Fluxblog #279: Margaret Glaspy • Lady Gaga • Kate Bollinger | Folk 69-72 Playlist • VMA Twitch Archive
If you missed the live broadcast of the MTV Video Music Awards retrospective power hour that I did with Molly and Chris of the And Introducing podcast, you can watch it here as an archived video for a little while. Act quickly, as Twitch has a habit of muting archives with music in it. Molly and Chris will be doing another all-Beyoncé version of this for Beyoncé's birthday soon, you'll definitely want to get in on that if you're a fan. I've seen that one and it's magnificent.
I have another new playlist up today called Unbroken Circles: Folk In Rock 1969-1972, which covers English folk revival, psychedelic folk, and acoustic rock in the hippie era. This one is a little over three hours and has a very mellow vibe to it. It includes some very famous songs along with some rather obscure material. [Apple | Spotify]
And here's a few posts from this week revisiting a few of my favorite records from this year.
August 25th, 2020
Everything, Give Or Take
Margaret Glaspy “Heartbreak”
Margaret Glaspy has a warm and expressive voice, a high level of songwriting craft, and writes thoughtful lyrics about the intricacies of mature adult relationships. These are all incredible strengths from my perspective, but I don’t think they do much to win over younger listeners more fixated on her peers who are more about shy vocals, formless melancholy, and adolescent neuroses. But that makes sense. It’s adult music, and while I think anyone could click into Glaspy’s very melodic and accessible songs, it probably is something you need to be in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate.
Framing Glaspy’s records in this way feels a bit like I’m actually doing her a disservice, since in music “adult” is mostly a euphemism for boring. In adult music, emotions aren’t so extreme – they’re nuanced and complicated. And complexity and ambiguity have a way of coming across as low stakes, even if the reality is often that they’re much more fraught.
“Heartbreak” is a ballad rooted in R&B about a relationship that’s becoming too difficult to bear, but might not yet be broken beyond repair. Glaspy’s character frames the situation in a way that makes her passive to her partner’s whims – heartbreak is being induced, and the best defense she has in mind is to try to ignore it. The song resembles Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor” in style and themes, and this makes a lot of sense as that song has been a staple of Glaspy’s live performances for years and she’s certainly fully internalized it by now. Her voice conveys both frustration and yearning, all the angst focused on how unresolved and open-ended the situation feels.
In lieu of some decision or emotional catharsis, the song ends with her trying to get her head around how she gone in this deep: The attraction runs deep, she compromises too often and too easily, and despite swearing to be honest they’ve both holding back some truths. The song ends on that thought and stops cold, as if she’s suddenly snapped out of the spell.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
August 27th, 2020 2:11am
Ancient City Style
Lady Gaga “Babylon”
I’ve read that one of the reasons songs get stuck in your head is because something about them – the structure, the lyrics – breaks a pattern your brain recognizes from other music, so it’s left unresolved in your mind. This makes sense for how “Babylon” stays with me, it being this song that’s both totally familiar in its Shep Pettibone early ’90s house moves but totally alien in the way Lady Gaga sings a set of phrases that sound fabulous but don’t really add up to anything logical. “Babylon” is a song of inspired idiocy; absolutely glorious in its dumb genius.
Gaga has always been a creature of kitsch, but this song pushes her aesthetic to an extreme – a song ostensibly about gossip that’s somehow serving it “ancient city style” with a “pretty 16th century smile.” It’s like some bizarre cross-breeding of Madonna’s “Vogue” and Steve Martin’s “King Tut,” but with a vague nod towards the general concept of social justice. I am certain that if you talked to Lady Gaga about this song she could give you some sort of outline of the ideas that were on her mind as she wrote this, as it’s clear enough she was inspired by a few different things. But the magic here is in the goofy nonsense of it all, and in the how this is jumbled up in a fun retro dance song. It’s not easy to deliberately create something campy, but that’s exactly what she’s done with this song. She’s been immersed in camp so long, this is just what happens for her naturally.
Buy it from Amazon.
August 27th, 2020
Maybe It’s Worth Analyzing
Kate Bollinger “Grey Skies”
Kate Bollinger’s songs have mostly been iterations on a basic concept – the music is a relaxed groove but the lyrics are neurotic and introspective – but to her credit, they all feel distinct in melody and texture. “Grey Skies,” from her new EP, is at the drowsiest and jazziest end of her spectrum. Her vocal melody and cadence in this one reminds me of Erykah Badu at her most mellow, which further exaggerates the gap between her chill vibe and the “who am I, what am I doing, does any of this make sense?” tone of her lyrics. But it’s not necessarily a contradiction: Bollinger excels at giving voice to a very low-key nagging sort of turmoil, the sort that can be buried under just enough self-effacement and repression to not read as anxious on the surface.
Buy it from Bandcamp.