Hi! I know it’s been a long, long time since I made one of these playlists, but there are some pretty good reasons for that. Even apart from it taking a really long time to curate, sequence, and notate, it’s also getting harder and harder to make a case for doing them in the first place.
The main reason simply being that contemporary music is in a really difficult spot right now; as with just about every other popular art medium, the so-called “monoculture” has fully dissolved, and while the means of producing that art becomes more democratized, fandoms have never been more splintered – and listeners never quite so insular. Even compared to 5 years ago, if you were to look at the Spotify playlists for ten people of the same relative demographics, the overlap is almost definitely much less now than it was then. New music continues to saturate the market, but with the virtual death of radio circulation, it is the exception for new music to find major crossover appeal; typically by going viral on TikTok, thus little of it is leaving the artist’s target demo.
As it gets harder for new artists to emerge as big acts, almost no one is packing arenas anymore, with the exception of larger acts of times past going on tour to play the hits and make people more nostalgic for a time when “everyone has heard this track”. This coincides with hip hop continuing to diminish as a cultural force, replaced, as it was in the late 00’s going into the early 2010’s, with more escapist genres, like pop and EDM. With the exception of Kendrick’s Not Like Us, what was the last really viral rap track you can think of – let alone an album (this year) that sold really well? Even the recently disgraced Drake hasn’t had one of those. Conversely, listeners are rabidly latching on to the few strong, thematically-whole bodies of unapologetically (and mostly white) genre-music that have crossed over recently (think Charli XCX’s Brat, Chappell Roan’s Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n Sweet).
With that pre-amble out of the way, I tried to aggressively whittle this mix down to a fleet 35 or so tracks, some contemporary, some classic, and all 100% AK approved.
We begin with a beautifully moody piece of 90’s post-grunge pop rock, Mazzy Star’s beloved Fade Into You. Lead singer Hope Sandoval’s ethereal voice and lyrics (“I wanna hold the hand inside you”) combine with a deceptively precise jangling of tambourines to evoke a sense of painful longing, though the tempo does eventually rise, as if to imply joy or hope replacing the darkness. A strange wrinkle is that Hope Sandoval famously refused to perform on stages where her face and body were clearly lit, which is probably the reason Mazzy Star all but, forgive the expression, faded away after this hit.
The theme of longing continues on Vampire Weekend’s Mary Boone, one of the best records the band has ever cut, in this writer’s opinion . Starting sparse, with detuned vocals courtesy of Ezra Koenig, hints of violin and a subtle choir all but explode into an orchestral, polyphonic symphony which does not sound unlike Moby’s (stunning) Porcelain.. The following track, act ii: date @ 8, continues to ease us into the mix, as Dallas native rapper 4Batz croons softly about the lengths to which he’ll go to pamper his girlfriend, casually dropping “five hunnid for your fuckin hair / two hunnid for your fuckin nails”.
The energy picks up with the newest song on this mix, Sticky, a standout track from Tyler, The Creator’s just-released CHROMAKOPIA album. “Weird” is sort of Tyler’s M.O. and that’s certainly true of the opening of this track, where the word “stickyyyy” is shouted atonally over a barely-there beat. After about a minute, in a Tyler declares “I don’t care about no pronouns / I’m that nigga and that bitch”, the beat drops, and Glorilla kicks the door down. Turns out this is something of an all-superstar posse cut, even though they aren’t credited as features, and I won’t give away exactly all of whom appears here. Next, The Kid LAROI, thunders over a semi-psychedelic trap beat on WHAT WENT WRONG???, as he struggles to process a recently failed relationship: “Did I do too much? / Was it not enough? / I need some closure / can you open up?” Then, the party continues with the deceptively danceable electric-funk double header of Palo Alto pop act Remi Wolf’s “Cinderella” and Chicago R&B artist Ravyn Lenae’s “Love Me Not”.
