Fluxblog 512: 1980s GOD TIER
Plus new songs by Benjamin Booker, Snapped Ankles, and Thandii
This week’s playlist is 1980s GOD TIER, which I originally made for my own use a while back but I’ve since revised for public consumption. As with the 2010s God Tier playlist, this is simply a long playlist full of songs I think are basically perfect and have some major resonance for me. There is a stark difference between the two, though: The 2010s playlist is largely informed by running Fluxblog through that entire decade and skews obscure, the 1980s covers my entire childhood and skews towards music I grew up hearing as an obsessive radio listener. This means the 80s playlist is very much a crowdpleaser!
[Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube]
See Another Me
Benjamin Booker “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar”
Benjamin Booker’s Lower has a heavy atmosphere and distinctive tonal palette that’s like the musical equivalent of desaturating color to the point that everything’s a bright headache grey. The mix emphasizes sharp textural contrasts, so you get this sort of rough sandpaper sensuality. Booker and producer Kenny Segal’s scuffed-up aesthetic brings out the humanity in the songs, as though they’ve scraped up layers to unearth hidden loveliness and unfiltered feeling.
Booker, who was previously more of a retro soul/blues guy, now sounds like an R&B singer hidden in a thick fog of shoegaze guitar and funky drumming. When that fog lifts a bit, as it does on the gorgeous ballad “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar,” he sounds isolated and vulnerable. And of course, that’s what the song is basically about – a guy stepping out of his comfort zone in an attempt to find what he badly wants, and feeling desperate for someone to truly perceive him. You hear the awkwardness and loneliness in the music, but more so, a feeling that he’s getting closer to the light. He’s almost there!
Buy it from Amazon.
No Intention To Hurt
Snapped Ankles “Raoul”
After listening to this song twice I knew I had to immediately pass it along to my friend Chris. Chris pretty much only likes music that goes hard. He recently said “my lack of tolerance for music that doesn’t slap will sometimes isolate me” because he had to turn down going to a Waxahatchee show on account of their total inability to slap. Chris loves post-punk, and he loves DFA. He loves synthesizers and songs where you get both the unforgiving lockstep of a drum machine and the physicality of live drums. He loves an intense guy singing, or even better, speak-singing. And yes, he loved this song.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Thandii “Past”
There is no getting around how much this song sounds like Portishead. Like, it’s the main selling point. I always feel a bit guilty describing an artist’s music in terms of how much it sounds like someone else, but in this case I’m almost certain that “sounding like Portishead” was the goal, from the groove on up to the vocal performance. But here’s the important thing: This is a good Portishead song. If Portishead were to return after many, many years of silence with this song, people would be pretty happy with it. And that’s a pretty high bar to clear!
Buy it from Bandcamp.
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• The Uproxx 2024 music critics poll is up! You can check out my ballot here. Whenever I vote in polls I am trying to hit a balance of accurately representing my taste while hoping to actually impact how particular records place in the poll. This time around most of what I voted for placed pretty well!
• WBEZ Chicago has the inside story of why the long-running annual Pitchfork festival in Chicago was permanently canceled. A lot of it comes down to the rising costs of putting on festivals – headliners were getting a minimum of $1 million to perform – and Conde Nast putting pressure on Pitchfork to book pop acts that have nothing to do with Pitchfork’s aesthetics. And like, why bother having a Pitchfork festival if it’s not all Pitchfork-endorsed music?