Cherry slush, icy cold
2025 Mix 33: A record-breaking mix -- most tracks in the shortest runtime; the bouyon and Lil Wayne pop-punk Autotune songs of the year; and weirdest rapping done on the inhale
Still on vacation! What’s going on in the world? No, don’t tell me. Last week I went through some stats. This week, the words.
Words I’ve Written
It’s been a productive year so far—there are a bunch of things I won’t bother to excerpt for my year-end writing round-up and just link to instead.
I wrote a corrective to conventional wisdom that “Since U Been Gone” was modeled on “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to identify a much more likely source: “Hard to Explain” by the Strokes.
I expanded a throwaway joke calling hip-hop-influenced country music “Trap Daniels” to describe how trap beats took over pop music and, after a while, country music, too.
I made an argument that the neo-disco turn in American pop since 2019 might have as much to do with K-pop as disco, noting that the squareness of the beat and introduction of jazz harmonies (major sevenths on the I and IV chords, added 9ths and 13ths on the others) are more like K-pop than the alleged disco referents.
I wrote about Jane Child as a predecessor of the alt-confessional turn.
And finally, there’s the A-pop series, which I’m pretty proud of now that it’s almost finished. I suspect most email subscribers have read this series, or most of it. If not, go read it!
Rather than bug people about subscriptions, I would ask that if you’re interested in my A-pop ideas, you share the ideas and the series with people in your network who might be interested. You can also link folks to the non-Substack version for the full series in one place.
Here is the capsule overview of the series:
A-pop is a way to think about formerly hegemonic American (the “A” in A-pop) pop music as a large regional competitor in a global pop landscape, with other pop scenes seriously vying not only for influence, but market competition.
The “monsterverse” describes the massive popularity contest winners in a frictionless global music landscape. In the post-streaming era, anything in the world can become enormously popular for any reason at all, following the principles of cumulative advantage—i.e., the popularity of a thing increases at an exponential rate as more people share it, a reaction that can be sparked for unpredictable reasons.
Part 3: Mainstreams, sidestreams, and middlestreams
Through the ‘00s and into the ‘10s, mainstream American pop music lowered its commercial ambitions en masse in the pre-streaming era as record industry profits collapsed. At the same time, indie music, which had always operated as an uneasy sidestream to mass culture, started to converge with what was left of the mainstream. After the convergence, what you get is less distinction between what is indie and what is mainstream: a middlestream, where lots of semipopular music thrives (including “windowpane,” the uncanny valley between indie rock and adult contemporary).
Part 4: National anthems and the worldvision of tomorrow
If A-pop is a demotion of sorts from global centrality, one question is whether other global centers might step up to fill a void that the US is leaving. The most obvious center-fillers to my mind are Asian pop hyphenates (e.g. J-pop, K-pop), Latin American pop, and African dance subgenres. But Eurovision fascinates me because of its potential to broadcast a synthesis of new styles in the same sort of way that American pop has historically done.
Some theorizing about what happened to American pop music in the 2010s. I start with a reflection on American music’s global influence in the postwar genesis of rock, soul, and country music through the rise of blockbuster pop in the 1980s. I argue that the shift to streaming ends this blockbuster era, but we enter a “pop wilderness” in the 2010s. This is the transition to A-pop, during which pop artists struggle to signify in difficult terrain for launching a new career, and older blockbuster incumbents hog the attention. I describe this terrain as having three different paths:
Pop impersonators do a satisficing fulfillment of pop-star-like content (generic by design) in the hope of achieving pop star audiences, like an actor auditioning to be in a movie about a pop star.
A pop mirage is an artist posing as a pop star, giving their voice over to a hook in a way that often feels temporary, anonymous, or like moonlighting from their “real” career.
Post-pop impressionists (using “impressionism” in the art world sense) get at pop obliquely using elements that only give you an impression of the thing holistically. They often make for interesting pop personalities but usually aren’t very popular.
1. KiiiKiii: Dancing Alone
South Korea
Tamar Herman wrote a good piece about why K-pop insiders have considered 2025 a weak year for K-pop. I’m in the odd dilettante-ish position of only judging regional scenes by their highlights, which means even a weak year could seem huge if a higher number of songs make it through to me. So by that metric, I think 2025 has been a great year for K-pop.
