1977 was one of the hottest summers on record for New York at the time, now easily blown out with every new year thanks to the planet’s gradual heat death. But the people of New York had another problem: a serial killer on the loose, shooting couples to death with a high powered magnum pistol, in their parked vehicles outside of discotheques, restaurants, and other nightlife hotspots. It is now historically known as The Summer Of Sam, a reference to the nickname ultimately attributed to that killer, the Son Of Sam. Before newspapers settled on that moniker, however, David Berkowitz (then known in media as “the .44 killer”) basically workshopped noms-de-plume for himself, using letters written to (and published by) local outlets to pitch his ideas.
Along with Mr. Monster, The Wicked King Wicker, and The Duke Of Death, Berkowitz suggested “The Chubby Behemoth”, which is easily the funniest and most self aware serial killer name of all time. In many ways, the summer of 77 in NY echoes the summer of 21 in Sacramento; an unchecked hot streak, an undiscriminating killer (pandemic), and even lavish disco music flooding the mainstream airwaves thanks to the runaway success of Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia last year. What I mean to say is that it’s a cruel season; the relief we felt briefly from widespread vaccinations has been snuffed out by a far more contagious mutagen, and socializing outside is a lot less fun with temperatures crossing 110.
It’s hard not to let it affect the cultural mood, which is reflected not only on my playlist, but also in the music that’s being released. Lead singles for highly anticipated albums from artists like Lorde and Billie Eilish have been depressive, borderline comatose, almost as if to mirror the exhaustion of the zeitgeist at large. I don’t make (well, compile) music to sound deep or make you sad, so don’t go into this one expecting a big bummer project; but I did want to let you know where I’m coming from as I put this pastiche together. I can’t deny that it’s moodier, has sharper edges and might be more of a bruiser than the last mix, I still hope that above all, it is a bit of summer fun. Editor’s note: Let’s be honest, the “chubby behemoth” also refers to this mix’s sprawling run time and track length, good lord, has Anthony no self control.. he needs help, before he hurts someone.
One of many letters this fucking nerd wrote to newspapers
Charlton Howard, aka The Kid LAROI, derives his stage name from his ancestry — he’s 50% Kamilaroi, an aboriginal tribe of Australia, which, frankly helps explain his face. It also helps explain his sauce, as, at the tender age of 17, he possesses a swagger that few, if any, of his caucasian contemporaries possess; he’s easily outclassing fellow veteran white rappers from G-Eazy to Post Malone. He sells a genuine struggle — it actually feels as though he grew up under the types of pressure cooker circumstances that typically breed a successful hip hop artist, rather than a white musician who jumped into the genre because it sells. His newest, er, something, Fuck Love 3 concludes his confusing release strategy over the past year. The original Fuck Love (early 2020) was presumed to be a full length studio album, his debut to the world on a major label.
A few months later, it was re-dubbed a less formal ‘mixtape’, gaining 7 new songs as an expansion pack of sorts (Fuck Love: Savage) that included Without You, the song which rocketed Laroi from nerdy playlist fave to ascendant superstar. Fuck Love 3: Over You is the conclusion of this ‘saga’, adding 6 more songs to the tracklist — if that wasn’t confusing enough, only a few days later it received a ‘deluxe’ edition with 6 more songs, now known as Fuck Love 3+: Over You. It’s the sign of a young artist bursting with creative energy, but that’s exactly why editors exist. It’s hard not to see most of these new songs as remastered refuse left on the cutting room floor from the original Fuck Love sessions. If Girls5Eva has taught us nothing, it’s that once you’ve got a viral spark, you need to strike immediately to stoke it into a raging fire — and that’s just the way music is now. Albums aren’t sold as units, but as individually streamed tracks; low rates of pay on Spotify plays have led to labels “stream-trolling”, that is, releasing bloated albums full of subpar or unfinished material in order to jack up play counts and pocket just a little more cash. Still, with an artist as talented as Laroi, even some of these reheated leftovers are gonna be bangers, like the bouncy, summer ready STILL CHOSE YOU, or the melodramatic piano keys and tortured vocals on BEST FOR ME, the track which actually kicks off this mix and ends my pontificating (for now 😏)
Following this on the mellow bus are Doja Cat’s Been Like This, a sonically lush, spacious, and really beautiful production that sells the conceit of listening to music on “Planet Her” and then JAWNY’s rollicking alt-rock Tombstone Grey. Because of the content of the lyrics and the fact that JAWNY and Doja were dating until recently, I see these two as sister tracks, as if each artist is responding to the other. While Doja’s lost that loving feeling ever since he’s “been like this”, JAWNY has “stopped searching her on YouTube / took her off his phone she like U2”. Billie Eilish (we’ll discuss her later) keeps that theme going with the scornful electro-pop track Didn’t Change My Number, as she finally breaks off contact with someone who’s habitually mistreated her.
