Fluxblog 437: another country
Plus new songs by BabyMINT, Ratboys, Zach Bryan, and Helena Deland
This week’s playlist is ANOTHER COUNTRY: RUSTIC ALTERNATIVE 2004-2014, the story of how indie and indie-adjacent acts quietly mainstreamed different strains of rootsy, folky, alt-country music with an almost completely different set of aesthetics from Nashville’s version of country. This features indie rock-approved artists like Bon Iver, Bright Eyes, Wilco, Fleet Foxes, Jenny Lewis, Kurt Vile, and Okkervil River alongside more normie-approved acts like Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, The Head and the Heart, The Avett Brothers, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Hozier, plus some artists like Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves who are much closer to mainstream country. It’s an interesting mix, and one full of artists who don’t present as superstars, but in fact are among the most popular acts in music today.
[Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
Now Speed Up!
NEXT GIRLZ babyMINT “Hellokittybalahcurrihellokitty美味しい”
BabyMINT are a Tawainese girl group spinning out of a idol competition show called Next Girlz, and they have made one of the most aggressively weird pop singles I’ve encountered in a while. “Hellokittybalahcurrihellokitty美味しい” combines extremely twee girly energy with K-pop maximalism and an AG Cook/Sophie flavor of hyperpop, resulting in something adorably berserk. The song begins with an interactive challenge in which the song speeds up every measure, but then it bounces around between different high energy modes like the song itself is daring you to keep up with it. It’s kind of a stunt song, but it holds together amazingly well and the novelty does not wear off much after repeat listens.
Buy it from Amazon.
A Belly For A Heart
Ratboys “No Way”
“No Way” sounds immediately familiar, as though it’s a song I’ve known for 20+ years but haven’t heard in about 17 years. It’s brand new, but the “it all comes rushing back” happens anyway. I’m not sure what song or songs I’m trying to remember. Is it a particular chord change, something specific about the guitar tone, something about how it swings from loose and casual to emphatic and cathartic? The Ratboys are working firmly within genre here – indie rock with a little alt-country flair – so this kind of mild deja vu is par for the course. The charm of “No Way,” and certainly what makes it interesting beyond mere recognition, is in how the band sound very excited to have written this kind of song. A song this catchy, a song this easy to click into emotionally, a song that sounds like it’d be fun to play for an audience who knows the words to the chorus. It’s a song that approaches a breakup from two valid positions at once, gracefully moving from befuddled shrug to bold declaration that this sort of thing won’t happen again, or at least with them.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Revved Up, Thirsty, And Ready To Drown
Zach Bryan “Fear and Friday’s”
There’s never been a shortage of guys trying to be Bruce Springsteen at any point in my time on this planet. Zach Bryan is one of the only singer-songwriters I’ve ever heard who’s stepped into the Boss’ zone and possesses the charisma, energy, and songwriting craft to not just pull it off but find their own voice in this lane. “Fear and Friday’s” is one of Bryan’s most overtly Springsteen-esque songs but I feel like the Bruce-ness of it is mostly in the melody and delivery of the chorus.
That’s the part of the song that really gets to me. Bryan is singing about a relationship with a very fickle woman who’s clearly nowhere near as invested in him as he is in her. “I got a fear, dear, that it’s gonna end,” he sings, displaying an earnest vulnerability that’s not whiney or needy or acting like he’s owed something. When the chorus ends on “you only love me like you mean it when it’s after dark,” it’s not some petulant Drake burn. He sounds like a guy who’s quite happy for that after dark hook-up, but disappointed that it probably can’t be more because he wants to give more.
Bryan’s new album opens with another song called “Fear and Friday’s (Poem)” that doesn’t have a lot to do with this song besides providing a bit of context for the shared title: “I think fear and Fridays got an awful lot in common, they’re overdone and glorified and they always leave you wanting.” In other words, like another great songwriter once sang: “Don’t expect, don’t expect, don’t expect, don’t expect.”
Buy it from Amazon.
The Buzz Is All Mine
Helena Deland “Spring Bug”
“Spring Bug” is obviously about the spring, but the idea in this song – being excited about a change of seasons at least partly for nostalgic reasons, and reconnecting with older versions of oneself by reenacting favorite experiences – is applicable to all the seasons. If anything, in we tend to think about this with regards to summer and autumn with music, so Helena Deland is sticking up for an underrated part of the calendar. Underrated, maybe, but definitely the most symbolically rich as a period of rejuvenation. The tension in this gentle and easygoing song seems mainly in the contradiction of feeling reborn but running into previous selves. The past doesn’t die as you keep living, but it might ask to sit down next to you for a few minutes on a park bench while you look out at budding flowers.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• Jeremy Gordon profiled Folk Implosion for the New York Times, whose music for the Kids soundtrack is at long last finally available on streaming.
• Tom Breihan wrote about the 20th anniversary of The Rapture’s classic Echoes for Stereogum.
• Tegan O’Neil of The Comics Journal wrote a career retrospective of the great comics artist Marc Silvestri with a focus on the sexuality of his work and the blatant homoeroticism and exquisite crosshatching of his recent prestige Batman/Joker story.