“Bad Kids” is an unexpectedly hilarious, self deprecating banger from Polo G’s recent album, a two hander between the (also) Chicago native and the ascendant, Memphis, TN rapper Gloria “Glorilla” Woods, trading bars about their own untrustworthiness as a romantic partner. Glorilla is particularly blunt, boasting “If he ever catch me cheating / I’m blaming him / and playing the victim / I ain’t shit” . On a similarly self-aware, humorous tip comes Florida artist Doechii’s “DENIAL IS A RIVER”, from her criminally underrated “Alligator Bites Never Heal” album. Here, shechannels the spirit of Biggie Smalls over a sparse, boom-bap beat, assuming a dual role as both herself, the artist, and her own (incredibly judgmental) therapist who interrogates Doechii about the gap between her latest projects, and who responds to statements like “I’m going through a lot” with “You mean drugs?”
Returning to this playlist series is an old staple, Caribou – nom de guerre of Canadian mathematics PhD Dan Snaith, who has ultimately chosen to apply his calculative precision to good-vibes-based electronic dance music (or as my friend Ryan used to unironically put it: PLUR), releasing at least 10 studio albums since the year 2000. Apart from Beyonce, it would be nearly impossible to think of another artist whose output has not only managed to stay timely over two and a half decades, but just keep getting better. The hypnotic, irresistible “Got to Change” wouldn’t feel out of place on a Daft Punk record, revolving around a 7 word vocal loop (e.g.: Around the World [link]).
This thrusts us into a real party section of the mix, beginning with an artist whom I’d never heard before, but whose output I have been loving this year: Allie X. Over a bumping house beat, Allie explores body dysmorphia, having more fun with it than that sentence would imply. BANKS’ I Hate Your Ex-Girlfriend sports a similarly hard hitting club beat but with a vindictive streak; the real standout of the track is the Doechii feature, who takes over the entire back half of the track, ping ponging between an Azealia Banks-esque shouted flow and the sort of sultry, low-voiced sound that BANKS usually trafficks in.
The pioneering producer SOPHIE, who produced hits for the likes of Rihanna, and Madonna, was truly one of a kind, which is why it was such a massive blow to the world of forward thinking pop when she tragically died from an accidental fall (off a statue of Aphrodite, apparently) in Athens in 2021. Since then, a posthumous record was long teased, having finally released within a couple of weeks of this writing. While the album turns out, sadly, to not be worthy of the artist’s legacy, Reason Why, featuring Kim Petras, hits like a fucking cement truck. SOPHIE’s signature, bouncy synths and a chipmunked vocal sample underlie a particularly sassy verse from Kim, who brags “that designer shit I can’t pronounce / wear it once and then I throw it out”, producing a song which sounds like it could have been a new direction for the now-mostly-dormant “hyper pop” genre she helped create.
SOPHIE was also known for helping take Charlie XCX, a relatively forgettable pop girlie in the mid-2010s, to the “next level”, having a hand, along with A.G. Cook in creating the Vroom Vroom album. Its aggressive, confident, experimental, and in-your-face sound garnered Charli a massive fanbase in gay and underground communities, paving the way for her masterpiece (my opinion), the criminially under-heard Pop 2. I say all this to introduce a track from the Brat album which has caused Charli’s mainstream appeal to skyrocket; or rather, from its companion remix album. I know a lot of people are gonna disagree with me on this one, but the first (I think?) remix released is still the best one: Von Dutch, with Addison Rae. The rhythm of the track is exquisite, but I particularly enjoy the braggadocious interplay between Charli – the elder artist here, leaning into her newfound icon status – and her Padawan, Addison Rae, as they trade bars like:
Von Dutch, cult classics, but I still pop
Pack the LV case, watch me do a little globe trot
Got a lot to say about my debut
about my constant revenue
I guess that makes sense
cuz I’m just livin’ that life.”
Passenger Princess (Jibbitz) is similarly sassy, and yet another trunk rattling banger from the super-underrated Monaleo. Teaming up with Stunna 4 Vegas, Leo boasts about her ability to turn a thug into the type of dude who’s so domesticated that he’s trading his black Air Forces for crocs adorned with charms (aka jibbitz): “this pussy turned a hood nigga to a house nigga, no lie / I can’t make this up”. A$AP Rocky, better known as Mr. Rihanna’, returns with HIGHJACK, where he spits some of his best verses in years over a spacy, bass forward beat, before transitioning abruptly into a mellow, heavenly extended outro, with Rocky’s vocals dropping out entirely, allowing singer Jessica Pratt’s honey-coated voice closes out the song.
