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I have been laid off from BuzzFeed after working there for six and a half years. I started there as the music editor, but the majority of my time there has been serving as the company’s Director of Quizzes. (Here is a page collecting my favorite quizzes, reviews, interviews, and miscellaneous funny posts.)

BuzzFeed was a fantastic place to work, and the fact that I could mutate my career path so drastically is a good example of the sort of flexibility and creativity that has made the company quite successful. While it is not ideal to be laid off, I can say that I pretty much did everything I wanted to do in my time there, and had been feeling a bit adrift in the recent past. It was time to move on, and sometimes the world has to force your hand.

You might be wondering – wait, why would they lay you off? You were doing the quizzes, and that brings in a lot of money! Well, that is true. But another thing that is true is that a LOT of the site’s overall traffic comes from quizzes and a VERY large portion of that traffic comes from a constant flow of amateur quizzes made by community users. In the recent past, the second highest traffic driver worldwide has been a community user in Michigan who is a teenager in college who, for some reason, makes dozens of quizzes every week. It’s kinda amazing how much revenue-generating traffic the site gets from unpaid community volunteers. So, in a ruthless capitalist way, it makes sense for the company to pivot to having community users create almost all of the quizzes going forward. I understand math. I get it.

Anyway, I am now looking for work! I have two parallel careers, so let me break this up a bit.

• I am looking for work that allows me to continue on with the fairly complex skill set I developed at BuzzFeed. I was in editorial but worked with teams in video, social media, product, engineering, data, business, and creative – quizzes touched almost every part of the company, so I often worked as an internal consultant. A lot of my job involved looking at data and the big picture of what the audience wanted, developing strategy, and encouraging writers to come up with creative ways of entertaining the audience and expanding the range of what we could do.

I worked closely with the tech side of the company in developing new apps, formats, and tools. A huge amount of my job involved constant formal and technical experimentation. A lot of what I did involved understanding human psychology, and how to make things that resonated with people and encouraged them to share results that flattered or amused them. The job involved a deep understanding of semiotics in pop culture and cuisine. A large portion of what I wrote was comedic in nature. I have a very nuanced understanding of a mainstream audience primarily composed of young women, and am almost certainly the world’s foremost expert on online quizzes.

I feel like there’s a lot of applications for all of this in technology, advertising, and media. Probably a lot of other things I haven’t even considered, really. I’m open to anything. If you want to reach out, I’m at perpetua@gmail.com, and here is my LinkedIn page.

• I am in the market to write about music, movies, television, comics, and other pop culture things for whoever is interested in having me. I am also working on a book of music writing and shopping around for an agent and a publisher. Please hit me up if you would like to work with me on any of these things!

If you’ve read this far, I’d like to acknowledge a lot of the key people I’ve worked with over the past several years.

Anjali Patel is probably the most brilliant and impressive person I have ever worked with, and watching her evolve from a shy workaholic into a bold, one-of-a-kind hybrid of writer, artist, and product designer has been a privilege. Cates Holderness, Ryan Broderick, Katie Notopoulos, and Bob Marshall understand the internet better than anyone else on earth. Joanna Borns, Andrea Hickey, Alexis Nedd, Erin Chack, Daniel Kibblesmith, Sam Weiner, Julia Pugachevsky, Nathan W. Pyle, Loryn Brantz, and Matt Bellassai are the funniest writers I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

Thanks to Doree Shafrir, Scott Lamb, and Ben Smith for hiring me, and to Summer Anne Burton and Tommy Wesley for keeping me around. Thanks to Julie Gerstein, the best manager I have ever had in my career. Shout out to Tanner Greenring, Jack Shepherd, Dave Stopera, Matt Stopera, Lauren Yapalater, Dorsey Shaw, and Peggy Wang for creating the voice of BuzzFeed. Thanks to Louis Peitzman, Ashly Perez, Jen Lewis, and Heben Nigatu for making quizzes a thing. Much love to Andrew Ziegler, Sarah Aspler, Alana Mohamed, and all the other mindfreaks.

Thank you to Gavon Laessig for personally giving me the news. Thanks to Lisa Tozzi and her army of reporters who do their best to make the world a little better. Thank you to all of the designers and developers and data folks who created the best publishing tools a writer could ever ask for. Thanks to everyone who ever enjoyed anything I ever made and shared it with other people.

