In Ancient Greek myth, Cassandra is one of the more interesting mortal figures. As a Trojan priestess of Apollo she was compelled to chastity (like a nun) — so when Apollo himself made a sexual advance on her, she naturally rejected him. His answer was to curse her with the gift of perfect prophecy — everything she saw in her visions would come true, but no one around her would ever listen. When a big wooden horse is wheeled into Troy, Cassandra quite literally screams at king Priam that it is infested with Greek soldiers, who reacts as though he’s heard a passing gust of wind, allowing the horse into the city’s fortified walls. One thing i find fascinating about polytheistic cultures, like the pantheon of Greek olympians or the Germanic aesir gods, is that even the people who worship them don’t really seem to like them. There are countless stories like Apollo and Cassandra’s, with omnipotent gods acting like petty incels and rapists. Even the women, like the vengeful Athena or the truly sinister Hera, fare little better in terms of how they’re depicted.
In Cassandra’s plight, we see a number of issues that plague society now as it did then. Her assault at the hands of Ajax the Lesser is a metaphor for the horrors soldiers inflict during war; her silencing by Apollo indicative of the way women tend to be diminished by people in power; to her murder by queen Clytemnestra illustrating the personal violence incurred as the sands of power shift. That last theme is one Shakespeare – heavily influenced as he was by Greek history – explored many times, as in King Lear, Macbeth, or Hamlet.
The point is that her propensity to state exactly what is about to happen to the audience could even be seen as a progenitor of the narrative devices which build suspense in storytelling; think of a movie that starts toward the end then flashes back to show how we got there. Without getting all Don’t Look Up on you – that is, bludgeoning you over the head – it’s hard not to draw parallels between the preventable calamities Cassandra saw and the slow moving car crashes that are the world’s response to climate change, COVID variants, and so on.
As ever, the goal of these playlists is never to dwell in the suck, but to gain a temporary reprieve from it. Our intro track, Overnight, is a propulsive and energetic cut with a paradoxical, almost elegiac quality. Maggie pines for the good parts of her previous relationship while acknowledging she would take great lengths to avoid running into that person in the wild. “I wonder if you were still in the city and showed up at a party take a big sip of my whiskey and then leave quickly”. As if to put a fine point on her inner conflict, she’s still willing to meet them in the middle of the night — provided they don’t lie to her. Next up, Last Day On Earth marks Beeabeedoobee’s third appearance on my playlists in as many months. She continues to impress with handsome, jangly pop rock that’s never anything less than fun as hell. Bea wrote this one shortly after the first lockdown began, working from the thought exercise of “what if this was my last day on earth?” Like many of us, she elects to hang out naked in her house, getting drunk and jamming to songs that are “so fucking sick”. The instrumental has all the precision of a math rock track, but Bea doubles down on the boozy quality of the song by pretending it’s all improvised (“ Wait – I got something to say / ‘what’s that? ‘ / oh shit / I forgot wait a minute”) and the massively catchy, wordless chorus.
The rock train chugs along with Summer Never Dies; for The Foxies, summer is more of a feeling than a time, one they can conjure with an anthemic, sugary, pop rock rush like they deliver here. It’s a slightly retro, instantly addictive ode to the blissful feeling that comes with the very start of falling in love. Next up is the highly improbably remix to Oliver Tree’s Life Goes On, a song that is so annoying it is almost unlistenable. Incredibly, a remix of the music, the addition of Ski Mask and Trippie Redd verses, and the total removal of Oliver apart from the chorus has turned the entire song into a catchy, snot nosed banger. Following that is Roddy Ricch’s murda one. It’s a song which, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with first degree murder (murder one), but does feature a heavy trap beat, melodic vocals from Roddy, and a venomous guest verse from Fivio Foreign.
Kiiara may be best known for her viral 2015 single “Gold” but her entire body of work is worth exploring. The codeine and LSD soaked soundscapes over which she lays glitchy pop vocals sort of sound like if Future was a white sorority girl, but Closer reaches a whole new level of raw. Her inhibitions seemingly long gone, it’s a sonic bacchanal where weed is served by the ounce and pussy is free. The next track, Surround Sound features a similarly trippy beat, but more importantly, it feels like JID reaching his full potential. Already one of hip hop’s most gifted technical rappers, this is leveling up — with precision rapid fire flows, a verse from 21 Savage and pop hook courtesy of Baby Tate (having dropped the ‘Yung’ from her stage name), it will almost certainly be in end-of-year discussions for best rap single.
darjeeling is just one standout from FKA Twigs’ newest LP, Caprisongs. It’s at once lovely and semi-abstract, like a lot of her music, but infused with a dark, danceable UK Garage beat. Keshi keeps it pretty on beside you, a stripped back piece of lo fi R&B which benefits greatly from a huge bass kick and Keshi’s vocal chops. I find myself singing the choral refrain “don’t lie / baby don’t lie” to myself several times a day.
