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Pixies “No. 13 Baby”

If the Pixies came out today, the critical narrative would be all about how they’re “problematic.” The girl sings about a black guy with a huge dick; the guy mangles the Spanish language and flagrantly objectifies Latin women. There’s a troubling tension in the way he sings about women in general – lusty, angry, bitter, self-loathing. Maybe today we’d label it “incel rock,” and then make fun of the male singer’s pudgy body without ever thinking about how it’s crucial to the context. No one would ever consider that the musicians knew what they were doing, or were deliberate about what they were saying, or whether the tensions in their music spoke to something about their lived experience or vivid inner life. The historical and cultural allusions wouldn’t be taken seriously. It would all be flattened: This is fucked up and uncomfortable, therefore it is at best a guilty pleasure. The urgency and physicality of the music wouldn’t matter, nor would the melodies or raw charisma of the singers. It’d be “What Pixies Get Wrong About _____” or “The Pixies’ _____ Problem.”

Art is messy because humans are messy, and the Pixies reveled in that filth. But that mess could also be strangely wholesome! “No. 13 Baby” is a song about lust from the perspective of a young boy observing a woman who lives next doo. She awakens something in him. She’s an intriguing other to him – six feet tall, Mexican, strong, tattooed. He’s attracted to her in part because she’s an outlier – not white, not demure, not a normie. But it’s also just raw and physical. He’s obsessed with her tits, and the fact that she’s topless in public. It’s likely this is the first time he’s ever seen naked breasts in real life, albeit through his bedroom window or over the fence separating their yards. In the chorus, he’s praising her boobs in awkward Spanish while swearing off boring white girls. “Don’t want no blue eyes! I WANT BROWN EYES!!!” The song knows this is the declaration of a silly teenage boy. The song also knows his arousal is not a joke. Black Francis sells the horniness and the humor in equal measures, often in the same shriek.

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Alaskalaska “Moon”

“Moon” is rooted in dance pop from start to finish, but the density of the rhythm and tone of the arrangement are always in flux. The moods are never in obvious fixed positions – the feelings blend and blur together into complicated, confusing, or contradictory vibes of criss-crossing keyboards and saxophone solos. Lucinda Duarte-Holman’s voice has a mostly chipper tone, which lightens the mood a little in the most tense bits, and adds a touch of self-aware humor. The off-kilter moodiness of the piece is the point of the song – according to Duarte-Holman herself, she’s singing about PMS, and feeling as the mercy of the moon and tides.

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Bibio “Old Graffiti”

Stephen Wilkinson’s music as Bibio is commonly slotted in with electronic acts despite how often his songs are built around guitar and other live instruments. His most striking and beautiful compositions are rather pastoral and folky, even when he’s working in a more overtly ambient mode. “Old Graffiti,” from his forthcoming record, retains some of this aesthetic even as the rhythmic center of it signals an urban atmosphere. The central groove sounds extremely similar to me – it’s drawing specifically from Afro-Brazilian music, so I figure it must be something I already sort of know one way or another. (Or maybe it’s a Fela thing? Or a particular Studio One groove?) Regardless, the familiarity is a boon to the song, and Wilkinson’s psychedelic folkiness nudges the groove into unexpected tonal and emotional spaces.

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Lloyd Cole and the Commotions “Rattlesnakes”

“Rattlesnakes” is a sympathetic portrait of a woman Lloyd Cole appreciates but seems to barely understand. She’s cool and beautiful and intelligent, but terrified and cautious. He can glean the reasons why she’d feel anxious and under siege, but doesn’t want to presume too much. The song doesn’t indicate much in the way of lost or longing, which is part of why it’s so interesting – it’s all fascination and admiration for this lovely person who seems unknowable, untouchable, and aloof. Maybe Cole is a little bit romantically interested, but the implication is that he’d rather not be another complication in her life. The music is as prim, mannered, and careful as his subject, but also reflects repression on the part of the singer – it renders the moment as musically dramatic, but oddly inert. It’s all just observation and conjecture, and affection felt rather than expressed.

