Fluxblog 484: inauthentic country music!
Plus new songs by Peel Dream Magazine, Fievel Is Glauque, and Ginger Root
This week’s playlist is THEIR "COUNTRY" SONG | COUNTRY PASTICHES BY NON-COUNTRY ARTISTS, a collection of token country songs, novelty goofs, shameless cash grabs, and some earnest homages here and there. I am not in the habit of crowdsourcing my playlists but I did request input on this one, and thanks to everyone who offered songs. I used a lot of them, and I don’t think this would have turned out as well without a lot of suggestions I probably wouldn’t have found on my own. This includes songs by a wide range of artists including The Pointer Sisters, Kesha, Snoop Dogg, Fleetwood Mac, GG Allin, Lily Allen, Paramore, Vampire Weekend, Cake, Scissor Sisters, Lady Gaga, The Velvet Underground, The Kinks, Sabrina Carpenter, Steve Miller Band, Steely Dan, Ween, Oingo Boingo, Young Thug, Pavement, and Cher.
[Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube]
Garlic and Butter, Venus and Mars
Peel Dream Magazine “Lie in the Gutter”
Peel Dream Magazine would have fit in very well with the early to mid 00s Other Music zeitgeist, even beyond the degree a song like “Lie in the Gutter” is obviously indebted to both Stereolab and Yo La Tengo. You don’t name your band in tribute to John Peel if you’re not highly invested in the idea of having “good taste,” and their forthcoming record Rose Main Reading Room pulls together a lot of tasteful ideas culled from a well curated record collection. And of course, this is basically the same thing Stereolab and Yo La Tengo have done through their careers, so it’s all part of some broader lineage of crate-digging artistry.
“Lie in the Gutter” sounds like a song designed to lure me into a trap. The particular tone of the keyboard drones? The dazed “la la” background vocals? The firm, up-tempo beat that somehow signals “cozy and relaxed”? My favorite part is the slightly singsong melody sung by Olivia Bubaka Black, which is a bit spacey in tone but busy enough to keep my ear engaged. Strong lyrics too – overtly romantic and focused on sensuality, grounded in a broke reality, but yearning for something grand and transcendental.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
We’re All Barely Real
Fievel Is Glauque “As Above So Below”
The first time I wrote about Fievel Is Glauque a couple years ago I described them as an “intriguing common ground between Gaucho-era Steely Dan, Stereolab, and Tom Jobim,” and that’s even more true now that they’ve graduated to more hi-fi production and more elaborate arrangements. But they also sound nothing like those artists in that there’s almost always some twitchy, chaotic element to their songs that (to varying degrees) undermines their smoothness and sophistication. “As Above, So Below” is essentially a sunny ballad that sounds like it’s from some lost mid-20th century musical but the arrangement is deliberately a little too busy, giving the music a nervous energy you wouldn’t find in actual music of the era. I can see how this would be off-putting to some people, but I find this very intellectually engaging and aesthetically appealing. I feel like the oddness accentuates the loveliness, like how salt brings dimension to the taste of caramel or chocolate.
Ma Clément’s lyrics are intriguing, if a little hard to discern. In this song she’s singing about some very big ideas – the notion of heaven and souls, magical vs natural, science and faith, the possibility that any of us can truly change the world – but with a bit of an arched eyebrow. Not in a dismissive way, but more in a way that signals humility and good humor about very heavy concepts.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Up And Elated
Ginger Root “No Problems”
Cameron Lew is a gleeful maximalist, pulling from Japanese City Pop, 70s McCartney and Electric Light Orchestra, 80s Sophisti-pop, and 90s Shibuya-kei to build songs that are dense with musical detail but feel light and fizzy. It really makes you wonder what some of these 20th century forebears of his aesthetic could have also made their elaborate music in digital home studios. “No Problems” presents as bright and groovy, but Lew’s lyrics are neurotically fixated on someone else’s sunny facade, almost unwilling to believe that this other person is as untroubled and happy as they say they are. Do I need to spell out the irony here?
Buy it from Bandcamp.
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• Rob Sheffield wrote a great review of Missy Elliott’s show at the Barclays Center with Busta Rhymes and Ciara. I was there and absolutely loved it – it’s a neon b-boy y2k afrofuturist extravaganza, and one of the best big production arena shows I’ve seen. The tour isn’t over yet, and if you have any opportunity to see her in the next couple weeks, you absolutely should jump at it.
• Missy recently told Variety she has around six albums worth of unreleased material recorded since The Cookbook came out in 2005, and that it’s pretty likely she’s going to drop a proper record again soon.
• Broken Record interviewed Paul Banks of Interpol, a guy whose music always makes me go “who is this guy?” It’s funny how listening to him talk about himself for an hour doesn’t make him any less enigmatic.
• Molly O’Brien wrote about going to see Dead & Co. at the Sphere on a last-minute whim last weekend.
• Sean T Collins’ review of the first episode of the third season of Industry is jam-packed with spoilers, but the second half is a really strong argument for why it’s one of the best television shows of this decade. It presents as Billions crossed with Euphoria, but it’s really more like Mad Men set in the present.
When I was a child I thought Elton John and Olivia Newton-John were married. Not sure how I found out otherwise.