My heart goes bam bam bam bam
2025 Mix 37: Finishing one series and thinking about the next one, begrudging phonk inclusion to bond with my kids, Twenty One Pilots write a Metric song, and a Coachella small font spot check
The A-pop series is finished! I posted an epilogue about the mostly-realized promise of the “celestial jukebox” on Monday.
So far there have been a lot of interesting conversations around it, about music that is already seemingly gone forever, other strands of poptimistic thought of the early aughts (e.g. the “local to global” phenomenon bypassing a slow build through regional fame), the limitations of ethnography, reflections on readers’ history with finding music, and plenty more.
If you think any of these ideas might be of interest to anyone you know, then please by all means share the series with them. If they are iffy on Substack I’ve also put the whole series on a Wordpress.
And with that my head has officially been emptied of all major ideas for the time being. I will need to regroup so that I can start planning out my (tentative) next series: All Ears: The Disney-Pop Decade.
I’d like to think more carefully about a bunch of different ideas related to Disney, Radio Disney, and Hollywood Records: how children engage with pop music, how millennial teenpop included children but was not designed only with them in mind, and how Disney created a walled garden that on the one hand sheltered its audiences from a lot of the rising raunch and darkness of mainstream pop but on the other also incubated (a common Radio Disney term) a lot of artists who found their own sort of darkness or, if not raunch, at least an engagement with a homegrown echo of the wildness of the pop charts.
We’ll see how (or if) it goes next year. In the meantime, I’ve got about ten more mixes to put together, and all of these songs won’t just listen to themselves…
1. Flo Milli f. coop: Perfect Person
US
Flo Milli samples Hoobastank (Ho, You Be Stank!) to hilarious effect. In the Milli/coop version, the reason they’re not perfect is because they can’t help but humiliate loser wannabe boyfriends and exes. They ignore a key line in the song—“I never meant to do those things to you.” It all seems pretty intentional.
2. Lil M.U.: Top of Cars
US
A charming Chicago breakthrough who reminds me of Star Bandz but only for the way she says “car.” Hops up and down on the hood against a beat made almost entirely of horns, but don’t worry, it’s safe for driving: it sounds more like the Vengabus than the guy tailgating you.
3. Jai’Len Josey: Freak
US
Atlanta artist got her start on Broadway in the SpongeBob Squarepants musical and now does top-shelf house-inflected R&B. So I guess you could say she started from Bikini Bottom now she’s here. (I’ll see myself out.)
4. Mayo, Guy2Bezbar, Genezio: Champagne
France
Had yet another weak joke about how it’s plausible that they’re drinking real champagne from the proper region, not just sparkling etc. etc.
Instead, I’ll use this opportunity to link to an even better A-pop theorist than me, Ed Sheeran, who over on the Popcast (starting at about 22:00) had a lot of interesting points to make about global pop and the changing roles of American and western pop celebrities and audiences. (He mentions French rap.)
Sheeran makes a direct connection between pandemic lockdowns and supercharged local scenes, and his commentary on this is related to a very long footnote tangent in my essay about the intriguing but not fully convincing idea of post-globalization which I ended up deleting. (Short story: the strengthening of local and regional cultures posited by post-globalization is very similar to what I describe in part 2 of the A-pop series on the “monsterverse.”)
5. Jean Dawson: Rock A Bye Baby
US
It’s “Hey Remember the ‘80s—But For Real” with a sometime opener for Brockhampton doing some halfway decent Prince pastiche, or at least halfway decent Prince pastiche pastiche.
6. HUS f. CHUU: BBB
South Korea
For some reason listening to this K-pop song after the Jean Dawson song—featuring what I’m told is the “tenth revealed character of the LOONAVERSE,” far too much lore for my feeble mind to parse—reminded me of Paula Abdul. Something about the melody in the chorus, maybe? I’m probably just hearing things. Certainly a similar ratio of sugar to nutrients, though (i.e. not none, but it shouldn’t replace lunch).
7. Alice Change, CRYBYE, на її основі f. Kateryna Rohova, Van Su: Карамельна любов
Ukraine
A Ukrainian song that I wouldn’t have been able to place geographically if I hadn’t seen the artists and title, sounds more like J-pop than Ukrainian pop. And my ears don’t deceive me: apparently Alice Change once studied to be an opera singer, but pivoted to rock music and then again more recently to an ersatz kawaii future bass sound to better match her eyebrows, which for the record were already dyed pink before she made the switch.
8. ZOMBIE-CHANG: Doudemoiikoto
Japan
A recommendation from Ryo Miyauchi, who had a strong August roundup. Whole album is good—this is the lead track, a bit of an uncanny valley between pop and experimental, but in a good way (i.e. still works as pop).