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Tori Amos “Rattlesnakes”

Tori Amos’ version of “Rattlesnakes” dives straight into the gap between Lloyd Cole’s perspective and the experience of the woman being observed. Amos does not necessarily shift the song to Jodie’s point of view, but her Rhodes electric piano arrangement and vocal performance suggest an intimacy that drastically shrinks the scope of the song. Cole’s grand arrangement with melodramatic strings made it feel like he was just watching this woman from a distance like she’s a character in a film, but Amos zooms in on her. She’s right there, a few feet away from you, living her life. Her stress feels more real, and you can see awkwardness in her affectations that just seem effortlessly stylish from a few yards away. Jodie is still something of a mystery, but Amos has a pretty good idea of who she is. There’s a weary tone in her voice, like she’s saying “yeah sister, I’ve been there.” When it comes down to it, the difference between these two versions of the same song is essentially the difference between sympathy and empathy. Both are positive qualities, but there’s just a lot more depth to the former.

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Tame Impala “Patience”

“Patience” is all pleasant, warm sensations – a tight pocket beat, syrupy harmonies, piano chords that signal optimism, keyboard parts that seem to sparkle and gleam. It’s like Kevin Parker is going out of his way to create a good, positive vibe for anyone who hears it. And just on those terms, it really works. It’s a little more interesting when you factor in Parker’s lyrics, which deal with a tension between wanting to have a chill, carefree life and a desire for direction and meaning. Some real stoner stuff right here, for sure. There’s no contradiction here – this is an emphatically pro-chill song – but I do appreciate that he’s trying to rationalize and reconcile this tension. Basically, he’s creating a very relaxed vibe in which he can ponder how he can give himself structure. Honestly, it’s not a bad idea.

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Stella Donnelly “Tricks”

Stella Donnelly is particularly good at writing lyrics that sketch out a mundane situation with an underlying tension that speaks to something much darker. In some cases, as with her song “Boys Will Be Boys,” it’s unmistakably bleak. But with “Tricks,” a song about dealing with random dull men who’ve belittled her as she attempts to perform for them, the darkness is very low key and insidious. Donnelly’s voice is bright and assertive, but her guitar is a loose, casual groove – she sounds annoyed but her tone is mostly just dismissive. It’s less “fuck you” and more of an exaggerated eye roll. It’s a day-in-the-life song that gently nudges the listener to wonder why this sort of low-grade bullshit must be a default condition.

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Jenny Lewis “Little White Dove”

“Little White Dove” sounds off-kilter and surreal from the start, so when Jenny Lewis’ voice enters the mix and asks “was it a dream?” it feels like the question really ought to be “is this still a dream?” Beck’s production on the track is extremely wet and occasionally deliberately warped, and there’s so much silence in the mix that the drums sound exceptionally crisp and close to the ear. It’s not too drastic and not too jarring, just interesting enough to make a smooth groove feel odd and dreamy. Lewis’ voice is remarkable here when she slips into the chorus – she’s as loud and bold as she’s ever been, but also very controlled. Beck’s voice shadows her in the final rounds, and he only sounds ragged in contrast with the power and focus of her lead. That contrast is key, though – in the context of a song about a daughter finding it in herself to forgive her sick mother, it’s a show of strength and clarity.

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FKJ “Leave My Home”

“Leave My Home” has a very “I’m doing good, I guess” feeling to it. Smooth and relaxing, but with this subtle undertow of doubt and instability. The lyrics are specifically about adjusting to a new environment, but the feeling could be about any sort of adjustment period – it’s all in the way everything feels lovely but unsettled. This feeling really comes through in the guitar solo, which has a jazzy smoothness but also a slickness that feels like a put-on, like it’s all in quotations in a “fake it til you make it” sort of way.

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Ariana Grande “Needy”

“I don’t give no fucks” is a thing people say when all they do is give a fuck. There’s an irony to Ariana Grande singing that phrase in “Needy,” a song that is entirely about giving a fuck and being insecure and desperate for affirmation and approval. It’s a double negative – she’s saying she doesn’t give a fuck if people know this about her, but trying to “own it” is just another layer of neuroses. It’s trying to control the narrative. It’s trying to find some solid ground to stand on when everything else feels unstable.

But still, the vulnerability on display in “Needy” is admirable. The desire to “own it” is brave, because you’re not supposed to be proud of being so invested in a fledgling relationship, and so open about what you actually need from it. You’re supposed to play it cool, and hide all this intensity – overanalyzing texts, obsessing over every little thing, volatile emotions. You don’t want to freak them out, so you start feeling like you’ve got to protect them from your feelings. But your feelings aren’t an attack, and you’re just protecting yourself. Grande’s vocal performance conveys the strength of her feelings, but also a weariness. Tamping down this passion is driving her crazy and transparency is her only way out of this situation.

