and joy we can have quite suddenly, which you can never plan for but can have the power to entirely shift the focus of your life. In this case it’s dancing alone in the dark, but it could be anything, really. The sound of this track tilts between haziness and ecstasy, and approximates this very specific late night feeling of being both exhausted and totally wired at the same time. The beauty of that sensation is in connecting two very different states of being — the mind relaxing and fading into dream, and being so alert that your mind is just racing. It’s the best of both worlds, really, and maybe the easiest state to be in to have a random epiphany.

Buy it from Amazon.

Formulars Dance Band “Never Never Let Me Down”

It’s pretty easy to get sucked into the gravitational pull of this song. There’s something about the way that gentle groove, tinny guitar, and softly buzzing keyboard come together that’s slightly off in exactly the right way. The notes seem to shake slightly in the air, the treble sounds like a dim glow. And then there’s this guy’s voice, which is the richest, deepest tone in the mix, and delivers English lyrics with what sounds to me like a Nigerian accent approximating an American accent. He’s singing about this fraught relationship, and though his passion is obvious, there’s also this sorta serene quality to his voice.

There’s one lyric in this song that really gets to me, partly because I know it in another context: “You’re the one good thing that I’ve got.” George Michael sings that in “Freedom ’90,” and it’s something that always stings me. I know that feeling too well, that desperate, sad thing of clinging to something you feel sure of – a talent, an achievement, a person, whatever – because it’s the only thing that keeps you from thinking you’re pathetic. The line feels different here, though. Whereas George Michael sings it with a lot of ego, this guy sounds very humble. He’s holding on to something, but more out of love for someone else than a fear of losing his sense of self.

Buy it from Amazon.

Case/Lang/Veirs “Honey and Smoke”

“They don’t love you like I love you” is a poignant phrase to hear in a song because as earnest as it may be, it can only come from a position of insecurity. The one being addressing is obviously not convinced, or perhaps sees the difference in how you love them and how others love them and has decided they prefer the latter. Intensity of feeling is not a guarantee of a stable, healthy relationship. The singer is an unreliable narrator; maybe they’re delusional or in the wrong. Who can say?

K.D. Lang sings “Honey and Smoke” with the suggestion that her character is a bit deluded, but totally respects that perspective. She’s looking on as other people attempt to woo her ex, in awe of how easily they attract suitors while seething with jealousy and desperate to relive the seduction rather than observe it happen for others. She dismisses her rivals’ sentiments as “all honey and smoke,” insisting that there’s no way these others could understand or fully appreciate them. It’s romantic jealousy as aesthetic snobbery – sure, these people can fall in lust, but only she can fall in love. She’s a connoisseur. This is echoed in the sound of the music, as any anger or overt jealousy is buried beneath a slick, sophisticated affect. Lang’s voice conveys a bit of sadness, but the real emotional truth of the song is in Neko Case’s backing vocals, which condense all the bitterness and sorrow in the song to a few plaintive notes.

Buy it from Amazon.

Beyoncé “Hold Up”

Beyoncé is singing “they don’t love you like I love you” too, this time directly quoting the chorus of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps.” “Hold Up” is the second track on Lemonade, and it’s the point in the album’s narrative about infidelity in which she’s processing the reality that she’s being cheated on by her husband. Beyoncé has approached this before, notably on “Ring the Alarm,” but unlike that song, which said more or less the same things with an apocalyptic rage, “Hold Up” is serene and composed. She’s furious, yes, and cycling through severe anguish and anxiety, but she’s graceful and confident through sheer force of will. You probably can’t get to where she is on “Hold Up” without having experienced “Ring the Alarm” first – it’s easier to be composed and collected when you’ve been through it before, right?

A good chunk of “Hold Up” is Beyoncé deciding how much of her emotions she should be comfortable sharing with everyone else. “What’s worse, lookin’ jealous or crazy?,” she sings, aware that any honest display is likely to get dismissed by misogynists. She comes down on the side of not giving a fuck, and that opens the floodgates for the rest of the record – one song later she’s approaching “Ring the Alarm” levels of righteous fury with Jack White at her back, and that keeps up through the middle of the album. “Hold Up” is the crux of the album, though, and her mature approach to dealing with emotional catastrophe here is what sets the table for the reconciliation at the end of the record. If there’s a message here, it could be that you should honor your jealous, crazy feelings, but not let them consume you. In this case, the “they don’t love you like I love you” sentiment could actually be the very thing that holds everything together.

Buy it from Amazon.

