2025 Mix 30: An indie nine-darter, uneven funk crossovers, Eftalya Yağcı and Dani Nigro (with an "I," no relation) return, and I no longer confuse Marina Satti with Mabe Fratti (also no relation)
At 10 (i.e. 1968) I was familiar with Songs by Tom Lehrer (my parent's record collection), How Much is that Doggy in the Window, Donald Where's Yer Troosers, and The Laughing Policeman from the roughly early 50's period.
When Mollak, the Jvcki Wai & Vangdale album, dropped, I thought "why is Narak a single, it's the weakest cut and musically a retread of Spoil U." But it sounds amazing in isolation here.
That said, I'll pick Ms. Menhera for the next one. I love how she's barely bothering to sing in English at all now. She doesn't need to anymore.
This is interesting, becuase I was ALSO very familiar with a lot of novelty records, including Lehrer and "Doggy in the Window," which is something like a schoolyard standard. But I keep looking at those charts from 1979 to 1982 and realizing I would have known almost *none* of those songs -- wouldn't have ever heard them and wouldn't have even hazarded a guess as to what they were. This exercise was at least helpful in working out an argument for the next A-pop piece, which has taken a lot longer than expected.
One thing I avoided in the piece, which I wasn't as careful about here, was making too fine a distinction between "rock" and "pop" -- rock IS pop, so when I talk about different waves of attentional pull (I also don't use this phrase again lol) I want to think about America's global roll from rock 'n' roll through the end of the blockbuster pop era in c. 2010 as a more or less continuous phenomenon with some interesting exceptions
I bought a CD of 1948 US radio hits and the only track I recognized was Shake Rattle and Roll. But it was surprising how much the close 4-part harmonies reminded me of autotune, and how far the sheen of the whole thing was like A-pop. Frankie Laine's song was the keeper, it had some quirky "authentic' detail compared with the others.
1948? ("Shake, Rattle and Roll" was 1954.) I like the idea of close harmonies as Auto-Tune. What about falsetto?
Have never researched 1948 but did a top 5 off the top of my head for Brad, and it's an astonishingly good top 5 for any year, the top four all potentially being all-time Top 100.
1,2, and 5 all went no. 1 R&B, though "Boogie Chillen'" not till '49. "I Can't Be Satisfied" reached no. 11. "Tomorrow Night" crossed over to pop, no. 19, probably not high enough to make your CD.
Didn't hear any of those till my twenties, mind you.
I'm thinking of the wrong song then, but there's a similar 12-bat rock-'n'-roll standard that is in the 1948 charts as a jump jazz or boogie woogie hit
Yes that's it, I remember Roy Brown's name. Part of rock'n'roll was retrospective claiming of older songs with a r'n'r ethos - 'Train Kept A'Rollin'', the Yardbirds cover, dates from 1951, and "Love Letters' a doowopish song I associate with the 50's, is from 1945
I think the Laine song must be 'Shine' because I remembered a Hoagy Carmichael quality and odd structure.
It struck me that white pop in 1948 was very professional and that meant on-pitch singing, perfect harmonies, and a balanced sound, a polished effect that's more like lightly autotuned everyday pop today than it's like, say, 1970's pop
Looking at 1982 now -- songs I'd have heard: "Physical," "I Love Rock n Roll," "Jenny," maybe would find the chorus of "Hurts So Good" familiar. Wouldn't know any of the singers, and wouldn't have made the connection between "Grease" (which I saw) and "Physical." (All of them would have sounded very old and I wouldn't expect to hear them on the radio.)
If you haven't heard it, I strongly recommend *Tom Lehrer Revisited*: is a 1960 live album but the exact same songs as *Songs By Tom Lehrer* but far more presence, more life (and patter that's the same combination of hilarious and sophomoric as the lyrics) (think the melodies and piano are first-rate, btw, only a smidge below Kern, Gershwin, Porter, Rodgers).
1st listen of Mollak, going w/ "Wreck Cars" and "Necrophilia"; overall, I miss the intensity/desperation of Jvcki's mid-to-late 2010s.
Re Mollak, there's a special quality to trap that'll make it the most serious section of most artist's discographies which I tried to describe back here
"Trap at its best, the fancy-funeral drumming, the easy, but inverted-so-not-so-obvious, changes, the sing-song autotune chorus, and the bass that gives under its own weight, whatever the lyrics are doing to you, empathically feels your pain and pours the balm of radical acceptance over it. Making it the music of our zeitgeist, the soundtrack to our existential limitations of work, area code, class, addictions, internet hate, media manipulation, climate change and the other apocalypse riders, mental health, mortality… this aspect of trap music gives its manifold other pleasures a Masque Of The Red Death quality that feels right for 2023."
At 10 (i.e. 1968) I was familiar with Songs by Tom Lehrer (my parent's record collection), How Much is that Doggy in the Window, Donald Where's Yer Troosers, and The Laughing Policeman from the roughly early 50's period.
