The KLF featuring Tammy Wynette “Justified & Ancient (Stand By the JAMs)”

I would love to read an audio transcript of the call The KLF made to Tammy Wynette in Tennessee to say “Tammy, stand by the JAMs.” What kind of pitch do you have to make circa 1991 to get a country star to jump on a pop-house song with surreal lyrics about the KLF’s mythology about the Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu largely pulled from The Illuminatus Trilogy? How do you explain the concept, or why these weirdos from the UK would specifically want Tammy Wynette to sing it?
 
We have answers to some of these questions. For one thing, we know Wynette sang it mainly because she just liked the song and was game for some silliness. ”I fell for the track the moment I heard it,” Wynette told Entertainment Weekly in 1992. ”It had a perfect melody, but I didn’t really understand what they were talking about.”
 
That’s the point of the song, really. It does have a perfect melody and it’s immaculately composed and produced. All the weirdness is there mostly so The KLF could find out what they could get away with, in a semi-academic way. Is being catchy and fun really enough? Is pop music more exciting or rewarding when there are incomprehensible or confusing aspects of it? If a song is powerful enough, can a nonsensical mythology become as compelling as existing religions?
 
My own answer to all of those questions is YES. It might be YES in part because of this song, which was a big hit around the time I started taking music very seriously as a kid. I had no context for Tammy Wynette when I was 12, I only knew from the song itself that it was sorta weird that this twangy soulful country lady was singing about going to “Mu Mu Land.” The KLF were playing a game that invites the listener to play along, to fill in the gaps, to imagine a whole secret arcane culture centered on the untrammeled creativity and hedonism of raves. For a few minutes, they pull you away from the mundane and offer you some magic.

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Richard Marx “Don’t Mean Nothing”

You listen to music as a kid with very few reference points. Whatever you hear early on ends up becoming the beginning of musical history as you know it, and songs that anyone with even a little context would clock as derivative exist entirely on their own merits even if you hear it side by side with whatever they’re emulating. This is why it took me decades to notice this Richard Marx song, a big radio hit when I was a kid, is basically the young Marx writing his own version of a Don Henley song, right on down to the recording featuring Eagles alumni Joe Walsh on guitar and Randy Meisner and Timothy B Schmidt on backing vocals.

“Don’t Mean Nothing” specifically feels like the final Eagles album The Long Run, or Henley’s solo stuff from the 80s, like “Dirty Laundry” or “All She Wants to Do Is Dance.” It’s in the studio gloss, the way every part of the song sounds like it’s very brightly lit, and how the guitar sounds as though it’s being played with sarcastic airquotes.

But most of all it’s in the lyrics, which aim for very Henley-esque sort of cynicism. It’s written from the perspective of a Hollywood insider who’s telling some up and comer about how it all really works. A lot of it sounds like the truth, but just enough of it sounds like an agent buttering up a fresh-faced talent to make you get that we’re listening to an unreliable narrator. If everyone has an angle and wants a piece of you, surely he must as well? He seems pretty eager for you to sign that dotted line.

This is Marx’s debut single and it was written well before he was famous, so it seems safe to say he was probably writing about his own experience of entering an industry full of people he can’t really trust. You hear Marx’s youth and drive to be a star in his voice, so much so that it’s at odds with the snarkier aspects of the song, though not in a bad way. It’s a complication that adds depth in any interpretation. Is the earnest vocal performance indicating that we’re hearing the advice from the singer’s perspective and sensing his skepticism? Is it more about this agent guy putting on a sunny public persona to soften a harsh message? The truth spoken by a living lie.

The bridge is what really makes this song click, both musically and lyrically. The first half of it is as overtly melancholy as this otherwise very cheery song gets – “Hollywood can be so lonely, make you the winner of a losing fight.” But then it shifts back into brightness and optimism very abruptly – “but the party is never over because the stars are always shining, doesn’t matter if it’s day or night.” You could take it as the punchline of the lyrics, but Marx sounds so sincere that it plays like the heart of the song. Whether you’re hearing that from the young talent or the agent or Marx’s personal perspective, it’s the part of the song where you really get that this song is coming from a love of Los Angeles and a real excitement about getting a chance to play this game.

