Fluxblog 366: American Jangle Playlist
Plus recent rap with Pusha T, Tha God Fahim & Your Old Droog, Earl Sweatshirt, and Fly Anakin
I’m doing two newsletter issues this week because I have two playlists ready to go and wanted to run through some rap songs I’ve been meaning to include for a while but was having trouble writing about, so I basically went for a speed round with a couple shorter than usual blurbs.
This issue’s playlist is A SPLINTER IN YOUR EYE: AMERICAN JANGLE 1982-1986, a sibling to last week’s playlist which covered the UK jangle indie of the same period. Just as that one is a testament to the influence of The Smiths, this one shows the impact of R.E.M., though I think both playlists show that jangle was simply one of the major musical trends of the 1980s more generally beyond the commercial momentum behind two game-changing bands. The artists in the American playlist come by their jangle a lot of different ways – via the Byrds, via psychedelia, via folk and country, and some are just punk bands finding a different gear. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
On The Yacht Eating Cheesecake
Pusha T featuring Kanye West “Dreamin’ of the Past”
Good for Pusha T for managing to get a bouncy classic 00s style track from Kanye West in the 2020s – doesn’t seem easy these days? Or cheap, given that this one is built around a sample of Donny Hathaway singing a John Lennon song. Pusha T is definitely not going to surprise anyone with lyrical subject matter at this stage but there’s a few particularly clever lines here – I like “Kevlar in his Balenciaga jacket lining” and “on the bikes like Amblin.” West shows up for a brief verse near the end though his voice sounds a little off, I actually just thought it was someone else until I looked it up. I should’ve known, though – the line about almost buying the Fresh Prince of Bel Air mansion but hating the kitchen design is so very him.
Buy it from Amazon.
Tha God Fahim & Your Old Droog “Wall Street with Briefcase”
Here’s another presumably pricey sample, I’ll let you figure it out or look it up. But maybe I’m just “looking at expensive shit with the cheap face,” as Tha God Fahim says in the chorus. The sound of the track is lush and gentle, you could put the instrumental on a chillout mix. I like the cranky tone of the vocals though, particularly in the second half when Your Old Droog comes through and sounds like he’s casually shit talking in an assured but peevish tone.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Bury Me In A Borrowed Suit
Earl Sweatshirt featuring Armand Hammer “Tabula Rasa”
Theravada and Rbchmbrs pull off one of my favorite sample production moves, in which a tiny sliver of another song is manipulated so the bits of notes and chords become an entirely new and different piece of music that feels totally natural but also is something very unlikely to be composed by someone actually playing piano and bass guitar. When it’s done as gracefully as it is done here it just feels like magic to me. Earl Sweatshirt and the members of Armand Hammer take the late night melancholy tone of the track as a prompt to get introspective – ELUCID pondering authenticity and people who “talk like they never got punched in the face,” Billy Woods delivering a densely written verse that’s mostly morbid, and Earl searching for balance and peace.
Buy it from Amazon.
Fly Anakin “Sean Price”
Fly Anakin raps with some worry and hurry in his voice, as though he’s trying to spill it all out while under duress. This is a sharp contrast with Evidence’s track for “Sean Price” which seems to move in slow motion, but they fit together as two different ways of feeling very present in a moment. It also gives this character study some dimension – he’s stressed out, sure, but also seeing things very clearly.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
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• Speaking of R.E.M., Rick Rubin has a terrific interview with Michael Stipe up today on the Broken Record podcast. Michael talks a lot about the very early days of R.E.M. and also his more recent work, and actually says something that blew me away – he always intended to be a famous artist! Kinda hard to imagine given how he was at the start of things.
• The New York Times goes deeeeep on gummy candy – “the gummy universe keeps expanding.”