The odds of it being easy are zero
Mix 8: K-pop and amapiano return, and I try to get to the bottom of Olivia Rodrigo's shadow songwriting army before leaving her alone for good
My time as a congenial Olivia Rodrigo hater may be coming to an end — her partnership with the National Network of Abortion Funds looks strong, and most of my annoyances are too petty to begrudge good politics in an already nasty election year. But mostly I’m tired of feeling tired.
So I will use my final nominally anti-Rodrigo newsletter to ponder whether or not she was in any way inspired to write “bad idea right?” from the song “bad idea!” from Girl in Red, the Norwegian proto-Rodrigo who leads off the mix this week. Plagiarism claims rarely stick to Rodrigo, who is usually canny enough to couch her references in heavy quotation marks, and litigating influence is a sucker’s game anyway. But part of what I’ve resented about Rodrigo is the way that she leans into a Glee-informed karaoke cosplay, so when I do find similarities, I’m not very charitable (except when it was Radiohead, that was great…did they ever do Radiohead on Glee?).
Mix 1 // Mix 2 // Mix 3 // Mix 4 // Mix 5 // Mix 6 // Mix 7
MIX 8: THE ODDS OF IT BEING EASY ARE ZERO
1. Girl in Red: Too Much
Anyway, here’s the stylized blood-spatter I’m (I guess?) looking for in my gloomy girlpop — replaces a lifetime singing along to Billy Joel with My Chemical Romance. Bonus points for a refreshing understanding of what public domain means for “Steamboat Willie,” which is used in this video for a totally non-transformative commercial purpose that blatantly free-rides off of the original! Seriously, start making T-shirts of Steamboat Willie peeing on the logo of your least favorite sports team and make money from it. Anything short of that gets dangerously close to fair use, which was legal in 2023, too!
2. IU: 홀씨 (Holssi)
The people have spoken: this is the track off the new IU album that is most popular over on YouTube, and I am in no position to disagree. The slinky drum loop sells it even before the vocals come in.
3. TWICE: Rush
Two K-pop tracks in a row is a banner week on this newsletter — I think TWICE are usually just above replacement level, but this was the highlight from their new album.
4. TMT: Shakethata$$ [2021]
No idea where this 2021 lite booty track from a Detroit trio came from — I think it was tucked into a Joshua Minsoo Kim playlist (he’s been compiling new K-pop on a semi-weekly basis), but it’s too good not to keep.
5. Flyana Boss: Yeaaa
Viral rap duo almost made my mixes last year with “You Wish,” which got caught in [6.5] purgatory, but they have an easier time here subsuming their tryhard raunch into a dance mix that transforms their vocals into just another preset in the palette.
6. Ariana Grande: Yes, And? (The Blessed Madonna’s Godsquad remix)
I’m an on-the-record non-enjoyer of this single in its original form, but there’s something about The Blessed Madonna making it stupider and more anonymous-sounding that helps me appreciate Grande out of the spotlight in more of a house diva role.
7. Moonshine f. Banga, Fédération Internationale du Bruit, Sango: Bless You
This Montreal collective offers a slightly arty takes on dance music indebted to contemporary African dance and electronic styles but doesn’t scan as a toothless world music curio — I hear genuine-sounding batida and Afrobeats across the album. But I was drawn to the closest thing to a pop crossover, a collaboration between a couple of producers strewn across the globe. Sango is a subject for future research, mostly known for dreamy R&B remixes, but also did an interesting baile funk-informed DJ series about ten years ago.
8. TitoM, Yuppe f. EeQue, S.N.E: Tshwala Bam
9. Ameen Harron f. Lusi Blaq, Bravo Le Roux: Vuka
10. Cici, JL SA: Mjolo
And hey, speaking of Contemporary African Dance and Electronic Styles, it turns out my tentative amapiano “soft landing” obit from last week was premature, maybe! Here are three picks for the week: first, a gargantuan hit that Lokpo tipped me off to, immediately revealing how feeble my attempts to keep up with global charts this year have been. After that, an amapiano track that piqued my curiosity but doesn’t seem to have bothered anyone else (at press time it has 35 views on YouTube), followed by one of middling popularity that I liked for its prominent vocal — though, is it really any more prominent than other vocals, or am I just hearing things differently in a post-Tyla piano&b world? (At the very least I need to come up with a better neologism for it.)
