They have no idea what's going on in my head
2023 Mix 8
Each week I skim through about 2,000 songs from Spotify's company-curated New Music Friday playlists. Whenever I find 80 minutes worth of music I like, I make a CD-length mix and write a newsletter about it.
A reader recently asked me about how I find and go through the music for these. Tedious process notes to follow!
Every Friday I pull the newly posted tracks from a bunch of Spotify playlists that update at least weekly: 63 at press time, about 80% of which are ostensibly maintained and curated by Spotify. The others are a grab bag of people whose taste I respect, music critic institutions that update frequently enough, and extremely random playlists whose veracity I’ve only confirmed through trial and error (and often need to get cycled out when they stop getting updated).
I pull all of these songs, which usually number somewhere between 1,900 and 2,100 tracks per week, into one playlist, allowing Spotify to ignore the duplicates (this is a very important feature: the playlists contain closer to 7,000 tracks, so the overlap between playlists is something like 70%).
If you are curious or a glutton for punishment, you can follow the playlist I put together each week.
When the playlist is cobbled together, I skim through every song a few seconds at a time over the course of a few days. If I get a spark of joy, it goes in a different playlist, where I will eventually listen to the whole song. About half of these long-listed songs make it on a weekly mix. Some don’t survive a full listen; others go on a list of holdovers that I revisit each week until they cement themselves as [6]’s (delete) or [7]’s (immortality).
I ultimately keep about 1% of the songs I skim through in a given week. So I have confirmed scientifically that music is 99% OK and 1% amazing. (Contrary to what you’ve maybe heard on the internet, the really terrible stuff is negligible. Most music is…fine.)
Mix 1 // Mix 2 // Mix 3 // Mix 4 // Mix 5 // Mix 6 // Mix 7
MIX 8: THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING ON IN MY HEAD
1. Ana Castela, Belle Kaffer & Charles New: Não Para
Starting things off: three Brazilian funk tracks that span a spectrum of noisiness (not to say noisomeness, though not not to say that, I guess?): from least noisy to noisiest.
There are some complicated genre and class and regional distinctions between variations of funk music that I still don’t really understand, except that funk goes by lots of different names, and the names often track the uses and origins of the music. Funk mandelão appears to be more of an umbrella term, whereas proibidão is a much harsher subset of funk that includes sounds that are more jarring than anything I’ve heard outside of experimental and noise music. Brega funk was the subject of a Mixmag piece in 2019 about its development in Recife. But I don’t know how important or contested these genre distinctions are to the artists or Brazilian fans themselves.
There’s an interesting video from 2013, from the American branch of a Chinese news outlet, that interviews a few producers, artists, and radio DJs who were then making tecnobrega music (an older funk subset). The on-the-ground interviews give a sense of how the music was produced—quickly, on pirated software rigs in home studios—and how it was performed, on enormous public sound systems owned and operated by private audio companies who took a cut of the profits from live performances.
The interviews also clarify the de facto nonexistent copyright law (which is to say, non-enforcement), which made it easy for artists to borrow from, cover, and sample huge pop hits, but made it impossible for them to distribute the music beyond local scenes of CD sales, making music production a loss leader for live performance. I’ve seen some indications that the landscape has changed a little toward enforcement, and the inclusion of a lot of funk with what sound like uncleared samples on the American Spotify platform suggests that maybe things have changed and record labels are starting to legitimize it. (Otherwise it’s an oversight on Spotify’s part that I hope they don’t notice!)
Ana Castela’s sound — especially on her huge 2022 hit “Pipoco,” but augmented here with lots of goofy spaghetti western signifiers — veers closer to straight EDM than a lot of funk does. But the sound’s global dance accessibility belies an interesting story of how Ana Castela, who grew up on farmlands on the Brazil-Paraguay border, incorporated a cowgirl image and touted Brazil’s agricultural businesses while she was still in braces at the start of the pandemic. (No clue what her relationship is to the more earnest Brazilian country music that she references in one interview. “Não Pera” sounds like a goof, but I take it her cowboy hats are serious.)
2. Gabb MC, MC Rick, & Mc Tato: Deus Me Livre e Guarde
“Deus Me Livre e Guarde” strikes me as something of a replacement-level funk track, the singing less polished than Castela’s but still melodic, the beat a little sparer and more jarring in places (say, synth woodblocks mixed louder than the vocals). I almost get the sense of the trio as a boyband—and having seen a video I won’t share here, I’d be shocked if any of them were a day over 17.
3. d. silvestre & MC DENADAI: Violino Psicótico do Inferno
And at the other end of the spectrum is d. silvestre. Frank Kogan pointed me toward this one via an extensive Rate Your Music page of what they categorize as funk mandelão. Frank singled out “Mtg Rlk 69,” which has a similar piercing keyboard tone to what DJ Wesley Gonzaga uses to make you feel like you’ve accidentally set off someone’s car alarm during a block party, and then it became part of the party.
