Ad lib!

Mix 2: Kali Uchis scores in Spanish, fun with ad-libs, 3-step keeps 3-stepping, good taste that tastes good, and a couple of Philly friends

Improv comedy dominates the pop charts in 2024

Not much to report this week after snow days and illnesses (hopefully by the time you are reading this I am not ill!). I have been suggesting songs from Teenpop History every time either of the two Olivia Rodrigo tracks in competition for Peoples Pop 2023 stomp their way to another victory. Here they are:

• Emily Osment: 1800 Clap Your Hands (2010)
  Hannah Montana Disney co-star (and Haley Joel’s little sister) gets a top 5 Adam Schlesinger hack track.
  

• Megan McCauley: Tap That (2007)
  Emo girl goes Salt N Pepa for the best ever iteration of Max Martin’s cheerleader-stomp template.
  

• Skye Sweetnam: Hypocrite (2004)
  The actual best self-aware cheerleader-stomp pop-punk trifle, several years before Avril Lavigne and Max Martin did it! “ProTools all the way, hey hey hey!” (Am I one day going to write a bait-and-switch story of Taylor Swift’s ascent to superstardom that reveals I’m actually writing about Skye Sweetnam? Maybe!)
  

• Fefe Dobson: Get You Off (2006)

  Please call me when Olivia Rodrigo writes a line as good as “I’ve been livin’ lately like I’m dyin’ all the time / Might do something crazy like jumping off the Hollywood sign / ‘Cuz boy you make me feel like I can fly” in the middle 8 of what might generously be called the fourth-best song on its accompanying album, which infamously wasn’t released until six years after it was supposed to come out. Fefe Dobson is very good at writing songs that scream “fuck you” without having to sprinkle f-bombs in like the sheepish tweens who hang out by the steps when I walk my kids home from elementary school. She even wrote one about her absent father!
  

• Cher Lloyd: Want U Back (2011)

  I know it’s not a competition and there’s a healthy dose of sour (no pun intended?) grapes in my Olivia Rodrigo antipathy, but I am suspicious of anyone who thinks Olivia Rodrigo is great but wasn’t extremely into this song. URNGH!
  

• Katy Rose: Watching the Rain (2004)

  Exhibit A in my “every Avril clone was better than Avril” case coming soon to whatever the Hague is for minor pop disputes. Pop Pantheon, I guess?
  

Mix 1 //

MIX 2: AD LIB!

1. Kali Uchis f. Peso Pluma: Igual Que Un Ángel

I liked the Kali Uchis album from last year, but this Spanish-language album, Orquídeas, is really something else — on the big single (I think?) she snags Peso Pluma at the height of his crossover ascent and he melds seamlessly into the airy disco bliss.

2. 21 Savage f. Doja Cat: n.h.i.e.

When Al Shipley mentioned that Doja Cat uses her feature in this song to literally say “ad lib” for every ad-lib, I knew I’d at least like it (“Hypocrite” is one of my favorite songs; I like cheeky meta commentary on pop production!), but I was not prepared for 21 Savage to sound so…well, “buoyant” is maybe overstating things, but it’s the first time I’m not worried he might sink.

3. Merveille: Citadelle

4. MC Solaar: Pierre-feuille

Two French tracks from YouTube’s popularity tracker, one from an artist I’ve never heard of and the other from a longstanding French hip-hop star whose fantastic “Bouge De La” from 1990 was recently featured over at the League of Extraordinary Tracks (season 2 is still running! Go check it out!).

This gives me as good a reason as any to lament the loss of music data maestro Glenn McDonald’s Every Noise At Once, one of his Spotify data projects that was immediately borked after he was laid off. It was the easiest way to track streaming popularity across regions in a simple interface, updated constantly. It was too useful to be allowed to live. (You can petition for Spotify to at least turn the lights back on here.)

5. Fred again.. f. Baby Keem: leavemealone (Nia Archives remix)

I am a big fan of Nia Archives’ chaotic remixes-of-remixes, and this is no exception.

6. Mỹ Anh: Small Talk

A minor song from what sounds like a major V-pop R&B debut, Mỹ Anh’s Em, but it’s my low-key favorite track.

7. Micro TDH, Suei: Makin Noi

Woozy trap from Venezuela.

8. DJ MK, MJ&M.S: Salam 3lekom

Chintzily-synthed rap from United Arab Emirates.

9. DJ Lucas Beat, MC Matheuzim, MC Xang: Oh Nanana

Wavered on including this somewhat uninspired cover of the the Bonde R300 song from 2017, which is probably one of the few post-2010 baile funk songs I would even recognize before 2020 (though I’m not sure why—maybe it’s just the 2Chainz sample? Something in my memory pinged me to check that it was a cover…). But ultimately the hook is too strong to worry about it being a retread; consider this a “new to you” placeholder if need be.