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down “Fool Forever”

Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards produced the new Thao record, and it’s very obvious, as her aesthetic is all over it – the emphasis on bass and percussion, the ever-shifting planes of musical texture, little eruptions of noise, a slightly feral quality to the performances. Thao Nguyen doesn’t totally surrender herself to Garbus’ sound, but she seems very home within it, sharpening her songwriting and moving her vocal performance into more aggressive and nakedly expressive territory. “Fool Forever,” one of the best tracks on the record, is built on a reggae-translated-into-punk groove that reminds me a lot of The Clash’s “Guns of Brixton,” but when the chorus hits, it abruptly shifts into a sound that’s simultaneously much lighter and far more abrasive. Even having heard this song many times in the past couple months, it always feels a bit sudden and exciting, like this sudden cathartic moment from out of nowhere.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Scary Jokes “Catabolic Seed”

The Scary Jokes’ Liz Lehman reminds me of a young Kevin Barnes with her seemingly effortless gift for melody, tendency of tying her songs together into long suites, and focus on writing about her emotional state with great precision and a high level of self-awareness. Like Barnes, Lehman’s lyrics have this cutting critical tone, whether she’s writing about herself, or her feelings about someone else. I like the way this contrasts with the girlish timbre of her voice, and suggests that you’re listening to the musical equivalent of an unusually eloquent teenage diary. “Catabolic Seed” is essentially about trying to pull yourself together after getting rejected by a crush, feeling frustrated by chasing fantasies, and just having poor luck in general. But Lehman’s words dig a bit deeper than that, and tip back and forth between self-loathing and reasonably decent self-esteem. You can hear that tension in the music too, as the colorful keyboard tones and the crisp snap of the beat suggest an assertive quality that is at odds with – but does not undermine – the self-crimination in the lyrics.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Paul Simon “Wristband”

“Wristband” starts off as a joke about a rock musician stepping out for a smoke but getting locked out of a venue, and trying and failing to get back in despite being a headliner. But that’s just the jumping-off point, as Simon’s character reckons with losing his privilege even just for a few minutes, and then snaps back into proper perspective by imagining all the “homeless and the lowly” who will never get that metaphorical wristband granting them access to wealth, success, and comfort. Simon’s voice is relaxed but sardonic, and the groove is funky but a bit busy and vaguely agitated. He gets just the right balance of lightness, aggravation, and introspection, which is pretty key for a song like this – knock it too much in any direction, and I think the sentiment might become ridiculous or kinda douchey.

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Wire “Internal Exile”

Colin Newman’s voice has a cold and emotionally sterile affect, and it makes pretty much every Wire song feel distant and vaguely cruel. Even when he’s expressing empathy, he sounds as though he must keep a distance, as though he’s concerned about becoming infected by your feelings and misfortunes. “Internal Exile” may be an empathetic song, but it’s slightly unclear – it’s just as easy to interpret this as an indictment of people stuck in drab, boring lives as it is an expression of solidarity with everyone crushed and alienated by capitalist institutions. Newman’s sings the song like an inscrutable deity, with each line right on the edge of pity and indifference. The music isn’t much warmer, but there’s a touch of sentimentality in the lead parts, particularly a synth horn part that gestures in the direction of joy and triumph, but is undermined by its obvious artifice.

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PJ Harvey “The Ministry of Social Affairs”

I’ve seen PJ Harvey perform twice in my life. The first was an opening act gig for U2 in 2001, and I barely remember anything about it. The second was a solo performance at the Beacon Theater in 2007, and it was one of the most powerful and impressive shows I’ve ever witnessed. A lot of what made that show so captivating was being confronted with Harvey’s full range as a singer, as she performed songs from all the periods of her career up through White Chalk and approaching them with very different vocal techniques. I had always acknowledged that she had a great voice, but up until that point I thought of her mainly as someone who wrote excellent songs. But from then on, it was clear to me that she had a rare gift as a singer, something like being a chameleonic actor. She writes a song, and fully inhabits it. The songs ask her to be different people, and she obliges.

The past few PJ Harvey records have leaned mostly on the high register of her voice, which has been interesting and suitable for the material, but vaguely disappointing in that I think she’s at her best when she’s more connected to the blues and early rock traditions. She’s come back around to that on The Hope Six Demolition Project, and it invests the songs with a level of passion and sense of high stakes that the more fragile or academic songs of Let England Shake and White Chalk lacked. The songs on this record are about desperate people and desperate situations, and so she sings like there’s something to lose. “The Ministry of Social Affairs” is a rock ballad literally built around an old blues song by Jerry McCain, and shambles along while she belts out lyrics about the people who knowingly profit off other people’s suffering. The whole record is about the oppressive institutions that crush the lives of the poor, and this song is essentially the climax of it all, and she just sounds defeated and exasperated. The music isn’t devoid of hope, but it’s bitter and frustrated in acknowledging that the house always wins.

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