Tenebrous festered corners
2025 Mix 45: Golden beatology revisited, then influences galore: 2nd gen K-pop, Britney Spears, Danny Elfman, Avril Lavigne, Wheatus, and L'Trimm (influencing themselves)
I’m starting to put together various playlists for the end of the year, and have been reminded recently of two truisms of music recommendations: (1) if you share enough music, the likelihood that someone else will really like something you shared is approximately 100% but (2) there is no consistent way to predict which song someone else is going to like. I’m thinking about this because a few songs have cropped up in a 2020s music challenge online that people have credited me with introducing them to: Ozoda’s “Ko’k jiguli” (which I can’t take too much credit for — it has half a billion streams!), Eftalya Yağcı’s “Darbuka,” and, to my surprise and delight, INSTASAMKA’s “Juicy,” a song I did not believe anyone in the world could possibly like more than I do. I am always thrilled when I can share a song that someone ends up loving, and I particularly enjoy having no idea what song that will be.
In the People’s Pop Black Pop History Month tournament, two of my nominations have done well in the B-sides. “Highlife,” a 1982 single by Ghanaian highlife artist Gyedu-Blay Ambolley, is still in competition, and “Atewo-Lara Ka Tepa Mo ‘Se” by Nigerian Afropop artist Segun Adewale made the B-side finals, with lot of praise from voters.
The first was a newsletter find; the second I found doing research for a previous 1985 tournament, and shared it on my special 1985 mix a few years ago.
As the end of the year approaches, I will start to do a bit of taste calculus as I think about what else to introduce in year-end lists. (I’m disqualifying any songs I’ve already shared in a challenge.) I refer to the process of finding songs I think lots of poll participants will like without them having heard it before as Golden Beatology. A “golden beat” is a song in the People’s Pop music competition that you love that you discovered through the poll. Golden Beatology is my process of selecting a shortlist of songs that I think will appeal to a relatively broader group of participants.
If you’re interested in narrowing down the getting-toward-1000 songs from this year (will probably hit a thousand next week), you could try my special GOLDEN BEATOLOGY playlist, in which I curate with a larger group of online music folks in mind. It’s best played on shuffle; I don’t do any sequencing. Or you could try out next month’s mixes, when I’ll make regional and genre lists, my best-of lists, etc., etc., etc. There’s a lot of music out there!
You can also just ask me to recommend something to you directly. I will respond in the comments to any non-music prompt with a 2025 song recommendation — this prompt could a feeling, a phrase, a picture, a piece of art, you name it. I just can’t pair like with like very well, so no songs that remind you of other songs.
1. underscores: Do It
US
Hyperpopper heats up with a Pitchfork rave from Joshua Minsoo Kim, who provocatively makes a connection to 2nd generation K-pop. He also compares it (accurately) to Blackout-era Britney Spears, whereas when I first started writing about K-pop in the end of the 2nd gen days, I connected the whole scene to millennial American teenpop, i.e. pre-Blackout Britney. Here’s how I put it more recently, in [checks notes] a footnote to a post on 1974 Japanese music? Huh, don’t remember putting that there. Anyway:
K-pop charted an alternative path for millennial US and UK teenpop music as it withered in the west: bypassing the confessional rock boom but keeping the parasocial diary-peeking, integrating rap and hip-hop without the accompanying radio format or social class tension, refusing the face versus faceless dichotomy in assembling groups.
We’re pretty far past this insight, to the point that K-pop has long since started pushing back into American and other western pop in ways that I think are hard to disentangle from what K-pop may have absorbed or imported from American pop in the first place.
2. hemlocke springs: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Ankles
US
Charming weirdo hemlocke springs goes musical theater goth, tenebrous festered corners of the bed inclusive, a sort of Danny Elfman haunted carnival deal. Stick around for the part where she gives up and just decides it’s a Kate Bush song now.
3. HELLOLOLA, La Chenny: Turra Látigo
Argentina
Second-most audacious of the tumbi hook from “Get Ur Freak On” to ever appear on one of my mixes (admittedly a distant second) is nothing to sneeze at, though it is apparently something to purr at. Very hard for me not to include bratty Argentine reggaeton—I have two ears, a heart, and a soft spot for annoying novelty music.
4. Ayra Starr, Rema: Who’s Dat Girl
Nigeria
Big budget (-sounding) Naija pop that I wrote up already for the Singles Jukebox. Probably the biggest and shiniest Nigerian song I’ve heard this year, but I still haven’t looked for what I’m missing.
5. Anderson Neiff, Mano Cheffe: Gostosa Não Chora
Brazil
Anderson Neiff specializes in a reggaeton funk variant, lots of brightness and humor. His album from this year — I.E.A.A.N, for “Infelizmente Eu Amo Andrson Neiff” or “Unfortunately I Love Anderson Neiff” — is a hoot.
6. Maureen, Konshens: Emoji Pêche
Martinique
I made the mistake of saying to my kids, when this automatically started playing in the car, that it’s probably a good thing they don’t speak French. This was a rookie mistake, as it opened up many questions to dodge, but luck for me they weren’t really interested in what a peach emoji is supposed to stand for. (Meanwhile I unthinkingly said “yass queen” sarcastically the other day and they picked it right up. I can’t believe anyone gave me a parenting license.)