When Mollak, the Jvcki Wai & Vangdale album, dropped, I thought "why is Narak a single, it's the weakest cut and musically a retread of Spoil U." But it sounds amazing in isolation here.
That said, I'll pick Ms. Menhera for the next one. I love how she's barely bothering to sing in English at all now. She doesn't need to anymore.
A great selection this week.
This is interesting, becuase I was ALSO very familiar with a lot of novelty records, including Lehrer and "Doggy in the Window," which is something like a schoolyard standard. But I keep looking at those charts from 1979 to 1982 and realizing I would have known almost *none* of those songs -- wouldn't have ever heard them and wouldn't have even hazarded a guess as to what they were. This exercise was at least helpful in working out an argument for the next A-pop piece, which has taken a lot longer than expected.
One thing I avoided in the piece, which I wasn't as careful about here, was making too fine a distinction between "rock" and "pop" -- rock IS pop, so when I talk about different waves of attentional pull (I also don't use this phrase again lol) I want to think about America's global roll from rock 'n' roll through the end of the blockbuster pop era in c. 2010 as a more or less continuous phenomenon with some interesting exceptions
I bought a CD of 1948 US radio hits and the only track I recognized was Shake Rattle and Roll. But it was surprising how much the close 4-part harmonies reminded me of autotune, and how far the sheen of the whole thing was like A-pop. Frankie Laine's song was the keeper, it had some quirky "authentic' detail compared with the others.
1948? ("Shake, Rattle and Roll" was 1954.) I like the idea of close harmonies as Auto-Tune. What about falsetto?
Have never researched 1948 but did a top 5 off the top of my head for Brad, and it's an astonishingly good top 5 for any year, the top four all potentially being all-time Top 100.
1. The Orioles "It's Too Soon To Know"
2. Lonnie Johnson "Tomorrow Night"
3. Muddy Waters "I Can't Be Satisfied"
4. Charlie Parker Quintet "Embraceable You"
5. John Lee Hooker "Boogie Chillen'"
https://substack.com/profile/4636884-koganbot/note/c-50482691
1,2, and 5 all went no. 1 R&B, though "Boogie Chillen'" not till '49. "I Can't Be Satisfied" reached no. 11. "Tomorrow Night" crossed over to pop, no. 19, probably not high enough to make your CD.
Didn't hear any of those till my twenties, mind you.
I'm thinking of the wrong song then, but there's a similar 12-bat rock-'n'-roll standard that is in the 1948 charts as a jump jazz or boogie woogie hit
Might be "Good Rockin' Tonight": 1947 by Roy Brown, covered 1948 by Wynonie Harris, then Elvis Presley in 1954.
Do you remember which Frankie Laine song? "Shine"? Interestingly, according to Wikip, he first hit in the R&B market.
Yes that's it, I remember Roy Brown's name. Part of rock'n'roll was retrospective claiming of older songs with a r'n'r ethos - 'Train Kept A'Rollin'', the Yardbirds cover, dates from 1951, and "Love Letters' a doowopish song I associate with the 50's, is from 1945
I think the Laine song must be 'Shine' because I remembered a Hoagy Carmichael quality and odd structure.
It struck me that white pop in 1948 was very professional and that meant on-pitch singing, perfect harmonies, and a balanced sound, a polished effect that's more like lightly autotuned everyday pop today than it's like, say, 1970's pop
Looking at 1982 now -- songs I'd have heard: "Physical," "I Love Rock n Roll," "Jenny," maybe would find the chorus of "Hurts So Good" familiar. Wouldn't know any of the singers, and wouldn't have made the connection between "Grease" (which I saw) and "Physical." (All of them would have sounded very old and I wouldn't expect to hear them on the radio.)
If you haven't heard it, I strongly recommend *Tom Lehrer Revisited*: is a 1960 live album but the exact same songs as *Songs By Tom Lehrer* but far more presence, more life (and patter that's the same combination of hilarious and sophomoric as the lyrics) (think the melodies and piano are first-rate, btw, only a smidge below Kern, Gershwin, Porter, Rodgers).
1st listen of Mollak, going w/ "Wreck Cars" and "Necrophilia"; overall, I miss the intensity/desperation of Jvcki's mid-to-late 2010s.
Re Mollak, there's a special quality to trap that'll make it the most serious section of most artist's discographies which I tried to describe back here
https://georgedhenderson.substack.com/p/a-beautiful-ghost
"Trap at its best, the fancy-funeral drumming, the easy, but inverted-so-not-so-obvious, changes, the sing-song autotune chorus, and the bass that gives under its own weight, whatever the lyrics are doing to you, empathically feels your pain and pours the balm of radical acceptance over it. Making it the music of our zeitgeist, the soundtrack to our existential limitations of work, area code, class, addictions, internet hate, media manipulation, climate change and the other apocalypse riders, mental health, mortality… this aspect of trap music gives its manifold other pleasures a Masque Of The Red Death quality that feels right for 2023."