On her most recent record – a challenging, artful 80’s synth pop throwback – St. Vincent forcefully declares that we must all pay our way in pain. It frames the daily experience as a series of quotidian, and often trivial, tasks, each of which extracts a toll so small it’s almost impossible to notice. They are basically the smallest units of measurement which, when taken together and given the benefit of hindsight, ultimately constitute a life, as it were. An optimist would say this should encourage us to seize more fondly upon the little breaks we’re given, the pleasures we might otherwise overlook, and that’s really how I see good music. It can be like a hot knife that we carry with us, accompanying our daily grind, lopping off off the duller edges to create something a little easier to bear. This mix in particular celebrates the end of summer and the autumnal equinox, the brief period in this god forsaken city where it’s not too hot or too cold to live the way we really want to. So come on; let’s have some fucking fun and get into mix itself.
But first, a thematic detour (sorry). Along with January, late August is notoriously a dumping ground for Hollywood’s would-be blockbusters. The conventional wisdom suggests that studios don’t have the confidence to slot the films into the lucrative summer period, but they’ve spent too much to let them quietly die on the straight to video market. I bring this up because it seems to be an ethos that bled this year over to music; over the course of the month, two of what should have been the biggest releases of the year in the form of Kanye’s DONDA and Drake’s Certified Lover Boy were basically dead on arrival; records stuffed to bursting with filler and totally lacking inspiration. They sure do exist, but hardly at the pleasure of critics, fans, or even casual listeners.
Released after an exhausting years long rollout and multiple listening events, DONDA did drop, and it’s not just bad, it’s one of the worst hip hop records of the year. Muddy, thinly produced beats wash out the few genuinely great features packed into this two hour behemoth, making for a punishing experience front to back. As for Kanye’s part, well, he raps like you’d think a near born-again billionaire pushing 50 years old would rap, spending most of his time alternating between complaints about his divorce and petty celebrity drama, delivered unconvincingly with sub dad-level puns.
On his previous records which struck a lighter tone, these jokes added a bit of spice to the complex melange of the album; here, on a record that takes itself deadly serious, they face plant with a thud. The man is so pious and up his own ass that he’s only released a ‘clean’ version of the record, clumsily censoring the entire thing at the expense of flow or artistic intent.
Releasing just a couple weeks later, Drake should have had a slam dunk at producing the better album; sadly Certified Lover Boy, too, is joyless and just not much fun at all to listen to across its 20+ tracks. It is better than DONDA, but only in that it’s listenable on a basic level. Beyond that it has little to offer beside a listless Drizzy droning confessional, regretful verses for an hour and a half, rarely letting the listener in on any of the fun that his billion dollar lifestyle undoubtably affords. When he was only regular-famous, this subject matter came off as relatable, even kind of cute.
Now that he’s 35 and constantly in the public eye, we simply know too much about the man and his behavior to feel the self pity he tries to generate. It feels like rolling your eyes through a 90 minute apology from someone who has already admitted they cannot (or will not) change. So why are we here?
Anyway, consider my complaints registered up top, but how about the mix itself? We begin with Big Thief’s jangly, bittersweet ballad Little Things, which has quickly become one of my favorite songs of the year. Our lead singer expresses a painful infatuation with her paramour, even as flashes of realism occasionally break the spell, like when he abandons her immediately post coitus to drink brewskis outside:
“I see you in the yard / drinking a beer / you leave me undressed /
like some cheap classic movie / maybe I’m a little obsessed / maybe you do use me”
Gentle finger picked strings clash against bursts of guitar and a handclap beat to create something deeply emotional and totally exhilarating. As all the emotion comes to a head, our lead singer lets it all out with a brief and primal scream, the musical equivalent of a jump scare.
The theme of obsession continues with Pink Pantheress’ Just For Me, a woozy little electronic driven by a subtle dance beat provided by none other than the legend Mura Masa himself. And then Nina Simone’s indelible classic I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl closes out the first passage; you see, Nina actually is not obsessed, she could just use a little tenderness to take the edge off of her harder nights.