Following this is Juice WRLD’s Not Enough, so — act break here as I go on a tangent. Juice WRLD was one of, if not the, best freestyler in the game at the time of his death. His famously improvisational approach to songwriting meant that, even in his prime, his lyrics had a tendency to not make a ton of sense, often hinging on poignant but garbled non sequiturs. As anyone who’s ever tried this exercise while journaling knows, it’s the inevitable product of free association. His music has always been more about a sound and a vibe, that is, than lyrical fidelity. That quality is only exacerbated in his posthumous releases; nearly-finished cuts reconfigured and released post facto. So it’s a testament to his enormous talent, and the care with which his team has handled his unreleased music, that his second posthumous record, Fighting Demons, is genuinely pretty good (and considerably darker than even the deeply melancholy Legends Never Die). One big highlight, Not Enough is one of his more clear eyed statements, written entirely to the theme of an anxiety that his partner’s love may not be enough to weather a relationship wracked by his substance issues. Despite the subject matter, it’s a ton of fun, with bouncy verses and an airy, guitar laden beat (unfortunately produced by the villainous Dr Luke). I find myself moving my hips to such downer lyrics as “I know you scared that I’m gon’ relapse / I love that / where the drugs at / you know that I love that”.
The Weeknd (much more on him later) telegraphs his 80s influences on his latest album with a track titled Less Than Zero. His taste is suspect here, as Less Than Zero sucks, both as a book and as a film, a vapid tale of pretty, cocaine addled rich kids, with whom I’m sure he identifies. The track is the best thing to bear its name thus far, with crystal clear production and buttery smooth vocals; also am I the only one who thinks the melody on this track sounds a bit like Wham’s Last Christmas? Next up is Demo Taped, a criminally unknown R&B artist who was a mainstay of my playlists circa 2016 and has since seemed to stop making music. Not Enough (yes, I know that’s a repeated song name here!) is a beautiful introduction to his pulsating, synth heavy sound, and I recommend diving deeper into his catalog.
Amine jumps back into his baby-voice register on the twinkling Van Gogh, the rare rap song I would describe as ‘gorgeous’. That’s thanks mostly to the sparkling dream pop production and high minded allusions, e.g. “this ain’t no Van Gog, this a Van Gogh” (poking fun at how Europeans pronounce Van Gogh [like Van Gawg] and Americans, who say it like Van Go). Vaccine plays after, a standout 2021 cut from Hip Hop’s king of puns, NoCap. His voice sounds especially lush here, as he compares shooting up opps just like Johnson & Johnson (undeniably the worst of the COVID vaccine options).
Roddy Ricch’s new album, one which I was heavily anticipating, Live.Life.Fast. is contemplative and vulnerable, allowing for small chunks in the armor of the famously guarded rapper, whose first album went certified diamond (nearly unheard of in this day and age) and garnered three well deserved big Grammy wins. The new album is also not very good, a trying and ponderous affair stuffed full of samey beats and unnecessary spoken word passages. Sadly I feel it is destined to join DONDA and CLB as 2021 records from industry titans which ended up feeling more obligatory than like passion projects. All three are overstuffed with half hearted, barely-trying material, guaranteed to rack up streams, but unlikely to stick around in the collective zeitgeist for long. rollercoastin is a notable exception, and probably the best use of his beautiful voice, gliding regretfully over a piano inflected beat. His anxiety over his attempts to be a good man and father in the face of corrupting fame culminate in a lovely pep talk from his grandmother, who signs off with a cool-as-hell “Ok, love ya, man”. Following is FKA Twigs’ Tears In The Club, a walking contradiction; an unburdening of shattered emotions over a nightclub production. It makes better use of The Weeknd’s angelic vocals than his own album does, in this writer’s opinion.