Switching gears completely is The Talk; while you, the reader, may not know his name, Chief Keef Sosa, black as midnight and handsome as hell, is one of the most influential rappers of this entire generation. At only 16 he dropped LOVE SOSA, a menacing banger that invented the Chicago drill scene, the style that about 10 years later now dominates Billboard charts. It’s characterized by trap beats and violent lyrics which reflect the material conditions of inner city ghettos now the world over. Lil Durk, Polo G, Juice WRLD, and Pop Smoke, are a few of the scene’s most famous artists – Keef is notably not one of them, thanks to targeted FBI harassment campaigns (again, that started when he was 16) as racist Feds tailed him between shows, arresting him regularly for gun and possession charges that seriously stalled the momentum of his career. On The Talk, Keef returns older and less stressed, clearly having fun with the material; it’s still dark and violent, but it’s also packed wall to wall with humorous one-liners, as Keef reminisces about making his “baby mama (BM) buy him H&M” or laughing off his competition’s output: “heard your fuckin latest album / boy you need to stop / you ain’t even do it right / it didn’t need to drop”.
Chief Keef’s infamous DUI mugshot
After a long hiatus, Lizzo is back, and she’s going hard. And why shouldn’t she? Having secured a lucrative Cardi B feature, she capitalizes on the opportunity with a track that slaps a lot harder than most of her music; the two talk their shit with apologies to no one. Next, My City is a trunk rattling banger from LAROI and fellow Aussie OneFour. The two thump their chests (and clap their glocks) as they assert dominance over the city of Sidney in the same way Jay Z has done with the Bronx or Drake has with Toronto. Speaking of the 6 god himself, Drake delivers his coldest verse of the year to date on Over The Top, christening new OVO-label signee Smiley with an instant hood classic. He even sneaks in a couple cheeky pos-mens (positive mentions) of his biggest sponsor, Nike, which, for how tacky it is, I hope scored him some serious coins. We get a bit smoother with Rainy Day from crooner Zacari, whose stunning voice pairs beautifully with a crunchy beat drop and mellow-yet-cold-blooded verses from Isaiah Rashad and Buddy. Closing out this passage of the mix, LAROI (you can see why I wrote a long missive about him up top) links with the legendary DJ Mustard for STILL CHOSE YOU, a disrespectful yet romantic confession of monogamist love.
Black Hearted is Polo G all over: beat set over a mournful guitar loop, Polo muses about how his time fighting for survival on the deadly streets of Chicago projects have robbed him of the ability to accept romantic love. “When you said you loved me, girl, it scared me”. It kicks us into a quieter portion of the mix, slowing things down with Clairo’s Blouse, on which the artist wrestles with the forces that nearly made her quit music altogether – an attempt at genuine expression, while the dude she’s talking to is staring down her shirt. Still, she is so desperate to be heard that she’ll put up with almost anything: “If touch could make them hear / then touch me now”. Next is A Waltz for the Night, Julie Delpy’s heartfelt serenade to her inamorato Jessie, which closes out my favorite film (Before Sunset). It’s a simple, single-acoustic-guitar waltz (duh) that balances hope and heartbreak in equal measure.
Celine sings to Jessie as his plane home departs without him
Despite his success and presumably happy marriage to TV’s Jamila Al Jameel (The Good Place’s Tahani) Say What You Will finds James Blake decidedly down on himself: “I look okay in the magic hour / in the right light / with the right amount of power”. Perhaps he’s just letting off a bit of the sadness that’s nestled its way into all of us these past few years. At one point at the end of the track he reaches an impossibly high octave, and then proceeds to hold that note for like 10 seconds, which is about as impressive as anything Thom Yorke of Radiohead has done with his voice. Chin up, James, that’s an achievement. We start getting upbeat again with Ashe’s Serial Monogamist (a term first coined by Sex and The City’s Carrie Bradshaw), wherein she describes breaking the pattern of jumping from LTR to LTR, getting comfortable with, and perhaps even embracing, casual encounters. We’ll discuss her later, too (ooh! The suspense! Did Hitchcock write this note…), but it’s just one standout cut from Ashe’s new debut album, on which she fully delivers on the promise of the potential she’s displayed with years of loose singles.
