God, that cover art is bad. I really hate that shade of green. They use it at my job all the time. Anyway. Y’all know who this is but I’ll write some preamble anyway. BRAT has been billed as a hard reset for the perpetual pop star of the future. That is self evidently true. However, I would argue it is also the opening salvo of the imperial era of…well we can’t call it hyperpop anymore, apparently. You know what I mean. Camilla Cabello is trying to turn into Charli. Her approach to songwriting is all over the radio as well and has been for half a decade. She is directly woven into the unbroken line of ultra-pop musicians, part of a pantheon with Minogue, Gaga, and Kesha. I would argue that this self-evident reality throws her (or her label’s) decision to have her previous album be the sell-outiest thing imaginable into question. 2022’s CRASH was not terrible by any stretch, but it was also not very interesting and now mostly serves as an artifact of a time she was on good terms with Rina Sawayama. One could speculate that, had she quintupled down on her niche instead, she might have finally penetrated the mainstream directly rather than by proxy. Regardless of any hypotheticals, against this context and considering the singles rollout this spring brought us, it’s clear that this album aims to make Charli XCX unignorable.
If any of her projects could do that, it’s this one. Perfectly timed at a new apex of dance music’s penetration into the zeitgeist, BRAT is loud, confrontational, and charismatic. It opens with a prime “I’m back bitch” single, 360, with a propulsive A. G. Cook instrumental. The tone is set, the listener is primed for the absolute most. Club Classics leans even further into the renewed dance vibes that this album soaks in. There’s the tiniest bit of Shygirl peeking through Charli’s vocals, amid another kaleidoscopic firehose of wobbly synth from Cook. George Daniel is also involved, somehow. I remain unclear on what his actual role is. Sympathy Is A Knife is the album’s best ballad, even if I’m stretching the definition a bit. The instrumental is still quite active, but the songwriting is much more vulnerable than the dual sledgehammers that BRAT opens with. The push and pull between these two sides of Charli XCX’s artistry makes up the body of the album.
While BRAT certainly earns the rapturous declarations I have seen up and down the internet that the queen has returned, it is not a perfect album. The first Gesaffelstein credit comes on I might say something stupid. An autotune-soaked downer, it’s certainly pretty but far too short and simple to warrant further examination. Its placement on the tracklist gives me tonal whiplash as well, but I’ve never done cocaine so what do I know. Talk Talk is also not particularly good. Hudson Mohawke is not a good fit for this album or Charli’s aesthetic more generally, but there was a funny reddit post involving him last year so I guess he’s gotta be here. Anton Ego shit aside, I could see this being pushed as a single this summer, I just find it bland. Von Dutch still hasn’t grown on me. It’s too repetitive and melodically uninteresting to justify its position as the centerpiece of the albums rollout. In context it does serve to ramp the energy back up after a (relatively) slow section.
This rebuilt momentum is not put to waste, either. After a pretty weak stretch, A. G. Cook grabs the wheel once again with a career highlight of an instrumental. Lush, textured, and multifaceted, it also showcases some of Charli’s most intricately prosaic writing to date. Everything is romantic is a beautiful song, a perfect marriage of minimalism and maximalism, an earthquake of composition and form. From here, the tracklist is a tad scattershot. Rewind is just an inferior version of 360 featuring production from the guy who made the beat to Fancy by Iggy Azalea. So I is a beautiful tribute to SOPHIE from the two musicians most qualified to speak on her. Fuck St. Vincent once again; this ought to be the definitive statement on her passing going forward. Girl, so confusing sucks. It sounds like a castoff from CRASH. The lines alluding to Lorde are really funny, though. Apple is some decent synthpop. Not terribly remarkable, but functional. B2b features Gesaffelstein’s best contribution to the project, a demented Acid-tinged stomper underscoring an emotionally fraught vocal performance. I like it. I also like Mean girls even though it’s dedicated to my third least favorite kind of person. The Hudmo/A. G. beat goes a long way, I even like that dorky little piano breakdown at the halfway mark. I think about it all the time is a return to diaristic songwriting. The instrumental is unremarkable but it’s an evocative snapshot of the artist’s life. It comes at a weird place in the tracklist, in that it is immediately shoved offstage by the closer. 365 is a turbocharged reprise of 360 where Cook & Co. absolutely cut loose, like a (slightly inferior) redux of Visions. This plays in the nightclub scene in the gay version of John Wick. Somebody should make that. Cast Daniel Craig in it. And Ben Barnes.
Light 8/10. Flawed in places, but a return to form nonetheless. You’ve probably already heard it but if you haven’t, it’s a good time. Listen to Britpop after, it’s even better. It’s nice to have Charli back.