I also think, as I’ve written before, that one sign of a robust pop ecosystem is how well it fares in a “weak” year. K-pop in 2025 is like an inverse A-pop in 2024, where to my ears an uncharacteristically strong year for American pop revealed the depth of its sclerosis. Not only has nothing dislodged K-pop as a global center of gravity for pop music this year, there are crossover successes like KPOP DEMON HUNTERS that have started to actively diminish A-pop in comparison.
And then there’s the fun replacement level stuff, like KiiiKiii’s “Dancing Alone” (you knew I’d get around to it eventually), which is often, as it is in this case, terrific.
2. Naarly, Easy Peasy: Castaway
Sweden
I seem to be softening to EDM-pop again as my kids get more interested in it. They’ve found one tiny pocket of music I don’t usually like very much and made it their whole identity. (This is probably difficult to do with me as their father and I am proud of them!) This is yet another OK dance-pop song that exhibits a sort of post-traumatic stress reaction to the drop.
3. MiiMii KDS, Dj Skycee: Sé Miimii
Guadeloupe
My bouyon/shatta/soca dive last week did not lead me to this charming breakout Guadeloupean hit, which funnily enough was recommended from Pitchfork of all places. In addition to stumping for this song, Alphonse Pierre, one of the best remaining writers there, recently wrote a lovely autobiographical piece about how his St. Maarten-born grandmother fell in love with Fat Joe’s “Lean Back” that is well worth a read.
4. Alyssa, Noelia, K-Rosif, Scory Kovitch: Fou Le Bordel
Guadeloupe/France
A holdover from the Caribbean genre scan last week, helpfully bringing up my regional stats. Perhaps as Spotify inevitably continues to enshittify (more on that next week) I can start being more methodical about my regional listening?
5. Ammar 808, Mahmoud Lahbib, Mariem Bettouhami: Ah Yallila
Tunisia
Brad Luen recently shared a nice rundown of Arabic songs of the year so far by Saeed Saeed. I was surprised I knew several on the list, as Middle Eastern pop is usually a huge weak spot for me.
The biggest find from their list was one that Brad has already accounted for, Ammar 808. I’d filed the musical highlight here under “bagpipes question mark?” but Brad helpfully gets closer to the musicological truth: “those mizwad or zukra bagpipe things competing with a synth bass that drones then descends.”
6. Cầm f. Pixel Neko: Túc Tắc Xúc Xắc
Vietnam
I’ve been idly wondering about vocal mannerisms in Vietnamese pop and the way that the language itself has its own uniquely percussive feel and force, a topic where I am totally at sea. Joshua Minsoo Kim has an interesting take on what’s driving some of the country’s current ferment that I found helpful, though, and relevant to this song, from his review of the new 2Pillz album:
Younger singers are largely uninterested in the highly stylized, carefully enunciated vocalizations of Vietnamese bolero, opting to sing in a more natural way (this is what separates the Gen Z cohort from the biggest millennial V-pop stars, like Hoàng Thùy Linh).
7. TÖME: Mumu
Canada
Nigerian-Canadian artist from Montreal whose song is co-credited to On the Radar Radio, a global artist showcase YouTube channel. I instinctively find these packaging projects off-putting for some reason, even in their more reputable versions, like the German COLORS sessions. As far as I can tell, I’ve never once pulled anything from a COLORS show despite getting songs from it on a near weekly basis (and plenty artists I like have appeared on it); it’s like a form of kryptonite-like anti-curation.
8. Kristina Dawn: Onehalf And
Philippines
I have no idea where this song — which has immediately threatened to siphon my attention away and become my song of the year in the way a tapeworm might become the lead story of your “year in food” — could have possibly come from or how it could have possibly worked, even at a basic physical level. Kristina Dawn, a Filipina singer who put out a good but not particularly avant hypopop album earlier this year, is able to rap on what sounds like the inhalation of her voice, and then let out a jarring tumult of breathy squeaks and grumbles that make Playboi Carti sound like Pat Boone.