7. Tony Kakkar, Junior f. Neha Kakkar: Coca Cola 2
India
Both kids preferred this song much more. What’s not to love? They go “co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-cola” and have understandably amassed 33 million views on this basis.
8. L’Trimm, TIGRA & SPNCR: Guillotine
US
L’Trimm is back!!*
*Technically Tigra, rebranded as The Lady Tigra, rebooted her career as a solo artist in the ‘00s, and after a while developed a duo with producer SPNCR. During that time, apparently Bunny D became a nurse.**
**This was, incidentally, the plot of my 2008 pilot animation pitch called The Beaties, which followed six diabetic girls who formed a rock band in a T1 diabetes support group led by an RN who used to be a post-Alanis confessional star, who served as their producer.***
***My model wasn’t Bunny—I don’t think I knew at the time that Bunny was a nurse!—but rather Jen Trynin, whose autobiography is a must read for understanding pop parallel histories and the satisfying narrative hook of a good pop also-ran story. Anyway, we’re pretty far afield of the L’Trimm song by now, which I like a lot and as far as I know is the first formal reunion of Tigra and Bunny in many years.
9. Maggie Lindemann: Fang
US
I’ve been following Maggie Lindemann since around 2018, when her song “Obsessed”—which typified a Spotify “house style” that I think no longer meaningfully exists (too much music, not enough weird in-house popularity cascades)—was my #1 song of the year. Her career started out as alt-confessional but got a huge boost when she combined forces with trop-house megablob Cheat Codes for a remix. “Obsessed” was her follow-up. She tacked back to alt-rock afterward, which I found pretty uninspiring, but on the new album I think she threads the needle between ruthless pop instincts and confessional roots pretty well.
10. Hopeasiivet: Kierrä kaukaa
Finland
Yes, everyone is talking about the orchestral art-pop record of the year—Hopeasiivet’s “Kierrä kaukaa”! Just kidding, I don’t even know if these folks are big in Finland. I did listen to the Rosalía album, but did not form a solid opinion beyond “this is nice.”
11. disiz, Theodora: Melodrama
France
Am I so desperate for any and all Theodora content that I will accept a weird little electro power-pop song that she has contributed a verse to? Yes. Could I have chosen any number of other Theodora songs on the deluxe version of Bad Boy Lovestory (called MEGA BBL) or the several other singles she put out afterward this year? Yes. Should I have done this? Maybe.
12. Alessi Rose: That Could Be Me
US
The windowpane mines, where Alessi Rose has apparently been toiling according to my exhaustive 2025 Windowpane Repository, have produced a real firecracker. This song was featured in a Kristen Bell vehicle on Netflix whose soundtrack was all over my playlists and that my partner, who played this song for me, assures me contains many nice people to look at even if you can’t remember anything they say or do. Per the relevant meme, I did in fact tell my kid that this was Wheatus.
13. Cinevox Record f. Coca Puma: È un messaggio
Italy
A remix project from the Italian Cinevox Record label and various artists using samples from Italian film soundtracks. This one is sampled from Pietro Umiliani’s score for Il fidanzamento.
14. David Walters: Santi Ko’w
France
A Manu Chao-ish approach to Francophone diasporic world music, from a Caribbean-French artist.
15. Amadou & Mariam: L’amour à la folie
Mali
Amadou & Miriam are a long established act that I know I will always like a little and occasionally will really love. (This one is right on the edge, leaning toward love.)
16. Babes Wodumo f. Madanon, Jay Music, Don Edward, Frost: Sip and See
South Africa
Gqom queen Babes Wodumo has a new album out — a good chance to see what I’ve missed since the last time I checked in on her (sometime circa 2021, I think, when Frank Kogan put Crown on his best-of list). Not as much as I would have thought, but some singles released since then to go through.
17. Anastasia Coope: Oregon
US
Pretty slacker indie (that’s pretty comma slacker) from Jagjaguwar.
18. Niña Lobo: Montevideo Despierta
Uruguay
I foolishly thought this was Argentine indie. It’s Uruguayan indie!
19. UmQuarto: Dois Iguais
Brazil
Brazilian quirk-rock of unknown playlist provenance that is awaiting its dozenth YouTube view.
20. Zal Sisokho, Laurent Perrault-Jolicoeur: Te Amo
Canada
Light Afro-Latin jazz from a Montreal group that sounds like they’ve included a harp solo in there? Ah, no — it’s a kora (this). Cool!
21. Meadow Talks: Red Leaves, Green Leaves
UK
A lovely folk ballad from a UK artist who seems only to have appeared on a Czech Republic playlist this week. It’s either some sort of crypto-payola placement thing I don’t understand or a quirk of unpredictable regional fame. Either way, good job to whatever machinations were responsible. Gratuluji!
22. Toninho Ferragutti: Alfredo
Brazil
You know I’m going to put a jaunty 6-minute-plus Brazilian accordion piece on if I have room for it. Imagine you’re watching a charming silent film, maybe about an anthropomorphic baked good rolling its way through a European city, or a classy hamster wearing a beret trying to jumpstart his career as a caricaturist. Use your imagination.
***
That’s it! Until next, time, go find some golden beats.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from hemlocke springs: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Ankles
"Emoji aubergine" must be on the way.