Vampire Weekend “Harmony Hall”

The first time Ezra Koenig sang “I don’t want to live like this, but I don’t want to die,” it was at the climax of “Finger Back,” on the second side of Modern Vampires of the City. That record was in many ways about the pressure to achieve goals and have experiences on a tight schedule, motivated by a deep fear of aging and the narrowing of one’s options. Every character on the album was terrified that their time was running out, or that they were in some trap they needed to escape.

That line has popped up again in “Harmony Hall,” the first Vampire Weekend single in quite some time. The music is more mellow and graceful, but Koenig’s perspective has shifted. He’s singing about frustration with a complicated world, and the seeming impossibility of separating wealth from power. It’s a song about feeling disillusioned and disappointed, and that phrase – “I don’t want to live like this, but I don’t want to die” – feels even more ambivalent than when he sang it the first time. Is he shrugging it all off? Is he going to try to fight it? In the context of the song, he sounds hopeful as he sings it. I hear it as someone trying to find joy in a world he knows is rigged and unfair.

Buy it from Amazon.

Deerhunter “What Happens to People?”

“What Happens to People?” is light and brisk, with a melody that seems to float quickly by on a stiff breeze. Bradford Cox sings with a tone that’s half wistful and half distracted, like a fleeting thought about someone he’s fallen out of touch with has an entirely hijacked his mind. There’s a running theme of passivity through all of Cox’s work, but here it extends out to the whole world – life is a thing that happens to you, people are things that come and go around you. Everything is a chaotic drama that’s spinning on around you, and if you weren’t there, it wouldn’t matter too much. He seems so distant here, this guy on the outside of everyone just looking on as things happen to other people. They fall apart, they give up, they disappear, and there’s nothing he can do for them.

Buy it from Amazon.

James Blake “Can’t Believe the Way We Flow”

I always like the love songs that do their best to approximate the feeling the author is experiencing. “Can’t Believe the Way We Flow” is mostly James Blake singing about being perfectly in synch with his girlfriend, while the music softly glitches around him, as if it’s the rest of the world just outside their shared wavelength. It’s sweet and romantic, but makes an odd swerve in the middle as the music seems to abruptly click back to the start and goes off on a more neurotic lyrical tangent before returning to the blissful main theme. It’s an unusual decision that breaks the spell of the song, but allows for a deeper context for its sentiment. It’s also a reminder that even in that perfect euphoric flow, this is a guy who’s still very much in his head about this experience.

Buy it from Amazon.

Maggie Rogers “The Knife”

The tension in the verses of “The Knife” is subtle and elegant – there’s a swing to the groove, and as the syncopation gets busier the overall effect of the bass and percussion is rather light and slinky. The trick of the song is making you feel comfortable in that groove before moving you into a cathartic release in the chorus that makes you realize in retrospect that you’d been wound so tightly. This is mirrored in the lyrics, in which Maggie Rogers sings about a sudden epiphany that’s rattled her psyche, and about then letting loose on the dance floor. The emphasis of the song both musically and thematically is placed on the verses rather than the chorus, with the heavy implication that the really important thing here is the epiphany, not the release. The release is great, sure, but it’s all about the process leading to the reward.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Scary Jokes “Community Gardens”

Liz Lehman’s previous record as The Scary Jokes was delightfully melodic and agonizingly neurotic, something like a feminine equivalent to Kevin Barnes’ music as Of Montreal. Three years later, Lehman remains a natural with melody and is no less angsty, but has further developed their style beyond obvious reference points. BURN PYGMALION!!! is a cleaner, less frenzied record that tells a complicated love story about an entertainment journalist and her movie star girlfriend that sometimes seems like it’s actually about reconciling one’s own introverted and extroverted impulses.

“Community Gardens” opens the record by laying out the record’s emotional themes, but not so much its plot. Lehman’s vocal tone is incredibly warm, but the phrasing is crisp and precise – it’s like someone who is trying to ingratiate the listener, but also stick to an agenda. The lyrics are fantastic, opening with self-deprecation and fear, but quickly moving on to imparting two crucial pieces of wisdom. First, that “despair is less abundant in those who understand how to plant their hearts in community gardens.” Yes, this is a good way of putting it! The second point is bigger – the world may be fucked over by the decisions of powerful and capricious men, but there’s at least a lesson to learn from their arrogance and hubris. Lehman is not much of an optimist, but it’s hard not to hear the genuine hope in this song.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Broadcast “Before We Begin”

Trish Keenan was a deeply shy woman who sang everything with an ambiguous tone, as if the Mona Lisa was fronting a psychedelic pop band. Conflicting emotions and ideas overlapped in her songs, but in a very tidy way. She was precise in her phrasing, and expressed as much as she could in small, low-key utterances. She made her shyness a strength in her music, particularly in the way her reserved quality suggested an emotional depth that canceled out the potential irony or kitsch in Broadcast’s taste for mid-20th century nostalgia.

