Fluxblog 410: flashback to SPRING 1995!
Plus new songs by Gorillaz/Bad Bunny, Kali Uchis, Omar Apollo, and Coupdekat
This week’s playlist is THIS WAS SPRING 1995, a flashback to a specific moment in time that was very formative for me personally. I haven’t done one of these for a while and they’re always kinda fun – I particularly recommend the YouTube version of this which also includes a lot of vintage 1995 MTV promos so you can pretend you’ve gone back in time and watching MTV on your couch. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
Y Aprovéchame Hoy
Gorillaz featuring Bad Bunny “Tormenta”
I’m sure Damon Albarn recruited Bad Bunny for the same reasons he pulls any talented artist into a Gorillaz project – the promise of a fun collaboration, an interesting aesthetic combination, a new energy to pull into the Gorillaz universe. But there’s just no way he didn’t go into making this song knowing that the magnitude of Bad Bunny’s success on streaming was such that this song was almost guaranteed to become one of his most popular songs ever just because Bad Bunny showed up. This song doesn’t have to be all that good, it barely even has to work. But it does work, largely because Albarn’s taste in musical harmony diverges just enough from usual Bad Bunny productions to cast the rapper in a different light, and his Gorillaz-era mix of easy breezy vibes and understated but pervasive melancholy mixes well with Bunny’s blend of vulnerability and bravado. The lyrics center on a metaphor of the sun coming out during a storm, and a lot of what makes this click is they’re both a little bit sun and storm here.
Buy it from Amazon.
High With My Lover
Kali Uchis “Moonlight”
“Moonlight” doesn’t sound just like Kali Uchis’ breakthrough hit “Telepatia” but it seems pretty obvious that it was written as a next step from the vibe and sound established on that track. Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat evoke a similar sort of stoned funk but nudge the mood into more overtly romantic territory. This is perfect for Uchis, who moves between a breathy and flirty tone on the chorus and a more bold and sultry tone on the verses. She reminds me a lot of Sade in those parts – self-possessed and sultry, but also keenly aware of how serious and complicated things can get between two people in love. This push and pull between romance as momentary pleasure and source of heavy drama is the core of this song. It’s about 80% laid back sexiness, 20% awareness that the stakes are high.
Buy it from Amazon.
So Tethered To You
Omar Apollo “3 Boys”
“3 Boys” is a rather retro soul ballad with a more modern lyrical perspective as Omar Apollo sings about struggling to embrace non-monogamy because he’s so hung up on his feelings for Boyfriend #1 that he can’t really appreciate Boyfriends #2 and #3. I’m sure there are people who hear this and hate that this song is basically an ENM guy yearning for monogamy, but the conflict between logical pragmatism and raw emotion is what makes this so heartbreaking. He sounds so frustrated in every part of this situation, including the part where his actual desires conflict with having all the cake and eating it too. He can’t decide whether his feelings and attachment are an annoying inconvenience or the best thing he’s ever experienced.
Buy it from Amazon.
Why Do I Feel Like I Stole It
Coupdekat “Superglue”
“Superglue” does a nice trick of contrasting a very simple and obvious chorus about having a powerful crush with verses that put this pure ecstatic feeling in the context of guilt, economic status, and family dynamics. By the second time Coupdekat hits the chorus it sounds the same but feels much different, with lines about “I don’t know what to do” and “I’m stuck to you” seeming more helpless and frustrated than joyful or playful. The ambivalence carries through the rest of the song, with her sounding like she doesn’t quite know how to process any of this but fully invested in the thrill of it whether it turns out to be a good or bad thing.
Buy it from Amazon.
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• I highly recommend catching up with some things my friend Molly O’Brien has written recently, such as this essay about “having an angle” on her Tumblr blog, and her interviews with indie karaoke legend Lemmy Caution and music journalist Jacqueline Codiga on her newsletter.
• I’m thrilled that Tom Breihan has made it up to Mims’ “This Is Why I’m Hot” in his Number Ones column at Stereogum because I was sure he’d get somewhere fun with it. Despite writing about music for about as long as Tom the trouble with writing about this song didn’t even occur to me:
The entire premise of this column is that the top of the Hot 100 is an interesting lens to use when you’re talking about pop history. To my mind, a song that reaches #1 is interesting because it reaches #1. It helps us understand something about that song’s moment, about its place in the grand continuum of pop music. “This Is Why I’m Hot” frustrates the column’s premise because of the song’s dogged determination to say nothing about anything. “This Is Why I’m Hot” is a closed loop, a self-contained bubble. How could it be anything else?
• David Harper at SKTCHD has a robustly reported piece on the story of Pizza Hut’s X-Men promotion in the mid 1990s, which was a major entry point for a generation of fans. This one finally answers the question of how Chris Bachalo, then known for his work on Vertigo’s Shade, the Changing Man and Death: The High Cost of Living, came to get involved with X-Men back then. (Basically his wife made him do it, and then drawing the X-Men became about 60% of his career from that point onward.)
• Is the future of club life a hyperpop rave called Subculture? Cassidy George of Rolling Stone reports on the scene in LA.
Excited to listen but FYI the Apple Music link for the spring 95 playlist sends to YouTube instead.