listening to Your Favorite Songs 2024, part 10
Fifty songs complete, and we're just getting started. Well, we're probably a little over halfway done realistically but whatever.
Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine.
"Just a Western" - Nilüfer Yanya
from Miguel Diaz
The second appearance on this Your Faves list from Nilüfer Yanya, and once again I am listening and thinking about this 'elusive' quality of her music. "Just A Western," like "Mutations," is constantly on the edge of something without offering completion or relief. It's a migraine aura, the distortion at the edges of a wide angle lens, the feeling of going to sleep when it's light out and waking up in total darkness. The muted chords never really resolve, and the satisfaction I crave as a Max Martin-indoctrinated lab-grown pop fiend eludes me, and I must reckon with this craving for resolution in my entertainment. Do you know that video where someone tells her mother that "Jesus was seen" and the mother responds, "Show it to me please! Send it to me, Rachel!"? That's how I feel sometimes with music that gets off on being withholding. Send it to me, Rachel!!
"Mouse Trap" - Liquid Mike
from Nathan
By any measure, Liquid Mike had a killer recent run. They have a backstory that is a dream for blurb-writing bloggers like myself—the titular Mike is mailman-turned-frontman Mike Maple, and the band hails from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, an unlikely location that evokes visions of, like, moose and hockey, rather than tightly executed power pop—and I think by the time their fourth album S/T blew up last year, everyone was excited for some good old fashioned band hype. But the hype is real: every time I hear a Liquid Mike song, I marvel at its clarity and catchiness. The "Mouse Trap" riff is so simple, but so punchy and effective.
Trendspotting: Midwest excellence is only going to increase in intensity. Chappell Roan built herself a Midwest Princess throne, Wishy is holding it down in Indiana, the incredible film Hundreds of Beavers has its roots in Wisconsin, and Meaghan Garvey's newsletter SCARY COOL SAD GOODBYE is required reading for anyone who finds intrigue and glamour in brandy Old Fashioneds and supper clubs full of taxidermied wildlife. Even I, a coastal dipshit, can sense the power of the Midwest.
"Reckless" - Kassie Krut
Tatiana Tenreyro (EIC of ANTICS)
"I became obsessed with this song after Kassie Krut played it at the ANTICS fundraiser show. It's catchy as hell, the synths send shivers down my spine, and it makes you feel invincible. I'm so happy they ended up putting it out as one of the first singles off the new album because I had it stuck in my head for months; it's perhaps one of the best songs I've heard in years."
I'm such a sucker for people spelling words in songs. Perhaps it is the latent cheerleader in me, or the former spelling bee champion (fifth grade, babe, not even a big deal, just kidding, huge deal). The "B-A-N-A-N-A-S" in Gwen Stefani's classically batshit "Hollaback Girl," the "B-E-H-A-V-E AGGRESSIVE!" in Grimes's sensational "Kill V. Maim," even Fergie coolly making her way through "G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S" on the song of the same name—what can I say, orthographical lyrics give me a thrill.
So I was already pumped up by the Peaches-style electroclash drums at the beginning of "Reckless," but when Kasra Krut started spelling her name ("If you ask me who I wanna be / Imma spell it out so it's plain to see / K-A-S-S-I-E K-R-U-T-T-T-T") with the blasé confidence of someone who knows they won't have to spell out anything for anyone pretty soon, I went, well, bananas.
Big shout 2 ANTICS by the way, EIC Tatiana and executive editor Beverly Bryan put together an extremely slick *print only * magazine this year featuring bands like Charly Bliss, Hinds, DIIV, and This is Lorelei. Also a profile of the band fantasy of a broken heart by yrstruly, but that's neither here nor there. Buy a copy and you will become a cooler person, even if you are already very cool.
"Vampire in the Corner" - Magdalena Bay
from Julien
Woo woooo, Magdalena Bay are responsible for one of my favorite albums of the year. I've been enjoying this band's wares since they were putting out frothy synth pop best enjoyed via an ancient boom box on the beach, but 2021's fractal jam "Chaeri" was the track that made me do a double-take and realize they were gunning for more than just awesome pool party music. Mercurial World was incredible, Imaginal Disk might be even better? Even if the cover art kind of freaks me out. Based on her placid facial expression, it at least looks like True, the main character of the concept album, had some topical anesthesia applied before the software installation began.
If we're making Imaginal Disk picks, I'm a "That's My Floor" girl because I need to be doing the most at all times. But the relatively mellow "Vampire In The Corner" still gets its kicks at the end, whipping itself into a frenzy of buzzing, distorted synths and practically dog-whistle level falsetto from Mica Tenenbaum. If you, like me, lost your mind over the aforementioned Grimes' Art Angels (probably one of my favorite albums of the 2010s) and then found yourself disappointed with her subsequent...choices...pick up the pieces, Mag Bay is waiting for u.
"Slow Mafia" - Episode One podcast in kayfabe performed by the rappers Mr. Oh He So Goldbars, Bart The Human, The Artist Formerly Known as Baby Lover, Big Sneaky, and Yung DUI
from Andrew
"There are better songs this year, and certainly smarter ones, but this is the one that got stuck in my head. Probably because I love deeply stupid projects that people put a lot of work into. A wildly ambitious, very dumb parody of rap supergroups that clocks in at around thirty goddamn minutes (with sketches and beat changes built into the song), the song is filled with 'brain damaged Scott Storch Beats', lyrics walking the thinnest tightrope ever between clever and the worst stuff Lil Wayne ever put out, and all built upon the concept (explained in an episode of the pseudo improv comedy podcast Episode One) that the rappers laying down bars on this song have known each other from grade school and this song has been a decades long passion project where nobody ever removed any ideas, resulting in the occasional verse complaining that they 'never knew preschool could be so coal.' It's an absolute mess, but the fact that I'm still repeating various hooks to myself months later probably says something, both about me and the work that went into the song."
Andrew did a great job explaining the provenance of this insane podcast parody music, so I'll skip most of the preamble. The E1 guys are wildly talented and no one else is making parody music on their level—"Spring Break Summer," their warm weather drunk driving anthem credited to 'Bryan Brantley' and 'NBA Stupid A$s', is better than anything on Post Malone's F-1 Trillion—and this particular song is really something. Name-checking Mr. Beast and Paul Giamatti, lyrics about spending $50k on pills and trying to kill yourself by using a trebuchet to "catapult...across the town into an electric transformer," and an unspeakable Christmas-themed verse? This song truly has something for everyone.
Thanks for reading I Enjoy Music! If you like it, tell a friend.
Thanks to all the song recommenders <3 See you...tomorrow...