The line that really gets me here is in the chorus: “I can be needy, tell me how good it feels to be needed.” This is the crux of the whole thing, right? This isn’t about demanding someone’s time and energy and feelings. It’s about affirming your reciprocal value, and hoping that the person you need appreciates that need, because it’s ultimately a high compliment. There’s a lot of emotional intelligence in this song, and it’s not just in its vulnerability. It’s in admitting that things are confusing and complex and weird, and that need is both necessary and embarrassing. But it’s worth it: “I know it feels so good to be needed.”

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Sasami “Jealousy”

Sasami sings “Jealousy” like she’s calmly, quietly passing along a secret. But I’m not sure what the secret is – her words come out like riddles, but her confidence makes you want to lean closer and decode what you’re hearing. The music feels conspiratorial and hushed as well, with simple drum machine clicks setting a tinny ambiance while her guitar chords seem to creep along gently, as if on tip-toes. The loveliest part of the song is the most enigmatic – why, exactly, is she singing the word “jealousy” in high-pitched clusters? It’s hard to tell who is envious of what, but the word rings out like a reason. Maybe she’s just trying to make you go “ah, of course, that’s it.”

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Clinic “Rubber Bullets”

John Peel used to say that The Fall were “always different, always the same.” This basically comes down to the singular aesthetics of Mark E. Smith – no matter who else was in The Fall or what influences were exciting him at the moment, the result could only ever sound like Mark E. Smith. A lot of my favorite artists are like this, and that includes Clinic. Unlike The Fall, Clinic are remarkably stable – they’ve had the same lineup since the beginning of their recorded career, and the group barely changes up their instrumentation. But the approach is the same: Sounds, aesthetics, and whole chunks of other people’s music get fed through the Clinic template and it comes out sounding like nothing but Clinic. If you’re not paying attention, they never really change. If you are listening closely, it’s all in the details. But either way, Clinic sounds incredibly cool. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, right?

“Rubber Bullets,” like most Clinic songs, gets a lot of its character from the sound of Ade Blackburn’s voice. Blackburn, like Smith, has a one-of-a-kind voice, but whereas Smith battered you with the full force of his highly defined sense of self at all times, Blackburn is more peculiar and enigmatic. He sounds like a trickster figure – impish, furtive, and somewhat perverse. “Rubber Bullets” has a creepy psychedelic carnival vibe, but whereas that would suggest a wide open space, it has the same claustrophobic feeling that pretty much any Clinic song would have. They somehow make the lead organ part sound sweaty, and the lead guitar sounds like how being leered at feels. It’s not quite sinister, but it’s not far off either.

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Drahla “Stimulus for Living”

Luciel Brown’s vocal cadence reminds me a lot of Kim Gordon, particularly in the way her affect can seem both pleading and sarcastic, just enough to make it unclear how much emotional investment she has in what she’s saying because it’s not exactly zero. Brown mostly conveys a suspicious skepticism on “Stimulus for Living,” a propulsive post-punk song that drives along on a chugging bass riff but is spiked by agitated guitar leads, noisy clangs, and nervous clicky rhythmic digressions. Drahla are using a lot of old punk tricks here but they make it feel fresh and urgent – a lot of that is thoughtfulness and expertise, but it’s mostly evidence of a band operating on very good instincts and a connection to some broader ambient anxiety in the world that feels particular to this moment in time.

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Cass McCombs “Absentee”

The lyrics of “Absentee” mention gathering firewood, a dead river, and a country road, but he could be singing about anything at all and the song would still sound very, very rural to me. I imagine a cabin in the woods, somewhere in Upstate New York or New England. I’m not even sure why that is – it’s the pace, it’s in the piano, it’s in the soft understated saxophone that fills the air like the scent of burning wood on a crisp autumn breeze. McCombs’ vocal performance here falls in a strange valley between sensitive vulnerability and a stoic aloofness. It’s like he’s attempting to be warm in spite of a tendency to be quite cold.

