Sometimes I do well and sometimes I don't

2025 Mix 18: Chart fungus and its antidote (this mix!); heatseekers of the heart from Poland, Vietnam, and Italy; and as many subgenres of motorik as I (read: someone else) can name

In search of heatseekers

Something’s funky with the charts these days—was just perusing the Billboard Global 200 and was surprised to see that Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars are holding on to the #1 spot with “Die with a Smile,” which has now been on the charts for six months.¹ The only song in the top five from this calendar year is Alex Warren’s execrable “Ordinary”—but even if I bracket my personal assessment, it seems weird that at this point in the year we don’t have many huge heatseeking 2025 songs climbing up the charts. Half of the top 20 has been there since 2024.

In May of 2024, the only song in the Top 20 that had been on the Global 200 since the previous year was Teddy Swims’s “Lose Myself,” which is still on the charts right now at #10 in its 84th week. This year very little has broken through at the top of the charts. There are only four 2025 songs in the Top 10 right now: Warren, JENNIE’s “like JENNIE,” Doechii’s “Anxiety,” and Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra.”

[Ed. note: this section written before the latest chart update, which puts “Ordinary” at #1, “Show Me Love” by WizTheMc in the Top 10, and Lorde’s new song in the Top 20. But 11/20 songs are still from 2024. In Teddy Swims news, “Lose Myself” is now #9 in its 85th week.]

I don’t know what this means (or whether it means anything). I don’t usually pay attention to the charts, but it seemed odd! And it seemed odd even relative to the prevalence of what I have referred to before as chart fungus, the stuff that just hangs around for-fucking-ever and is a seemingly permanent feature of post-streaming charts.

In more productive pop tea-leaf-reading news, I took my kids to their elementary school dance last weekend and had a chance to make some informal anthropological observations. Re: 2025 songs, no Gaga, Warren, or JENNIE, but yes “Anxiety.” Taylor Swift still had the most songs played by the numbers, but the most enthusiasm was for “APT.” Chappell Roan did OK with the Swifties, but still couldn’t compete for shout-along decibel level with “22.”

Also heard: One Trap Daniels song that mentioned Jesus multiple times. One South African dance song of global gargantua-fame that I didn’t recognize. One Jersey club remix of “Maps” (!!!) that’s a recent TikTok dance craze. Otherwise there was lots of music from c. 2009-2012, including a music trivia quiz that featured “Party in the USA,” “Super Bass,” and “I Love It” by Icona Pop, all of which were successfully identified by children not yet born when these songs were released.

None of these observations are gelling into a new A-pop piece. My thoughts about the series have gone off in a bunch of different directions:

(1) the various diverging paths from confessional rock after Taylor Swift;

(2) the Millennial “echo baby boom” and the (possible) impact of having the second-largest American generation starting to reach middle age;²

(3) the boom and bust of EDM;

(4) the rise of impersonator pop—that is, celebrities who literally rise to fame doing impressions of other celebrities;

(5) a piece on Eurovision and its growing American audience (this would be timely!);

(6) something more in-depth about the streaming revolution, streaming’s relationship to piracy, and identifying shifts that don’t depend on an analysis of how shitty a given streaming company or platform is.

Some of these ideas seem weaker than others, and some seem important but would require research I’m not yet committed to actually doing. Will ponder it a bit and get back to you. I think so far I’ve had an interesting idea in each installment, so I’d like to hit that basic level of quality even if it takes longer to figure out.

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Previous 2025 Mixes

Tidal || YouTube

1. Juana Rozas: Antonio
Argentina

Even if the charts are stagnant, music has not slowed down, and I’m pleased with the last few weeks of album listening. One of my big highlights was TANYA by Argentine artist Juana Rozas—if you’re interested, the whole album has its own video. She combines the methods of post-hyper pop production with the spirit of Argentine indie rock and comes up with something funny, angry, and (this is key) short.

2. Kumo 99: Eyesore
US

Lite industrial-pop duo who refer to themselves as “post-national and apocalypse-adjacent” — they may be confusing choppy waters with shipwreck, as aren’t we all, but the post-national thing tracks, as I had absolutely no idea where in the world this song might have come from. (It’s from L.A.)