This song is practically Mozart by comparison (I sense a basement nerd artiness in d. silvestre’s work, no idea about his relationship to the rest of the scene) with playful violin figures taking the place of the car alarm. But at the same time the bass is completely blown out in the mix, a popular mixing style in hip-hop these days, so you can’t be confident the song didn’t bork your speakers.
4. Maahlox Le Vibeur: L’amitié
Last week I checked out some 2015 Cameroonian music for an upcoming poll on the year 2015 (again following Frank’s lead), and one artist I found, Maahlox le vibeur, put out a new song a few weeks ago. As far as I can tell from some shallow YouTube sleuthing, the beat here is adapted from a Bamoun rhythm, which is counted in 6: it’s hard and propulsive, the charge of 6/4 rather than the lilt of 6/8. You can watch Cameroonian DJ Styvo Godson create what he calls electronic Bamoun rhythm on a turntable here. You can also hear a different, sleeker interpretation of the rhythm on “Landé” by Fadil Le Sorcier. (He doesn’t gallop like Maahlox.)
Nigerian pop song with some unexpected pathos, a yearning quality in the waver and crack of Zinoleesky’s voice through Autotune.
6. Khalfan Govinda f. Beat killer: Amapayinka
Rwandan artist who sounds like he left his cell phone on buzzing through the whole song. More people should do that, it sounds great.
More Nigerian pop, sans pathos, but characteristically smooth.
8. e5: Aladdin
Amazingly, this is only the second-best Japanese quasi-hyperpop tune called “Aladdin.” The best one is by Wednesday Campanella.
9. Yolanda Be Cool: Baseline Happiness
I’ve seen Yolanda Be Cool pop up here and there since “We No Speak Americano” in 2010, but I don’t think anything has clicked since this one, mostly thanks (as usual?) to their sample, from a 90s Brazilian funk track, MC Coiote and MC Raposão’s “Estrada Da Posse.”
10. Sal£m f. EntertheInternet: Balenci
Egyptian hip-hop track with a guest rapper from South Africa. Doesn’t sound much like the Egyptian pop I usually get from Spotify, very Soundcloud.
Vietnamese pop from one of the first Vietnam Idol contestants in 2007, and coincidentally would also sound at home in an indie disco in 2007.
12. KYE: Ribena
Forget Ribena — this is some of that classic generic-store-brand-soda pop (ha) that Spotify specializes in pumping through its recommendation algorithm. There are two comments already on the little-viewed YouTube thanking Spotify for sharing this paean to the blackcurrant soda popular in the UK and Australia (where KYE is from), which sadly has not yet penetrated the US market.
I’m only familiar with Ribena because it’s used as a prop on Taskmaster, as in the alphabetized instruction to Quaff the Ribena before Sniffing the Turnip. I can’t imagine following this song’s chorus and quaffing the Ribena in the morning, though. Sounds gross.
Don’t know what the deal is with this song but it is very annoying and very Swedish, and should really be bothering people in Eurovision before losing. But not as Sweden’s entry; official contender Loreen is one to beat this year.
14. Son Rompe Pera: Selva Negra
Mexican band that combines traditional Mexican marimba music with cumbia.
15. M NAIVE x Phạm Nguyên Ngọc: Thương
Twee love ballad that sounds like it must be from a soundtrack for something. Didn’t find much information about it.
16. Friday Night Plans: Arigatou
The guitars on this sound fantastic — Friday Night Plans is categorized on Spotify as neo-city pop, and it does hit a similar low-key endorphin release vibe, but it mostly makes me want to hear more John Denver samples in hip-hop, of which there appear to be fewer than I expected. (How’d I miss the Soulja Boy one??)
17. Nkosazana Daughter x Murumba Pitch x Master KG x Lowsheen: Ring Ring Ring
18. Mellow & Sleazy x Tman Xpress f. Keynote: Kwelinye
Two amapiano tracks that go for a lush, blissed-out sound that I associate with Sun-El Musician—more cinematic, fewer surprises buried in the mix. Joshua Minsoo-Kim calls “Kwelinye” the amapiano song of the year so far, and Mellow & Sleazy the most important amapiano artist right now. The second part might well be true — everything I’ve heard is great — but I’ll admit I have a hard time making distinctions when the music is aiming so squarely for beauty (it’s something that keeps me at a distance from Sun-El Musician’s work, which I admire more than I love).
19. μ-Ziq: 4am
Atmospheric track from his upcoming album. Last heard him repped in the 1999 People’s Pop Twitter poll, would not have guessed he’s put out eleven albums since then.
20. Mamta Sharma: Tauba Meri Tauba
I remain way out of my depth with the New Music Hindi playlist, but this stood out and I see it has amassed 14 million YouTube views in a month, so maybe I’m on to something? 14,000,000 Mamta Sharma Fans Can’t Be Wrong!
21. 石川紅奈 [Kurena Ishikawa]: Bird of Beauty
Soft landing to the mix with a Stevie Wonder cover from jazz bassist Kurena Ishikawa.
And that’s it! Heck, I didn’t even mention that everyone is sick again. I am sick of being sick.
Send Ribena!!!
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Zinoleesky’s “YanYanYan”