Sometimes, you just cannot force a square peg into a round hole. This could have been a bedroom pop album in the way of something like Clairo’s debut album. That would have allowed her to deliver something short and focused and something that would stay more tightly defined within the sound that she got traction with. Heaven knows clearly has larger pop ambitions and while that might very well be in her future, the result right now is an album with plenty of strong moments, but not enough interesting music to carry the full project.
This comes up particularly strongly in the songs with features. You can see how these were designed for crossover appeal. However, the Central Cee verse just drags down a song with clever moments, but one that was already struggling to hold up its own weight. Similarly, I felt that the Ice Spice feature, while a cultural moment for both of them, is not one of her best.
PinkPantheress has moments, especially in songs like “Feelings”, with very compelling sounds and she’s still way too exciting to write off, but this album isn’t the breakout she wanted it to be.
Olivia Rodrigo is very young and there’s nothing that’ll make you feel old quicker than a young popstar. Much of the best music is about bad decisions. “bad idea right?” manages to fall on the right side of making it sound fun. Even better is the soft vocalizing going into grunge. She moves into punk rock with this album and it suits her well. The rock is particularly good in the highlight of the album “ballad of a homeschooled girl.” She hits the chorus perfectly and the stripped-down storytelling is excellent. This is great lo-fi rock and shows her to her best.
“get him back” leans even harder into the mistakes of youth and ends up unconvincing. The rock is fun and the double meaning is cute, but there could have been a fun tension between the two halves of the song and instead it’s just cliche. This tendency towards easy-to-consume narratives regularly brings the album down. “all-american bitch” gestures to Didion (even if the essay has something very different to say), but there’s an honesty in Didion that you don’t see here. SOUR was a sharper, more pointed album and one that had a central motivation that gave Rodrigo a way to be honest. GUTS misses that and so leans hard on tropes instead.
I do really like the move to rock and to punk though. The ballads here like “teenage dream” and “making the bed” do nothing for me, but when she rocks out, she has fun and energy and it’s a great look for her. She’s big enough now to be able to take some risks as she fully defines herself and this was one that paid off magnificently.
5 songs on one EP, 2 great, 2 good and 1 okay. “Obsessed” has a wonderful egotism that, along with a slight hitch, makes the chorus an instant earworm. “2 die 4” works well with Charli and songs benefit from truly excellent, truly conceited pop conceits.
“i got it bad” and “it could’ve been you” are both solid pop bangers. “Nothing On (But the Radio)” is a little better than the Gaga original, but still lacking in ideas. I’d rather not have lost two and a half of a twelve minute EP to something so uninspired, but I guess a good cover might at least bring some people in.
Short, sparkling and a little flawed, AR comes in, iridescent as a bubble and pops. This is the kind of moment of time that we listen to pop for. I just wish that music video was better.
This is the sunniest pop that I’ve heard in quite a while. NewJeans are the most unrepentantly fun pop group out there. They’re making bright music and they bring visuals to boot. You cannot skip the videos if you’re checking out this band, they’re an essential part of the experience.
The singles are what make the EP. They’re the best of the songs and they’re immaculately choreographed. The off-cuts are quite forgettable, but Lisbon has never looked so summery as in “Super Shy” and that dance move with the iPhone in “ETA” gets me every time. Even visual-free, this would be immaculate pop, but when you take them at their whole, they are spectacular.
“Girls” is an incredible song. It’s right there in the sweet spot of smart and dumb and infectious as all get-out. Every single line in this track is all of these at once and horny as hell. This is “Short Skirt / Long Jacket” for the current moment and a much better song in every way. It’s funny, it’s great club music and it’s infinitely quotable. This is the rare song that knows what it wants to be and does it perfectly.
Unfortunately, the rest of the album is more grating than otherwise. “Sex” is almost a real song but ends up short and the rest aren’t even that. Spend your time with “Girls” instead.
How high is your tolerance for memery? Unless you’ve been totally fried by the internet, it’s probably not quite high enough for 100 gecs. This is music for the terminally online made by the terminally online. It’s loud and noisy and it can be very stupid and being stupid is often the point, but it’s still stupid. For all of that though, it can still sometimes come out with something that changes your life.