“Before We Begin” is an expression of cautious optimism that makes the most of the ambiguity in Keenan’s voice. She sings her melodies with sweetness and a touch of melancholy – earnestly hoping for the best, but prepared for disaster. In a way, this is a song about how arbitrary beginnings and endings, like the change of one year to another, give us a way of shaping our personal narratives and opening us up to opportunities to have a fresh start. The loveliest part of the melody expresses the most hopeful thought in the song – “it’s in tomorrow, fortune or sorrow / wait, you may win.” It’s a very reassuring sentiment. A guarantee of success and joy would ring hollow, but put in this way, it feels like a more real possibility.

Buy it from Amazon.

Every year I make a survey collection intended to represent the scope and tone of music over the course of 12 months. This year’s survey comes in two forms: A sprawling 500+ song playlist that gives what I believe to be the most accurate summary of music in 2018, and an abridged version of the playlist that is half as long and more focused on my taste and what I believe to be essential, even when it’s music I don’t particularly like. The latter version is also available as a download, as per usual.

Here is the full version of the survey…

…and here is the abridged version.

One of the major goals I have in making these survey mixes, including the versions covering the 80s and the 90s, is showing the full context for music in any given year, and proving how even in what seems like a “bad year for music,” there are always still a lot of great songs. I would categorize 2018 as one of the worst years for music I’ve lived through, but then I look at this survey and see so much quality material! The culture around music may be depressing and oppressive right now, but you can’t ever stop artists from doing wonderful things. I hope you find more to love than to dislike in this year’s set.

DOWNLOAD PART 1

Lana Del Rey “Mariners Apartment Complex” / Soccer Mommy “Your Dog” / Taylor Swift “Delicate” / Ariana Grande “R.E.M.” / Gorillaz “Humility” / Playboi Carti feat. Lil Uzi Vert “Shoota” / Pusha T “If You Know You Know” / Valee feat. Jeremih “Womp Womp” / XXXTENTACION “Moonlight” / Travis Scott feat. Drake “Sicko Mode (Skrillex Remix)” / DJ Koze “Lord Knows” / Kanye West “Ghost Town” / Kids See Ghosts “Freee (Ghost Town, Pt 2)” / Jean Grae & Quelle Chris “Gold Purple Orange” / NoName “Self” / Smoke DZA feat. Joey Bada$$ “The Mood” / No Joy & Sonic Boom “Obsession” / Janelle Monaé “Make Me Feel” / Of Montreal “Sophie Calle Private Game/Every Person Is A Pussy, Every Pussy Is A Star” / Caroline Rose “Jeannie Becomes A Mom” / Miss World “Oh Honey” / U.S. Girls “Incidental Boogie” / Insecure Men “Mekong Glitter” / Drake “Nice for What” / Nicki Minaj “Chun-Li” / Cardi B “Bickenhead” / Sophie “Immaterial” / Red Velvet “All Right” / Amanda Shires “Eve’s Daughter” / Lucy Dacus “Addictions” / Zizi Raimondi “Folly Dolly” / Father John Misty “Mr. Tillman” / Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks “Solid Silk” / St. Vincent “Hang On Me” / Arctic Monkeys “Star Treatment” / The Internet “Come Over” / Anderson Paak “Smile/Petty” / Maggie Rogers “Fallingwater” / Twice “Deja Vu” / Shawn Mendes “Nervous” / Vince Staples “Don’t Get Chipped” / Jay Rock feat. Kendrick Lamar “Wow Freestyle” / Famous Dex “Japan” / Grace Vonderkuhn “Worry” / Teyana Taylor feat. Kanye West “Hurry” / Khalid feat. Swae Lee “The Ways” / Kali Uchis “Flight 22” / Me’Shell NdegéOcello “Sensitivity” / Adrian Younge & Linear Labs “Silhouette Dreams” / Jorga Smith “Lost & Found” / Amber Navran “Lastaya Love” / Charlotte Day Wilson “Doubt” / Ali Shaheed Muhammed & Adrian Younge feat. CeeLo Green “Questions” / Spiritualized “A Perfect Miracle” / Beach House “Pay No Mind” / Deerhunter “Death In Midsummer” / Kurt Vile “Bassackwards” / Makaya McCraven “The Newbies Lift Off” / Everything Is Recorded feat. Sampha, Ibeyi, Wiki, and Kamasi Washington “Mountains of Gold” / Tirzah “Do You Know”