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Stephen Malkmus “Ocean of Revenge”

One of the problems of selling new albums by long term career artists is that there’s usually no story to tell about it. Music writers are mostly quite lazy, and it’s generally difficult to spin “talented person makes another very good record” into compelling copy. The entire music media system is set up to favor new things, small discographies with a clearly identifiable peak, and on occasion, a comeback story. Being consistently good for a long time is not sexy and sometimes viewed with contempt, even if that is the ideal situation for being a fan of an artist, or, you know, actually BEING an artist. But it’s never really about art. It’s about stories and images, and a consistent story and static image is borrrrrrring.

Matador Records has been successful in crafting a narrative around Groove Denied, Stephen Malkmus’ eighth album since the demise of Pavement. It’s the weirdest and most casual record he’s made, though there’s precedent for both the tossed-off looseness and dependence on somewhat haphazard and inexpert drum programming on various b-sides and outtakes released in both the Pavement and Jicks phases of his career. The story here is that the album was made prior to last year’s Sparkle Hard, but Matador asked Malkmus to shelve it and focus on his more conventional material. The label was successful in marketing Sparkle Hard as a “return to form,” so the path was clear to release the more peculiar album with minimal risk. With this narrative, the oddball style of Groove Denied was now an asset, and people could come to the record prepared for Malkmus to “go electronic.”

OK, so, it’s not THAT electronic. There’s definitely drum machines and a lot of keyboards, and the first side has a few songs that are legitimately new aesthetic territory for Malkmus, though his Malkmus-ness is so strong that it devours any sound it comes in contact with. The most extreme song is “Forget Your Place,” not just because it’s so slow and meditative, but because his voice is altered so much that the Malkmus-ness of it is muted. This is good and interesting stuff, but the real action is on the second side. That’s where he’s not trying on new vibes, but doing his usual thing with a playful “hey, who cares, I’m having fun here” attitude. This is always an aspect of what Malkmus does, but the trend over the course of his Jicks catalog is a move towards increasingly tight and technically accomplished music. He sings better, he plays better, he works with a strong rhythm section. But here’s informal and a little sloppy. He’s doing all the percussion and drum programming himself, and it’s not his strong suit. But it’s very charming, and it suits the wobbly psychedelic vibes he’s going after.

“Ocean of Revenge” is my favorite, and it’s the most tightly composed song on the record. Sue me, I am a long term Jicks fan. This is what I’ve come to love! The presentation is a bit more sloppy, but the songwriting is brilliant in a very specific Malkmus-y way – long free-floating melodies, casually winding guitar parts, lyrics full of surprising specificity. He’s writing in character here, but the key lines ring out in a way that invite you to ignore the storytelling and focus on the feeling: “I know you thought about me more often than I thought of you / it is true, just admit it!” The song is excellent in its construction but still feels like something he might have written and laid down in a day and forgot about for two years. It’s the kind of thing that reminds you how this all seems to come so easily to him, which is both astonishing and a little annoying. Some people work all their lives to write one song as good as “Ocean of Revenge,” and for Malkmus it’s just another one among the many.

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Black Dresses “Death/Bad Girl”

Black Dresses’ sound is a collision of harsh industrial rock and sassy electroclash, two adjacent genre aesthetics that didn’t crossover nearly as much as they should have back in the day. But here it is, and it sounds incredibly fresh – my first thought upon hearing “Death/Bad Girls” was basically, “why did people ever stop doing this?” The timing feels right, though. The boldness of this music is in stark contrast with a music ecosystem overwhelmingly dominated by low-key sadness, drab aesthetics, and comatose rhythms. This sound is like a splash of color and the slash of a knife, and the vocals nail a perfect balance of aggression, dark humor, and introspection. “Death/Bad Girls” moves through a four distinct phases in four minutes – I’m most fond of the heaviest and most abrasive bits, but the outro section in which they get more philosophical and emotionally vulnerable is where they really pull it all back and show you what they’re really on about.

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2 Chainz “Threat 2 Society”

There’s a lot of ways of framing a rags to riches story in hip-hop, ranging from euphoria to rage, but 2 Chainz mostly just sounds pleasantly surprised on “Threat 2 Society.” He sounds exhausted, even when he’s boasting. Everything good in his life seems to be above all else a relief, as he’s extremely aware of what things could have been. 9th Wonder’s track is similarly ambiguous in tone. It’s slow and meditative, with its central vocal sample – “it’s so good just to be alive” – manipulated and recontextualized just enough to make it seem more weary than celebratory. It’s not about thriving, it’s about surviving.

