Blame my operator
2026 Mix 02: Revisiting a pop-drunk 2006, then flash forward to 2026, where it is also 1993 (Heavenly), 2011 (Dev), 2019 (Lolo Zouaï), and...2027 (Juky San)?
The year is underway, but so far I have not hit much discourse. (Discourse is still trickling in from 2025. Will no one rid me of these meddlesome geese?!)
I have, however, had reason to listen to a few albums celebrating a 20-year anniversary this year. A comedy podcast I listen to shouted out Jörgen Elofsson, whom they did not recognize, but of course I immediately Leo-meme-pointed. Elofsson is the Cheiron whiz responsible for the best Bratz song and most of former A*Teen Marie Serneholt’s 2006 solo album Enjoy the Ride, among many other credits.
Enjoy the Ride is fascinating because it pulls off a similar gambit as Rachel Stevens’s Come and Get It the year before: member of a teenpop group makes an “adult” solo album that is, improbably, a contemporary masterpiece compared to anything from the group act. Unlike Come and Get It, though, there’s no obvious reason why Enjoy the Ride should have worked. It’s a stylistic grab bag—some post-Stevens electro-twang (title track), appropriately ABBA-esque bittersweetness (personal favorite “I Need a House,” which is A*Teens gone existential), dumb (dee-dum) Swedish choruses (“That’s the Way My Heart Goes”), satisficing Britney facsimile (“The Boy I Used to Know”).
2006 was the Year I Went Poptimist, and it was a great year to do so. I don’t know if I’ve ever had as much “perfect pop”—of the Popjustice house debate variety—in my ears or on my lists since then. To the year’s credit, there was something in the water, with several great artists putting out some of their best ever material: Margaret Berger’s Pretty Scary Silver Fairy (not on streaming!), Linda Sundblad’s Oh My God (also not on streaming!), Amy Diamond’s Still Me Still Now, Lillix’s Inside the Hollow, Fefe Dobson’s Sunday Love, Fergie’s The Dutchess, Paris Hilton’s Paris, Cassie’s Cassie, and my album of the year, Marit Larsen’s Under the Surface.1
There was Nelly Furtado’s Loose, Lily Allen’s Alright Still, Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape, The Veronicas’ Secret Life of the Veronicas, Jojo’s The High Road, Vanessa Hudgens’s V, P!nk’s I’m Not Dead, Kelis’s Kelis Was Here, Christina Milian’s So Amazin’, and Rihanna’s A Girl Like Me. Hannah Montana and High School Musical stormed the Billboard charts. I got really into BWO for some reason.
And even that doesn’t include the big pop albums I didn’t rate very highly at the time but were still in the mix: Bertine Zetlitz’s My Italian Greyhound (underrated it), Christina Aguilera’s Back to Basics (still hate it), Girl Talk’s Night Ripper (liked it then, don’t like it now) Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black (good), Beyoncé’s BDay (also good), Jessica Simpson’s A Public Affair (by far her best album parentheses derogatory). And there’s Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, the album that I always think should be the central subject of any reckoning with “poptimism takes over Pitchfork” (or whatever) and for some strange reason never gets the outrage that any number of women—many of whom were not a big deal at the time and remain not a big deal—still get. Hm.
1. Rebecca Black: Fame Is a Gun (Triple J Like a Version cover)
US
Rebecca Black recently recorded “Fame Is a Gun” by Addison Rae for ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) Triple J’s Like a Version show, and it’s a lot of fun—vocal looping, live drum pads, a brisk tempo, and…you know, enunciation. I’m pretty well sold on the “pop object” of Addison Rae’s work to date but I’m not at all sold on her as a pop star; Rebecca Black looks like a consummate pro, and I’d be happy with her taking over all of Rae’s material. (I also love the top comment on the YouTube video: “Ethically sourced Grimes.” It is!)
2. Hedda Gamma: Mirroring
Lithuania
More loops ands electro-futzes from a Lithuanian singer who models her PR pitch after Laurie Anderson (language as a virus etc.) but is a bit plainer than that suggests, probably to her benefit. They can’t all be Laurie Anderson. In fact, I would bet they all can’t be Laurie Anderson. It all piles up prettily but doesn’t quite have the guts to fall apart, too.
3. Juky San f. Liu Grace: Ta Cùng Nhau Quên Niềm Đau [Let’s Forget the Pain Together]
Vietnam
Vietnam really is just pushing right to the front of the global pop arms race, isn’t it. Juky San and 2pillz together make a decent case for the hierarchy of power in the DC (dilettante curator?) universe shifting. Let’s see if 2025—South Korea’s year of assimilation and the United States’s year of humiliation—has left a big enough opening for a few others to break through.
4. Dev: Oops Oh Well
US
It’s Dev! Back with another minimal melancholy banger that could have been a bonus track on The Night the Sun Came Up back in 2011. Never change, Dev. No, seriously…never change.
5. Lolo Zouaï f. Dinos: Les Mots
France-US
Fell in love with French-born, US-launched Lolo Zouaï’s single “Ride” back in 2019, when I first started making megamixes over on Tinyletter (there’s some good stuff in there), but didn’t hear or at least register much from Zouaï in the interim. Well, she’s back, singing in French, and she’s still good.
6. Zevin: My Mind
Croatia
7. LELEK: Andromeda
Croatia
What to do about Eurovision, aside from boycotting it? I’ve decided not to follow, watch, or otherwise participate in the main competition this year and would love to see more countries drop out. Enough is enough.
But I can’t let the qualifiers go unremarked on, because the national competitions have become an important way for me to get a sense of the local pop landscape of each participating country. Here are two from Croatia’s DORA 2026—day-glo monotone rap from Zevin and dramatic coven-bop from LELEK. But I won’t follow the winner forward. I will also try to highlight some acts from countries that aren’t competing.