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The Doobie Brothers “Minute By Minute”

“Minute By Minute” opens with a keyboard intro that moves frantically but has a very chill tone, an appropriate overture for a song about trying to play it cool despite very fraught emotions. Michael McDonald and the Doobie Brothers aim for a classic Motown feel and structure but filtered through their style and the cutting edge studio technology of the late ’70s the music takes on a slightly stiff and neurotic vibe. It still swings, but only so much. It’s perfect for getting across the mood of the guy in this song, who’s struggling with a lot of contradictions.

Hey, don’t worry, I’ve been lied to
I’ve been here many times before

He’s putting on armor from the start. He’s trying to tell you that he’s hardened by his past experience and has a lot of options, that the stakes are actually pretty low and he doesn’t have a lot of expectations. But what you really hear in McDonald’s phrasing is a guy who’s been hurt before and is hurting right now, but he’s playing it off as no big deal but not doing a great job of it.

Girl, don’t you worry, I know where I stand
I don’t need this love, I don’t need your hand

He’s trying to make it sound like he’s not a sucker, and that he’s not broken the rules by catching real feelings. It’s very “doth protest too much.”

I know I could turn, blink, and you’d be gone
Then I must be prepared any time to carry on
But minute by minute by minute
I’ll keep holding on

And there it is. He knows he’s playing a game he can’t win, but he loves to play it and is just trying to prolong this game for as long as she’ll allow it. He can’t have what he really wants with her, but what he has in the moment is close enough. He can imagine a better situation, but he can’t imagine someone better than her.

You will stay just to watch me, darlin’
Wilt away on lies from you

Here’s where the bitterness comes through. He’s playing the victim, but also swearing that he won’t give her the satisfaction of getting one over on him. He’s trying to get any kind of upper hand in the situation. McDonald’s phrasing gets a little more strained here, making him sound kinda pissy in the most soulful way possible.

Can’t stop the habit of livin’ on the run
I take it all for granted like you’re the only one

This ties back to “It Keeps You Runnin’,” a previous song with The Doobie Brothers that sounds like it’s written about the same situationship from earlier on the timeline. It’s pretty much the same emotional dynamic, but written with more hope that he can persuade her to settle down. Not a lot more hope, though – as much as he’s exasperated by her willingness to be lonely, there’s no end to her “running” in sight.

Livin’ on my own
Somehow that sounds nice

I love the way McDonald sings “somehow that sounds nice” like he’s muttering an aside to himself, as though he’s just in that moment considering something that might be good for him.

You think I’m your fool
Well, you may just be right

These days you’d probably call yourself a simp instead of a fool, but it’s all the same. He’s so enamored of her that he can’t make any sort of good decision despite knowing better. If this is what a simp believes, how do the simps survive?

Call my name and I’ll be gone
You’ll reach out and I won’t be there

The key changes on the bridge, pushing McDonald towards a higher pitch and more strident tone and he imagines a consequence to her stringing him along. It’s a spiteful fantasy of withholding the thing he wants so much once she decides she wants it too.

Just my luck, you’ll realize
You should spend your life with someone
You could spend spend your life with someone

Oh, did you have someone in mind?

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Courting “Emily G”

You know Babe Ruth’s famous “called shot,” when he pointed to center field while at bat and then hit a home run to that part of the field? I like to think Courting did something like that before writing this song, but the gesture was indicating “we’re gonna write our own ‘Mr. Brightside.’” But y’know, better. “Emily G” is a portrait of a guy who can’t get over missing his shot with a woman who’s become famous, and in a moment of desperation reaches out to reconnect but she’s moved on and settled down. Sad, sure, but the potent emotional charge here is in the way he clings to this memory of her as a way of reminding himself that he once had proximity to her glamour and beauty. It’s not about her, really, it’s about trying to preserve a sense of potential in his life even after the window for those possibilities are probably closed forever unless he changes something.