Now we’ve got a back-to-back set of tracks you’ve absolutely heard before, perhaps many times: The Killers’ Read My Mind and Chappelle Roan’s Pink Pony Club. But hear me out: for one, they’re both so good, do you really mind hearing them again? They share a thematic thread, too, both being arena-sized power pop anthems about leaving a town that feels way too small for their ambitions. On the latter, a wicked electric guitar solo closes out the track, showing off Roan’s rock-and-roll bonafides.
Though it doesn’t appear until a bit later in the mix, I wanted to talk about Echo and the Bunnymen’s The Killing Moon, a piece of neo-psychodelia which was a moderate hit in the UK when it was released in 1984, but is now widely known as “the song from Donnie Darko“. That’s for good reason, as it’s the song that plays over the opening scene, as Donnie awakens in the middle of a road, hops onto his bike, and rides back home, past myriad Reagan-era suburbanites going about their pointless business in HyperColor track suits and such. The use of The Killing Moon against such a benign, pedestrian backdrop is perfect, putting the viewer in a time and place, while quietly foreshadowing an ominous, inevitable doom. More over, its inscrutable lyrics (“open your arms, too late to beg you / or cancel it though I know it must be / the killing time / unwillingly mine”) mirror the nearly indecipherable plot of Darko (without an explainer, that is), and its conflicting themes of fate, destiny, and the role of free will therein, are central to the film itself. Sadly, director Richard Kelly was unable to get the rights to the song again when making his Director’s Cut, and had to instead score the scene to (the much inferior) Never Tear Us Apart, by INXS.
Then, we find London-based Shygirl in peak form on tell me, where she teams up with legendary DJ Boyz Noize to serve up a song that really encapsulates what she does best – pairing eerie, love sick vocals, floating over a euro-club ready techno beat. I Can’t Be Still is the first single from Illuminati Hotties since 2021, oozing an itchy, restless energy and fuzzy bass riffs. True to the song’s lyrics, Hotties’ front-woman and creator, Sarah Tudzin, hasn’t just been sitting around in that time; she was in fact a key contributor to last year’s boygenius album, winning a couple of Grammys for her trouble in the process.
Tough finds Lana Del Rey paired up with ex-Migos founder Quavo, which may sound like a surprising combination, until you remember that Lana began her career closely associated with A$AP Rocky, even bafflingly proclaiming once that he is the artist she has the most in common with. Del Rey, recent gator wife, has always had a gift for evoking classic Americana, and Tough is no exception, as she croons: “tough like a scuff on a pair of old leather boots / like the blue-collar, red-dirt attitude / like a .38 made out of brass / tough like the stuff in your grandpa’s glass” in her signature, airy stye. Quavo plays the role of a world-weary guide to the city out of whose mud he emerged, making reference to standing strong in the face of the accidental killing of his nephew and fellow Migo, Takeoff.
Michael Jackson’s Will You Be There is most often associated with the 1993 hit family film Free Willy, though it was recorded well before, and only became attached to the film’s soundtrack when the studio increased their music budget increased after positive test audience screenings. If there’s any real link between the two, I suppose it would be that – like Willy, the imprisoned Orca fated for euthanasia – Michael’s gathers energy slowly before emerging into a fever pitch of gospel-backed tunes, showing off some of the cleanest sounding vocals of his entire career in the process. Chris Lacy of Albumism put it best when he called it “a symphonic, heart-wrenching confession in which the shackles of Jackson’s deepest insecurities snap and crash to the floor”. Staying firmly planted in the 90s for a moment, we have the Gin Blossoms’ Hey Jealousy, which has a story behind it that is just as compelling as the earworm of a track itself. Written by lead guitarist Doug Hopkins, it took four years from the original recording to the song becoming a massive Billboard hit. In that time, Hopkins had been fired from the band for his constant, excessive drinking, apparently often showing up to practice or perform while barely able to stand. The song sounds like an alcoholic’s “moment of clarity”, as the song’s soused protagonist appears at an ex girlfriend’s house in a doomed attempt to win her back: “You can see I’m in no shape for driving, and anyway, I’ve got no place to go”. The same year that Hey Jealousy exploded onto the Billboard charts, its writer and original singer, Doug Hopkins tragically died by suicide, reportedly smashing the gold record he’d been sent from the band who fired him, for the song he wrote and (originally) recorded, just a couple of days before.