3. ano: ロりロっきゅんロぼ♡
Japan

Favorite Japanese artist until my playlists revealed I am a Yuri stan(?) is back with a hyperactive song about fending off loneliness, internet-poisoned alienation, and crying jags with Instant Ramen and the company of a robot cat that occasionally barks like a dog. (Or something.)

4. BigMama: San Junipero
Italy

Italy almost tricked me once again into putting something on my Latin American/Spanish-lanugage holdover list and the tell was not that the song was in Italian, since I couldn’t immediately tell what language it was when I was listening to it, but that it had a certain sound to it that I associate with the post-Angelina Mango Italian pop environment, much closer to Latin-American-influenced global pop music but with a sort of aftertaste of Europop, maybe. More on this, maybe, when I finally write about Eurovision.

5. VICKY: Liebe machen
Germany

I assumed, from my recent taste and/or recent cultural developments in German dance-pop that this song was absolutely filthy, but the translation is much sweeter than I was expecting—she’s canceling her gym membership because he makes her sweat, cute. It could practically be an Ashlee Simpson song (one of the sillier ones), except, unlike Ashlee, Vicky is fine not only with being in the presence of the guy’s toothbrush but even using it herself, which to me is the most scandalous line in the whole thing.

6. Kotolga f. Haranczykov, YEEGOR: Finlandia
Poland

Was very surprised that this wasn’t from Poland and was instead from Finland until doing my research and discovering it is from Poland and is only about Finland—and in fact it may not be about Finland, but (according to some Genius annotators) might be a reference to a previous Kotolga song from this year, “JARA MNIE TO” (“Fin fin fin fin fin”) or Finlandia vodka, which according to one website is much more popular in Poland than Finland, with the demand for the vodka so great in Poland that a grapefruit flavor was introduced based on Polish market research. New personal nightmare scenario unlocked: forced to drink grapefruit vodka and then use someone else’s toothbrush.

7. Sherelle f. George Riley: Freaky (Just My Type)
UK

A highlight from the dnb-y Sherelle album that Joe Muggs stumped for over on Bluesky. Haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but will once again surprise Tom Ewing (if he is reading this) by picking one of his album blurbs that he probably couldn’t have predicted me quoting:

Pummelling footwork and drum’n’bass hybrid, footwork albums can be thrilling but a bit fiddly so the d’n’b stuff is a pleasingly direct addition, really cathartic when it comes together on tracks like the closing “Thru The Nite”

8. PiaLinh: Đánh Cắp Trái Tim
Vietnam

I really need to get more on top of V-pop, ferment is afoot in both the avant and non-avant spheres. For the former, you could do worse than George Henderson’s recommendation of Vũ Hà Anh’s a-Soft Warning: Live from Glasgow back Home, something between an album, song suite, and…you know, something with -scape tacked onto the end. But for your get-to-the-(sweetly-sung-)chorus fix, this will do nicely.

9. LA LOM: Ooo Baby Baby
US

Quick palate cleanser with the Los Angeles League of Musicians, who do “instrumental renditions of the soulful ballads of the 1950s and ‘60s they grew up listening to on LA’s oldies station K-EARTH 101.” This is one such standard! No idea why this jumped out at me this week, but it transitions well into…

10. SAULT: W.A.L.
US

…The next mix vibe! I have been waiting for SAULT to do corny neo-soul again for ages. I figured they were a buncha sellout nobodies (complimentary) the first time I heard them, with the song that to my ears they never topped, “Don’t Waste My Time.” But the new one is full of sunshine soul.

11. Ploy: When In Room
UK

I thought this too-extended but still catchy house tracked worked well after SAULT, but my whole family informed me in the car that it was way too long and weird and unpleasant-sounding. I am invoking a rare family veto on this matter and putting it here anyway.

