Fluxblog Weekly #159: Beach House, Saweetie/Kehlani, Arctic Monkeys, Natalie Prass, Valee/Jeremih
May 8th, 2018
Roses In Heaven
Beach House “Pay No Mind”
It wouldn’t take much to turn “Pay No Mind” into a proper rock power ballad. If you strip away all of the very Beach House-y stylistic elements, that’s pretty much what you’re left with, right on down to the lyrics. And while I’d love to hear someone try that out, it’s just really nice to hear Beach House make such a conventionally lovely song. Victoria Legrand’s vocal performance is typically understated, but Alex Scally’s guitar carries the emotion, effectively selling the romance of her words with a dreamy guitar tone just a few steps removed from Prince on “Purple Rain.” The song doesn’t go for a “Purple Rain” sort of grandeur and melodrama, though – like most any Beach House song, it never moves into another gear and seems to extend a single feeling into one long, meditative moment.
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May 9th, 2018
That’s How A Hot Girl Do It
Saweeetie featuring Kehlani “ICY GRL (Bae Mix)”
This track is charming in at least a dozen ways, but the bit that gets me is just after Kehlani finishes her verse, she excitedly ad libs “check me out, I’m not even a fuckin’ rapper!” And like, damn, maybe she should be? Her verse is solid in terms of lyrics and construction, but her performance is fabulous. The rasp in her voice is perfectly suited to rapping, and her phrasing has a light, playful quality. Saweetie’s voice is a perfect complement, and given how effortless and fun this track sounds, I just wonder: Why don’t these two just become a regular duo? The world could use a new Salt N Pepa.
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May 10th, 2018
An Apparition Is A Cheap Date
Arctic Monkeys “Star Treatment”
I have never been particularly interested in The Arctic Monkeys, so it was a genuine surprise to hear their new record Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino and find that they had stripped away everything that bored me about their music – i.e., probably everything about them that endeared them to a mainstream rock crowd – and foregrounded the thing I did like about them, which is Alex Turner’s dry wit and lyrical detail. The band’s new music is like a nephew to Pulp’s louche This Is Hardcore, but with a self-loathing kitschiness in place of that record’s depressive porno anti-glamour. “Star Treatment” has a glitzy sparkle to it, but that’s really just an ironic counterpoint to Turner’s lyrics, which sketch out the mindset of a fading star who seems to be on a weirdly half-hearted self-destructive bender. It’s played as dark comedy, and the punchline is the catchiest bit of the chorus: “So who you gonna call, the martini police?”
I’m sure a lot of people will compare Turner’s vocals on this song to David Bowie, but he actually sounds much more like Royston Langdon from Spacehog, who actually went for a similar sort of glam-lounge hybrid in some parts of their rather underrated 1998 record The Chinese Album. I don’t mean this as any sort of diss, by the way – the tonal similarity is striking, and there’s a warm self-deprecation in both Langdon and Turner’s phrasing you just wouldn’t get from the more icy and aloof Bowie. (It’s also not far off from Scott Weiland in his more cheeky moments.)
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May 10th, 2018
It Should Stay Like This
Natalie Prass “Short Court Style”
“Short Court Style” nods in the direction of so many different moments in pop history – there’s traces of late ’70s disco, ’80s freestyle, early ’90s Lisa Stansfield elegant dance pop, the more chill end of the Spice Girls catalog – that it all blurs together into a song that feels both familiar and distinctive. The melodic hooks are bold, but the groove is relaxed – this is a more lived-in sort of love song, it’s not a manic infatuation thing. Natalie Prass is singing about a relationship that has survived ups and downs, and you can hear a lot of pride in her voice. It’s the sound of someone who understands the value of what they have in their life.
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May 11th, 2018
Big Time Stunna
Valee & Jeremih “Womp Womp”
Jeremih and Valee both affect a raspy but silky drawl on this track, threading their lascivious lyrics around the contours of a trap track that feels slightly warped. Everything about this song feels a little bit off – there’s something a bit alien about that synth bass line, and these guys somehow manage to make a lot of typical rap tropes sound surreal. Maybe it’s in their cadence, or the way Jeremih’s performance is in this uncanny valley between tough-guy raspiness and his usual feminine falsetto. This is an exceedingly horny song, but it’s also sort of zonked-out and mesmerizing, which subverts a beat and keyboard riff that would probably feel much more aggressive and far less smooth with different rappers.
Buy it from Amazon.