Next we have All of This, where Jorja Smith links with Guiltybeatz, wondering how someone could voluntarily lose “all of this”, as her vocals are inflected over an Amapiano (a South African house music subgenre) production, giving it a bit of world music flavor. It’s only natural to follow it up with All Night Long, Lionel Ritchie’s an unapologetic paean to the continent of Africa, the mother land, the cradle of life, ever heard of it? 😼 Is it a corny song? Perhaps, but when the horns and chanting kick in on the back half, I am levitated to another plane of existence, one where bad moods are banished and cotton candy costs a nickel. Afterward, Zella Day returns with Golden, an unbelievably well produced piece of nü-disco that will have your toe tapping all the way out of your size 12 platform boots.
With Overheated, it’s time to talk about the Billie Eilish of it all. After a nearly year long rollout and 6 singles released to preview the record, Billie Eilish’s sophomore record, happier than ever, has arrived. It took several listens but I’m ready to say that, overall, it is pretty decent, held back from greatness by a few major problems. The music itself sounds as good as it ever did, thanks largely to Billie’s brother and producer, FINNEAS. The instrumentals are rich, lush and varied, sounding every bit as expensive as they undoubtedly are. The problems, basically, start and end with Billie, as it should be, since that’s her name on the album. She sounds confident all over the record, having turned 18 since the release of her far superior debut, and she wants you to know it — themes of loneliness and anxiety that comprised the first record are more often replaced with something more sexually charged. That’s all well and good, but consider the source: a mega wealthy, young cis straight Aryan woman, who doesn’t appear to have ever experienced any real hardship except for fame, something she knows none of us can relate to. I think it’s clear that she’s insulated and isolated, in need of some perspective. So while it may be a bit of a bust thematically, it should go without saying that her voice is vibrant and often gorgeous — a perfect complement to the prolific lyrics she writes for herself. More good news? For the most part, the singles that preceded the album were actually some of its worst songs. Would-be club hits like Didn’t Change My Number and OverHeated, as well as low-key stunner Halley’s Comet were wisely held back as surprises for fans and critics alike.
But this is the perfect place to contrast her album with Ashe’s; both are, after all, produced in large part by FINNEAS, and come from platinum blond singer/songwriters with a flair for the dramatic. So what’s the difference? Well, Ashe is 28 years old; she’s been around the block, even been through a marriage and divorce, before finding mainstream success with 2019’s Moral Of The Story. There’s a richness and variety to the themes she tackles, telling stories that draw from a lifetime of experiences, rather than, say, one bad breakup (*cough* Olivia Rodrigo). And unlike Billie, she’s already discovered, and come to terms with her sexuality; it’s really just one part of us, and understanding that allows an artist to express her maturity in other, more interesting ways. Ashe’s album tends towards big-band ballads with seemingly random hits of techno sprinkled in, exemplified perfectly in the prickly cross-country romance of Kansas, one of the best songs she has ever put out.
A still from the super fun music video for Ashe’s Me Without You
It vaults us into another high energy segment; CHVRCHES are back with sassy dance floor banger Good Girls, followed by Anne-Marie’s Beautiful. At first I thought this one was a bit too saccharine, channeling a Natasha Beddingfield-esque feel-good self affirmation vibe just generic enough to make it into a big movie trailer.I was won over, however by her apparent sincerity, and the offbeat, hollowed out production that makes the whole thing quite addictive. Speaking of addictive, OnlyL hasn’t left my head for long since I first heard it. It’s a perfect Friday night heater; TSHA’s production is purposefully reminiscent of 90s-era house music, while NIMMO sings hazily about casting off the mundanity of the work week and giving yourself to new love (and, most likely, some drugs).
Travis Scott’s No Bystanders hits hard before taking us into Lil Nas X’s latest hit, INDUSTRY BABY, on which a masterful horn section and high effort verse from Jack Harlow combine to complete a hip hop track which will stand the test of time. The horns actually transition beautifully into Rich Brian / bbno$’s fun-as-shit edamame, and the breezy ‘fuck you’ banger Same Energy via The Kid LAROI, which clocks in at only a minute and a half. Options sees Doja Cat team up with JID, who delivers a more melodic verse than his typically technical flow. After that we have Raindrops from Goldlink, the DC rapper who was at one point a star on the rise in a big way, until some distasteful comments following Mac Miller’s death cut his moment to a dead stop. A couple years later he’s dipped his toe back into the mainstream, ably assisted by a flirty hook from Flo Milli.