8. Heavenly: Excuse Me
UK
Finding pop music versions of Pierre Menard’s Quixote has become my own quixotic project in an age of uncanny soundalikes, but the magic is elusive. Case in point: when Heavenly puts out their first album in 30 years, they still sound like the mid-nineties in a way that so many mid-nineties fetishists just…don’t. And as long as they’re still there competing, I don’t see how any of the wannabe Menards can find much of a foothold.
9. Maggie Antone: The Devil’s Not in Hell
US
Sometimes I wonder if I am just not that into country music and then I hear something that reminds me that I grew up with country music but have over time become reluctant and picky. So in that way country is a bit like musical theater or jazz, something that can really wallop me, but only every once in a blue moon and not for predictable reasons.
10. Peso Pluma f. Tito Double P: Dopamina
Mexico
Peso Pluma didn’t seem to get much of a halo from his big regional Mexican music crossover year in the US, but I did eventually hear what everyone else was hearing—a bit of a bridge/guide to sounds that I’ve heard peripherally for a long time without investigating much. At this point I hear his sound as pretty firmly its own thing—and maybe there was a halo after all and the new album will be massive. For what it’s worth, it debuted at #6 on the Billboard 200 chart, the only 2026 release to get into the top 10 so far I think.
11. La Joaqui, Gusty dj: Turr0logia
Argentina
Trashy Argentine reggaeton-pop sounds more fun and I would guess cares not a whit about the Billboard 200, and who needs it? (Not entirely a rhetorical question. 2026 is a crucial year for A-Pop theory to Be a Thing before everyone forgets about it!)
12. Mc Gw, DJ BM PROD: Modo Foda-Se
Brazil
13. HL NO BEAT, MC Luana SP, KAROLLYN: Tira Tudo
Brazil
14. Bailefunk Kakeko: Pyun
Japan
Two going on three baile funk tracks this week—two from Brazil, the third an interesting take on baile funk from a Japanese producer that Patrick St. Michel featured on a recent mix. I’d say you can see the beads of sweat forming on Bailefunk Kakeko’s brow, taking some real effort to keep the cyclone going. Meanwhile Mc Gw slows things down to an I-guess-slow-jam that crackles of its own accord. I don’t know who’s doing what in that middle one, which seems to compress several decades’ worth of funk styles into 90 seconds.
15. YOASOBI: アドレナ [Adrenaline]
Japan
No YOASOBI on my mixes ever, and then two in two consecutive weeks (if you count a solo appearance from Lilas Ikuta last week). I’ve never really understood what helped them pull away from the competition to become so huge beyond “went viral during the pandemic.” (If you have figured it out, though, let me know. I am interested!)
16. Lia Larsson: Dunka
Sweden
I guess all of those random Lia Larsson novelty Eurobangers I keep liking over the course of several years eventually congeal into albums. I missed her 2024 album 30km/h but this one came out in the first week of January. This is the title track to her new one and it sounds…like a Lia Larsson song.
17. HollyG f. Theodora: Coller la petite
Guadeloupe/DRC-France
More videos should begin with a CGI map of origin (swish pan from DRC to Guadeloupe). If I had more skill, time, or rigor, I’d start literally mapping some of the music I share to corresponding countries. This is indeed epicenter bouyon stuff, with French pop heatseeker Theodora coming along for the ride.
18. DJ Erise, Kenzy Dona: Umbrella
France
Shatta from a French producer and rapper. Thought I might have gotten this from a genre scan this week but was featured on the France New Music playlist.
19. Jaanni, Jyoti Nooran, Bunny: Saasu Maa
India
The occasional Indian pop track that makes it through to me before I’ve been forced to grapple with it after getting half a billion views in a month. Love the way the sitar doubles the vocals in the chorus and then the vocals double the sitar in the solo afterward.
20. John Lundun, uBeyond, Novex, Nobuhle: Ingoma
South Africa
It’s South African and house but much less of a “South African house” feel—slower, simpler, grounded by a nice piano-and-melody hook.
21. Kader Japonais, Tikoubaouine: Khadoudja
Algeria
Another pretty melody, from Algerian raï singer Japonais, and desert blues backdrop from Algerian group Tikoubaouine, who describe themselves as having a Tuareg core but being drawn to other pop forms, which is what it sounded like to me.
22. Rahma Riad: Taa Khabbik
Iraq
A final gift from Saeed Saeed’s indispensible Arabic pop guide, which he updated throughout the year. I managed to hear and share five or six of them on my own without the nudging, but definitely wouldn’t have found most of it otherwise, including this lovely ballad from Iraqi singer Rahma Riad. (Not least because ballads are a huge blind spot in my sorting process. Sorry balladeers! I’m not your chronicler.)
23. Sun-El Musician, Mavhungu, Thakzin, Sylent Nqo: Muloro
South Africa
Thakzin has worked with Sun-El Musician before, but I didn’t find much that post-dated his development of 3-step. On paper the lush dream piano of Sun-El Musician’s hard-to-categorize productions (a sort of gateway drug into amapiano for me back in late 2019/early 2020) and the immersive, unhurried lockstep of 3-step work well together, but this hews much closer to a Sun-El Musician jam with some Thakzin seasoning. I’m not complaining.
That’s it! Until next time, recommend me some pop albums from 2006 I did not already list!
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Dev: Oops Oh Well
My #2 album of 2006 was The Ark’s State of the Ark, which I’d also count here but it was released at the end of 2004 in Scandinavia but I heard for the first time in 2006 when it got its US release. I’d probably leave it off a revisionist list and replace it at #2 with Cassie’s Cassie.