9. sma$her, MXZI: Acelerada
Brazil
10. M4GN: Acelera
Brazil/Netherlands
My ears are very reluctantly turning toward vibed-out Brazilian phonk in the wake of my youngest getting into “Passo Bem Solto” so much that they ended up writing more about it than any English-language music publication I follow.
(That writing in full: “HAVE YOU HEARD THIS??? its good right?” I am of course stealing this review and plan to repurpose it several times for future Singles Jukebox entries.)
Anyway, I couldn’t resist putting two songs with nearly identical titles on the mix. My oldest asked what the difference was—had no idea at the time, but I think it’s adjective (accelerated) versus verb (accelerate). Wouldn’t say you can hear the difference, though.
11. Banfy f. Sheridan: Bam Bam
Italy
Figured this was a minor Italian lark—chintzy oompah for a merciless earworm—but it is something of a viral sensation with 12 million views on YouTube, complete with wet blanket comments approving its avoidance of swear words. I didn’t find much background information on a quick scan, though my translation suggested a few phrases in the song are Sicilian dialect.
12. Jhow, MC Makauli, GP DAZL: Violino Subverso
Brazil
Added this funk song without thinking much of it, was hooked by the strings and then liked how it layers on increasingly annoying sounds until it unveils those nauseating bloops and whistles that I can only hope sound better when you’re high on ether. As a bonus and/or extra blow to your senses, the drum setting is a laser-gun kick that hits like Mike Tyson punching Mr. Beast in the stomach—that is, not hard enough if you ask me. Enjoy!
13. Odet, ZORZA: Berek
Poland
Jittery Polish indie-pop that boils over into a little rave at the end but doesn’t overplay the transition, makes it feel like a coda. A bit like what Billie Eilish did on “L’amour de ma vie”—though in that case splicing the coda out and making it its own song improved it.
14. L-BEE: Để Em Chữa Lành
Vietnam
15. Moon Byul: Da Capo
South Korea
Sweet pop with light trap beat adornment, from a V-pop singer and a MAMAMOO member, respectively.
16. Hanna Amim, tiocafona: Esculacho
Mexico
Some replacement-level pop reggaeton that is as good a reason as any to confirm that reggaeton and Latin American music generally has officially held its own as a holdover list this year alongside amapiano and Brazilian funk. I’d say it’s just me (it might just be me) but I’ve had reason to revisit a bunch of music from 2020-2024 for an upcoming social media music challenge and…I think it’s not just me?
17. Stunt Doubles: The Fastest Boxer in the East
UK/US
South Asian fusion sampledelic-ish psych-pop from Anish Kumar and DJ duo Baalti, a recommendation from Dan Bright Amaya that ended up in my new music lists the following week (several times over) but I’d already selected it from his post.
18. Zebda: Youm Gedid
Egypt
Smooth indie cosmo-pop from Egypt, a good bass line and plenty of Rhodes, doesn’t need much else (and doesn’t provide much else).
19. Twenty One Pilots: Drum Show
US
Twenty One Pilots have perplexed me long enough that I will just defer to Hannah Jocelyn, who provides still-bewildering (not Hannah’s fault, they seem to have more lore than LOONA) but somewhat clarifying context on the band’s new album. Like a bunch of their more recent material I’ve heard in the past few years, it’s much better than the ones where they rap. This one immediately made me think that they’d successfully written a Metric song. (They don’t rap on it.)
20. Wolf Alice: Just Two Girls
UK
21. Lola Young: Spiders
UK
Two UK heatseekers going to the harder-most edges of soft rock without blanding out, Wolf Alice trying out ‘70s AM gold and Lola Young updating her retro references from Fleetwood Mac to the Cranberries.
22. Ляна: Шалена
Ukraine
Hm, a Ukrainian take on “Love on the Brain” by Rihanna? Sounds good to me.
23. Cheats: Things We Used to Say
Philippines
Was wondering if I’d get any small font surprises with the newly released Coachella poster, and I was certain I had one until I realized that I was confusing Filipino indie band CHEATS with Australian rock band THE CHATS. (Smallest font bands that I have featured on mixes: Samia, Mahmut Orhan, and Ninajirachi.) Anyway, I’ll take these folks as my rock simulacrum of choice; at least they’re trying to sound like Colleen Green instead of Johnny Rotten.
***
That’s it! Until next time, go talk about A-pop some more and then we can all give it a rest.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from Banfy f. Sheridan: Bam Bam (“Il cuore mio fa bam bam bam bam”)