Fluxblog Weekly #257: RIP Cristina | Dua Lipa | Sorry | Father John Misty | Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon
I wrote a tribute to Cristina for NPR today. The singer, who was a brilliant pioneer of punky, artsy pop in the early '80s, died on Wednesday at 61. It's unclear whether she died as a result of Covid-19, but either way, she had been dealing with chronic illness for many years.
March 31st, 2020
A Different Kinda Tension
Dua Lipa “Pretty Please”
When I listen to Dua Lipa’s new record I think about how many people are out there are hanging on to this joyful, bass-heavy disco pop record as a lifeline in a very bleak time. I imagine all the people dancing to this album by themselves, fantasizing about dancing to the songs with other people at parties and clubs and live performances. Then I think about what it’s going to be like when people finally get that opportunity, and the way delayed gratification can heighten experiences. Imagining this catharsis feels sort of cathartic in and of itself, because it forces you to feel optimistic and look forward to something in the future rather than dreading it all.
“Pretty Please” is produced by Ian Kirkpatrick, who previously worked with Lipa on her smash hits “New Rules” and “Don’t Start Now,” plus career highlights by Selena Gomez, Jason Derulo, and frequent co-writer Julia Michaels. Kirkpatrick and Michaels co-wrote this one with Lipa and Caroline Ailin, and it’s a perfect synthesis of their respective aesthetics – sleek, bass-forward, a brisk but vaguely nervous beat, and Michael’s distinctive style of lightly syncopated topline melody. As with Michaels and Kirkpatrick’s previous collaboration on Gomez’s brilliant 2016 single “Bad Liar,” the music sets up a horny/anxious tone that the lyrics follow through on. Lipa’s singing about her inability to play it cool with someone she’s started dating that she’s extremely into, and deciding “fuck it, may as well just be transparent.” The clever move here is that the song doesn’t quite land on that resolution – it starts its story in medias res, and keeps you fully in the moment of her epiphany.
Buy it from Amazon.
March 31st, 2020
Make Her Real
Sorry “Right Round the Clock”
Sorry have a similar vocal and musical dynamic as The XX, but whereas that band always conveys an aching romanticism in their crisp minimalism, this group communicates raw feelings bent out of shape by cynicism and complications in their jagged, deliberately clunky minimalism. (I hear echoes of Tom Waits and Micachu in their more broken-sounding arrangements.) “Right Round the Clock” sounds like what would normally be a sexy, strutting song tilted at a strange angle, and the vocal interplay between Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen is deadpan but not so much so that it comes off as a joke. They’re singing about celebrity with a mix of lust and self-loathing – one falls in love with the idea of a mysterious beautiful woman, the other fantasizes about living out her reality. They know it’s hollow and fake, but they can’t help but be seduced by the notion. The best part of the song comes when they swap out the first chorus for another that interpolates Tears for Fears’ maudlin classic “Mad World” with ironic new lyrics: “The dreams in which we’re famous are the best I’ve ever had.”
Buy it from Bandcamp.
March 30th, 2020
Somebody Stop This Joyless Joyride
Father John Misty “Please Don’t Die” (Live)
I’ve been waking up with this song in my head a lot in recent weeks, as if my brain was searching for a song in my memory that would be almost too on-the-nose for the circumstances of the world at the moment. The sentiment could not be more clear and sincere, especially from a singer-songwriter who deals so often in irony and dark humor: “You’re all that I have, so please don’t die.” It doesn’t take much effort to ignore the parts of this song that are about someone struggling with addiction and nudge it into something more general about being very afraid of losing someone you love. The chorus, which hangs on a gorgeous melodic turn, is so pure in its emotion. The language is unusually plain and direct for a Father John Misty song, partly to convey an earnest wish, but also to let you linger on how helpless the phrase “please don’t die” sounds. It’s tugging on just a strand of hope, but in a lot of cases, it’s all you can really do.
Buy it from Bandcamp. All proceeds from Off-Key In Hamburg will be donated to the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund.
April 2nd, 2020
Before You Go Chasing The Sun
Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon “Sweet June Nectar”
“Sweet June Nectar” has an an arrangement that offers a steady drip of pleasant surprises, from when it shifts from a blue-eyed soul piano ballad into a more Burt Bacharach-ish space, or when it moves from cinematic strings to an extended scorcher of a guitar solo by Jeff Parker over the extended outro. It’s remarkable how seamlessly this song moves between a casual intimate feel and a more dramatic and epic sense of scale, and how this happens without losing the thread of gentle soulfulness in the vocal performance. I hear a lot of Jeff Buckley in Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon’s voice, in both his tone and phrasing. The white boy soul thing comes very naturally to him, but he doesn’t overdo it. As with everything in this song, the dynamics are perfectly modulated.
Buy it from Bandcamp.