Dolly from Tierra Whack is so acoustic and stripped back that it could nearly be considered campfire music, as she details her struggle to balance a romantic relationship with her ambitious career goals. While we are wallowing, let’s hear from Lexi Jayde, a person I know nothing about except that she is a professional song and dance man on TikTok (all TikTokers are song and dance men, in my mind). She’s certainly struck a post-Olivia Rodrigo vein in the heartbroken Drunk Text Me. Her wishful thinking borders on pathetic, waiting for an drunken mea culpa from her ex lover that is unlikely to ever come.
Nigerian singer/rapper Burna Boy and Polo G find excellent chemistry on the laid back, wistful Want It All. They detail some of the many spoils of their wealth in the face of adversity, including a shoutout to Off-White visionary Virgil Abloh, whose untimely passing was one of many tragedies in the devil’s year 2021. Fadedcrooner ZHU returns with Mannequins & Egos, a bass boosted R&B dance track on which he manipulates his voice such that he manages to sound like at least four different people. Speaking of big, thick basslines, Caroline Polachek casts herself as the sexy, unknowable Bunny on the next track, Bunny Is A Rider. My armchair analysis of this song is that it’s somewhat of an homage to Lewis Carroll’s legendary nonsense poems. For one, the lyrics here barely make sense, including the truly baffling “I’m so non-physical / I feel like a lady” line reprised several times in the chorus. I have no idea what it means, but it’s provocative — it gets the people going. For two, she makes constant reference to Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland; perhaps the mysterious Bunny is more Cheshire Cat than White Rabbit.
Saint JHN’s wailing Best Part Of Life kicks us into another high energy passage of the mix, kicked off by YungLiv and Polo G breathing straight fire on Heating Up, trading creatively violent bars like “sundown til the sun up / pick a gun up / who you ridin’ wit? / you would think the block a barbershop / the way we linin’ shit”. It’s the type of song that makes you want to go rob a hardware supply store or commit insurance fraud or something. No? Just me? Whatever.
M3tamorphosis is on next, a song I refrained from putting on previous mixes because as much as I love it, it is plain weird. The more I think about it, though, the more I think it’s the purest distillation of the thesis of his album Whole Lotta Red. The pummeling production sounds like it’s playing out of a Toyota Corolla whose speakers were blown out years ago as a result of playing Playboi Carti songs too loud. Carti himself repeats the insane proclamation “I feel like god” repeatedly, and declares that he “had to change my whole swag / I’m on some other shit”. Considering that fans expected him to deliver more of the massively influential sound on his previous effort (Die Lit) but instead pivoted to a gay black vampire aesthetic, I would say that’s an understatement. Cudi does a pretty good job matching his energy, with a more animated and less mellow flow than he is typically known for.
At the tender age of 19, Bobby Shmurda changed rap with the massive single Hot Nigga (billions of streams on Spotify), only to be incarcerated by some racist ass feds on trumped up gun charges for over seven years. Recently free, he’s dropped off banger Shmoney, riding over a spine rattling Tay Keith beat. Even featured guest avoids using the Migos’ signature (and so very tired) triplet flow for the majority of his verse. It’s classic, irresistible turnup music. Speaking of money, pint-sized rapper Tay Money makes it clear she has plenty of it on Self Made, and frankly, all she needs a man for is some dick. I was unaware of her previous to this track, but casually hilarious bars like “girl your man asked for my number / be glad that I told him no” mean I will be checking for her in the future.
We Not Humping is up next, another absolutely electric banger from newcomer Monaleo (having caught a lot of viral heat on TikTok for Beating Down Yo Block), spitting over a throwback beat that sounds like something Naughty By Nature would have produced in the 90s. She is by turns sexual and violent, going from taking a nap in the back of a jet to putting a bullet in the back of a head over the span of two lines
Broken, one of my favorite Kim Petras tracks, has the important job of bridging the space between the previous songs and the quieter tracks as we wind toward the end of the mix, which begins with the pretty great Here We Go Again from The Weeknd, who I promised to excoriate earlier, so here it is. His surprise record, Dawn FM, is billed as a concept album. The “concept” here appears to be “you are listening to the radio”, with the music often sandwiched between interstitials in which Jim Carrey’s anonymous DJ says a few ominous words to transition between songs. Taking heavy cues from (e.g. ripping off) Giorgio Moroder, The Cars, Thriller, and countless others, every track is buried in samey synth beds, while the song writing remains static, a hazy blur of clubbing and drinking and fucking. Critics are tripping over themselves already to declare it an early Album Of The Year, but personally, I can’t remember the last time a record pissed me off so much; sheer force of will and star power cannot drag music 40 years into the past, and even if it could, I don’t think Abel is the one to do it. His construction lacks the catchy hooks and inscrutably edgy lyricism of his inspirations. That said, this is still a Weeknd album, and there are bound to be standout cuts that sound great, like the glossy and bitter Here We Go… Again.
