Fluxblog #333: Halsey • Men I Trust • Anz • Sprints
Plus a party playlist and the coming of ZEPTEMBER
This week’s playlist is NEUROTIC ‘80s WOMAN PARTY MIX, a set directly inspired by this Fuji cassette ad from 1989. I followed the loose parameters set by the ad copy and from there just tried to imagine a 90 minute cassette in which this anxious character did her best to both please and impress the hot people at her party. FYI, this is timed to fit a 90 minute tape exactly, The Replacements song is the end of Side A. [Spotify | Apple]
This week’s regular episode of Fluxpod had to be postponed at the last minute due to some severe technical problems for my guest, but we’ll get to recording that one for real soon – it’s gonna be a really exciting one. In the meantime my ZEPTEMBER miniseries with Sean T. Collins, in which we go deep on Led Zeppelin and their body of work, will launch this Saturday on the Fluxpod Patreon. This is a four episode series that will run every weekend this month, and you can get if you pledge $5 for the month.
My Tears Are Falling Flawlessly
Halsey “You Asked For This”
When it was announced that Halsey had made a full album in collaboration with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross I had expected something that was mostly electronic and heavy on dark atmosphere, mainly because I figured this was the lane she’d want to stay in. As it turned out I totally underestimated the extent to which Halsey would make the most of a Nine Inch Nails collaboration – If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is a varied set of songs that contrast sharply but click together perfectly in sequence. It’s ostensibly a pivot-to-rock album but I think Halsey has actually made better pop music with Nine Inch Nails than she has in the past, mainly because the dynamics of Reznor and Ross’ arrangements and song structures have pushed her to sing bolder, stronger melodies.
We were already in the process of gradually reorienting a lot of mainstream pop back towards rock structures but this Halsey record along with Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour push everything towards more overtly dramatic balladry and the high energy dynamics of alt-rock. It’s like a rebuke of Jack Antonoff’s neurotic half measures, in which rock and folk music is laundered through “modern” production styles so it might fit in better on radio or in the wilds of the algorithms. Halsey is certainly going hard in the other direction, fully embracing musical extremes in the interest of ear-catching, soul-bearing songs.
“You Asked For This” sets a plaintive vocal melody to a track that sounds like a more commercially-minded and drum-heavy variation on My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep.” Reznor and Ross hit just the right balance of driving rhythm and soft-focus noise here, evoking a romantic feeling that’s being warped and corroded through the sheer volume of the guitars on the track. Halsey’s lyrics describe a state of uncomfortable ambivalence about domesticity and being a woman who “has it all,” bored by the trappings of comfort but not quite enough to give it up. In this context the last verse, in which she lists off a new list of things she wants, hits like a cathartic declaration of desire and just some more things she could be bored with once it’s within her grasp.
Buy it from Amazon.
Men I Trust “Serenade of Water”
Given that Men I Trust have been so good with mellow, sensual, and stoned music it’s hardly a surprise that they would pivot into the trip hop lane, or that they’d pull it off with such grace. “Serenade of Water” reminds me of two specific songs that I closely associate with a move towards a very “expensive hotel lobby” sort of sophistication in the late ‘90s – “Sugar Water” by Cibo Matto, and “La Femme D’argent” by Air. It’s all in the feel of it, mixing the hazy physicality of the former with the elegant keyboard noodling of the latter into something that feels relaxed and evokes a sort of low-key luxury. Jessy Caron’s vocals are exceptionally wispy and delicate, almost blending into the keyboard drones at some points but clear enough for the important lyrical sentiments – go slow on me, be my love, I’m where I belong – to guide your conscious mind through the pure feeling of it all.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
The Fabrication I’m Capable Of
Anz featuring George Riley “You Could Be”
“You Could Be” sounds like Anz was deliberately trying to write something that could go in some kind of Pop Crush Song Hall of Fame. I think she nails her target here, mainly in how her arrangement nails the proper ratio of effervescent energy and neurotic mania. Lean too far in the former direction and it comes out sounding too ditzy and childish, go too far in the latter direction and you get…well, a lot of the last decade of pop music. But this comes closer to the ideal – “How Will I Know,” “Call Me Maybe” – and taps into the way the low-level anxiety of having a big dumb crush is what makes it suspenseful and fun.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
The Cards Are Stacked
Sprints “How Does the Story Go?”
Karla Chubb’s voice is conversational through much of “How Does the Story Go?,” hashing out her neuroses and relationship troubles in an Irish accent that makes her irritable and exhausted tone seem rather funny and charming. She seems bored by her own story as she speak-sings over a guitar riff that’s compressed enough to sound like an accidentally musical piece of machinery. Chubb basically scraps her own narrative to shift gears on the chorus, cutting away all the bullshit to scream “I’M NOT FINE!!!” in an effort to say what she really is thinking, and to maybe get a “hey, I’m not fine either” from someone else in earshot.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• I enjoyed this live streamed interview with Halsey, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross that explains a lot of how their collaboration came to be.
• Here’s Sean T. Collins and Gretchen Felker-Martin talking about I Think You Should Leave on their Cut to Black podcast – the great thing about this is that unlike so much writing about comedy today, they focus more on the technical decisions that made things funnier rather than go into this really sweaty and defensive posturing of why this comedy is Actually Serious And Important.