I'm not that little

2025 Mix 28: The end of American (flag) pop, religious and jingoisitic controversies, universal clave feel, and the triumphant return of amapiano

American Titan

I’m working on a real bear of an A-pop installment, on the different paths away from what I’m calling the final echo of blockbuster pop, tracing a sort of bookended American pop boom from the mid-’80s to the late ‘00s, and then tackling what happened to this kind of music during the next decade as other global music ascended.

One thing that I’ve noticed, but didn’t put into the essay, is that the normie playlists I’ve heard this summer on vacations, at camps, and on the Fourth of July, all tend to come to a stop in 2012 (the “Call Me Maybe” line) and, with a very small handful of exceptions, only really pick up again in the 2020’s—Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo yes, Sabrina Carpenter no, which squares with the lower elementary school preferences at my kids’ school. The Fourth of July playlist at our big suburban fireworks display didn’t play anything past 2010 (the two “contemporary” songs by this metric were Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA” from 2009 and Katy Perry’s “Firework” from 2010).

As Ava Max, Titan of A-pop, reminds me this week, flag ‘n’ firework imagery hits a little different these days. I referred about a year ago to Ava Max as “America as a serious Eurovision contestant,” and “Wet, Hot American Dream” is absolutely the sort of Eurovision (Worldvision?) entry I imagined when I wrote my Eurovision A-pop installment that you maybe haven’t read because it’s weird but I like it. Will there be new Fourth of July staples in the future? Wouldn’t be surprised if the next one wasn’t from an American artist, or wasn’t in English. (For what it’s worth, I think this is would be a good thing and I’m looking forward to it.)

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Previous 2025 Mixes

Tidal || YouTube || Deezer

1. Tommy Genesis: True Blue
Canada

I was surprised to be ambushed by unexpected emotion listening to yet another Tommy Genesis stylistic pivot in six months, on a spoken-word-ish single that has gotten her waves of condemnation from various religious groups uniting against blasphemous imagery in her video. I suppose that’s as good a way as any to get a few million views, but the imagery arrests in a way that is different from how the song arrests. None of the visuals got my heart thumping like the reference to sweaty palms that made me wonder if this song was perhaps Eminemesque, asked in classic butterfly meme fashion.

2. Ava Max: Wet, Hot American Dream
US

I’ve tried to start exercising again, something I do every few months or after getting my bloodwork back, whichever comes first, and you know what, Ava Max’s terrible taste in synths gets your heart rate up higher than windowpane goop synths, that’s for sure. Like much modern pop, this song is a little too raunchy to make it onto the normie summer playlists, even before addressing how bad it is (complimentary—also, being bad has never stopped something from getting on a playlist).¹ Mild taboo is not as essential for Ava Max as it is for resolutely (perversely?) kid-unfriendly Sabrina Carpenter or kid-agnostic Olivia Rodrigo, so maybe she could theoretically make the next great A-pop American flag banger someday. This also makes me wonder if one secret to Chappell Roan’s success is that she can make you feel like you’re yelling “fuck” without actually saying it very often in her singles. “I TOLD YOU SO!”²

3. ТУЧА: Come Back Klub
Ukraine

From A-pop to the closest I’ve heard to Ukrainian A-pop lately. Part of that is probably just A-pop getting a little closer to Europop. This also feels more irreverent than a lot of Ukrainian club music I find, though maybe that’s more to do with those other songs’ melodic and singing conventions, which tend toward melancholy.

Was curious about the lyrics on this one, and the artist wrote about it over on Genius. Sez Tucha:

I performed at another place in Poznań, I was invited by the Ukrainian community that was there. There was a really cool concert, a lot of support, and after that we went for a walk, and then the local Ukrainians told me that they have this karaoke gay club called Come Back. […] We went there, the sign there is actually very old-school, everything is so old-school there, but the people were so different — well, just super different. And I have loved the concept of karaoke since I was a teenager. I was really intrigued by this place. And these lines immediately came to me: “This is an island of freedom! You can be whoever you want. Dance with me, sing ‘Chervona Ruta.’” Because “Chervona Ruta” — it seems to me that every time I go to karaoke, this song is playing there, it’s just a classic. And that’s how I came up with this idea. And then, when I was on the train going home, to Ukraine, other lines began there - well, some kind of story about the place, about feelings, friends, etc.

Bonus vid! Here’s Eugene Hutz from Gogol Bordello singing “Chervona Ruta” with The Yagas.

4. JÜRA: Ganhei
Portugal

I’ve been convinced by Brad Luen that I should buckle down and read Ned Sublette’s Cuba and Its Music, which he (Luen) quotes with this provocative statement: “The clave is not a beat, as we understand beats in North American music, though the clave rhythm can be used as a beat… The clave is a key: a way of coordinating independent parts of a polyrhythmic texture.” Thinking of clave as an organizing principle that remains constantly felt but sometimes unstated seems on one level like a no-brainer (this was one of the first things I learned from a jazz instructor before he introduced bossanova), but also opens up a lot of interrelated thoughts on how such implied rhythms benefit from being in the air or in the body, as it were, to really “get” them. I’d argue that for all of the considerable (foundational) influence of clave and Afro-Latin rhythm generally on American pop music, most A-pop doesn’t really have an easy air/body naturalness with it.