Things start to get a little sexier as R&B titans Ant Clemons and Ty Dolla $ign express their Appreciation for their partners, while The Weeknd and Young Thug insist that you Better Believe they’ll stay atop the hip hop charts for years to come. Apropos of nothing I follow this up with Marshall Tucker Band’s Can’t You See, a 1973 bluegrass track that I genuinely love; as fun and summery as it is, it also feels distinctly desperate, as our narrator will do anything to get (far, far) away from his ex girl so that he can begin healing.
We’re finally winding down the mix (I swear to god) with a one-two punch of Clairo’s Amoeba and Ashe’s triumphant Me Without You; to say that both songs draw inspiration from an Abbey Road-era Beatles is an understatement, channeling that sound into a couple of extremely catchy pieces of alt pop. Our penultimate track is Halley’s Comet from Billie Eilish, which is dreary in the best way possible. It might sound sleepy but it oozes personality; particularly when Billie sings through a wistful sigh near the three minute mark, the emotion of the whole thing knocks the wind out of me.
I want to end on a hopeful, rather than a down note, though, which is why Gwen Stefani’s glittery hit Cool plays us out. With all the talk of heartbreak and tortured souls on this mix, it’s a lovely reminder of what could wait for us on the other side of a mature, adult relationship that just happens to have ended. It is a sequel of sorts to 1996’s Don’t Speak, as Gwen once again discusses her failed romance with No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal. This time, though, they’ve moved past the bad feelings that contributed to the band’s dissolving, on amicable terms now and grateful for the role each played in the other’s growing up. I just love it.
Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal, circa 1999
🧟♂️🧛♀️ Resurrections Corner 🧛♂️🧟♀️
- No Bystanders from Travis Scott’s 2018 Astroworld record. Why? Well for one, it’s a high energy club anthem that’s easy to rock with. For another, it opens with a refrain from Juice WRLD, who sings “the party never ends”; it’s a message so resonant with his persona that it’s being repurposed into the title of his upcoming posthumous album, rumored to be the first of three before retiring his music completely
- Came To My Show by 100 gecs is included as my way of manifesting new music from the band, who’ve been quiet since very early 2020. Besides being massive, head banging fun, it’s also an uncommonly beautiful song from the chaotic duo, as Laura Les earnestly expresses how deeply she needs her partner to come out and support her
🤔 😳 Questionable Lyrics Zone 🧐🤨
- “Just wait til summer when they let me out the house, bitch” – Lizzo, Rumors. Bad news, girl…
- “We have changed / but we’re still the same” – Gwen Stefani, Cool. Hm?
- “I don’t wanna be a man / I don’t wanna be a woman / I just wanna be golden (like a woman)” – Zella Day, Golden. Zella, what does this mean? Please get back to me at your soonest convenience.
- “Chopped and screwed / I told her it’s BYOB / that mean buy your own boobs” – Travis Scott, No Bystanders. No, that’s not what that means.
- “I don’t post no gun pics / that’s incriminatin’ / whoa” – Ty Dolla $ign, Appreciation. Not questionable, it’s actually just great advice. Many, many rappers have become the targets of federal dragnets for that exact thing
- One of the kids who sings the choral outro on Beautiful clearly remembers the lyrics better than the other. I’ll let you decide who.
👨💻 Stray Observations 📝
- The cover image for this mix is Witches Going To Their Sabbath, by Luis Falero (1865), who obviously did not jerk off before painting it. It’s a moody and evocative piece, as witches, crones, and demons hurtle over one another toward the underworld. See the album image for the full size work
- Take a shot each time LAROI works the title of his album (Fuck Love) into the songs that appear on this mix. Now that’s branding!
- Early on in The Talk, Keef insists that he “ain’t no roody poo”, a phrase so funny I had to google it… apparently, it is a relatively obscure, made up insult that The Rock used to use in his pro wrestling career, like “jabroni”. Hmm… The Talk and The Rock? There is no such thing as a coincidence…
- Kid LAROI’s BEST FOR YOU is so well recorded that it almost feels like you can hear the very depth of its beat
- All Night Long might be the only mainstream mega hit that directly references Kwanzaa as Lionel sings “we’re going to / party / karamu / fiesta / forever”. Karamu is the traditional feast that caps off Kwanzaa, typically comprised of soul food staples like turkey stew and collard greens.
- Don’t adjust your dial when Can’t You See comes on. It’s intentionally recorded in single channel (left ear) for the first 10 seconds or so
- “I come around as often as Halley’s comet” – Billie Eilish, Halley’s Comet – first, it’s pronounced like “Hal-ee’s comet” not “Hay-lee’s comet” and second of all, it happens like every 75 years. The metaphor is strained but the song is good.
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