DOWNLOAD PART 2

Earl Sweatshirt “Shattered Dreams” / Action Bronson “Prince Charming” / Ari Lennox “No One” / Diana Gordon “Wolverine” / Mariah Carey “A No No” / Natalie Prass “Short Court Style” / Caroline Says “Sweet Home Alabama” / Yo La Tengo “Polynesia #1” / Jerry Paper “Your Cocoon” / Okkervil River “Famous Tracheotomies” / The Rock*A*Teens “Go Tell Everybody” / Flasher “Pressure” / Jeff Rosenstock “Beating My Head Against A Wall” / Bad Bad Hats “Makes Me Nervous” / Astronauts, Etc. “Symbol Land” / Fog Lake “I’ll Be Around” / Gerard Way “Getting Down the Germs” / Karen Meat “Overdwelled” / Magic Potion “Shock Proof” / George Clanton “Make It Forever” / Mormor “Whatever Comes to Mind” / Electric Six “(It’s Gets) (A Little) Jumpy” / Margaret Glaspy “Before We Were Together” / Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper “Shallow” / Mark Ronson & Miley Cyrus “Nothing Breaks Like A Heart” / Trippie Redd “How You Feel” / Hit-Boy “Out the Window” / Childish Gambino “This Is America” / N.E.R.D. feat. Rihanna and Drake “Lemon (Drake Remix)” / Camila Cabello “Inside Out” / Troye Sivan “My My My!” / Public Memory “The Line” / Matthew Dear “Echo” / Thom Yorke “Has Ended” / Lil Peep “4 Gold Chains” / Sheck Wes “Mo Bamba” / Smino feat. Mick Jenkins “New Coupe, Who Dis?” / Post Malone feat. Ty Dolla $ign “Psycho” / CupcaKKe “Duck Duck Goose” / Saweetie feat. Kehlani “ICY GRL (Bae Mix)” / CZARFACE & MF DOOM “Captain Crunch” / Cavern of Anti-Matter “Solarised Sound” / The Smashing Pumpkins “Solara” / Nine Inch Nails “Ahead of Ourselves” / Interpol “If You Really Love Nothing” / Negative Gemini “You Weren’t There Anymore” / Pressa feat. Lil Uzi Vert “420 in London” / A$AP Rocky “Changes” / H.E.R. “Can’t Help Me” / Kamasi Washington “Show Us the Way” / Christina Aguilera “Like I Do” / Georgia Anne Muldrow “Overload” / James Blake “Don’t Miss It” / Louis Cole “When You’re Ugly” / Jake Shears “Big Bushy Mustache” / Pistol Annies “Got My Name Changed Back” / MGMT “She Works Out Too Much” / Speedy Ortiz “You Hate the Title” / Robyn “Ever Again” / Anchorsong “Testimony”