I abstractly understood clave quickly as a musician, but it took me a long time to feel it, and even when I did (do) it was (is) a bit like the uneasiness of speaking in a foreign language that you’ve only known little bits of before: a little stilted and too effortful. I hear it more naturally than I can play it, and it’s something whose everywhereness in lots of global pop music feels both very important and hard to describe—like trying to describe, well, air, or what it’s like in your body. So I like hearing what I’d call a minimum viable pop product like this, which set me off on this only semi-related tangent here because it sounds like it comes with a little clave IKEA diagram.

5. 頑童MJ116: 里長Bro
Taiwan

Charming rap from Taiwan, a good musical fit for the part in the video where the rapper puts gold chains on both a chihuahua and a baby alligator.

6. Fena Gitu: Pretty Girl
Kenya

Minor-key Kenyan dancehall, and I’m once again confronted with Kenya’s Indonesia-like knack for genre fidelity. (Hey, where’d all my good Indonesian music go?) I have deep respect for making breadth your whole deal, but I am still a little suspect of it, wouldn’t join any club that etc. etc.

7. Jmilton, MC Xangai: Vem Vem
Brazil

And speaking of breadth, here’s some blended Brazilian funk/phonk, hardly the wildest stuff from Brazil, but then again even the wild stuff doesn’t have that tachycardial magic these days—the new d.silvestre album is great but just isn’t quite pinging the ol’ amygdala.

8. MIC RAW RUGA: Astro Jet
Japan

9. Meme Tokyo: I Am Heroine?
Japan

Two J-pop songs in two different modes of hyper, the first (Jel recommendation) is funhouse cardio, the second (Frank recommendation) more of a whack-a-mole of syllables and styles, each rapper getting their own little beat-switch cut-out.

10. Smif-N-Wessun, Pharoahe Monch: Medina
US

New Clipse album hasn’t really grabbed me yet, so I may need to start the clock on my waiting period for music that generates more internet chatter than personal interest (minimum one calendar year). Meanwhile I can get any nostalgic needs I have (do I…not have nostalgia needs? Hm…) from a different graying duo.

11. Vanco, AYA: Ma Tnsani (Yalla Habibi)
South Africa/Kuwait

12. Ipek Ipekcioglu, Korospular: Gel Gel Kuir
Turkey

Effortless global cool from an Afrohouse producer bringing in a Kuwaiti vocalist and then Turkish DJ Ipek updating a folk protest song with queer feminist choir Korospular.

13. DJ Travella: Weeeweeeeeeee
Tanzania

DJ Travella returns to form after a few pop moves and collaborations, with a song that (as best as I can tell) has been part of his live sets for a while and is now featured on a compilation of global producers.

14. Rena Morfi: To Domatio Mou
Greece

Greek rock in a vaguely bachelor paddish trip-hop register, from the lead singer of a brassy Greek band, Imam Baildi. Any excuse to listen to the Dan the Automator project with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Got a Girl, is a good one.

15. Jorieke Sterken: Roxy Trekker
Netherlands

The occasional Scandinavian [NL ≠ Scandinavia—apologies!] country song that sounds out of time, seems to have easier access to previous pop country styles than actual American country does.

16. Tycoon, MDU aka TRP f. Cowboii: S’hamba Nabo
South Africa

17. TBO, MaWhoo, Ntsika, Ngwato, Ave Songsmith: Sono Sam’
South Africa

18. Thalie MaMbooica: iSizwe
South Africa

South Africa returns! Two more or less arbitrary amapiano selections, the first chosen for its meandering solos and lack of vocals and the second for its expressive vocals and lack of solos. Then a short and pretty choral R&B number from a rising R&B and hip-hop artist (South African rap continues to mostly elude my attention—I have not yet, for instance, found a secure spot on a mix for whatever the hell this is from billdifferen’s 50 favorites list).

19. Tim Barnes f. Joshua Abrams, Roberto Carlos Lange, Chad Taylor: Day Goes All the Time
US

Beginning the mix cooldown with clatter and vibes (figurative) from a who’s who of avant artists on the pop periphery, organized by percussionist and composer Tim Barnes after his diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s.

20. Brighde Chaimbeul: Dùsgadh/Waking
UK

And yes, I did give myself ten minutes to spare for some bagpipe drone (technically Scottish smallpipes) from Brìghde Chaimbeul, whom Ian Mathers recently reviewed over at Dusted. You should not assume you are not in the mood for this.

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That’s it! Until next time, give me your best guess at the next Fourth of July staple. “Courtesy of the ROSÉ White and Blue”?

—Dave Moore (the other one)

Title from Tommy Genesis: True Blue.

1. I need another spelling of “bad,” like how you can spell stupid as “stoopid” to get your point across.

2. The raciest “Good Luck Babe” gets is “sexually explicit kinda love affair,” which sounds like how an insecure teenager might describe sex to make it sound racy and also does not actually push the boundaries for explicitness set by the Backstreet Boys in “Backstreet’s Back.” (Can you say “sexual”? Yeeeaaaaaah.)