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Paul Grimstad featuring Talia Ryder “Evening Mirror”

“Evening Mirror” is a psychedelic ballad written for Sean Price Williams’ new film The Sweet East and is sung by the lead actress Talia Ryder in a title sequence that arrives just before her character Lillian makes the decision to walk away from her life. The story is a bit like Alice In Wonderland set in contemporary America; the restaurant bathroom mirror Lillian sings to is her looking glass. Ryder’s vocal performance is shaky and uncertain, she sounds like an ordinary girl rather than a proper singer. She’s vulnerable yet poised, whimsical but grounded. You get a sense of the character’s curiosity and passivity, her eagerness to escape and be transformed by circumstances thrust upon her. This is the only song in the movie so it’s not a musical, but it is something of an “I want” song, albeit one in which the protagonist is extremely vague about her desires.

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Snooper “Company Car”

“Company Car,” like pretty much everything Snooper has released thus far, really zooms. This is a band with a monomaniacal focus on acceleration and the thrill of speed, so it makes sense that they would just go ahead and make a song that’s literally about driving really fast to nowhere for the sake of it. The arrangement is perfectly calibrated for momentum without letting any fussiness get in the way of its manic punk thrills but what really puts this song over the top is the way Blair Tramel delivers the line “I really wanna see you” with a little burst of energy, cute and flirty but also a little bashful.

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Lael Neale “In Verona”

“In Verona” is, among other things, a song about how difficult it can be to comprehend the full expanse of history and one’s place in a story that sprawls out in every direction. Lael Neale sings this song as though she’s reciting notes she scrawled out in a notebook while visiting Verona in chronological order, connecting the dots between thoughts she had in the moment and where those led her up to that point. She lets you hear the process of making those connections, but doesn’t spell anything out for you. A lot of it isn’t even full thoughts. It mostly feels like she’s stopping to appreciate little moments when some object or notion resonated deeply, whether by recognizing something from her life or being struck by something from the past that seems totally alien.

The song moves at a brisk walking pace, with piano chords circling the center of the mix like a hypno-spiral. The accompaniment gets more soaring and dramatic, but there’s no rhythmic catharis. You steadily move ahead for eight minutes, passing through inclines, epiphanies, storms, and little moments of grace, and eventually you stop at some mysterious destination.

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Yeule “Sulky Baby”

“Sulky Baby” is a song written to a past self that has no perspective beyond an immediate moment of frustration and sadness. There’s a lot of empathy for the past self but also some dismissiveness in the implication that the sulky baby version of oneself has no idea that life will get better, but also much harder. The bubblegum shoegaze vibe of the music is perfect for this sentiment – the whole thing sounds like it’s a thick pink haze, but with an underlying tension that cuts through the warm nostalgia.

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Mia Carucci “Slip of the Tongue”

I think a lot of the most profound industrial music is the stuff that juxtaposes raw sexuality and heightened emotion with a harsh mechanical sound. Sure, there’s the irony, but I think it’s more about making the dramatic stakes of lust and passion seem extraordinarily high and situating that in a sound we commonly associate with “techno dystopia” really does the trick. “Slip of the Tongue” is an excellent example of this type of song – the beats sound punishing in a very BDSM sense of the word, and Mia Carucci sings about being seduced by both angels and demons in a way that makes it unclear which she identifies with and might just go for both.

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Cosmetique “Drink and Jive”

“Drink and Jive” has the lyrics and groove of an early rock and roll “let’s show you the new dance” song, but the tone feels very prim and English, with Sarah Churchill singing lines like “step out of the shadow and on to the dance floor” and “don’t be frightened by the brand new beat” with the gentle cadence of a school teacher encouraging her shy students to party. It’s definitely twee, but there’s an inexplicable dark current that brings a saltiness to a song that could just be sweet.

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Frost Children “Flatline”

On a musical level “Flatline” is an indie dance/blog house banger, the sort of song you could’ve played in a DJ set between Justice and Hot Chip at a party circa 2008. The sound is consistent, but the lyrics come across like fast forwarding through a bad relationship. The guy falls in love with a girl, and at first he loves the dumb happiness. Then he seems to spiral into despair, then suddenly it’s all aggression and accusations in the end. The Frost Children’s album is titled Speed Run, maybe this is what they had in mind?

