Fluxblog #292: Disco 2020 Playlist | Cinthie • Ouimet/Godin • Jayda G • Overcoats
Two free episodes of Fluxpod came out this week – one featuring Molly Mary O"Brien from And Introducing on the topic of "Sad Girls" music and merch, and the other with Secretly Group A&R Melanie McClain, who explained what she does and how that job has worked during the pandemic. You can find them on most of the major podcast platforms, and on Patreon. If you are a subscriber, there will another premium episode featuring Rob Sheffield out this weekend. There will be an episode featuring Jasamine White-Gluz of No Joy out this coming week...
This week's playlist is Disco 2020, a collection of some of the best dance music from this year. One of the great ironies of music this year is that there's such an abundance of incredible dance music for a world without dance floors. It's a lot of fun! I also wrote up mini-posts for three songs from that playlist on the blog. [Apple | Spotify]
November 24th, 2020
I Just Want To Be With You
Cinthie featuring Gilli.jpg “Bassline”
Cinthie’s production on “Bassline” is so sharp and focused that it feels almost like a weapon, this thing programmed to override your mind and body until you’re dancing to her song. That the vocal is just a woman belting out the word BASSLINE over and over adds to the domination vibe – it’s like a command you must obey.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Robert Ouimet and Dave Godin “Dancing Girl”
You can tell just by hearing it that “Dancing Girl” is the work of a veteran DJ – it’s a little old fashioned in some ways, but the craft is expert, elegant, and highly effective in getting a physical response. The funk here is raw enough to feel sort of lewd, but it’s delivered very carefully, like Ouimet and Godin are pacing out the dosage of something that could be fatal if the concentration is too high.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Jayda G “Both of Us”
“Both of Us” shifts gracefully between two modes – a soft romantic elegance rooted in R&B and an overwhelming wave of euphoria that hits with the full force of house music. I can imagine the more gentle digressions killing a floor a bit, but in bringing the song down it just makes the impact of the beat hit harder when it returns.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
November 25th, 2020
All This Male Noise
Overcoats “Apathetic Boys”
“Apathetic Boys” is perky electro-rock song by a duo of young women that roasts dull and condescending indie guys, and claims some power and agency by declaring these men entirely irrelevant. It reminds me quite a bit of another song by a female duo that I wrote up here 15 years ago called “Indie Boys (Don’t Deserve It)” by the Queens of Noize. They are both aggressive but tongue-in-cheek songs about the same sort of guys, but the differences between the songs say a lot about their respective eras.
The Queens of Noize track is extremely mid-00s – very rooted in the British landfill indie scene of the day, and borne of the self-consciously raunchy and bratty post-Vice aesthetic. They acknowledge the sexual impropriety of the indie boys but make a joke of it – “coppin’ a feel, now you got a record deal” – and the best they can do to shame them for it is to say a snarky line like “it’ll still take a sack of pills to get laid.”
Overcoats’ song is quite obviously the product of the late ‘10s – the humor is less bawdy but more trollish, full of little jabs meant to evoke a “U mad?” response. Whereas the Queens of Noize admit to some measure of lust for these dopey rock guys, Overcoats express a casual meme-ified misandry and seem fully repulsed by these guys’ apathy and lack of imagination. But they arrrive at a better place by the end – instead of shrugging these guys off and bitterly accepting “how things are,” “Apathetic Boys” suggests a path forward entirely free of this element.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to another one of these in 10-15 years. It’s not as though the apathetic indie boys are going to start deserving it any time soon.
Buy it from Bandcamp.