11. Jalen Ngonda: Illusions
This one made it to the playlist before I confirmed that I had already included Jalen Ngonda on one of last year’s mixes, doing something roughly similar that apparently fools me every time. I don’t have much more to say than I did last time: “More Daptone.”
12. Karun: Reason
Nairobi R&B singer surrounds herself with enough interesting sonics to add some flavor to some midtempo bread and butter.
13. KeBlack: Aucune attache
French artist of Congolese descent whose facility with a 6 count fooled me into thinking this might be from Cameroon (high praise).
14. Bab L’Bluz: Imazighen
Moroccan pop that finds some juice in indie-pop signifiers. My youngest has started noting sudden stylistic shifts — like the part three minutes in when the tempo picks up and things go a bit more rock — by yelling out, “genre change!” This is usually an endorsement, as it was for this song.
15. Kirana Ayat: Giwa
Ghanaian artist who raps in Hausa and sounds more indebted to UK drill than other regional styles, though the PR claims a “fusion of trap and Afrobeats.”
16. Gordo f. Young Dolph: Kill for This Shit
Young Dolph’s death in 2021 hurt a lot — I associated him with the high school class I taught in 2016 and followed his career more closely than I would have otherwise. Always found him to be an interesting mix of menacing and workmanlike. He seemed to loosen up as he went along, too, going good-natured and goofy on his collaboration with Key Glock. This is a crass posthumous use of one of his vocals against type, so incongruous it practically sounds like one of the old A-Trak Dirty South Dance compilations. But in being so against type, I find myself nostalgic for those early appearances.
17. DJ Arana, Mc Mulekinho, MC ZL: Ce Ta no Baile do Bega
Hard to keep track of where I’m pulling my baile funk from — I think credit for this find goes to billdifferen, but I’m also trying to keep up with everything from DJ Arana this year. This one sounds like he’s goofing around with an analog synth and made something about as annoying as I might have come up with in my “electroacoustic music” class in college, except unlike me he can make you dance to it, too. (I recently found my final project for that class, which I still think is kind of funny, but you certainly cannot dance to it.)
18. Pablito Mix, Ana Simg, Kapostik: Gpi Al Perreo
Mexican reggaeton that cycles through a few well-worn millennial rap hooks but gets more mileage out of its mattress squeaks.
19. Pykäri: Moi!
Finnish post-punkers figure out what Gang of Four was missing — a B-52s back-up chorus going “nyah nyah” and “ooh ooh.”
20. Simi: All I Want
A ballad from Nigerian singer Simi that makes me want to use the word “saccharine” in a non-pejorative way — an achievement!
21. Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru: Ready to Leave [c. 1977-1985]
Closing things out with a moody Ethiopian piano dirge, from tapes recorded between 1977 and 1985. From Bandcamp:
The first vocal album by beloved Ethiopian nun, composer, and pianist Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru — profound and deeply moving home cassette recordings made amidst political upheaval and turmoil. These are songs of wisdom, loss, mourning, and exile, sung directly into a boombox and accompanied by Emahoy’s unmistakable piano. Though written and recorded while still living at her family’s home in Addis Ababa, Emahoy sings of the heartache of being far from home, a reflection on the 1974 revolution and Red Terror in Ethiopia, and a presentiment of her future exile in Jerusalem. In the 21st century, Emahoy has become known worldwide for her utterly unique melodic and rhythmic style.
Commonly misinterpreted as “jazzy” or “honky tonk,” Emahoy’s music actually comes from a deep engagement with the Western classical tradition, mixed with her background in Ethiopian traditional and Orthodox music.
***
That’s it until next week, which I promise will be free of any disparagement of Olivia Rodrigo, scout’s honor.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from IU’s “홀씨 (Holssi)”: “쉬울 확률은 zero”