chris mix - songs to relax/socially distance to
Hello to my loyal subscribers and anyone else reading! It’s been a while since my last music newsletter, and in the interim a whole lot has happened. One of the most significant changes is that those of us lucky enough to be able to work from home have been doing so for close to six months. And while I’m grateful to be in that position, I don’t think it’s been a particularly easy time for anyone. As usual in difficult times, I’ve turned to music for comfort and escape. I figured I’d write this blog to share some of the songs that I’ve appreciated most during this time. Hope you all enjoy at least some of them! Here’s a Spotify playlist to listen along with as you read:
12.38 – Childish Gambino, 21 Savage, Ink and Kadhja Bonet
Some people might see this pick and say “but Chris, you’re the loudest Childish Gambino hater I know!” To those people: have you heard 21 Savage on 12.38?
The Atlanta rapper’s verse is pure butter. Every time I listen to it I immediately go back and play it again. 21 finds the beat’s pocket perfectly, gliding over the groovy instrumentation. He’s at his funniest here, especially when he drops the gem “got a girl in Harvard, I talk proper when I call her,” while nailing the gravely delivery that first made him famous. 21’s ad-libs are also in rare form despite not being very diverse. Seriously, this is one of my favorite verses of the year and totally steals the show.
That’s not to say the rest of the song isn’t also great. Since Donald Glover shed his I’m-a-rapper-but-clever bit, he’s been putting out some excellent funk and flexing his production talent. The laidback beat is super catchy and his verse is a lot of fun. Ink and Khadhja Bonet’s vocal performances are also excellent, breaking up the verses nicely.
bedroom community – glass beach
A song about sulking in your room? In these unprecedented times? If you insist. I’m just beginning my foray in punk, but so far “bedroom community” has been the most fun song I’ve come across in the scene.
Part of genre-defying glass beach’s surprising debut album, this track hits me like a pure adrenaline shot every time I listen to it. There’s so much going on sonically: the wild drums, the 8-bit synths, the piano ballad, J McClendon’s peak emo-reminiscent delivery. glass beach makes it work though, turning these diverse sounds into something bound to make you at least bounce your head.
The lyrical content is also pretty interesting, focusing on the relationship between a daughter who just wants to write emo songs in her room and a father trying but failing to get through to her.
Fight or Flight? – Dyyo
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this song’s frantic energy in years and I don’t see that changing any time soon. “Fight or Flight?” has a unique sound, both in Dyyo’s charged delivery and (surprise to me until I wrote this) JPEGMAFIA’s ethereal production. The Baltimore-based pairing complement each other perfectly.
Dyyo’s rapping is incredibly nimble, darting across the beat in unpredictable ways. The way he slowly builds his intensity and volume perfectly in line with the beat is awesome. Dyyo’s lyricism is also great – I especially like how the line “fuck the maliciousness, I’m the antithesis / And I’m shifting ambivalence to ambitiousness” comes out sounding.
Peggy creates a soundscape worthy of Dyyo’s vocal performance. The pulsing melody and drum builds are hypnotic. The skittering vocal and creaky mechanical samples make the track that much more vibrant.
Held Down – Laura Marling
Laura Marling is one of those rare artists who is by all means a veteran, with seven albums and dozens of award nods under her belt, but also just turned 30. On her latest project, “Song for our Daughter,” the British folk singer-songwriter embraces growing older while exploring what it means to be a woman in modern society.
“Held Down,” the album’s lead single, is one of Marling’s most upbeat songs to date. The stripped-down instrumentation is led by a driving guitar line and built out with some beautiful vocal overlays. The star of the show is Marling’s singing though.
The searing pain of abandonment conjured in her lyrics could not be farther from Marling’s delicate, almost carefree delivery. The way she delivers this heart wrenching line without sounding bothered at all is astounding:
“It’s a cruel kind of twist that you’d leave like this / Just drop my wrist and say, ‘Well, that’s us done.'”
The whole album is full of these warm, intimate tracks, and has been on pretty much nonstop for me since its release.
I Know The End – Phoebe Bridgers
It’s no secret that I’m a huge Phoebe Bridgers stan who is convinced she would like me if we met. That being said, I feel pretty comfortable saying that Punisher is objectively one of the best albums ever recorded. Picking just one song to highlight from this project was a challenge that required me to listen to it front-to-back several times (what a bummer). If you refuse to listen to more than a song from Punisher, I humbly suggest the song should be “I Know The End.”
No other song has the same ability to give me goosebumps. Undoubtably Bridgers biggest and most ambitious song yet, the album’s closer starts off calmly with her trademark soothing folk sound as the singer-songwriter wistfully dreams of being back home. In the second chorus she admits that she’ll have to leave home eventually, leading us into the track’s second act. Just as her voice and the guitar begin to fade, the drums kick in and things start building.