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Janelle Monaé “Only Have Eyes 42”

My first impression of The Age of Pleasure was confusing and stuck with me for months – I appreciate the vibe and mindset of the music, but couldn’t shake the feeling that it seemed unfinished and overly abbreviated. It is still frustrating to me that a little under half the songs are basically interludes that present strong musical ideas that evaporate within a minute or so, right when they’re just starting to cook. (If you’ve got Grace Jones and Sister Nancy, why not go for a second minute?) But now I get that these moments of pleasure are intentionally fleeting, and that Monaé and her Wonderland collaborators were aiming for more of a “DJ by the pool” aesthetic and I think they absolutely nailed that.

“Only Have Eyes 42” is one of the fully formed songs on the record, a rocksteady ballad co-produced by reggae legend Derrick Harriott that hovers on the edge of novelty status – it’s a polyamorous take on “I Only Have Eyes for You” – but is so overwhelmingly gorgeous and mellow that the physical response to the music is much stronger than any impact it might make tickling your brain a bit with lyrical cleverness. It’s a sound that loosens you up, opens you up, and asks you to turn your mind off a bit, follow your instincts, and surrender to a beautiful moment.

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Kylie Minogue “Padam Padam”

You have to be in the right mindset for some songs. “Padam Padam” was a big deal this summer in mostly queer circles, but despite being a long term Kylie fan I just didn’t really have space for it in my mind or my heart at the time. That changed a week ago for no particular reason, and now it’s just padam padam padam padam looping in my head all day. Sometimes you just hear it and you know, y’know? Ina Wroldsen and Lostboy wrote the song for no one in particular, but it turned out to be a brilliant vehicle for Minogue that brings her back to the mix of elation and tension in her early 00s hits “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and “Come Into My World.” There’s always something so pure and earnest in the way Minogue sings about lust, like she’s investing a lot of spirituality and romance in even the most fleeting of flings. Other singers might do that but indicate some disappointment, but in a song like “Padam Padam” it’s all thrilling adventure and starry eyes.

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MIKE feat. Lila Ramani “Should Be”

MIKE typically raps on the tracks he produces but in the case of “Should Be” he’s silent, keeping the focus on a vocal sample that’s mostly pitched up to the point that it’s unintelligible and a live vocal from Crumb’s Lila Ramani that’s so distant in the mix that it’s also pretty much unintelligible. The magic of this song is in the way MIKE triggers the vocal sample in uneven intervals, which gives it a “live” feel and makes your ear hang expectantly on moments of absence. The arrangement is filled out with fragments of piano, harp, and strings that fall into place just enough to cohere musically, but loose enough that you focus on the abstraction. Beyond mentioning the details, what does this sound like? Basically, it sounds like ghosts in two different heavens singing to each other from across the divide.

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Empress Of “Femenine”

Lorely Rodriguez doesn’t always sing in Spanish on Empress Of tracks, but in the case of “Femenine” it would have been counterintuitive and absurd to do anything else since the key lyric of the chorus translates to “I want a feminine man, a Latin who dances for me and only for me.” (Fingers crossed for you, Lorely!) She sings this like she’s manifesting her desires, but I think it’s the music that’s more likely to do the trick. It sounds sweaty and lusty, but also very deliberate and controlled. I was not surprised to learn this is a Nick Sylvester production – you can hear his immaculate taste in keyboard tones all over this, the way the bass guitar subtly creeps around in the background whenever the synth bass isn’t carrying the low end, and the particular crispness of the claps on the breakdown.

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Peter Gabriel “Road to Joy (Bright-Side Mix)”

Peter Gabriel’s first album of new material in 21 years, i/o, was released last week after a very long roll out in which a majority of the tracks were issued separately with each full moon, and alternate mixes of those songs issued on the following new moon. I can appreciate the concept from a “hey, the moon is cool” perspective, but I feel like this strategy didn’t do Gabriel a lot of favors in terms of presenting this record as a prestige event from a major artist. The slow drip of material and multiple mixes made his return seem hesitant and tedious, and I personally don’t think it suits an elder statesman like this to approach streaming like a baby act signed to a major label throwing single tracks at the wall to see what gets enough traction to justify a full album.

