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2025 Mix 21: Rihanna (technically) returns, Renée Rapp (maybe) arrives, and Ida Maria (finally!) comes through
Rihanna came back (back…BACK!) for approximately 30 seconds of screen and recording studio time (combined), and so, too, I am also back briefly to throw together an introduction for this week’s grab bag after a long week away. Thankfully there’s not much to report after my greatest hits collection last week.
If you’re interested in online music challenges, there’s a 1989 poll happening, and then in July there will be both a People’s Pop 1975 poll (nominations soon-ish) and an Uncool/Fear of Music non-singles challenge (the previous Top 1000 challenge is currently being announced).
If you’re looking for even more music of the non-new variety, there’s plenty to choose from as always:
A summer playlist from Natalie at Don’t Rock the Inbox
A great proto-disco playlist linked from Joe Muggs
And a new-to-me (I think? Maybe I heard these when they were released?) Joy series of mixes from Musicophilia.
Next week I might work out an idea I’m kicking around about trap beats as a similar technological adoption/breakthrough to prosumer keyboards, with c. 2015 being to trap beats as c. 1983 was to widespread keyboard technology in pop music. Also might finally get this A-pop installment up on Monday.
1. Reneé Rapp: Leave Me Alone
USA
Consistent A-flop (to date, anyway) makes a serious play for a hit with a chorus that sounds like Teddybears doing “Born to Be Wild” for an animated movie soundtrack but lyrics that are very much not safe for children’s media.
2. Obongjayar: Jellyfish
Nigeria/UK
A name I’ve seen here and there, a Little Simz feature here and a Fred Again hit there, but I like this paranoid little treadmill workout.
3. Rihanna: Friend of Mine
Barbados/US
Well…uh, I guess Rihanna was back at some point? And then gone in however much time it took her to get every frame of footage for this video and leave the Voicenote recording that a small army of writers and producers crammed into some kind of vaguely baile funk-inflected rave that seems very harsh for a Smurfs movie, but would have sounded great soundtracking the weird dance orgy in the second Matrix movie.
4. Ginton, Ape Drums, Palane, Kohsea: Anything (Ya Ya)
Netherlands/US/Nigeria
Sounds like a sweet post-Tems Afrobeats vocal put through the commercial (literally—this would sound great in a commercial!) Major Lazer sieve. Only one actual Lazer appears, and I’m not sure how major he is so I will save my Minor Lazer joke for some other time.
5. Mula: Wôyô Mulingue
Côte D’Ivoire
More sweet vocals, this time in the service of [checks notes] Ivorian zouglou, a sound that, as far as I can tell, has avoided commercial Lazerization to date. From the Lokpo Rolling Côte D’Ivoire YouTube Chart playlist.
6. Nana Benz du Togo: Fovi
Togo
Have featured this Togo group before, and at that time said “just shy of too tasteful for my (tasteless?) tastes, but they smuggle in a crappy enough keyboard to give it the extra texture I needed.” I am happy to report that I can recycle this blurb almost verbatim, except I can go ahead and erase that parenthetical question mark.
7. Fuerza Regida f. Bellakath: Labubu
US/Mexico
8. La Potter, Dímelo Seven: Copy Paste
Mexico
Two Mexican rap songs. La Potter is new to me, while Fuerza Regida is a US-based regional Mexican band that’s currently on a bunch of global because [research and explain later]. I didn’t think much of the album, though I’m happy for anything to dislodge some 2024 chart fungus (monkey’s paw curls, Morgan Wallen appears). I am fond of the dumbest song on it, of course, which mostly features Mexican rapper Bellakath and, in a maximally unsavory sort of way, namechecks what I’m assuming is this lil’ guy dangling from someone’s purse:
9. Maya Vik, Initial Talk: Baby Boo
Norway
A xerox of a xerox of some lost 1990 hit, but I’ll take the faded copy in lieu of any forthcoming new Jane Child material.