With heavy sentiment out of the way, the next segment of the mix is a more straightforward bit of post-summer fun, kicked off with the energetic, sapphic rocker Silk Chiffon, a track I could listen to all day. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Phoebe Bridgers having so much fucking fun, as she chills and trades shredding guitar licks back and forth with MUNA.
Tom Petty’s American Girl plays next, before leaving the little electric guitar vein we’ve tapped. Many would agree that it’s one of the best songs songs ever written; so much so that The Strokes lifted the entire thing note for note for their own song Last Nite. It’s a testament to Tom Petty’s character that could have made many millions suing the band for their trespass, but because they essentially admitted as much on tv one time, he just let it slide. Afterward, Jaden Smith’s Summer makes our subtext literal, waxing fondly about the season over a gauzy, psychedelic production.
After this we get the deceptively mellow raver Sun Came Up from Good Time Girl crooner Sofi Tukker, which pairs a watery bass guitar line with some slightly sinister vocals to make something pretty unique in the EDM space. Then, the OG Nasty Nas himself hops onto the mix with the Hit-Boy produced Rare; for three minutes, the beat evolves along with his flow as he observes the world around him like a king with fast access to the levers of power, but doesn’t care enough to pull them. “Press one button, I could change the whole world around you”. Given how wealthy and influential he has been for so very long, I actually believe him. It’s a track made solely to showcase his versatility even at 48 years old, a warning shot to aging rappers like Kanye and Jay Z who flow like their mom dragged them into the studio.
You Only Live Twice is one of a few bright spots from Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, and oozing scumbag joie de vivre from start to finish. Drake and Rick Ross acquit themselves energetically over a gospel-inflected production but there can be no question that the star of the show is Lil Wayne, who spazzes so fast on the track that you can practically hear him black out in the booth as he brags about women’s titties hanging out the window of his many luxury vehicles.
Cochise exploits another candy coated beat on POCKET ROCKET, delivering a fast flow in his signature baby voice as massive hits of bass crash down every so often like a bolt of lightning, and laser gun sound effects(??) zap through the background. His lifestyle may have changed with money, but Cochise still hangs onto childhood pleasures: “she know I love anime / she think I’m a geek, geek”, and you know what? She’s right!! Watching anime does kind of make you a geek. I really don’t understand why black people love the stuff so much, especially when it so rarely includes or represents us in any sort of meaningful way.
Abra’s sultry, gorgeous vocals loom large over the sexy and offbeat UNLOCK IT, assisted by a feature verse from Playboi Carti, who has fun bigging himself up on the latter half of the track. Shout out to the man, who has in recent years become a real artiste, lending his star power and inimitable weirdo style to a track which might have otherwise gone totally unnoticed. He actually bridges the gap easily into our next track, Off The Grid, the sole worthy track from Kanye’s latest effort, in my opinion. It’s propped up by features from Carti and New York newcomer Fivio Foreign, who straight up goes to therapy on the track, dodging fakes and jail time as he looks back on what it took to get to this point. Kanye’s verse is a mixed bag, simultaneously showing off one of his worst ever lines:
“some say Adam / could never be bla-a-ack / because a black ma-a-an / would never share his rib-rib-ribs”,
in reference to the biblical creation of Eve, who was formed from a rib that Adam literally ripped out of his own body. First of all, no one ever said Adam was black so what the fuck are you talking about. Secondly, Mr. Kanye, did you get this line from, like, a kind-of racist bumper sticker you saw in the Deep South? It also showcases one of his best (on this record), as he jokes
“I talk to God every day / I call that my bestie / they playin’ soccer in my backyard / I think I see Messi”
(a reference to international footie superstar Lionel Messi ⚽️). Given how in the last couple weeks spent finishing the record, Kanye lived out of of rented arenas, it’s very likely that he did see Messi as he skulked around the upper wings of the still-active stadiums like the Phantom of the Opera.