Bon Voyage brings us into the last leg of the mix, a relaxing and beautiful bit of gothic electropop from Allie X, an artist I had not heard of until the release of her excellent album Girl With No Face earlier this year, though she has been active in the Canadian music scene since the early 00s. The same is true of Laura Marling, to whom I was introduced via her incredible new album Patterns In Repeat, though it is apparently the 8th in her discography, which, yes, is a lot. All of its songs are actually ballads written to her newborn baby, cleverly doubling as straightforward, romantic love songs if you didn’t know better. No One’s Gonna Love You Like I Can is a prime example: a simple, one-woman-and-a-piano track that is so achingly lovely and intimate, it feels like Laura has invited you into her studio, and by extension, her mind. That’s an uncomfortable place to be, as a stranger,
- Trivia for Nerds:
- “Voice from the Outer World” is a translation of Lisan Al-Gaib in the fictional, ancient Chakobsa language spoken by the Fremen and Bene Gesserit order. It is synonymous with the “Kwisatz Haderach” – a mythical being, the supposed product of hundreds of generations of Gesserit bio-engineering, and who was originally intended to be a fully prescient, oracular male Bene Gesserit. In as much, that person would be capable of total foresight and “other memory” – that is – the actual, literal memories of every single one of their ancestors; yet totally under BG control. Thanks to some unsanctioned genetic tampering by one of their most adept, the Lady Jessica, Paul Atreides emerged as a Kwisatz Haderach “a generation too early”, to catastrophic results – albeit as a result of his own compassion and unwillingness to take the horrific steps necessary to achieve the Golden Path, which ultimately ensures the long term survival of the human race.
- Mary Boone is a real person btw – an NY-based daughter of Egyptian emigrants who has grown wealthy and influential as an art dealer over the past several decades. Despite dozens of (well-deserved) controversies, Boone was among the first major exhibitors of no less than Roy Lichtenstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
- It used to be a pet peeve of mine when publications would constantly list what city the artist was from, but the older I’ve gotten, the more I understand how that influences their sound and public persona. What I’m saying is: I do that shit too, now.
- Gin Blossoms lead singer Robin Wilson insisted that the lyrics “you can trust me not to drink” be changed to “trust me not to think”, saying that his band and its music was already too well associated with heavy drinking (“gin blossoms” referring to the red, blotchy rosacea sometimes found on alcoholics).
- If you like Fade Into You and want to hear more from Mazzy Star, check out the whole So Tonight That I Might See album, and their single Flowers in December.
- I hate to add to the already disturbing amount of discourse around the artist, but I see Chappell Roan’s success as a dark reflection of Billie Eilish’s; where Billie ushered in the era of refusing to strain one’s voice, or go between more than two octaves during performances or vocal recordings, Chappell is happy to belt her lyrics with a complete commitment and lack of irony; measured, as our pre-modern divas were. That’s a compliment btw. We want to hear your fucking voice! I also think Chappell’s politics are very good, she’s got some great songs, and I’m happy to see an openly gay woman at the head of the charts.
Questionable Lyrics Zone:
(Note: I am not necessarily making fun of these lyrics, I just find them either odd, interesting, or funny)
- “Gettin’ money like a DJ” – Kim Petras, Reason Why (Sophie feat. Kim Petras). Just because Kim is apparently dating one of the Chainsmokers does not mean DJ’s make a lot of money lmao. They make like $30 an hour, and have to bring their own mult-thousand dollar equipment.
- “I wanna hold the hand inside you” – Mazzy Star, Fade Into You. I would love to know what that means!
- “I know he ain’t shit / I just play along, and fake it with him / Dick so good, wish I could pack it in my purse / and take it with me” – Glorilla, Bad Kids. I have nothing to add except — LMAO.
- “I can be anything I wanna do” – Remi Wolf, Cinderella, possibly channeling Futurama’s Phillip J Fry.
- Though the song is called “Hey Jealousy”, a phrase repeated frequently in its refrain, nothing in particular about the song indicates a jealous lover. I’m sure it made sense to the song writer at the time.
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