It could be that Gabriel fully intended to deflate expectations for a record that’s been cooking for so long. Maybe he wanted to be less precious about it, and to embrace the more casual aspects of the streaming economy. I respect that, but I think this record would have benefited more from seeming like a big comeback. I would have pushed “Road to Joy” as the primary lead single, and let people get excited about a song that has a similar combination of ecstatic energy and brute force as classics like “Sledgehammer” and “Big Time.” Let people go “wow, he’s still got it,” because truly, he really does.

“Road to Joy” is a collaboration with Brian Eno, and it’s something of an outlier on i/o, which is generally low on energy and long on atmosphere. But that’s not too surprising – Gabriel’s body of work is light on bangers even if those tend to be among his most inspired tracks. I didn’t realize Eno was involved until after I’d heard the song at least a dozen times but his input is noticeable – it’s in the particular tonality and mix placement of the keyboards, it’s in the detailed but not cluttered approach to percussion. The general feel is not far off from his collaboration with Karl Hyde a decade ago, or what he did with David Byrne a few years before that.

It’s a great sounding record, but what really makes it is the inimitable sound of Gabriel’s voice. After all this time it’s still a very sleek tone with a slightly rough texture, a distinct bright timbre rounded out with warmth and depth. He sounds so certain and steady in contrast with Tony Levin’s rubbery bass, and heroic as he belts out the chorus alongside a choir that’s mixed so tastefully that the maximalism becomes a little bit minimalist. Like I said, he’s still got it.

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Boldy James and ChanHays “Trust Issues”

“Trust Issues” has the same effect as the classic film trope of playing nostalgic pop music over a scene depicting violence or some other grim reality – the innocence and sentimentality of the music adding a layer of irony, but also making the brutality seem sort of cozy and banal. ChanHays’ track is built around a soul sample that feels particularly romantic and gentle, the sort of thing you’d likely hear as the soundtrack to young love in the mid-20th century. Boldy James’ lyrics sketch out the life of a young criminal with a particular emphasis on guns, to the point that it does sort of play out as young love, albeit with one’s firearms.

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a.s.o. “My Baby’s Got It Out for Me”

“My Baby’s Got It Out for Me” is an expertly crafted trip-hop pastiche made by a duo of musicians so attuned to the details that the music feels a little uncanny in how accurately it replicates a specific mid-90s palette. I’ve seen a lot of people compare this to Portishead, which isn’t wrong in the broadest sense, but I think it’s closer to sounding like if Sneaker Pimps ever managed to make another song on par with “6 Underground.” (But like, 30% more stoned.) This is to say that I think this is music that is borne of extremely nerdy trainspotter/mood board impulses, but is executed so well that any trace of neediness is lost in the music’s extremely sexy atmosphere. All you really hear is the lust, the fantasy, and the surrender to darkness.

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Dora Jar “Puppet”

The arrangement of “Puppet” is very dynamic, with news sounds and ideas arriving every few measures in a way that gathers momentum and keeps the ear entertained, but not in a way that makes the music too busy or incoherent. (Having the song anchored by a groove that’s a cousin to the classic Krautrock motorik beat is a great way to glue it all together.) Dora Jar is singing about feeling untethered and in imminent danger, but the playfulness of her lyrical scenarios and the rush of energy in the chorus make it clear that the risk-taking is thrilling rather than fully terrifying. I’m particularly fond of how she stutters the first line of each verse, and the way she stops the song cold for a moment in the third verse as both a punchline and yet another way to get a fun bit into the song.

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Actress “Its Me (G 8)”

If you’ve been reading this site for some time you know that I’m a sucker for chopped up vocal samples that carry melody and emotion, but scramble the lyrics beyond comprehension. “Its Me (g 8)” is an extremely good example of this approach, particularly in how the vocal samples seem to expand and contract without ever becoming fully intelligible. I don’t recognize the sample sources but there are elements here that remind me a lot of what No I.D. did with Jay-Z’s “The Story of OJ.” It’s in the way a few bass notes unintentionally cohere into a minimalist bass line, and the way the music feels like it’s rewinding at points rather than looping.