Bridgers describes a drive littered with ominous signs – “a government drone or an alien spaceship,” “a haunted house with a picket fence” – steadily building up to a literal sign reading “The End Is Near.” At this point the crescendoing strings and bombastic drums take over, raising the track’s temperature even higher. Bridgers returns to finish off the track, but this time words have escaped her and all she has left is screams. Bridgers keeps screaming as the instruments fade out, but by this point she’s hoarse. Almost every day during this pandemic I’ve felt exactly like how Bridgers sounds trying to get out a few last screams.
Levitating – Dua Lipa
I’m still hurt that Future Nostalgia came out at a time when it wasn’t safe to go bars, even though admittedly that’s one of the least significant effects of the pandemic. The British/Kosovar Albanian pop star’s second album is a little under 40 minutes of disco brilliance. Practically every track makes me want to break out in dance (and more often than not succeeds). “Levitating” captures that feeling perfectly while also single-handedly bringing the term sugarboo back into popular discourse.
Backed by some spacey synth chords, Lipa opens the track with an invitation for listeners to come join her in new a galaxy and keeps that same playful energy throughout. The flirty lyrics are fun and littered with references to outer space. One of my favorite Lipa quotes came when she was asked to describe this song, which includes the line “let’s get lost on Mars,” and responded “It’s alluding to planets.”
The production on “Levitating” is truly something else. The rhythm section comes through superbly dance-y, especially the violently plucked bass. It’s almost hard to parse out to all the distinct melodies in the chorus yet somehow they all fit together seamlessly. Let’s just hope DJs give Lipa’s album a spin when it’s safe to dance at bars again.
Little Death – The Beths
The release of The Beths’s bubbly sophomore album Jump Rope Gazers this Spring was a great reminder that their first project, Future Me Hates Me, is just as lovely. The New Zealand based indie rock band emanates an absurd amount of joy, something we could all use a little extra of.
“Little Death” from their debut album is one of my favorite of their tracks, and while I recommend everyone explore their full discography, it’s a great place to start getting into The Beths. While the opening is comparatively subdued as front-woman Elizabeth Stokes sings about a debilitating crush, energy quickly builds. The brisk drumming and frenetic guitar join in as Stokes really gets going. The track’s contrasts, from the soft beginning of each verse to the downright headbanging peak in the chorus, are wonderfully pronounced.
Stokes has a real knack for clever phrases. The track’s title is an especially great one: she builds lists her reactions to her crush saying her name (“my legs support a little less,” “my tongue becomes a little mess”) ending with the feeling of dying just a little, temporarily overwhelmed by her feelings. This kind of sweet wordplay shows up all over The Beths work and is just another reason why they deserve a listen or 10.
Love on the Internet – Danger Incorporated feat. Larry League
I was pretty late to the Danger Incorporated party and only got here when I found out that Faye Webster’s boyfriend makes music. Even though the difference between Webster’s music and the Atlanta internet rap group couldn’t be bigger, I was immediately hooked.
“Love on the Internet” is a great snapshot of what makes the group, made up of Boothlord and Louie Dufflebags, so special. The duo wear their influences – most clearly Yung Lean on this track – proudly but have managed to make a sound distinctly their own. This song has strong horrorcore energy, with a deeply sinister synth melody and impossibly deep bass line. Every verse is full of funny one-liners about trying to find a special someone online, although fair warning there are also a bunch of really horny ones.
Dufflebag’s chorus presents us with a timely question: “Do you think we can fall in love on the internet?”
Ned Flanders (Siobhan Bell Remix) – MadeinTYO feat. A$AP Ferg
Short pitch for Siobhan Bell’s remix of “Ned Flanders:” it goes unbelievably hard. One time I accidentally listened to the original mix, and even though it was okay, it paled in comparison to what Bell managed.
The British DJ amps the track’s intensity up to 11, subtly speeding up everyone’s verses, mixing in some blaring synths and sprinkling Ferg’s iconic barks everywhere. That much more exciting backing makes MadeinTYO and Ferg’s already dope verses more hard hitting. Also, a big hell yeah from me to referencing Ned Flanders to flex your yellow diamonds.
While researching for this write-up I found out that my favorite French DJ, Stwo, also remixed “Ned Flanders” and was amazed by how different the two edits ended up. Highly recommend also checking that out (as well as Stwo’s timeless remix of X by 21 Savage).