“Doritos and Fritos” is what I’m talking about. It skids around the place and memes a lot more than it really should, but there are really interesting fragments studded in there. They just have a much better ear for music than your typical hyperpop band.
In particular, “Dumbest Girl Alive” is incredible. It’s got great lyrics, you can tell that the writers have the internet as their first language. “Put emojis on my grave / I’m the dumbest girl alive” is immediately memorable and “Text, text, text, text, like you’re tryna start a fight / Yeah, I’ll fuckin’ text you back, I’m the dumbest girl alive” is an excellent distillation of the song.
For all that though, the lyrics are much less interesting than what the band does sonically. The alt-rock of my adolescence was something of a cultural wasteland, but it has proved to be incredibly fertile raw material for the musicians of today and 100 gecs take that to the extreme.
Similarly, “Billy Knows Jamie” could have been scoped by Trent Reznor. The production throughout is just the most absurd showcase of talent. Something like “Hollywood Baby” is so clearly intelligent that no posturing can diminish it.
“Frog on the Floor” and “I Got My Tooth Removed” both play much closer to the line though. The edge between dumb and good gets very fine with this album and both of these songs are constantly teetering on both sides of the ledge. “One Million Dollars” has fallen right off though. There’s just not much that’s actually interesting in that song, just a lot of played out sounds mixed together in a rather boring way.
10,000 gecs is an uneven album, but it’s impossible to imagine an album like this that’s not. If you’re willing to let it bounce off the wall, you’ll find a lot to love on the rebound. Just don’t get square in its path.
It’s still kind of crazy to see The Weeknd filling a stadium like SoFi. He’s as big a superstar as anyone in the world right now, but it’s sometimes hard not to see him as the kid with the big hair in the small club. It’s also interesting to see because his music isn’t really stadium rock. He has maybe the greatest voice of any male singer and it’s a delicate instrument. His ability to update his catalog for the less subtle arena atmosphere is an impressive feat.
Every song in this feels different from the recorded version. He makes his music much more muscular and less ethereal and makes it all work anyway. This stadium seats 70,240 people. There are cities with fewer people. I spent a night in Pinhão for my last anniversary. That has a population of 10,486. This is not a small crowd.
He works them all well too. He lets each beat ride for a second with each song just to give the crowd time to get hype and he just lets the audience sing key parts. He’s always talking to the crowd and the album does a good job in mixing in so much of their noise. It’s a far cry from when I saw him around 2014 and he would project images of girls in bondage on the screens around him.
I also appreciate his mixing in old hits. It’s fantastic to see a “Crew Love” appearance. He updates some of them up quite a bit too. There’s a whole new beat for “Wicked Games” and I love it. “Often” also feels completely fresh. His voice is much higher in the original and he shifted the beat to something much more ominous for the live crowd.
You can fell the shift in the arena when he goes for the crowd pleasers though. I never really liked “I Feel It Coming”, the most Michael Jackson of his tracks, but when he performs it for an audience, it fits like a glove. I also didn’t really give “Starboy” its due as an audience track until now and this made it shine in a whole new way.
This is The Weeknd in a whole new aspect for me and he handles it excellently. Of course, he has been a superstar for a long time and that Colbert appearance should have been more than enough to demonstrate his capabilities as such, but sometimes it takes me a while to see. Live At SoFi Stadium makes it more than clear though. The Weeknd really can do it all.
Of all the solo careers coming out of One Direction, there’s no doubt that Harry Styles is just a notch above. He didn’t necessarily start out that way: his eponymous debut album showed promise with its 60s-tinged classic pop sounds, but ultimately proved to be fairly mediocre. Things got better with his second album Fine Line (2019) which featured earworm-of-the-decade “Watermelon Sugar” and bagged Styles his first Grammy (for the same track).