10. BIBI: Apocalypse
Japan
A K-pop song that I couldn’t make heads or tails of visually, from the DeviantArt doodle of an album cover to its Adam and Eve-themed music video that seems to have brought a baby into the picture before anyone bites the apple. (Luckily you all don’t pay me the big bucks to make heads or tails of the visuals.)
11. Kiyo: Suckie
Mexico
Mexican hyper-reggaeton from the Mexico Viral 50 about which I know absolutely nothing and intend to keep it that way.
12. Galen Tipton: Call Me Back <3
US
Ohio based producer, a/k/a Recovery Girl, whom you can tell (as stated) is influenced by footwork but makes the sort of footwork music you could create in Mario Paint.
13. Mhaol: 1 800-Call-Me-Back
Ireland
I only needed a bar of that post-punk beat to guess that sprechgesang was incoming, but was pleasantly surprised at how much mileage they also managed to get out of the touchtone dialing sounds. As 1-800 songs go, it’s got nothing on Emily Osment.
14. TAI, Azure Wrath: Adımlar
Turkey
Turkish hypertrap that has a bit of nu-metal oafishness to it that I found endearing rather than (just) annoying.
15. Deradoorian: No No Yes Yes
US
I appear to be softening on Dirty Projectors in my advancing age — David Longstreth’s neoclassical-ish chamber album with Berlin orchestra Stargaze is…nice. And Angel Deradoorian has continued her slow transition to the pop side of the indie/pop slash without going glassy (windowpane), the first thing I’ve featured from her since her fun collaboration with Kate NV as Decisive Pink a few years ago.
16. Lisa Maria: (Solo Aire)
Argentina
17. Ida Maria: Lazy
Norway
18. Guerilla Toss: Psychosis Is Just a Number
US
19. Sydney Sprague: As Scared As Can Be
US
Indie rock suite! Low-key Argentine rock to kicks things off, and then [siren emojis] a halfway decent Ida Maria song! I think it’s officially been more than 15 years since I’ve gotten excited about an Ida Maria song? Closing with two Amerindie rockers, one a band that blood-sweat-and-teared their way up to Sub Pop eventually and the other an Arizona singer-songwriter opening for the emo nostalgia circuit (Dashboard Confessional and Jimmy Eat World), and whom I discovered on the New Music India playlist for some reason.
20. Moin f. Sophia Al-Maria, Ben Vince: See
Italy/UK
I have picked Valentina Magaletti (of V/Z) out of a blindfold taste test line-up yet again. Love it when the data turns me into a technical stan. This is also how I moneyballed my way onto the Misha Panfilov Street Team.
21. Lido Pimienta: Ahora
Colombia/Canada
Huh, figured this was a from a Canadian playlist (Pimienta is a past Polaris prize winner) but her album has Pitchfork cred, via the always-worth-reading Spanish-language music coverage by Stefanie Fernández, the only critic I can think of (besides me?) who could throw off a phrase like “celestial dembow” like it was no big deal. Unlike me, she also provides meaningful context!
The album’s nine movements, arranged with the help of Canadian composer Owen Pallett, do tell a specific story across a transitory 28 minutes, one that loosely follows the separation and reconciliation of Pimienta with her partner. It is grounded by place—“representando a la Guajira,” she sings of the Guajira peninsula, to whom the Wayuu people are indigenous—but overall, no time anchors it except musical time.
22. Julia Úlehla: Open Your Ear to the Great Below
US/Canada
First heard Úlehla on Steve Erickson’s freeform radio show. I’ve been waiting to feature something droney from his show, since that is very much not my bailiwick. If memory serves, he shared a different track on the new album with her Vancouver-based ensemble Dálava. Fun fact: at press time this is the only song (out of 463 so far this year) that is not available on YouTube!
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That’s it! Until next time, feel free to duck in for 30 seconds to say hello, especially if you’ve been gone for close to a decade and we were all starting to worry about you a little.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Guerilla Toss: Psychosis Is Just a Number
Thanks for the shout-out! When Dalava's full album comes out in a few weeks, it'll probably be on YouTube.