Speaking of long album rollout periods, Lil Was X has dropped his long anticipated debut album MONTERO (that’s his real name), to pretty great effect. It succeeds on the back of consistency, with productions that hit like a well earned victory lap and lyrics which touch on his own insecurities. Standout cut DON’T WANT IT does both, simultaneously looking back at the lower moments of his life while interpolating real news footage announcing the mega-successes of his various singles.
After that we see the return of Evil Charli, who is back in her heartless little bag on the brief but banging Good Ones, on which she reasserts her preference for chaos over stability. Intellectually, she’s self aware enough to know that a Nice Guy would treat her right: “And baby, you couldn’t have loved me any better / but doin’ this is all I’ve known ever”, but it isn’t enough to stop her craving the excitement of a real Fboy (if you will). We chase this shot with Coi Leray’s eccentric TWINNEM, a supremely catchy and paranoid tune whose beat is built over harsh church organ keys and trunk rattling hits of bass. I genuinely didn’t know she was capable of this sort of off center creativity, and she deserves some flowers for it.
FINNEAS’ The 90s plays us into the next segment, starting as a slow lamentation of the current state of our constantly connected status, before exploding into a 100 gecs sequence burst of stabbing synthesizers and break beats.
Frightened Rabbit’s The Twist kicks us into a slightly more somber section, followed up by the absolutely stunning opener from Chvrches new album, Asking For A Friend. It starts slow, as Lauren Mayberry sings Scottishly over a spacey bed of sound before blooming into a symphony of fast synth keys and fat beats. The band have explained that their latest record (singles peppered through previous mixes) is inspired by horror films of the 80s, and this one in particular sounds like something John Carpenter might have used to score a flick about a dance floor slasher or something like that.
Next, we get another hit of FINNEAS, this time accompanying Ashe on the classic style love ballad Till Forever Falls Apart, as the two hold desperately to each other as their (well founded) anxieties about climate disasters threaten to consume them. It feels like something Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire might have recorded if they were millennials in LA circa 2021. On EDM smash hate u cuz I don’t, Louis The Child goes full 10 Things I Hate About You as Bea Miller sings “I fucking hate you cuz I don’t / wanna call you but I won’t / because I know that you would rather be alone”, which is a sentiment this essay-writer can unfortunately over relate to.
We briefly switch gears completely as the mix winds to a close, with a remix of Rich The Kid’s skeletal trap banger Prada. Polo G goes for broke with an absolutely furious guest verse, withdrawing a million dollars from the bank before casually calling in violent murders from his smart phone. Lil Nas X and Megan Thee Stallion similarly gang bang while shopping for designer goods on DOLLA SIGN SLIME, showing off an unexpected chemistry in the process. We slow back down a bit with Lil Yachty’s ethereal Solid; it’s a cute love letter to platonic friendship that’s taken over the top by a creative and mellow bed of staccato synth swells.
We get sexy for a bit with Roddy Ricch’s Bacc Seat, a straightforward, Ty Dolla $ign assisted R&B track about fucking in luxury SUVs. Roddy never forgets that he’s a gangster though, warning his girlfriend “when you give me a lap dance / baby / watch out for the gat please” 🔫 Jorja Smith is in and out with the beautiful but all-too-brief Time, bookended by an amusing conversation with a Caribbean woman about stage names.
Capping off our little detour into R&B country is Drake’s Race My Mind, a straightforward love song plussed up heavily by some absolutely gorgeous harp swells punctuating its verses. Word on the streets is that the track is dedicated to Toronto’s Keshia Chante, aka Kiki of In My Feelings’ “Kiki / do you love me?” fame.
We close the album out with a new track from the still-incarcerated YNW Melly, Mind Of Melvin, which finds him confronting a physical manifestation of his maniacal alter ego, Melvin. What I find most incredible about this track is the synthesis it finds with guest feature Lil Uzi Vert. They kick the ball back and forth to one another in a way that feels so natural that it’s as if they were in the studio together; in reality, Melly most likely recorded his half over the prison phone line, with Uzi picking up the pieces later on.