DOWNLOAD PART 3

Metro Boomin feat. 21 Savage “10 Freaky Girls” / Kodak Black feat. Travis Scott and Offset “ZEZE” / Lil Wayne feat. Kendrick Lamar “Mona Lisa” / Tierra Whack “Cable Guy” / Doja Cat “MOOO!” / Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z “Lovehappy” / Ella Mai “Boo’d Up” / Nao “Another Lifetime” / Nadine “Pews” / Juice WRLD “Armed and Dangerous” / G-Eazy feat. Blac Youngsta and BlocBoy JB “Drop” / Oh Sees “Sentient Oona” / Car Seat Headrest “Cute Thing” / Lithics “Still Forms” / Cat Power “In Your Face” / Boygenius “Salt in the Wound” / Haley Heyndrickx “Oom Sha La La” / Jeff Tweedy “Bombs Above” / Neko Case “Hell-On” / Courtney Barnett “Hopefulessness” / Paul Simon “Can’t Run But” / Jeremih & Ty Dolla $ign “The Light” / DeJ Loaf feat. Leon Bridges “Liberated” / Dear Nora “Simulation Feels” / TV Girl “7 Days Til Sunday” / Phosphorescent “Around the Horn” / Julia Holter “Whether” / BLACKPINK “DDU-DU DDU-DU” / Grimes “We Appreciate Power” / Hobo Johnson “Peach Scone” / King Princess “Pussy Is God” / Lizzo “Boys” / Billie Eilish “When the Party’s Over” / 03 Greedo feat. Lil Uzi Vert “Never Bend (Remix)” / Esperanza Spalding “The Longing Deep Down” / Neneh Cherry “Kong” / Videotapemusic “Hot Pants in the Summercamp” / Cuco “Lover Is A Day” / Boy Pablo “Losing You” / Unknown Mortal Orchestra “The Internet of Love (That Way)” / Video Age “Pop Therapy” / Darwin Deez “The World’s Best Kisser” / Sales “White Jeans” / The Breeders “Walking with a Killer” / Rhye “Feel Your Weight” / Cherophobiac “Unknown Liquid Substance” / Eleanor Friedberger “Make Me A Song” / Sloan “Don’t Stop (If It Feels Good Do It)” / Guided by Voices “Colonel Paper” / Lil Uzi Vert “New Patek” / Lake Ruth “Julia’s Call” / Yaeji “One More” / Alison Wonderland “No” / Mildlife “The Magnificent Moon” / Sibille Attar “I Don’t Have To” / Haley “Bratt” / Joan of Arc “Punk Kid” / Born Ruffians “Side Tracked” / Nicholas Krgovich “Time” / Belle & Sebastian “Poor Boy” / Mazzy Star “Quiet, the Winter Harbor” / Ian Sweet “Question It” / PC Worship “Shell Power” / Friendly Fires “Heaven Let Me In” / Migos feat. Drake “Walk It Talk It” / Meek Mill feat. Miguel “Stay Woke” / Tune-Yards “Heart Attack” / Chvrches “Graffiti” / Imagine Dragons “Natural” / The 1975 “Love It If We Made It” / Weezer “Africa” / Maroon 5 feat. Cardi B “Girls Like You” / Panic! at the Disco “High Hopes” / Zedd feat Maren Morris and Grey “The Middle” / Rita Ora “Anywhere” / Mitski “Me and My Husband” / Halsey “Without Me” / Carly Rae Jepsen “Party for One” / Dierks Bentley “Woman, Amen” / Florence + The Machine “South London Forever” / Kacey Musgraves “Slow Burn” / Luke Bryan “Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset” / Ed Sheeran & Beyoncé “Perfect Duet” / Snail Mail “Heat Wave” / Lake Street Dive “Jameson” / Molly Burch “Wild” / BTS “Fake Love” / Mac Miller “Self Care” / 6ix9ine feat. Nicki Minaj and Murda Beatz “FEFE” / Logic feat. Wu-Tang Clan “Wu-Tang Forever” / Brockhampton “New Orleans”/ Ellie Goulding feat. Diplo and Swae Lee “Close to Me” / Aphex Twin “T69 Collapse” / Sharon Van Etten “Comeback Kid” / Crepes “As You Go” / J. Cole “Brackets” / Tyler, the Creator “OKRA” / Rich the Kid “Plug Walk” / The Alchemist feat. Westside Gunn and Conway “Judas” / King Tuff “Raindrop Blue” / Ty Segall “The Main Pretender” / Swae Lee “Hurts to Look” / Ashley Monroe “Hard On A Heart” / Christine and the Queens “Doesn’t Matter” / Amen Dunes “Blue Rose” / Saba feat. Chance the Rapper “Logout” / The Good, The Bad, and The Queen “Merrie Land” / Leon Bridges “If It Feels Good (Then It Must Be)” / Rico Nasty “Rage” / Metric “Love You Back” / Justin Timberlake “Midnight Summer Jam” / Rosalia “Malamente” / JPEGMAFIA “1539 N. Calvert” / Zayn “Let Me” / Bell’s Roar “You Call Me Cold”

Makaya McCraven “The Newbies Lift Off”

Makaya McCraven is a drummer, and that much is fairly obvious by listening to the compositions on his outstanding and varied record Universal Beings – the other instruments provide melody and texture, but McCraven’s percussion is always steering the music. “The Newbies Lift Off,” one of my favorites from the album, is a perfect example in how its sections seem to stop on a dime to switch up percussive strategies. It keeps the music exciting and interesting in a way particular to the thinking of a drummer, particularly one who seems to be influenced by the way rap DJs and producers have cut up beats in the ‘90s. Listen to this – there’s no way this guy hasn’t heard Endtroducing a million times over, right?