On Hold – Fenne Lily
I’m starting to think I might just have a soft spot for folksy songs about holding or being held written by British singer-songwriters. The title track of Fenne Lily’s 2018 debut album, “On Hold,” is a gorgeous song about being embraced and nurtured by the world when at her lowest.
Lily’s vocal delivery is soothing as she describes a friend offering solace, helping her change pain to “gold.” The instrumentation is some of the best on the album – I especially like the guitar-driven bridge. The vocal layering is also done very well, giving nice depth to the choruses.
The influences of Joni Mitchell and, unsurprisingly, Laura Marling are noticeable on Lily’s debut, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary for such a young artist. Except big things from her sophomore project slated to come out later this month.
Pikachu – Yung Lean
Yung Lean scratches a musical itch for me that no one else can. Since his emergence as the face of cloud rap in 2012, the versatile Swedish artist has markedly matured his sound. Even though he’s still rapping about drugs and complaining about people only knowing his choruses, Jonatan Leandoer Håstad’s music is clearly more deliberate.
On “Pikachu,” Lean gifts us with some bars about wanting to treat a girl well in his signature listless delivery. The subject material sounds like it comes straight out of a trap track from Atlanta, but Lean makes it his own.
The production from Whitearmor – who was involved in every track on Lean’s Starz – is amazing. The simple synth melody is an instant earworm and the glitchy percussion bangs as well.
Pogo – Digitalism
A fun fact about me is that I had really awful music taste (debatable if this should be past tense) in high school. I was mostly into electronic music – think Daft Punk and Deadmau5 – but did this weird thing where I would download huge mixtapes off of PirateBay and then delete every song with lyrics, I assume because I thought words made songs bad (??). Anyways, one song with lyrics that I missed was “Pogo,” and boy am I glad I did.
I’m not even entirely sure this song is good at this point, but I do strongly associate it with realizing music could actually be something I enjoyed listening to. Digitalism’s production lives up to the name “Pogo,” led by a bouncy synth line and crunchy hats that energize the whole track. The lyrical delivery matches that energy, even if the content of the song itself isn’t all that interesting. This is the song I’ll toss on right if I’m about to miss a deadline.
RO TALK – R.A.P. Ferreira
Milo is dead, long live Milo. Rory Allen Phillip Ferreira reemerged this year after shedding his pseudonym with some of his best work yet. The rapper-producer embraces his backpacker notoriety on “RO TALK,” doing his darnedest to make me pull out a dictionary.
Ferreira eschews having a chorus entirely here, dropping three straight verses chock-full of complex rhyme schemes and concepts. There’s just something captivating about the way he raps around the groove, seemingly changing time signatures at will without ever actually falling off beat. Speaking of the beat, The Jefferson Park Boys – Kenny Segal, Aaron Carmack and Mike Parvizi – really kill the production on “RO TALK.” The varied instrumentation ebbs and flows in sync with the energy of Ferreira’s verses, keeping the track dynamic the whole run time.
Victime des réseaux – Angèle
Every time I revisit Angèle’s fantastic 2018 record Brol I find a new song I absolutely cannot get out of my head for the next several weeks. The most recent time around that track was “Victime des réseaux.” I’ve made the conscious decision never to figure out what Angèle’s songs are about, so please don’t tell me what that title means.
The Belgian starlet delivers an enjoyable blend of pop and R&B on this track. Her vocals are silky smooth (moment of honesty:I may just think this because she’s singing in French) over a leisurely dance beat that’s sure to get your foot tapping. The murky, wobbly synth line is really nice here, giving the whole track a darker vibe that fits nicely with Angèle’s voice. I’m sure the lyrics are good too, but, again, please don’t tell me what she’s saying. I have even taught myself not to her rare lines in English.
yellow is the color of her eyes – Soccer Mommy
I’d like to thank Soccer Mommy for the music. The Nashville singer-songwriter took a big step forward this year with her sophomore project, color theory, tightening up her already emotionally moving songwriting and incorporating some new instrumental diversity. “yellow is the color of her eyes” is the album’s crown jewel.
It’s also the album’s message distilled in its purest form. The melancholy is palpable as Sophie Allison sings about her mother’s terminal illness, gorgeously conveying her complicated emotional state through colors. As she grapples with her mother’s nearing death, Allison mentally prepares herself for the day she passes and while trying to appreciate her while she still can.
The chorus is beautifully forlorn and stops my mind in its tracks every time I hear it:
“And I could lie,” Allison admits, “But it’s never made me feel good inside / I’m still so blue, I can’t erase the hue, it’s just colored over”
The instrumental does just enough to keep the over seven-minute-long song interesting while never overshadowing the vocal performance. The guitar breakdown as the track winds down is particularly nice, especially as the droning synth in the background fades.