Sometimes I look for the answer in my glass
2026 Mix 13: Best of March, A-pop (but not the one you'd think), straining to hear the Postal Service in meme-rap and V-pop, and a long stretch of agreeable cosmo-pop
I am away this week, so am writing this intro well in advance. Luckily, it being [checks calendar date two weeks from now] April 2, it’s a good time for a March roundup. Here are the albums and songs I liked and/or remembered this month.
11 Songs I Heard in March (unranked)
10 Albums I Heard in March (lightly ranked)
Still nothing jumping up my personal album charts yet. But plenty of enjoyable albums and EPs.
EMJAY: Confesiones de las que me voy a arrepentir [EP]
Mexican neoperreo filth monger goes confessionalish and expands her palette if not to confessional rock proper than at least to broader pop omnivorousness.Fif: The lower forty eight
I love finding a crunchy indie album that lets itself shred a little as a treat.Jack Harlow: Monica
Not going to dive into the controversy around Harlow’s New York Times interview except to say that any outrage expended on Harlow should go double for the interviewers. This album is one-dimensional but the band is resolutely in the pocket even though it sounds like they recorded in a quarantine from the singer. Like if Astral Weeks was…a Jack Harlow album.
DJs Di Guetto: DJs Di Guetto II
Jagged Príncipe DJ odds-and-sods album comprising archived tracks from 2007. From the same group of batida scene-makers on the first DJs Di Guetto release in 2006, which was then repackaged in 2023.
Djy Biza: Art of War
Have been waiting for “Jazz3” to reappear on streaming since putting it on a mix two years ago. The album follows suit—expansive and jazzy if you’re into that sort of thing (I am).
DJ Erik JP: No Clima da Sul
Haven’t yet found a Brazilian funk album to write home about, but this one is worth at least a post-script.
Mary Middlefield: Will You Take Me As I Am?
Winner of the A-pop neoconfessional arms race so far this year, even though she’s technically from Switzerland.
Pina Palau: You Better Get Used to It
Haven’t given the whole album enough time to see if I really like anything as much as the two songs I already featured from it on mixes, but it made the cut on a first listen.
underscores: U
Gonna tell my kids this is Brat, if only because they’re more likely to encounter underscores through nerdy gamer culture than they are to get into Charli XCX (they probably think Charli is dad music, even though dad only thinks she’s OK)
Xylitol: Blumenfantasie
…Gentle jungle? Mm, nice.
1. Bebe Rexha: Çike Çike
Albania-US
Bebe Rexha has finally found a route that might work for her—leaning in to A-pop, where the “A” stands for Albania. I’ve long teased Rexha’s lightly cursed pop career in part because I do genuinely like her and think she’s capable of better songs than she’s generally made. All she needed to do to win me over this time was get a decent DJ Snake bass line and throw a cedilla or two into the title. And this is in fact a pretty strong post-A-pop (non-Albanian usage) strategy, as you can not only fool cosmopolitan dilettante marks like me but also reduce wasted effort in appealing to an elusive US mass culture. (Of course, Bebe Rexha can’t even really compete for first place in this very specific area, because she’s still got fellow Albanian Dua Lipa to contend with.)
2. ALTÉGO: Call Me
UK
I mostly know these guys from Frank Kogan sharing occasional mash-ups, including most recently them striking while the iron was hot on the t.A.T.u. sync from Heated Rivalry. Played this for my youngest, who was frustrated that they don’t commit to a bigger drop that intensifies when it repeats. I explained that it’s really more pop logic than EDM logic, so you want to return to the same chorus, not provide a bigger release each time. But my kid was probably right.
3. iza tkm f. AKRIILA: Nos keremos tanto
Mexico/Chile
There’s a sort of uncanny valley to hyperpop, where you want to be firmly on the “art” or the “pop” side and not fall into the dip. I think this is a structural weakness of hyperpop, since really good art and pop shouldn’t be so easily separable. Think this chooses to hug the art shore, almost always the weaker choice to my ears, but it works here.
4. Miami XO: Bazooka
US
I thought this song was very funny, and then I had a stray thought that it was genuinely poignant in parts, the synths and the sister doing heavy lifting. My curiosity piqued, I discovered that it is wildly popular, with dozens of remixes tracing mostly the comedy (lots of grannies getting hit by bazookas). To me the result is a compelling botch, the kabooms and kablaows not quite meeting the melancholy. It’s like watching something get 40% of the way to opening a portal to a new universe and then stalling out with the door left stubbornly ajar.
5. Jeune Morty: Katy Perry
Côte D’Ivoire
Ivorian hypertrap about finding answers in one’s glass, but not necessarily the answer to the question “why is this song called Katy Perry?”
