Reading issue 16 of Tone Glow (spiritual successor to TMT/best experimental music newsletter out there) reminded me how much I love music. The issue is a list of the staff writers’ favorite songs of 2020 so far. It’s a remarkably diverse list, but each writer’s blurb makes clear that their pick really, personally matters to them. In aggregate, a powerful sense of communality emerges from the sum of these parts, from their depth and breadth; I can’t describe the way this moves me.
A lot of the entries that stuck with me were on pop songs. During breaks I took while writing a review that turned out a bit longer and more complicated than I expected, I listened to a few of those tunes as well as other infinitely replayable cuts, most of which I’d stumbled upon in the past couple of months. Eventually, I ended up with a short playlist that’s been on loop ever since. I thought I’d post it here, along with my collected thoughts and associations. Today, I’ll talk about the first three songs on the playlist. At some point in the coming days, I’ll talk about the last four.
Dua Lipa - “Break My Heart”
Love in dance music is physical; there’s always sweat, sometimes sex. Four on the floor creates suction, flow—you’re pulled in, led on. “Break My Heart” doesn’t do that. The first few words of every other line in the chorus are the same note metronomically sung: two or three downbeats that each come to a full halt before Lipa goes on. Of course, they emphasize the way she stops in her tracks when that special other “said ‘hello,’” or when she realizes her amorous blunder with an “oh no.” But they also break the flow, the fluidity required of seduction. Lipa isn’t singing to allure her crush, or anyone else—the song’s in her head. She observes her emotions from afar, watches others while simmering inside. The lyrics and video make this plain, but what’s nice is how well the music hammers the message home.
Brockhampton - “twisted”
It’s unfair to blame Brockhampton for not maintaining their Saturation-era pace. They needed to go more or less in the direction that they did, and I’m grateful that they’re still here. Their recent string of singles ostensibly strip back to hip hop orthodoxy, taking rough soul and R&B samples as their clay. However, the production is distinctly Brockhampton. The beats, cooked in a DAW to textural perfection, hit as hard as ever, now with a distorted, lo-fi edge; we also get our usual share of pitch-shifted verses and vocal harmonies. But in the past couple of years, they’ve aimed for more than just hard-hitting—the lush string arrangements on Iridescence and folk appropriations of guitar ballads and funerary brass on Ginger evince this. “twisted” glimpses a pop rap that integrates hip hop’s tradition of analog manipulation with its present affinity for digital synthesis in a way only Kevin Abstract & Co. could pull off. It’s something we haven’t seen the likes of since Tree’s formulation of soul trap earlier last decade.
Grimes - “Delete Forever”
Hearing about Grimes these days makes me a bit sad. I haven’t kept up with the drama, but even when you stick to the text, her trajectory prompts questions. Much like how coverage of China’s mass surveillance systems obfuscates the concrete details of their current implementation, Miss Anthropocene loses itself in dystopic imaginations of climate change and artificial intelligence, failing to address their sociopolitical and individual realities now. That’s why I find the presence of “Delete Forever” on the record so surprising. It’s no more or less than what she says it’s about: losing people to drugs. She starts with that feeling and clothes it in essentials—acoustic guitar, simple yet insistent drums, mild vocal effects. Later, a reverb-soaked violin alternately moans and sings, and a banjo spins and weaves around it all. There’s no fluff, only a singular emotional idea and a tune to go with it. While it stands apart from the rest of the album, touches like the cavernous quality of the mix, the proximity of vocal textures to instrumental, etc. all read as Grimes. The honest spontaneity of “Delete Forever” works because we know it’s her speaking; we don’t need a high-concept filter or frame to intuit this.