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KH “Only Human”

This is Kieran Hebden, or Four Tet. You might have noticed that just by hearing it. The beat is a bit more thumping and aggressive than he usually gets, but the approach to slicing up and reconfiguring a vocal sample is extremely Four Tet. As far as I’m concerned, there are very few producers on par with Hebden when it comes to manipulating vocal samples. There’s a subtlety to his style – it’s never merely just about bending a sample into a hook and matching a tempo, it’s more a lead line in a dense arrangement. He plays around with time and phase, and focuses on the emotion in a voice rather than lyrics. “Only Human” is a bit of an outlier for him in the sense that more of the lyrical content is legible to the ear, but even with that it’s more abstracted than something than a pop vocal that’s meant to be clearly understood. It’s more about the movement, like this mad spiral spinning through this otherwise clean and orderly composition.

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Elvis Costello “New Amsterdam”

In the New Pornographers song “Myriad Harbour,” Dan Bejar wanders around Manhattan while on a tour stop with the band. He takes in the sights, visits some shops, gets a feel for the energy of the city. In the third verse, after a clerk asks him if he needs any help, he finally says what’s really been on his mind: “All I ever wanted help with was YOU!” It doesn’t matter where he is or what he’s doing. He’s going to be distracted by someone who won’t get out of his head; this unfinished business that won’t let him be in the moment.

“New Amsterdam” is essentially the same song, but 27 years earlier, and written by someone a little less reluctant to say what’s on his mind. Elvis Costello sings about feeling lost in Manhattan, wandering around a place where he appreciates but doesn’t seem to like very much. Everything he sees seems to rhyme with something from back in England, and he can’t shake the feeling the place belongs to someone else – specifically, this woman he’s hung up on. Those feelings are complicated. He’s fixated on her enough to declare a desire to “have the possession of everything she touches,” but he’s also trying to break free from her influence. He doesn’t know what he wants, so he stumbles around the city, on a quest for nothing in particular. He’s nowhere at all in the biggest somewhere on earth.

Costello, always a consummate craftsman, is at a career peak on “New Amsterdam.” The construction is impeccable, but the presentation is casual – the melody is so smooth and easygoing that the tightness of the writing is barely apparent. This is one of the all-time best examples of Costello’s gift for writing flawless bridges which build upon the core melody and elaborate on lyrical themes before flowing gracefully back into the verse structure. In this case, it’s a digression that ends in an epiphany: “Though I look right at home I still feel like an exile.”

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Billie Eilish “Bury A Friend”

“Bury A Friend” feels both anxious and playful, a contrast of a thud-thud-thud rhythmic pulse and a sing-song hook that’s just a little off from The Doors’ “People Are Strange.” Lyrically and musically it’s like Marilyn Manson reconfigured into precocious teen pop, with Billie Eilish’s youthful voice making the refrain “I wanna end me” feel a little more unsettling than it might with a more adult vocal. Eilish says it’s written from the perspective of the “monster under my bed,” but it’s more specifically about self-sabotaging anxiety given a voice separate from one’s consciousness. She makes the “monster” seem sympathetic, even when it’s taking credit for driving her to succeed. She still wants the voice to shut up, though.

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Solange “Down with the Clique”

Solange is a rare example of a pop singer catering to the market and chasing trends by becoming more arty and esoteric. This is not to say that her work is contrived or insincere, but rather that pivoting away from mainstream pop and R&B – the domain of her extraordinarily famous sister – and towards a general “Pitchfork reader” demographic has allowed her to follow her muse and synthesize sounds from the more out-there Brainfeeder-ish reaches of contemporary jazz and funk into something more palatable to a wider audience. I’m a firm believer that the music ecosystem needs artists who can play this part, and Solange does it well enough to occupy an Erykah Badu-like role for a Millennial cohort.

“Down with the Clique” is not a cover of the Aaliyah song, but rather a meditative ballad that might qualify as a “slow jam” if it didn’t feel so ambiguous in tone. The arrangement sounds a bit like a fragment from electric period Miles Davis that’s stuttering a bit too much to settle into a tranquil loop. The smooth but off-kilter quality suits Solange’s voice, which can be a little character-less but sounds quite lovely when she pushes into the highest end of her range. The effect of her phrasing here emphasizes the sensuality of the chords, and softens the more jarring elements of the rhythm.

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