9. NENE: Kiteru
Japan
A serendipitous sequence — I heard this Japanese rap from NENE of Yurufuwu Gang and immediately pegged it as being indebted to “Crank That” by Soulja Boy, a song I’d just been talking about to someone as a sui generis miracle. Within minutes, I heard the next track on the mix…
10. K2S: Superman
France
…a French rap song that uses the “Crank That” beat directly, and is in the same key as the previous song. You really have to let the spirit world speak through your mixes sometimes.
11. Armani West: Piano Tiles
US
12. Anycia: Dive In
US
Two scrappy rap songs—the first mashes at a piano over blown-out speaker beats, like playing one of those rhythmic tile game apps on a broken iPad, possibly while drunk and/or running away from a serial killer. Atlanta rapper Anycia has a series of high-profile and expensive-looking collaborations on her album (DJ Drama here, plus GloRilla, Quavo, Tink, and Monaleo elsewhere) but pockets the money for herself by keeping her beats resolutely cheap.
13. LUSS: Boohoo
Thailand
Lightly hyper Thai brat-rap, like Kim Gordon’s “BYE BYE” as a beach weekend.
14. Silverstone Barz: Work
Kenya
Dancehall-inflected pop-rap from Kenya, another generalist melange from the country whose music continues to vex but impress.
15. Nemzzz f. Central Cee: Dilemma
UK
The rare Cench track that sticks — once someone points out he only has the one flow, you either need to vibe with it or accept it’s only going to hit every once in a blue moon. For me it’s the latter.
16. Kevis & Maykyy, Big Sempa: Back to the 90s
Mexico
Sure enough, this does go back to the ‘90s—which I can usually take or leave, unless the nostalgia-mining is for Fu-Schnickens, as it is here.
17. Bossy, Kimera: Fernet
Turkey
Turkish reggaeton duo trills and stomps through their ode to the pungent amaro that does not feature any Michael McDonald (as it did in Esquito and Mike Marshall’s “I Drink Fernet,” where Fernet ill-advisedly takes the place of Binaca). It may in fact be close to the opposite of Michael McDonald.
18. Keyawna Nikole f. Lil Wayne: Bleed
US
I’ve really crammed too many words into this week’s issue, could talk at length about the clusterfuck that is Lil Wayne’s 2009 Rebirth, including my suspicion that they recorded several songs in the wrong key depending on how Wayne’s wailing happened to click into the Autotune.
This is what he sounds like when you aggressively decluster but still leave in a few fucks for color.
19. Ona Mafalda: Salto
Spain
20. KORDELYA: Crisis EXistencial
Mexico
21. Malcriada, Prayers: Momento
Mexico
Spanish-language indie-slash-electro block! It all sounds good, and I have no email space left to extol any of it specifically. That’s convenient because I don’t have much to say, except that based on how they sound, I’d probably switch the titles of “Momento” and “Crisis EXistencial.”
22. Koutei Camera Girl Vier: DDF
Japan
Bread and butter untz-untz from Japan.
23. Luigi Gouri, go-Dratta f. The Garifuna Collective: Mama Gloria
Italy/Belize
An interesting Italian cosmo-pop number with hints of batida in it, in collaboration with the Garifuna Collective, who tour the world music circuit representing the Garifuna language and culture from Belize and St. Vincent.
24. Automatic: Mercury
US
Automatic put out one of my favorite indie records in 2022 and they have returned without a mature new sound, hooray! If anything, they’ve regressed.
25. Chara Kai-Le: Living Like This (Delusional)
Canada
Malaysian indie-popper based in Canada, gets through by just evading my windowpane alarm bells, even though maybe it shouldn’t have. (The 2025 windowpane playlist currently has about 350 songs on it.)
26. Nabeel: Noor
US
Ending with a fuzzy indie number from a band led by Yasir Razak, an Iraqi-American based in Virginia who combines basement shoegaze and Arabic lyrics.
***
That’s it! Until next time, someone please slip that Kristina Dawn song to the Pitchfork mildew-rap crew to see if it’ll make the year-ends.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from KiiiKiii: Dancing Alone
Thanks. Interesting point on the mainstream and indie convergence. I was trying to put my finger on something about Madame X in 2019. You've given me ideas. :)