Fluxblog #302: 80s Blockbuster Pop Playlist | Madlib • Matthew E. White/Lonnie Holley • Arlo Parks • Field Music
Also, what is going to happen with music festivals this year?
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This week’s episode of Fluxpod features Chris Wade, co-host of And Introducing and producer of Chapo Trap House. Chris is one of my IRL friends – truly one of the few human beings I have actually spent time with over the course of the past year – so it’s a pretty breezy chat that’s mostly focused on gaming out what will happen with music festivals over 2021 and also the PR struggles of aging megastars like U2 and Eminem. You can find the show on all pod platforms, and on the Fluxblog Patreon.
This week’s playlist is NEW SENSATIONS: Blockbuster Pop 1987-1991, which covers the huge sounds, enormous hooks, and big budget production values of the era when MTV (and to a lesser extent, VH1) fully took over music. This is a sister to The High 80s playlist and a cousin to Music From the Yuppie’s Lair, and it’s basically the most formative pop music of my childhood. (Well, along with the soft rock stuff from last week’s trilogy of playlists.) [Apple Music | Spotify]
Also, as a reminder - Fluxcaviar, my regularly updated playlist of new music, is right there waiting for you on Spotify. (I can’t keep this up for Apple too, sorry.)
And now, this week’s posts… after that, some links to things I read that I liked.
January 26th, 2021
I’d Like To Know The Answer
Madlib “Road of the Lonely Ones”
When I first heard about Sound Ancestors I was under the impression that it was a Madlib/Four Tet record, in the sense that Madlib has made collaboritive records in the past with MF Doom, J Dilla, Freddie Gibbs, and Talib Kweli. But no, this is a different sort of collaboration. It’s a body of work created by Madlib, but curated and crafted into an album by Four Tet. This is tremendously interesting to me, mainly because it strikes me as a very humble thing for someone as accomplished as Madlib to do, and a tremendous show of faith and trust in Four Tet. I figure the process here was probably similar to how an editor works with a writer on a big project, and pretty much everyone can benefit from a good editor.
“Road of the Lonely Ones” is essentially a rework of The Ethics’ deep cut “Lost In A Lonely World.” Madlib presents the song in full with all its major elements intact but he layers in percussion and additional textures, bringing a solid groove and more dramatic dynamics to the composition without sacrificing any of the delicate beauty of the original recording. The original seems flat and monochromatic in comparison, like something waiting to eventually be finished. Madlib’s arrangement frames the song’s best qualities for maximum effect, particularly the refrain in which the lead singer sings questions like “Did I ever treat you bad?” and “Where did I go wrong?” over gently plucked guitar chords. The beat drops out to put a spotlight on this moment, accentuating its vulnerability and raw beauty.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
January 27th, 2021
Skyscraper Eyes
Matthew E. White and Lonnie Holley “This Here Jungle of Moderness – Composition 14”
If you go back through Matthew E. White’s body of work you can certainly find parts that are influenced by soul, funk, and jazz, most obviously on a collaborative record with Flo Morrissey that included covers of classics by Roy Ayers Ubiquity and Frank Ocean. But nothing I’ve ever encountered that was made by White suggested he was capable of what he does on Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection, his forthcoming record with Lonnie Holley. Through five extended tracks White and his band tap into the jazz funk fusion of early ‘70s Miles Davis, particularly the vibe conjured in the sessions that yielded Get Up With It, A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and On the Corner.
Relative to Davis’ records it’s stripped down and simplified a lot – there’s fewer musicians in the room, no horns at all – but it’s a strikingly similar energy, one that’s hard to come by. White doesn’t perform on the tracks but rather conducts a group of musicians (mostly on synthesizers or percussion, but also on guitars and piano) through the collisions, tensions, and cathartic noise. Lonnie Holley role on vocals is part star presence and part bystander, and the line between him responding to the music and the music responding to his words can be hard to discern. “This Here Jungle of Moderness/Composition 14” brings out a very stressful sort of funk, where even the grooviest bits evoke a fight-or-flight response. Holley’s voice seems to confront the abstracted danger head on, and the more he sings the less startling the sounds get without necessarily ever subsiding.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
January 28th, 2021
Watched His World Dissolve
Arlo Parks “Caroline”
“Caroline” is sung from the perspective of someone observing a dramatic public breakup, the kind of thing that will grab your attention even if you’d prefer to mind your own business. The details of the story aren’t tremendously interesting, the subject of the song is more the empathy and curiosity of the observer, and the way we rush to fill in details when given a scene like this out of context. Arlo Parks sings the song with a restrained and gentle tone over a lattice of arpeggiated guitar and crisp drum hits that recall the ambivalent tone of Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes,” expressing a diluted proxy anguish that suggests she’s interpreting what she sees as she does because she’s projecting her own experiences on it.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
January 28th, 2021
Mosaics Of Love And Hate
Field Music “Orion from the Street”
Peter and David Brewis have been releasing records as Field Music for over 15 years, and in that time a few things about their music has been constant: it’s all erudite and thoughtful, it’s all wonderfully melodic in a very “raised on Paul McCartney” way, and the music is performed and recorded with a clinical precision. Their best songs make the most of their raw skill and stoic formalism, and their more forgettable work strains against the limitations of their apparent repression and uptight musical inclinations.
“Orion on the Street” is definitely in the former category. It’s a song about death and mourning the loss of someone close, and it’s very much written from the “acceptance” stage of grief. The sorts of messy emotions that would characterize the other stages wouldn’t be the best fit for the Brewis aesthetic, but the brothers are exceptionally well suited to capture the graceful clarity of processing loss and seeing some beauty in someone moving on, even if you’re a bit agnostic on what actually comes next. A sparkly piano part and a very George Harrison-y lead guitar part are the most musically beautiful parts of the song, but the most lovely sentiment comes when they reckon with the notion of the afterlife: “Belief in further lives / separate, but true / if I thought you were anywhere / I would be there too.”
Buy it from Bandcamp
Finally, here’s a couple links to pieces elsewhere I enjoyed this week…
• Buying Beats for Viral Songs Is Becoming a Popular (and Messy) Business
This is a great bit of reporting for Rolling Stone by Elias Leight that basically lays out a scam with off-the-rack music for aspiring singers on TikTok where the best case scenario is you’re Lil Nas X and have one of the biggest hits of the year and the worst case scenario is the song gets bought out from under you and you’re totally screwed the more successful you get.
• Does McDonald's know about My Chemical Romance fanfic?
Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day newsletter is always great but I think this issue is particularly excellent in examining why neoliberals misunderstand how memes work, plus some good stuff about tradwife influencers and elaborate MCR fanfic.