Fluxblog 476: IT'S THE REMIX REMIX REMIX!!!
Plus new music by Charli XCX, Kaytranada and PinkPantheress, and Nilüfer Yanya
This week’s playlist is IT’S THE REMIX, which doesn’t really have a conceptual hook beyond “OOPS! ALL REMIXES.” I’ve found that it’s been kind of a difficult one to sell, despite it basically also being “OOPS! ALL BANGERS.” This one features alternate versions of songs by a wide range of beloved artists – Air, Janelle Monae, Beyoncé, LCD Soundsystem, Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Hot Chip, Tame Impala, Rihanna, Sabrina Carpenter, The Knife, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Garbage, Justice, The Cardigans, Kylie Minogue, Phoenix, Franz Ferdinand, Spoon, Usher, The Weeknd, Depeche Mode, Dislosure, and more!
[Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube]
Down Symmetrical Lines
Charli XCX “Apple”
Broadly speaking, Charli XCX’s lyrics alternate between a sort of confrontational vapidity and a willingness to be transparent about very ugly feelings. I find a lot of her songs off-putting for this reason, but I respect what she’s doing because it’s such an unguarded approach to writing pop music. It’s a “fuck you, deal with me as I am” mindset that allows for declarations of her own greatness and cultural influence that can dare you to be like “well, actually…” and expressions of insecurity so raw and indulgent that it can be cringe-inducing. Her range as a singer and songwriter is very narrow, and this only underlines the point that you’re listening to a human, and we’re all defined as much by our limitations as our strengths. But not everyone is brave enough to lean into those limitations and flaws and unflattering characteristics. She’s basically a punk rocker working in a pop girl milieu.
I think the most lyrically interesting songs on Brat are the ones where she’s pushing through her own self-involvement to try to understand other people. I hear a lot of insecurity and anxiety in those songs, and a nagging fear that she can’t connect. “Apple,” the most melodically generous song on the record, looks to her parents as a source for her worst impulses. The intriguing thing here isn’t so much that she’s making this connection but in how the catchiest part of the song is when she’s shutting down after coming into conflict with them: “You don’t listen, I leave to the airport the airport the airport the airport.” I don’t think she’s going for this joke necessarily, but it’s very literally fight or flight.
Buy it from Amazon.
I Know I Left Too Soon
Kaytranada featuring PinkPantheress “Snap My Finger”
It took me a few listens to figure out why a bit of the verse melody in this song sounded so incredibly familiar to me, but then it hit me – there’s a melodic turn in the verse that’s just like one of the most memorable parts of Wham’s early 80s classic “Everything She Wants.” I suppose it’s just different enough to justify not giving George Michael a songwriting credit, though I think his estate could easily get it in a post-“Blurred Lines” legal landscape.
Not that I think Kaytranada and PinkPantheress should be giving that sort of credit, per se. “Snap My Finger” is a substantially different song with its own vibe, and I believe borrowing bits from previous songs is part of a tradition of songwriting going back centuries. I’m not even sure PinkPantheress intends to reference “Everything She Wants” here – there’s some shared words in the lyric, but I think this could easily be one of those things when you internalize a melody and then it emerges in something you make later without you consciously realizing it.
For a personal example, when I was 20 I wrote a song with a topline verse melody I realized a few years later was just a lightly modified (read: dumbed down) version of Stevie Wonder’s “Livin’ for the City.” It happens! And this is where taste comes in – I feel silly about not realizing I was lifting from a very famous song, but pleased that I had the sense to borrow from a genius of melody. And that’s the case for “Snap My Finger” – whether it’s intentional or accidental, it’s ultimately flattering to PinkPantheress’ taste that she ended up with snippet of melody as low-key sophisticated as George Michael at his very best.
Buy it from Amazon.
Drown In My New Costume
Nilüfer Yanya “Method Actor”
I grew up in a time when post-Pixies loud/quiet/loud dynamics was a default for rock music, so that sort of shift typically feels more comfortable to me than jarring. I’m rarely surprised by this move, as you can usually feel the switch coming. This is not the case in “Method Actor,” a song I was fairly certain would linger in a moody groovy state because most modern music with this particular vibe tend to stay in that mode with only understated changes. Even having heard the song a few times over I’m still a little startled by the burst into distortion on the chorus, though I think it’s less about the abrasive texture and volume and more to do with how the guitar rhythm gets so violent and jagged relative to the tasteful and vaguely jazzy tone on the verses. In the context of the lyrics, I suppose it’s a musical manifestation of an actor snapping in and out of character, and drawing on their darkest memories in order to ground themselves in ugliness and pain.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• CBS Mornings has the first interview with all four members of R.E.M. together for the first time in around 30 years on the occasion of them being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The elusive Bill Berry’s response to being asked if he ever regretted departing the band in 1997 is very moving.
• Zach Schonfeld wrote a well reported piece about the rash of underperforming arena tours this summer for Stereogum. I tend to think the “post-post-Covid” thing is a little overstated here and in some other analysis I’ve seen – in most cases I think there’s a lot of overly optimistic booking, artists who have an audience but no reputation for being a can’t-miss live act, and artists who’ve simply lost a lot of audience due to a ton of factors including bad luck.
• Speaking of the latter, here’s Steven Erlewine wondering how The Black Keys seemingly lost an enormous chunk of their fanbase.
• J.P. Brammer’s advice column got a question from a woman who’s repulsed by her friend’s stan behavior, teeing up this very sharp observation of fandom as a cultural phenomena:
When fandoms dogpile someone for saying something less than adulatory about their fav, I see the promise of fandom in action: It’s a way to feel like you have power, like you can bend your environment to your will. It’s not a bug but a feature. I think the superfan mind-set calls to people who feel disempowered in their everyday lives. It’s probably hugely appealing for such an individual to hitch their wagon to someone glamorous and successful, to live vicariously through that success, and to merge their identity with someone so … important.
I mean, just look at the things the “stans” care about. Do they care about the message being conveyed in the music? No, they care mostly about charts, about numbers, quasi-scientific qualities that affirm power, that turn the nebulous concept of an individual’s impact into something tangible, something that can be pointed to as evidence. It’s like rattling off Bible verses in an argument, but in the service of proving that “Jesus outsold. Satan in his flop era confirmed
Dan Boeckner played a career retrospective solo show in NYC this week, which ended with Britt Daniel of Spoon coming out for a Divine Fits reunion in the encore.