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Mick Jenkins featuring Freddie Gibbs “Show and Tell”

“Show and Tell” is built around a common rap trope – “people are talking shit, but I’m for real and I must show them” – but there’s an added layer on poignancy in the way Mick Jenkins spits out the phrase “ImaHAVEto” in the chorus. He sounds impatient and irritated, so stressed out by the urgency of his need that he regresses a bit and sounds kinda like a petulant kid. I like the way this little bit of childishness contrasts with every other part of the song, which conveys a grim and foreboding atmosphere and an adult pragmatism. And then there’s Freddie Gibbs, who hops on the second half of the song and seems stoic and self-possessed to the point that he doesn’t seem concerned about proving much of anything.

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H31R “Rotation”

The vast majority of rap qualifies as “electronic music” these days, so when I say H31R’s second album HeadSpace is a hybrid electronic/rap record I mean it in the sense that JWords’ production aesthetic is very Warp Records. Or Big Dada, which is the actual label releasing this music. “Rotation” is one of the more disorienting and clattering tracks on the record but it’s smoothed out somewhat by the presence of Maassai, who raps in a precise yet conversational cadence similar to that of Noname. She seems very calm at the center of this, but also very intense, so maybe it’s more “calm like a bomb,” as Zack de la Rocha would say.

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Westside Gunn featuring DJ Drama “Suicide in Selfridges”

DJ Drama opens this song describing with two pithy lines that are better than anything I could come up – “this that Purple Tape mixed with codeine vibes, imagine “Murder Was the Case” in the Slum Village.” Yeah, pretty much! The Purple Tape of it all is what pulled me in, as Conductor Williams’ production evokes the particular abrasive minimalism and drunken rhythmic quality of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. This feels like a loving tribute to Wu-Tang to me, right on down to Westside Gunn emulating Ghostface’s tone and cadence, but not quite to the egregious extreme of Action Bronson.

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Ari Lennox “Get Close”

Ari Lennox is very good at working humor and mundane details into music that is otherwise extremely sensual and sexual, and in doing so grounding that eroticism in regular life rather than idealized screen romance. In the case of “Get Close” she sets the scene with the opening line “New York pizza, my Coke Zero,” suggests an interesting personality dynamic with “you like Tupac, I like Janet,” and then gets a little juvenile by singing “I laugh at it, boobies grab it.” It’s vivid language that strips away the glamor implied by the slick slow-burning R&B arrangement, but the lusty atmosphere of the music is strong enough that it’s more of an interesting contrast than a vibe-killer. “Get Close” sounds like a song about two specific people in a particular moment, and I think that makes it sound a lot sexier than something more vague – it’s a window into actual intimacy.

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PinkPantheress “True Romance”

I’ve had a hard time understanding people who’ve been dismissive about PinkPantheress because her songs are mostly very short, as if that actually means they’re all unfinished or rushed despite the obviously high level of songwriting craft. Like, I can’t imagine people today listening to, say, the first Ramones or Wire records and being like “yeah, ‘Three Girl Rhumba’ is nice, but it should be two minutes longer to count as a real song.” But yet…

“True Romance” is a collaboration with Greg Kurstin, a producer who’s just as ubiquitous as Jack Antonoff but nowhere near as famous, maybe because his resume is almost absurdly varied. It was a surprise to me that he was involved in this song given that it’s so firmly in PinkPantheress’ wheelhouse, but I can see the song’s fairly ambitious structure and tonal shifts coming out of his skill and influence. As with all of her best songs the appeal here is mainly in the low-key elegance of her melodic style, a highly dynamic arrangement, and a vocal that’s so crisp and clear that it borders on uncanny. There’s also an interesting lyrical conceit – she’s singing about being a pop fan in love with her favorite musician, and wondering what she could be to them besides a stranger. The clever thing is that when she sings “tell me, do you view me the same?” she’s still in character as a fan, but it also plays as a question to her own fans now that she’s attained stardom.

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