Fluxblog Weekly #198: Ariana Grande, LCD Soundsystem, Unloved, Teen
February 11th, 2019
Make It Stick
Ariana Grande “Make Up”
Ariana Grande shines brightest on songs in which her voice seems to hover just above the beat, and chords seems to float around her presence. “Make Up” has the same head-in-the-clouds infatuated tone as the best songs on last year’s Sweetener, but with a little more edge to it. The lyrics about make up sex are cute, but they are just scaffolding for Grande’s impressively nimble and expressive vocal melody. She’s drawing a lot from the vocal syncopation commonly found in rocksteady and dancehall here, but without putting on some horrible faux patois. There’s one melodic bit in the verses that sounds extremely Studio One to me, but I can’t quite figure out whether or not it’s reminding me of a specific song. I just know that I wish I could hear a Studie One legend like Marcia Griffiths, Willie Williams, or Sugar Minott take a crack at singing it. Either way, this approach suits Grande’s voice rather well – she’s very graceful around a beat, and makes parts which require a great deal of focus and breath control sound breezy and casual.
Buy it from Amazon.
February 12th, 2019
Crushed By The Boring
LCD Soundsystem “Get Innocuous!” (Electric Lady Version)
Is it actually awful to be normal? Is having money inherently bad? Is being boring the worst thing you can be? Is comfort a trap? Are nice, shiny, new things devoid of soul? Is friendliness just a way of being fake and insincere? If you’re happy and content, are you really just dumb and oblivious? “Get Innocuous!” is built on the assumption that all of this is true, but that the real question is how much any of it really matters. James Murphy sounds exhausted by fighting it all, and even more tired by living the life of an artist, where everything that used to be fun is now just work.
Murphy’s arrangement starts out tight but just keeps getting tighter and more dense as it progresses. It’s a very mechanical feeling, like a complex system moving in perfect unison towards some clearly defined goal. It’s a very seductive groove, and even though Nancy Whang is chanting “you can normalize / don’t it make you feel alive?” in a sarcastic tone, it still comes across like an enticing invitation in the context of the beat. They pull you into the machine, and then you think “oh, this is not so bad.” And the rub of the song is there is no ironic twist or reveal. It’s not any more of a trap than anything else in life. It’s just another thing to do, another perspective on being alive. The hollow feeling in the song isn’t about what happens to you when you “normalize,” but rather what it feels like to have your old convictions fade away and be replaced by nothing in particular.
Buy it from Amazon.
February 14th, 2019
The Way You Go To My Head
Unloved “Devils Angels”
Unloved make a kind of exotic, heavily atmospheric groove-based post-trip-hop music that was once ubiquitous in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s but is now somewhat rare. Their new record Heartbreak has a welcome familiarity – not just in evoking a vibe that was very hip when I was younger, but in the way it seems to scramble together aesthetics pulled from decades of cool film soundtracks into music that has the patina of oldness but sounds like no moment in particular. “Devils Angels” is one of their grooviest numbers – a bit sleazy and menacing, but sung with a flirty tone. It’s like a theme song for a femme fatale in a movie from the past about the future we’re living in right now.
Buy it from Amazon.
February 15th, 2019
Together We Can Be At Ease
Teen “Connection”
“Connection” is placid and lovely, with gentle synth tones hovering in the air like a fine pastel mist. Kristina Lieberson’s vocal is exceptionally delicate and intimate as she sings lyrics that get so vulnerable in their declaration of needs and desires that it can feel a little intrusive to listen. The lines that ring out are sweet and romantic – “how your presence brings me comfort, when I’m with you I am at ease” – but a closer listen reveals a love built on insecurity and desperation for approval. I don’t think this is meant to be some kind of ironic twist, though. It’s more just a realistic portrait of love with all the unflattering needs and feelings that drive us to seek out a connection.
Buy it from Amazon.