In the years since that album and third album Harry’s House (2022), a lot has happened in Styles’ personal life. Most notably: actress and now award-winning director Olivia Wilde famously left her partner and father of her two children for Harry Styles. Olivia’s presence features subtly throughout the album’s lyrics – appropriately so, since Harry’s House is apparently meant to be about a day in his brain.
“Late Night Talking”, the album’s second single, is a bright R&B track with a ridiculously catchy chorus that features the title words. With the references to breaking cameras and following his lady to Hollywood, we guess that the late night talks in question were with Ms. Wilde. If “Late Night Talking” bases itself on oblique references, “Cinema” gives it to us straight as the most direct ode to Olivia. The track lays bare the equation between them – she, the worldly cool older woman and he, the eager-to-please and madly in love. “I just think you’re cool, I dig your cinema / Do you think I’m cool, too? Or am I too into you?” he simpers. Also notable: his voice may be sweet may be sweet but the lyrics on this track definitely veer into some spicy territory with his thoughts about her.
There are other tracks on this album that are great outside of referencing his new lady love, though. Opening track “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” immediately grabs your attention with the heavy bass lines and Styles’ charming falsetto. The bright and brassy chorus makes for an altogether irresistible track – one can even call it a “song of the summer”. Of course, it would have to share that title with Styles’ other big hit from the album – first single “As It Was”. It’s not “Watermelon Sugar” in terms of sheer virality but it’s as great of an addition to his discography. The instrumentals are bright but muted, and his vocals have a melancholy edge to them – if the whole album is about a day in the life in his brain, this is about a not-so-good day where he’s sitting at home, alone, on the floor, and possibly with drugs, to numb his loneliness.
“Daydreaming” is another sunny and bright track with horns, a thick bass and almost a disco feel in its exuberance, while “Satellite” is a decent track with some interesting drums and a space analogy to the distance between two individuals – kind of in the same spiritual tone as Ariana Grande’s “NASA”. Finally, “Matilda” is a sweet track ostensibly written for the title character of Roald Dahl’s classic novel (or at least someone like her). The quality of his vocals shines in its warmth and understanding on the chorus: “You can let it go, you can throw a party full of everyone you know / And not invite your family ’cause they never showed you love, you don’t have to be sorry for leavin’ and growin’ up”.
Beyond these tracks, though, the album has its fair share of weaker tracks – not duds, especially, but low on the notability scale. A lot of these tracks seem to be about a failed romance that, in retrospect, judging by the relative quality of these tracks, hasn’t provided the best inspiration for him. “Daylight” is a largely forgettable track about a withholding girlfriend while “Grapejuice”, “Little Freak” and “Keep Driving” are mild, vague tracks about the missed love interest, albeit with some interesting visual cues (red wine; ginger ale; tracksuits hiding a yoga-toned body). Album closer “Love of My Life” caps off this series of tracks with a final ode to this lost love; distance seemed to have been the death knell (“It’s unfortunate / Just coordinates”) so at least we have the full story there.
All in all, Harry’s House opens invitingly enough with some bright, brassy hits, but things get milder and less interesting the deeper you go in. To stick with his chosen house-as-mind analogy, perhaps there’s some finetuning and self-work that’s still pending on Styles’ end – and hopefully the next album will be even better.
Rating: 7/10
Best tracks: “Music for a Sushi Restaurant”, “As It Was”, “Late Night Talking”
After a short break, we are back with our Monthly Playlist series! This month, we saw the releases of much-anticipated albums from Wet Leg, Fontaines DC and more – not to mention news of perhaps the year’s most anticipated release, Kendrick Lamar’s new album. Read on to find out our picks from the month of April 2022, and let us know if you agree or disagree!
“Down” by Hot Chip
English synthpop band Hot Chip have been around for quite a while now – almost two decades, in fact – and they’ve got quite a few notable albums under their belts. Their second and third albums were particularly successful, with sophomore album The Warning (2006) fetching a Mercury Prize nom and third album Made in the Dark (2008) spawning the massive hit “Ready for the Floor”. Now, a few so-so albums later, the band is back with new single “Down” as the lead single for their eighth album Freakout/Release, set to come out in August 2022. “Down” is a jagged, off-kilter party romp that’s up there with the band’s best works. It’s just a fun dance music with a strong bassline, infectious breakdowns, and an insanely catchy phrase (“Girl, know how to break it on down!”) running through the background – definitely check this one out.