12. CIZA, Jazzworx, Thukuthela: Isaka (6am)
South Africa

LokpoLokpo continues to keep me honest on South African and various other global scenes (I will only start fact-checking more rigorously once I open up a paid subscriber tier, i.e. NEVER). I need to go back and note that Tayna’s “Thana” from a few weeks ago is not just Rihanna-reminiscent but also ama-pop (and not an isolated occurrence in her work!), which I suppose is further evidence that if Rihanna cared about music anymore she could have made a killer amapiano album. Anyway, credit where it’s due for pointing me toward this blissed-out 3-step currently killing it on the South African charts. The SA charts assuredly are not suffering from epidemic congealment—that is, give or take an Alex Warren song, the lone fungus amungus over there.

13. MOLIY, Shenseea, Silent Addy, Skillibeng: Shake It to the Max (Fly) (Remix)
Ghana/US/Jamaica

Was surprised to see this one on the Global Charts, albeit down in the hundreds—Shenseea and Skillibeng have reliably turned my head toward Jamaican pop, which I should probably try to keep up with more diligently.

14. Ege Zulu f. Senya: Tuu hakee sun mies
Finland

Couldn’t have “Finlandia” on the mix and not include something from Finland! Nah, it’s a coincidence. But I’ll take it — galloping globalish hip-hop.

15. Shaira: OTW
Philippines

A follow-up to breakthrough TikTok smash “Selos”—a chipper cover of indie-pop song “Trouble Is a Friend” by Australian artist Lenka in 2008—from the Queen of Bangsamoro Pop. No idea if this is also covering some other song, but it is the sort of chintzy upbeat electro-pop that I usually dislike but then fall hard for once or twice a year (see also: the Tigress of the East, Ozoda’s “Ko’k jiguli” from last year).

16. Ana Tijoux, Hordatoj: Muévelo
Chile

French-Chilean songwriter with what I suppose is the second-best soft cosmopolitan “Muévelo” after [checks notes] Salt Cathedral, though I am confident a majority of my readers would prefer this one because collectively they have better taste than I do.

17. Livrea: Falli fuori
Italy

Another Italian song I wouldn’t have marked as such—maybe I need to brush up on my Italian? I only remember practicing “biglietti” at the train station and “cucchiaini da gelato” to sheepishly inquire about gelato spoons from a shopkeeper. But this has me wondering if the Latin-Euro-bounce has officially knocked Italy into ferment.

18. Azymuth: Andaraí
Brazil

A new release from Azymuth (no, the other one—Brazilian fusion group, not the British group on ECM Records), marking the fifty-year anniversary of their 1975 debut. I am a sucker for this jammy 70s trapped in amber sort of stuff, but I do try to shove it toward the end of my mixes.

19. Hidden Spheres, Allysha Joy, Finn Rees: Promised Me Love
Australia

Cooldown commences with some jazzy R&B from Australia…

20. Floating Points f. Zongamin, Valentina Magaletti & Miriam Adefris: Mirror Pursuit
UK/Japan/Austria

…and concludes with what I always need to be explained is motorik, despite approximately five bajillion Todd Burns-recommended songs of various shades of motorik that should have really spelled it out for me by now (motorik comma driving, motorik comma experimental, motorik comma heavy, motorik comma komische, motorik comma pop). This is from an Adult Swim animé, Lazarus, with not one, not two, but three good soundtracks (from Floating Points, Bonobo, and Kamasi Washington). Also features Valentina Magaletti of V/Z, if you’re into that sort of thing, which you should be.

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That’s it! Until next time, I hope that you will use this newsletter as the tough-actin’ Tinactin for your chart fungus woes.

—Dave Moore (the other one)

Title from Juana Rozas: Antonio (“A veces voy bien y a veces no”)

1. A reminder that there is also the Billboard Global 200 excluding US charts, which looks a bit more promising, with JENNIE, WizTheMc, and W Sound all in the Top Ten, plus “Te Quería Ver,” Bad Bunny, and a viral Brazilian phonk track, “Passo Bem Solto,” in the top 20. Excluding US charts also pushes Teddy Swims back to #14.

2. For the most part I don’t like generational analysis at all, at least of the “Boomers are like this and Millennials are like that” variety, but I do think the question “how many people were born within a particular timespan in this or that country” is a somewhat useful thing to think about re: mass culture phenomena.