Finally, the capper here, both thematically and literally, is Whethan’s Good Nights, a song that will forever, to me, feel like the end of summer; like rolling the windows down on your friend’s 04 Corolla, sipping on wine coolers and shouting at nothing.
🧟♂️🧛♀️ Resurrections Corner 🧛♂️🧟♀️
- In this section I detail songs that have been included in playlists past, usually a couple of years back, but which I feel are worth highlighting again.
- I will always periodically return to Frightened Rabbit’s The Twist, especially since its lead member, Scott Hutchison, took his own life just a few years back. It is one of my favorite songs ever recorded, as rapid organ keys swirl like a nightmare around a desperate cry to be found, just for the night, even if it means being called by the wrong name. His need for identity can’t hide itself forever, though, eventually begging “twist and whisper the right name / I’m David… please”. It breaks my heart every time
- The aforementioned Good Nights from Whether and Mascolo appeared on a mix in, I wanna say, 2018. My favorite bit from this song is Mascolo wondering aloud, with a certain confusion in his voice: “you’re all that I know / you’re all that I know / why did you change your mind / and end the night?”
🤔 😳 Questionable Lyrics Zone 🧐🤨
- “Got magic up my sleeve like I’m Dumbledore” – Jaden Smith, Summer. It’s a lame line, and “Dumbledore” doesn’t even fit syllabically, awkwardly overstuffing the rhyme meter for the sake a stray reference to Harry Potter. But it’s fine, I can forgive one lil struggle bar when it’s attached to a melody this pretty.
- “let’s pretend I’m attractive and theeeen / you won’t mind / we can twist for a while /
it’s the night, I can be who you liiike / and I’ll quietly leave before it gets light”
Frightened Rabbit, The Twist. Since high school, these lyrics have spoken to me in a way I can hardly express, other than to recite them here like it’s my Tumblr profile. I think it says something to me about alienation and acceptance. I really don’t know.
- This is probably the lightest I’ve ever been on questionable lyrics, and that’s even with multiple Drake tracks on the mix. Good job keeping it tight everybody 👏 👏
👨💻 Stray Observations 📝
- The album art here is, obviously, a pixellated tableau from Blade Runner 2049, depicting Ryan Gosling’s synthetic runner character gazing upon a giant ad for the virtual girlfriend he has come to actually love. In the context of the mix, for me, it symbolizes the way that women loom large over and make small some of the world’s most powerful men: Drake’s preoccupation with regret over the way he’s treated the women in his life, Kanye’s odd and all consuming reverence for his late mother. It also represents the overall prevalence of female artists on the mix, who seem to be resting less on their laurels than their male counterparts right now, saving the season from being a total wash, musically.
- My (imaginary) editor finally prevailed this go around, holding me down and spitting in my mouth until I delivered a more restrained playlist under 30 tracks. I hope the effect is something a little more immediate and consistently listenable
- I refrained from delving fully into what is truly the most disgusting aspect of Drake and Kanye’s latest album, their enrichment and platforming of abusers, because it’s really not my place. But it is shocking what they’ve done, particularly in Kanye’s case, and it’s worth reading a bit more about it here.
- Aside from being an incredible song, I included American Girl because Kelly Lewis claims to not know who Tom Fucking Petty is, which genuinely offended me. One of the coolest figures to ever grace rock and roll (imagine me saying that about a white guy), he lent his voice to the voice of King Of The Hill character “Lucky” in the final few seasons before his untimely death. Literally Tom Petty of Free Fallin’, Mary Jane’s Last Dance, Won’t Back Down. Tom Petty!!!
- Apparently Mascolo, who collaborated with Whethan for album-closer Good Nights, is currently engaged to Bella Thorne. Mazel!
- in retrospect it should have been a warning that Drake and Ye appear to have spent zero dollars on their respective album covers. While Kanye’s is unimaginably pretentious, presenting us with nothing but a simple black square, Drake’s gone the other way with one of the tackiest covers I’ve ever seen. It’s a 4×3 grid of the stock iOS “pregnant woman” emoji against a plain white background, meant to signify…what exactly?
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