“About Damn Time” by Lizzo
(Note: This song was actually released in March 2022, but since we missed a Monthly Playlist in that month, we just had to include it in this one. Trust us, you’ll see why when you listen to the track!)
Speaking of irresistible dance music, there are few active artists today who can keep churning out the hits quite like Lizzo. In the latter part of 2021, she released the catchy “Rumors” with fellow artist du jour Cardi B – a track we liked so much that we put it on our year-end list. At the time, she mentioned that “Rumors” marked the start of a new era for her, possibly ahead of her planned 2022 album. Now she’s added another milestone to that new era with “About Damn Time” – a song seemingly about Lizzo re-discovering her confidence after a rocky few months. The world’s foremost flutist / funk-pop star describes how she’s finally in a mood to celebrate and get back out there. “Oh, I’ve been so down and under pressure, I’m way too fine to be this stressed, yeah / Oh, I’m not the girl I was or used to be, Uh, bitch, I might be better,” she says in her classic confidence, all set to a riff that would make Nile Rogers proud. The best thing is that this track also serves as a post-COVID anthem for those that are ready to get back out there after a couple of difficult years; when she says “Is everybody back up in the buildin’? It’s been a minute, tell me how you’re healin’”, we felt that.
“Barely on My Mind” by The Regrettes
The Regrettes are a punk rock band with a couple of albums to their names. But they seem to have taken a bit of a left turn with the dance-pop track “Barely on My Mind”. There are almost Phoenix-like turns of melody on the track, mixed with the magnetism of lead singer Lydia Night’s vocals. The track is part of their third album Future Joy, which was released in April 2022. We’ll surely be checking out the rest of the album with an introduction like this!
“Autopilot” by Dev Lemons
If you’re a TikTok regular, you are probably familiar with the work of Dev Lemons – not as a musician, but as the creator of the popular @songpsych page which boasts almost a million followers and 26 million (!) likes. On the page, Dev Lemons (real name Devon Schmalz) breaks down popular songs into the byte-sized format that suits the preferences of her Gen Z audience. However, not content with just being a music critic of sorts, Dev Lemons has now taken her insights into what makes songs popular (e.g., this video about the new Lizzo song that we also loved above) and has begun releasing original music too. Vaguely reminiscent of acts like Lily Allen, “Autopilot” amps up the synths on the chorus for a fun, catchy romp. Definitely check out Dev Lemons’ music – and of course her @songpsych channel if you’re on TikTok!
“Oh Algoritmo” by Jorge Drexler feat. Noga Erez
Jorge Drexler, the artist behind our final pick “Oh Algoritmo”, is one of the most interesting people you’ve never heard about. First and foremost, he’s a medical doctor – an otorhinolaryngologist (ENT) to be exact. Secondly, as if excellence in one specific skillset wasn’t enough, the Uruguayan won an Academy Award in 2004 for composing “Al Otro Lado del Rio” from the Motorcycle Diaries. This is not counting the numerous Latin Grammy Awards he’s racked up, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year. Suffice it to say, you owe it to yourself to at least give a listen to “Oh Algoritmo”, in which Drexler has paired up with Israeli singer-songwriter Noga Erez. The song immediately draws you in with a funky bassline and Drexler’s vocals set against a lively background of shakes, bops and beeps. By the time Erez’s confident English-language vocals come in, we’d bet that you’re hooked on to the angular, groovy vibes on this track.
Charli XCX knows that pop music isn’t about reinventing the wheel. In the age of social media ubiquity and its accompanying cult of authenticity, she doesn’t just play with the deja vu quality of pop music, but leans into it fully— a master of the art of making chart-friendly bops. In Charli’s hands, veering into radio-friendly territory is anything but conventional.