Polo G has a quiet moment with himself on the R&B leaning Partin Ways, a song that gets sadder every time I hear it. On follow up I Drink Wine, Adele draws a parallel between the natural joy of discovery she felt as a youth and the way a thousand little cuts have hardened her heart to the point she can barely enjoy the world sober. She must, as she says, soak up wine in order to recapture just a fraction of that kind of effortless joy. It speaks to her masterful craftsmanship that this > 6 minute song feels half its length. Finally, I’ve Seen It All is the academy award winning original song from Lars Von Trier’s characteristically disturbing film Dancer In The Dark. In it, Björk (excellently) plays Selma, a dancer who is quickly going blind. In the film, she and Peter Stormare perform the duet dangerously near to a cargo train (note the rail sounds in the background) and frankly, Selma has seen enough, choosing to deal coarsesly with her impending blindness. The album version was re-recorded with vocals from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, asks about “seeing your grandson’s hand as he plays with your hair”: Selma bluntly rebuts “to be honest, I really don’t care”.
🧟♂️🧛♀️ Resurrections Corner 🧛♂️🧟♀️
- Overnight – Maggie Rogers. Since her breakout debut with Alaska (the song that famously made Pharrell cry and then immediately sign her) Maggie has laid fairly low, with only one major album from 2019 under her belt. Her re-inclusion here is partly my attempt to manifest more music from her, as well as just being an incredible song. For most of the track, she shows bravado in the face of heartbreak, but the musical breakdown at the 2 minute mark reveals a desperate vulnerability: “I know it’s still in me / please forgive me / leave this memory / don’t say you miss me”.
- Turnabout is fair play for Kim Petras in Broken, who wishes torment on a past lover. Not a ton of significance in bringing this one back, it just sounds incredible. As I’ve said before, she occupies as a rarified space of musicians combining top 40 pop with boom-bap style productions and flows, out-rapping many of her peers. It also contains, like, a dozen cold-hearted quotables over the course of ~3 minutes:
- “Hope you happy with your new bitch / how you livin’? / I’m in Paris in Marc Jacobs / life’s amazin”
- “When she leave you for your best friend / that shit karma / when you see me with my new dude / that’s a come up”
- Not Enough – Demo Taped. I think I said my piece on this, earlier, but again, I really appreciate the woozy synths and non-literal songwriting.
🤔😳 Questionable Lyrics Zone 🧐🤨
- “I get emotional when I talk about my daddy” – Burna Boy – Want It All. He refers to his father as his ‘daddy’, several times on this verse, and I’m just going to assume it’s a Nigerian thing.
- “If that bitch go out bad / she on punishment” – Playboi Carti, M3tamorphosis. The idea that Carti is putting grown women ‘on punishment’ is very funny
- The instrumental on Shmoney appears to interpolate the sound of thousands of coins being scattered, as if to evoke the concept of money. I just like the idea of a rich person having a ton of, like, quarters and dimes and silver dollars
- “From a cell to a mansion like I’m Quagmire” – NoCap, Vaccine. I puzzled over this line for a while; was there some obscure story line in Family Guy where Quagmire moves into a mansion, or occupies a jail cell? Is it a weirdly erudite reference to the Vietnam War? Nope, turns out it’s a pun on Quagmire’s (Family Guy) enormous jaw – his “man chin”. I told y’all this man’s puns are truly dad-level lol.
Glenn Quagmire and his elephantiasis-like jaw, or, as NoCap puts it, his ‘man chin’
👨💻 Stray Observations 📝
- Chose this cover art as it appears to be a sprite, of some sort, staring rapt into a pit of fire, so closely that its eyes are engulfed in flame. I’m reminded of Nietzsche’s “if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”, as well as Cassandra’s own foresight, witnessing in prophecy the burning destruction of Troy just before it actually happened
- The baby laughs, just one of many weird touches from Bunny Is A Rider are sampled from producer Danny Harle’s own infant
- The opening keys on Adele’s I Drink Wine sound suspiciously like the Cheers theme song (Where Everybody Knows Your Name)
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