Fluxblog Weekly #137: Ratboys, Casey Dienel, Jay-Z, Selena Gomez, FKJ, Lana Del Rey
This week's newsletter is a bit different from normal, in that the first song is a new entry, and the others are some of my favorite posts from 2017. I decided to do this because of illness/burnout, and that I'm working on putting together the 2017 survey, which I'm building to be as comprehensive as the surveys for the '80s and '90s. I'm aiming to have that published the week before Christmas.
December 4th, 2017
This Ceaseless Stretch Of White
Ratboys “Crying About the Planets” (AudioTree Session)
I’d meant to write about a song from the new Ratboys record months ago – the album came out in late June – but it fell off my radar for a while. But it makes sense to come back around to “Crying About the Planets” now, since it’s such a winter song. The first four minutes of the song are slow and quiet, evoking the near stillness of a landscape just after snowfall. There’s a cautiousness to its swaying rhythm, and the guitar tone is slight and brittle. Julia Steiner’s lyrics sketch out a story of a man falling beneath the ice of a frozen lake, and admit to that inspiring a suicidal fantasy. The key bit, though, is that she immediately clarifies that she does not actually want to die. But even with her insisting that she “can’t quit this,” the tone of the song is incredibly bleak. She sounds trapped and alone, and though the heavy climax of the song is a bit cathartic, it hardly sounds like a resolution to the feeling.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
April 19th, 2017
You’ll Only Want Cake
Casey Dienel “High Times”
“High Times” is a story about a woman having a one night stand with a hot dude at a hotel in Palm Springs, and it plays out lyrically and musically like a hazy memory of something you’re vaguely surprised actually happened. Casey Dienel sounds bemused throughout, and describes the encounter with a droll, critical tone. “He said some things that seemed borderline basic, but when he took off his shirt, I acquit him,” she sings, striking a perfect tonal balance of humor and sexiness. It’s kinda Prince-esque that way; this isn’t far off from the sort of witty erotic fantasies he shared in a lot of his best ‘80s material. The difference is that while Prince always presented himself as an intensely desirable person, the subtext of “High Times” is that the character is slightly confused that she’s hooking up with this tan, clean cut, all-American hunk, but is going along with it because, hey, why not? She compares the situation to splurging on cake after a juice cleanse, and it’s hard not to root for her as you listen: Get that cake, girl!
The most immediately striking musical element of “High Times” is the bent, sped-up string part that opens the track and loops throughout. It sets the tone for the piece very nicely – graceful and confident, but also a bit warped. That feeling gets twisted at the song’s climax, when Dienel’s character hands the dude her key and invites him back to her room. At this point, the bass shifts so it feels as though it’s moving against the tide of the song, and the cathartic vocal hook – “in 103, in 103, if you wanna get lost find me in 103” – sounds slurred and psychedelic. The reality of the song changes in this moment, snapping out of a sunny fantasy and into a scene that’s more grounded in physical reality but distorted by lust and booze. It’s “this is really happening!” and “what the fuck is happening?” at the same time.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
July 11th, 2017
There’s A Disconnect
Jay-Z “The Story of OJ”
Interesting how Jay-Z’s discography since the late ‘90s ping-pongs back and forth between good albums and weak albums. It’s a clear pattern at this point. I have no theory about this, but I would offer that this suggests that he’s an artist who thrives when he’s got something to say. He’s certainly got something to say on 4:44. Sure, yes, some of that is an admission of guilt and shame for cheating on his wife. That was expected, and gets the attention because people always care about celebrity gossip. But that’s just a bit of what he’s saying on the record, and even that is tied in to a deeper meditation on what’s been driving him all his life, this burning need to elevate his station.