Charli is no stranger to pop music. She is a vocal fan of Britney Spears and the Spice Girls, and her smash hits “Boom Clap”, “I Love It” with Icona Pop, and Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” dominated the 2010s. As a bankable songwriter, she has also penned some of the most indelible earworms sung by other singers like Selena Gomez, Camilla Cabello, and Blondie among others. Pushing against the constraints of being a Hyperpop singer – a genre she pioneered – Crash sees her return to form in a slick pop music vein.
Playing with the decidedly mass market image of the pop diva, Charli revitalizes mainstream pop through Crash. Anointed the queen of “the future of pop,” Charli slyly challenges this legacy with references to older pop music and audaciously sampling some of the most recognizable hits of the past twenty years. The album is informed by the illusion of the singularity of the major label pop star, all by herself at the very top. Charli hurtles into self-aware pop, with a sonic palette ranging from the ’80s, 2000s and 2010s. The result is an instant classic pop album.
Crash is bangers from the outset, clocking in at a little over half an hour, and opens with the slow, rhythmic adrenaline injection of the title track. The warm, synthy, and ‘80s inspired “New Shapes” featuring Christine and the Queens, and Caroline Polachek (formerly of Chairlift fame) may as well be a tongue-in-cheek kiss off to Hyperpop, if only for the time being. “Constant Repeat” is an arena-sized dance floor scorcher. Its title alludes to the behavior of someone obsessed with a person the way one would be with a song. “You could have had a bad girl by your side,” sings the iconoclast who has proven that she can play the pop game with finesse. “Good Ones” has an intro resembling Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” and embodies a catchy ’80s revival sound of the 2000s that Charli grew up on.
Thematically, Crash spans a broad swathe, ranging from aesthetic odes to the witchy, from the occult to David Cronenberg’s risqué, critically-acclaimed movie of the same name. There is also a full circle aspect to Crash having an association with cars: many of her past songs have been about cars, such as “Vroom Vroom”, “White Mercedes” and the unreleased fan favorite “Taxi”.
Charli’s songwriting presents the pop staple of love and romance in all their different dimensions. Through the tracklist, she regularly interplays between provocative songs and softer, more ballad-like tunes. “Move Me” is a ballad with the tempo of a Justin Timberlake & Timba joint with some delicious R&B “oohs”. It is followed by the effortlessly sultry “Baby”, designed to make one do something between dancing and stripping. An unexpected guitar makes a startling appearance and contrasts beautifully with the melodious staccato of Charli’s occasionally manipulated voice at the end of the Kate Bush-by-way-of-New Order anthem “Lightning”.
Charli’s gift of using decade-defining sounds from synths to the scant use of autotuned vocal creates a sound all her own and totally new in the XCX world. For example, the posturing of a pop star in all its manufactured mass appeal goes one step further when Charli sings the chorus of “Beg For You” in a manner that’s a perfect mondegreen of the song she’s sampling from (“Cry For Me” by September). This track in particular (featuring our favorite Rina Sawayama) has all the best elements of Britpop aided by Charli’s touch: a nostalgic disc scratch, Jamie XX-like bass, the sampled breakbeat and melody of Milk Inc.’s “Don’t Cry”, and a duet about heartache that is irresistible to avoid dancing to. “Used To Know Me” takes the recognizably ‘90s club sound of “Show Me Love” and transforms it into a Britney-esque danceable bubble-gum pop bop.
In 2020, Charli released the raw, vulnerable how i’m feeling now – an album that closely involved Charli’s fans (or Angels, as they’re known across the internet), including features in in her music videos. In comparison, the contrast to her new era as a main pop girl baddie couldn’t be more extreme. With its carefully manufactured mystery and allure, this album is nothing short of an enormous pivot.
Pop stars are part of a larger commercial music machinery: cogs in collaborative efforts from record labels to songwriters, singers, and producers. In contrast, Charli is known for her collaborations with other musicians and producers as much as for her signature glitchy sound. Long resistant to the singularity of the pop star, Charli’s new album dives headlong into the illusory concept of the lone pop star while serving the very finest pop music out there. Crash shows a departure for a musician who refuses to be boxed into a genre at the top of her game making timeless catchy pop.
Top Five Records 