Buy it from Amazon.

Amanda Shires “Eve’s Daughter”

“Eve’s Daughter” is in many ways a song you’ve heard before – a country rock rave-up with lyrics that tell the story of a woman who fell in love, and then fell on hard times. But the execution feels fresh to me. Everything in the mix sounds like it’s in the red, and Amanda Shires sings with a raw, wild-eyed intensity that raises the stakes of every line of the song. It’s not quite shoegaze-y, but in terms of how country music is typically produced, this is just blaringly loud and abrasive, like the Stooges backing up Dolly Parton at the Grand Ole Opry. Traditional, but extra rowdy.

Buy it from Amazon.

DJ Koze “Lord Knows”

“Lord Knows” is warm and familiar, a sort of sample-based song that gives me a sense of deja-vu even without trying to figure out if I can place the vocal samples. Like, you could’ve told me that this was The Avalanches or Fatboy Slim and I would’ve believed you. And this is no slight on DJ Koze – if anything, it’s high praise. The feeling that he creates here is not unique, but it is rare and special. It’s hard to get just right. This is a remarkable composition – in perfect balance, but also so full of energy that the beats land in a way that feels like the whole thing could rattle and fall apart, like when the engineer on Star Trek worries that the ship is moving too fast and could explode at any moment.

Buy it from Amazon.

Art Brut “Hooray!”

It’s been quite a while since we heard from our old pal Eddie Argos! “Hooray!,” the opening track from Art Brut’s first record in over seven years, reacquaints us with the Argos shtick – imagine a much friendlier Mark E Smith crossed with a version of Jarvis Cocker without all the sexual charisma. A lovelorn weirdo who shouts clever stuff over uptempo rock, a party band led by the most neurotic guy in the room. Art Brut is the kind of band who will forever be in the shadow of their brilliant debut, mainly because it’s hard to recapture the immediacy and magic of songs like “Good Weekend” and “Modern Art.” But “Hooray!” at least has the right spirit, and leans into deliberate calculation in a way the earlier stuff seemed to lean into inspired improvisation.

Buy it from Amazon.

Haley Heyndrickx “Show You A Body”

“Show You A Body” sounds like a light, fragile thing caught in the wind. Moments of stillness are punctuated by fluttery parts that sound like piano keys caught in a sudden gust, like chimes hanging from a ceiling. Haley Heyndrickx matches the tone of the music by singing lyrics about feeling “humbled by breaking down” and alluding to moments of incredible intimacy vulnerability. In some moments it sounds as though she could break down in tears – not necessarily because she is singing about something sad, but more that she’s experienced something profound that she hasn’t fully processed.

Buy it from Amazon.

Jeff Tweedy “Bombs Above”

In three short verses “Bombs Above” is an apology, then it’s a shrug, and it ends with a moment of regret. Jeff Tweedy sings it all in a raw, exhausted voice, and when I hear it, I just wish I could look him in the eye and tell him to be easy on himself. But maybe this IS him taking it easy on himself – he does sound like he’s making peace with bad memories, and owning his mistakes and pain in a way that eases his feelings of guilt somewhat. And with this song opening his first proper solo album, he’s demystifying himself by essentially telling his audience – “hey, I’m just a guy, that’s all.” It’s not an act. It’s pure humility.

Buy it from Amazon.

Earl Sweatshirt “Shattered Dreams”

Earl Sweatshirt has an odd sort of charisma. He’s mumbly, surly, and standoffish, and unwilling to do much that would traditionally signal star power in rap. But that distant, withholding quality draws you in, and you end up hanging on his words if just to get a handle on what’s going on in his head. He pushes this to an extreme on his new record Some Rap Songs, often sounding like he doesn’t even mean to be rapping, or like we’re hearing something that isn’t totally meant to be heard. “Shattered Dreams” is the abrupt opening of the record, and it feels like you’re immediately dropped into his personal space without warning. He sounds lost in his thoughts, but aware of your presence. He raps like he’s giving you no more information than you deserve.