“The Story of OJ” hits this head-on; the reality that no matter how successful he is, he’s still black, and that’s always going to be a barrier. He’s addressed this before – with contempt on Watch the Throne, and with a touch of bemusement on Magna Carta Holy Grail – but now he sounds entirely resigned and exhausted. This is, for me, a more interesting contrast with Beyoncé’s Lemonade than the he said/she said angle – there’s an optimism in her “the future is female” call for solidarity and action on a track like “Formation,” but all you hear on “OJ” is realism and pessimism blurring until they’re totally indistinguishable. Jay-Z was always a guy with a cynical view of humanity, and he doesn’t sound pleased to discover he was right to feel that way.
Buy it from Amazon.
June 26th, 2017
Call Me An Amenity
Selena Gomez “Bad Liar”
If I’m being honest with you, I really didn’t expect my favorite pop song of 2017 thus far to come from Selena Gomez, a singer who up until just now I’d considered kinda boring and not particularly talented. But here we are, and I’m happy to have been wrong about her.
“Bad Liar” is mainly written by Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter, who’ve worked together on Gomez’s music in the past and have clearly learned the best way to showcase Gomez’s personality is to not crowd her voice and allow space for the nuances in her phrasing to thrive. The Gomez of “Bad Liar” is flustered by her infatuation, and the verses have a low key anxious energy – she’s beating herself up a bit, and making odd references and jokes that are considerably more clever than what you’d reasonably expect from contemporary mainstream pop. The Selena Gomez in this song is a very clearly recognizable person – I’m not sure if it’s Gomez, per se, but it’s an intriguing and relatable character. Gomez’s previous hits with Michaels and Tranter, “Good for You” and “Hands to Myself,” cover similar ground, and convincingly present the singer as the pop star for horny introverts.
Gomez’s phrasing in this song is outstanding, tilting from the dry, understated humor of the verses to a sweet, high hypnotic tone for the chorus. Her voice may seem reedy and thin in other contexts, but here it’s perfectly suited to the melody and structure and conveys just the right balance of lust and neurosis.
And yes, that is the bass line from Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.” It’d be easy for Gomez, Michaels, and Tranter to be lazy and just let that familiar, perfect groove do all the work in the song, but there’s so many strong hooks and interesting moments in “Bad Liar” that it kinda just settles into the background as this twitchy pulse that connects the sentiment of the song to the anxiety pop of 40 years ago.
Buy it from Amazon.
July 17th, 2017
Do Everything With Our Heart
FKJ “Joy”
FKJ’s debut is remarkably slick and sophisticated in its composition, effortlessly sliding between funk, soul, jazz, and house without ever feeling like a series of forced juxtapositions. “Joy” is the climax of the record, and ties together many of the musical threads through the set, while leaning hard on jazz elements in particular. The electric keyboard holds down the groove and sets the tone for soloing, but the horn parts are fabulously emotive as they swing between delicate, pensive phrases and bold, expressive soloing. I know some people have trouble with saxophones and jazz in general, and associate it with either cheesiness or inaccessible meandering, but this track is a particularly good ambassador for both. FKJ sugars the pill of jazz a bit by situating it in this elegant dance track, but lets the solos unfurl with incredible feeling and melodic grace. The vocals in “Joy” are all chopped up samples, and while they’re quite expressive and joyful, it’s just there to accent the beat and frame the leads. Words can just get in the way of a big feeling like this.
Buy it from Amazon.
February 20th, 2017
Nowhere In Particular
Lana Del Rey “Love”
The key to Lana Del Rey’s music is that she understands that certain types of sadness and yearning are very satisfying feelings, sometimes more so than most positive emotions. This is especially true when you’re terrified of actual intimacy – being with someone is scary, but pining for them lets you experience the rush of love without the parts that make you uncomfortable and insecure. “Love” is sung from a remove, with Lana observing young people doing young people things, and experiencing innocent, earnest passion for the first time. There’s a bit of envy and loneliness in her voice, but you can tell she’s invested in these other people and their happiness. Even if she’s afraid on some level that she can’t have this or can’t anymore, she doesn’t begrudge them for these simple joys. She seems to like the tragic romanticism of being the outsider on the periphery, the wounded person who can claim some distance from these people with their ordinary lives. She gets to feel like the special one, even if it’s an empty feeling.
Buy it from iTunes.