10. MC Mazzie, DJ Mimo Prod: Toma Coro

Another somewhat randomly-chosen funk track, this one seems relatively unknown as yet, and tends toward the EDM blare that I don’t think is a very interesting path for baile funk, but it includes at least one choice—that squealing guitar solo throughout—that put it over the line.

Meanwhile, the scene is starting to cohere into the sorts of compilation-style albums (or at least “let’s cram in as many features as possible”) that might start to preserve the genre outside of YouTube and viral success: at the end of 2023, there were two good baile funk de facto primers, DJ Ws da Igrejinha’s Caça Fantasma Vol. 1 and Tropa do Bruxo & SMU’s Baile Do Bruxo, that served as album-oriented flashpoints, probably as close as the last few years’ worth of ideas and personalities in baile funk will probably get to a Run the Road-style time capsule.

11. Quentin Gas & Los Zíngaros: Paripé

Spanish avant-pop that clatters and shudders and shimmies in 6/4 while still just barely maintaining its status as a bop.

12. El Pastor RD, Jey Khalish: Mambero

A more down-the-middle dembow inclusion than anything from last week’s mix. Already this year I’m hearing sonic development—in this one, lots of snaps and silence—and a willingness to get out before the three minute mark that’s been bringing me back into the fold after tiptoeing in and out of dembow for the past few years.

13. Heavy-K, Samthing Soweto, Thakzin f. Professor: Ulele

South African producer Heavy-K was catching my ear getting into the “dream piano”(?) sound of Sun-El Musician last year, so letting Thakzin, the best producer in South Africa at the moment, help shift things into 3-step couldn’t hurt.

14. Mah Kouyaté: Soso [2011]

This comes from a compilation of Soninke music from Mali, Wagadu Grooves: The Hypnotic Sound of Camara 1987​-​2016, featuring tracks from Gaye Camara’s Camara Production label and various singles and tapes released from Soninke artists over the past 30 years. This one sounded older to me than its 2011 release date: it stretches out a serpentine kalimba and percussion pattern to seven minutes, while synths and guitars wander in and out of the scene at their leisure.

15. Júnior No Beat: Sambila

This song sells itself as merely an Angolan “type” kuduro beat from an Angolan producer who specializes more in Afrohouse with kuduro elements. But I couldn’t really tell the difference until I saw the off-puttingly promotional YouTube video.

16. Nathalie Joachim: Ki moun ou ye

Was taken by the vocal harmonies and electronic baubles—something almost Gregorian to it, or at least Arvo Pärt-ish—and then the song settled into the sort of tasteful lyrics and string section that made me suspect there was perhaps an art background in the picture. Lo and behold — Joachim is “Assistant Professor of Composition at Princeton University and is regularly commissioned to write for orchestra, instrumental and vocal ensembles, dance, and interdisciplinary theater.” Sometimes good taste tastes good!

17. @: Webcrawler

The best un-googleable indie concern since !!! easy, right? I think I preferred the Phil Elverum-like production on their album from last year, Mind Palace Music— that feeling you get that they jammed a mic into the sound holes of the guitars and every tap and rustle is recorded to sound like it’s happening inside your head, without losing a sense of everyone breathing together the room (though the album was mostly recorded remotely). But I’m also a sucker for the grab-bag of arty indie moves on display here: smushed-up Stereolab harmonies, a chorus(ish) that slides into 7/4, a polite guitar freakout toward the end.

18. Mer, Kriss Ngo: Nhắm chặt mắt lại ít thật sâu

Mer seems a bit twee overall, but I’ll be damned if I’m not putting a half-decent Vietnamese bossanova on my mix.

19. BIG|BRAVE: I Felt a Funeral

Montreal group on Thrill Jockey (the label really wants you to associate the band with minimalism — they’ve even got me saying it!) is noisy, not to say noise, with several layers of scuzz to throw you off the scent that there’s an earnest singer-songwriter concern at the center.

20. Rosali: Rewind

21. Pissed Jeans: Moving On

Two Philly phriends to close out the mix! Rosali has been building up a solid singer-songwriter career over the past few years and is now the most likely answer to the household question “guess who I saw on a famous indie musician’s Instagram page?” I am honored to have once had a role in inspiring a great Pissed Jeans song about being extremely allergic cats. Rosali’s new album is Bite Down and the new Pissed Jeans album is Half Divorced, both out in March on Merge and Sub Pop, respectively.

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Until next time, I hope that you are able to make the best art about your worst allergies.

—Dave Moore (the other one)

Title from 21 Savage f. Doja Cat: “n.h.i.e.”