Buy it from Amazon.

Fog Lake “I’ll Be Around”

Fog Lake’s Carousel EP is a post-breakup record that sounds like memories of a relationship that are starting to fade and get replaced by more nostalgic and romanticized versions of the events. The music in “I’ll Be Around” feels like a sample of itself; the main piano part is processed so it sounds like a quote. Aaron Powell’s voice is tinny, fragile, and somewhat buried in the mix. You hear him clearly enough to get the emotion from the melody, but you have to listen a bit closer to pick up all the sad sack details of the lyrics. It’s heartbreaking stuff. This is basically a song about a guy who is accepting that the person he’s in love with doesn’t want him at all, and he’s just throwing himself into loneliness in the hopes that he can…what, become the best at being lonely? This is the sound of a guy who feels lost and defeated, but still feels a very earnest love in vain.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks “Solid Silk”

Stephen Malkmus is the kind of artist who from a distance seems to always be doing his Stephen Malkmus thing, but has actually been constantly growing and evolving for three decades. As he’s aged he’s become more refined. The melodic sensibilities he’s always had have remained the same, but his compositions have become increasingly tidy and intricate. “Solid Silk” represents a new extreme in this regard – the folky melodies are lovely and straightforward but rendered as elegantly as possible in crystalline guitar parts and a string arrangement that seamlessly shifts from smooth elegance to mild melodrama. Up until now, Malkmus has kept the sophistication of his craft hidden in his characteristic looseness and casual swagger, but now he just seems bored by playing it cool. He doesn’t seem to be embarrassed about showing off or letting his guard down emotionally.

“Solid Silk” has no clear narrative, but Malkmus pulls together a set of thoughts and images that indicate a vague, low-key disappointment and discomfort. Romantic moments are revealed as artifice and affectation, money and privilege is depicted as insulating and soul-numbing, and ordinary life is presented as endless, pointless competition. But despite how cynical this all seems, Malkmus’ voice is gentle and slightly bemused. He’s not angry or bitter, just sort of resigned. The song is like an elaborately constructed sigh.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Internet “Come Over”

Syd’s vocal performance on “Come Over” is low-key but very nuanced – she’s presenting herself as assertive and seductive, but she’s perceptive enough to figure out that her approach just isn’t working. She’s too pushy, or maybe too needy? Or maybe it’s just the wrong night. Maybe she’s reading too much into things. Maybe she’s getting flat-out rejected. She doesn’t verbalize any of that, but you can hear it in her voice when she’s singing even the most forward and confident lines in the song. Syd’s vulnerability is unmistakeable, and it’s nicely contrasted by the Steve Lacy’s rhythm guitar, which is funky in a firm and rigid sort of way. The groove sounds very certain, and as the song goes along and she seems less secure, the tone shifts subtly from seductive to desperate.

Buy it from Amazon.

Phosphorescent “Around the Horn”

I have never heard a song that approximates a Neu! “Hallogallo” beat that I have not liked. As far as I a am concerned, there’s just no way to fuck up that krautrock metronomic groove. “Around the Horn” doesn’t even go full Neu! – the pulse is there, but Matthew Houck pushes it in an Americana direction, like Southern rock reconfigured for the Autobahn. The back half of this song is magical, and makes me wonder why no one had ever thought to crossbreed The Band with Kraftwerk. It works surprisingly well, and seems to speed towards an endless horizon while Houck’s vocal seems focused on emotions long gone in the rearview mirror.

Buy it from Amazon.

Anderson Paak “Smile/Petty”

“Smile/Petty” is structured like a diptych, with two distinct sections that nevertheless overlap in tone and sentiment. The first half is a rather D’Angelo-ish slow jam, and the second flips that soft funk into something more tense and aggressive. The lyrics don’t shift quite as dramatically. The song is always about a relationship that’s gone bad because neither half of the couple trusts the other, and the difference is mainly in how Anderson Paak’s tone goes from mildly aggrieved to outright confrontational. His voice, as always, is outstanding – rough and raspy, and able to shift seamlessly between R&B and rapped modes without ever making you focus much attention on how he switches it up. It all just flows together.

Buy it from Amazon.