listening to Your Favorite Songs 2024, part 12

Are u having fun yet?

Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine, part ten, part eleven.

"Philautia" - samlrc
from DJ Ellie
"Lush as fuck"

Put this one in the I Would Have Never Heard Of This If Someone Hadn't Gone and Told Me About It Bucket, because I was totally unfamiliar with Brazilian experimental musician and artist samlrc, who released A Lonely Sinner in March of this year. "Philautia" is a 12-minute epic (in, like, the ancient Greek sense—the title refers to the ancient Greek concept of self-love) that's mostly instrumental, save for a lo-fi section where samlrc's Samantha Rodrigues sings about building a sense of identity: "I'm trying my hardest / To water my flowers / And collecting my sins / Not just for my garden / But for who I am."

The way this song builds from sparse ambient tones to pounding post-rock is measured, patient and striking. I thought about nature every time I listened—the yearly act of moving from dark and sparse winter to fruitful spring, first gradually and then at hyperspeed.

Btw recommender and fellow music enjoyer DJ Ellie just dropped a sick mixtape called live from nowhere in particular​.​zip and YOU should listen to THAT.

"Pumpkin" - Been Stellar
from Elodie
"I remember stopping in my tracks when I first heard this song. It was like meeting an old friend I had no memories of. Besides being an effortlessly cool, catchy song that I replayed ad nauseam, I couldn't help but love hearing the indie rock bands of my youth reflected in a modern band. I wrapped this song around me like my favorite sweater I wore so much it frayed and pockmarked. My song of the year from my album of the year."

It's fun to write about a band, but it's even more fun to write about a band "through the lens" of a local independent media operation that tipped me off to the band's existence. Last time I shouted out NYC showpaper / newsletter GUNK, who facilitated my first listen of Bassvictim. Now let's shout out Jackie's Show, a seemingly Instagram-only show that chops up live music footage with scenester-on-the-street interviews, all shot on glorious camcorder. The account posted a recap of a Been Stellar show at Baby's All Right at the end of 2022 and I watched it and thought, wow everyone's going nuts about Been Stellar, they seem to be a Band To Watch.

Enjoying music in New York City often involves pinning your hopes to an exciting but callow band that in all likelihood will sputter out after a couple of singles and maybe an EP. But Been Stellar seem to be making a genuine play—this year they signed to Dirty Hit and put out Scream from New York, NY, a stately rock album that blends all the best influences of the NYC Rock Revival (yr Interpols, yr Strokes, even yr Jonathan Fire*Eaters) into a delicious smoothie. I love the austerity of "Pumpkin," which hits like that first blast of autumn air after summer ends, as well as the open-ended lyrics, which leave plenty of room for projection. Mature but youthful, retro but fresh, somehow aloof and earnest at the same time...I want more!!

"Goated" - Armani White feat. Denzel Curry
from Memes4thekids
"It’s Goated, Miss Molly/ Golly!"

Though this song is about being the greatest of all time, or at least being very good at things, there are touches of humility throughout "Goated" that make me smile. For example, Armani White drives a Tesla around Miami Beach because he does not prefer to walk, and then he can't find a suitable charger to refuel. Likewise, Denzel Curry acknowledges that people might not be able to name a particular song of his, but it doesn't matter, because he's still making plenty of money. It is the acceptance of shortcomings that truly makes one goated.

This is also the second song on the I Enjoy Music Listens To Your Favorite Songs of 2024 list to refer to Megan Thee Stallion as a pinnacle of physical beauty. Maxo Kream wants a woman with "Megan knees"; Armani customizes his build-out, preferring a lady with "hips on Thee Stallion and Doja her top half." We are building a Franken-Meg...we are building it better.

I was palpating my brain trying to figure out where else I had heard Armani White, and then I realized he made the megaviral song "BILLIE EILISH." which name-checks that pop star of the billowing shirts and samples a pitched-up version of the instrumental of N.O.R.E.'s "Nothin" (a goated song). Armani displays a deft musicality on both songs, knowing exactly when to relax and when to beat up the beat.

"Close" - Gustaf
from Ryan Dann
"It's a perfectly executed mix of contempt and vulnerability, to be so fucking angry at the love you have for someone who you know doesn't deserve it, without being overly sentimental or pathetic. Lydia Gammill sells it so effortlessly it's like she just picked up a penny she found on the ground."

The zippy tempo and neurotic guitars are enough to win me over, but: a moment for the vocal performance on "Close," my goodness. So commanding and charismatic. Gammill squares off against a hostile partner ("You're leering at me sideways / Feeding, fueling the fight") then ducks inward for reflection ("Something's off / I lose, lose when I try"), looping everything into the repeated, ambiguous question "Are you close?" Ugghhh I can hear that special blend of external anger and internal loathing, that "stop hitting yourself" feeling that happens when you're giving someone the most humiliating task ever: Please, Care More 🤦🏻‍♀️

"Time Makes Fools of Us All" - Father John Misty
from Dean
"Every FJM album has a lengthy, meandering track where he surveys our vicious, evil, dying world and his stupid place as a song and dance man in it. I think this is the best of that micro-genre of his. But also: those horns tho!"

For years, I had avoided FJM's music. It was like I was allergic to it. My rationale was fairly superficial: his image appeared to me as "guy making sarcastic crooner music about how hard it is to be a sarcastic crooner," and in the girlbossy mid-2010s, I just didn't want to hear it. But I got older, got off the WeWork hamster wheel, and chilled out a little. Then I moved to L.A. and was finally ready for "Father John Misty Mindset": being fascinated by glamour, prestige, and our unending appetite for entertainment, but rolling my eyes at it all every so often, or wearing sunglasses to protect against the glare.

This is all to say that I get it now. It's like how I had to stop watching Girls when it aired, but now I find it incredible—some things are just a little too on the nose to handle in the moment, but luckily, time makes fools of us all. If someone had just told me FJM is musical David Foster Wallace, I'd have softened earlier! This song rips, I'm glad he took his usual culture polemic instincts and made them DISCO. Laugh to keep from crying, dance to keep from dying.

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Thanks to all the song recommenders <3 See you...tomorrow...