6. Alizade: Immigrant
Turkey-Netherlands
Alizade brings a stinkbomb to an “immigration debate.” In the video she drapes herself in the EU flag while the camera cranes out of the bars trapping her in a concrete bunker. She says “immigrant—that’s my nation” like she’s cutting you down to size in the lunchroom.
7. 1LIFE f. Sexsi: OMG
Thailand
Getting early Lonely Island vibes from the video, but if the song is parody, it’s either playing it close to the vest or I don’t get the joke (either seems plausible).
8. Younha: Karma
South Korea
From what I can tell, Younha has always tended more toward J-pop than K-pop, and this is from a covers album where she takes on “Karma” by South Korean duo Dareharu from 2020. “Karma” similarly blurs the lines between the two countries’ pop scenes. If you want more proof, here’s commenter kmsk1999 to provide backup: “Korean: Isn’t this J-POP? Japanese: You’re saying this is K-POP? Western: Did RDR draw this?”
9. Ánh Sáng AZA: Shine
Vietnam
I thought about comparing the synths in “Bazooka” to the Postal Service but decided not to, thought it was a stretch, but now I am compelled to compare the synths to the Postal Service. Or maybe Owl City? Whichever you pick, it sounds better as V-pop backdrop.
10. Zulia: Toma!
Mexico
Whirls and swirls until a reggaeton beat breaks out, but he sings like he’s tiptoeing across trying not to trip.
11. Claudia Valentina: Girly Things
UK
Wasn’t sure where this was from until she name-dropped Harrods.
12. AGGi f. RCEE: Big Spender
Ghana-Denmark/Ghana
Riding a phrygian figure like an old Beyoncé song playing next to you in someone else’s car, you don’t even strain to hear it, just sort of let it seep in as pleasant ambience.
13. Reo, Téhilah: La vie doux [2025]
Dominica
14. TKS 2G, P.L.L.: Boucan Canot
France
Some of my playlists for new Caribbean music have a loose definition of “new,” though they’re generally current enough to keep (for now). That means I’m ending up with a lot of previous summers’ bouyon hits, to which I can only say sorry not sorry.
The shatta stuff I track, however, is pretty well vetted at this point, so I don’t usually get huge hits from the previous year. Whether this one’s a hit is hard to say, at about 300K views at press time it might be? It sounds like one, but that doesn’t always tell you much.
15. Telly*, Biga*Ranx: Big in Japan
France
Reggae and dancehall remain a blindspot for me, partially for taste reasons and partially for not looking hard enough (the two are probably related). Occasionally some song that I’m confident is both Jamaican and must have been released years ago crosses my radar, and I am usually wrong on both counts.
16. Anish Kumar: Passionfruit
India-UK
17. Asha Puthli, Say She She: Pawa!
India/US
Cosmo-pop reigns! Anish Kumar with a “Passionfruit” nipping at the heels of Drake’s only non-derogatory record for “best _____” that I can think of. Then Say She She features Asha Puthli on a slick disco track, kind of a no-brainer collab.
18. La Sécurité: Bingo
Canada
Haven’t featured Montreal band La Sécurité in a while—they appear to be singing in English now, but are still about as good as they usually are in French. Is this the best song with a Battleship grid mentioned in it? There must be other contenders for this title, right?
19. Mura, Udulele: Another One
Kenya
Ending with a suite of pleasant songs from the world café that I could more or less identify in geography but not in time—there’s not an archival rerelease in the bunch. To start, an insistent Kenyan dance track that finds just enough room for guitar and trumpet solos to break through. It could stand more space to stretch out, but then again I am very Jasper van ‘t Hof’s Pili Pili pilled.
20. Tietê: Geologia
Brazil
I absolutely loved this Brazilian ensemble’s 2023 album and especially their track “Zig Zag” (still under four digits on the YouTube views!). This might be the only overlap in coverage I’ve ever had with indispensable but criminally underutilized (by me) blog Brazil Beat.
21. Stella & The Longos: En Retard
France-Germany
Berlin-based band of mostly French musicians, just funky enough to avoid full lounge, which isn’t to say there’s no lounge.
22. Mohamed Doumbia: Kende
Mali
OK this one I would have bet good money was archival, but it’s “a little known bar band playing in contemporary Bamako, Mali that feels like an unearthed classic.” Could have fooled me, and almost did!
That’s it! Until next time, don’t worry if you get fooled, it happens to all of us. You can even get fooled again if you want, I’m not your boss.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from Jeune Morty: Katy Perry (“Des fois j'recherche la réponse dans mon verre”)