With the shuttering of PC Music last year, hyperpop is left in a bizarre limbo. I personally find declarations of its death or retreat from relevance overblown. However, it is undeniable that, even as aesthetics and production pioneered by the house that SOPHIE built penetrate further into popular music than ever before, the output and trailblazing of this supergenre seemingly in its larval stage has waned in the past two or three years. Umru’s percussion is heard all over kpop, Camilla Cabello is ripping off Charli xcx so hard I’m surprised nobody got sued, and yet many of the movement’s titans are pivoting elsewhere. 100 gecs dipped into nu metal. food house appear to be permanently on tour with no new music in years. With this ambiguous backdrop, the billing of this new (lengthy!) LP from PC Music demigod and father of hyperpop A. G. Cook as, subtextually, a dialogue with the genre rather than a straightforward presentation of it is all the more intriguing. As the title implies, Britpop, like its namesake did with grunge, aims to offer an alternative take on hyperpop, in essence taking the same component parts and rearranging them into something novel. A musical counterrevolution, if you will. Cook does this by presenting the listener with three distinct sections.
The first section is a pretty straightforward helping of what we’ve come to expect from the producer. It’s also, by a narrow margin, my favorite section. Cook out of all the originators of hyperpop has spawned my most preferred crop of artistic descendants, with umru, himera, gupi, petal supply et al. tracing their musical roots back to him at least in part. Part 1is an irony free celebration of this sound. Its not perfect, of course. The title track, despite some very well-applied drums, is overly repetitive and has more of Lipgloss’ DNA than I personally care for. It does illustrate, however, Charli XCX’s Bieberesque utility as a muse for a particularly forward-thinking producer. As Bieber was to Skrillex & DJ Snake, so Charli was for Cook, SOPHIE, and Brady. Crescent Sun doesn’t really reach a satisfying peak, fortunately it’s followed by a prime example of old school PC Music, Heartache. The lead single and opener, Silver Thread Golden Needle, is an endlessly captivating panorama of shimmering, jittery dance music bordering on prog house. You Know Me has a fun rhythm at first, then slowly pushes into a texture somewhere adjacent to happy hardcore. Another slab of vocal manipulation and synth hooks arrives with Prismatic, this one more whimsical while also stiffer. I’m not sure it’s all that good for dancing, but it’ll certainly brighten my commute. Television is simply outstanding, twisting an addictive groove through layer after layer of goopy synth and highly artificial claps. The first section of this behemoth of an album concludes with Luddite Factory Operator, an orgy of synth and vocal fragments that gives me the auditory feeling, at first, of a McDonald’s milkshake on my teeth, or drinking sweet tea after brushing. Eventually an ascending bass melody establishes some momentum, betraying Cook’s sensibilities as a guitarist, then the final 90 seconds are a cathartic burst of fizz and that one choral voice setting that comes with every keyboard. Beautiful.
Part 2, the present, is an exploration of Cook as a…more conventional artist? I.e., guitar, voice, keyboard, and little else. Serenade is a pretty good proof of concept, though I do note it’s entirely hook. The early portion of the “Present” kinda runs together, but Crone has a beautiful melody, and, in a rarity for this kind of music, is in 6/8! Greatly is beautiful, with a vocal effect almost as extreme as talkboxing. Bewitched is the grungiest offering, as Cook details his admiration of his lover, transfixed not only by her beauty but by her tenacity. In short, it’s prime Wife Guy music, and would have made for an ideal single had he not opted to leave parts 2 & 3 a mystery before release. SOPHIE was the greatest to ever do it. She left the world too soon. Cook is perhaps the most fitting artist to give her one last tribute, and Without is a beautiful final message to his longtime associate. I was holding it together until I realized the lyrics were in part taken from her music.
Part 3 is a synthesis of the once bleeding edge production exemplified by the first part with the 90s alt sensibilities and intimate staging of the second. Lucifer is a standout, with a great performance from Charli XCX anchoring some incredible synth pop. Emerald is phenomenal, sounding like the next evolution of Acid and prompting me to wonder what a collaboration between this artist and G Jones or Eprom might sound like. After a shorter sonic experiment-the nigh atonal Butterfly Craft-comes Equine, with one of the stronger grooves of the album and some pleasant piano embellishments on the second half as well. WWW, despite a frustrating fake-out early on, develops into a pleasant slice of Flumesque, clattering noise. This right here demonstrates how this London twink has become the musical ancestor of a whole generation of electronic musicians. Pink Mask centers on the artist’s raspy vocals, building an intimate soundscape of harmonies not unlike a Gorillaz ballad, but with angelic, pastel watercolors. It’s extremely pretty. And, finally, Out of Time is a pounding endurance test similar to the opener, bowling the listener over with a firehose of fizzy synth and rapid kick drums that gradually unfolds into a melodic, charming melodic pattern, before finally coming to rest.
This album functions as a transition into the next chapter of whatever PC Music was: hyperpop? The frontier of dance music? This musical Socratic dialogue arrives at a compelling synthesis of Cook’s sensibilities as both a songwriter and producer that will doubtless inspire further waves of innovation from his contemporaries. STRONG 9/10, an excellent use of your afternoon.
Even as I’ve adored her pandemic-era releases, I can’t escape the feeling that Dua Lipa wasn’t supposed to be an A-lister. Eight years ago she was on track to join the ranks of Rita Ora and Bebe Rexha in that surprisingly large niche of moderately talented “big in Europe” vocalists, doomed to know David Guetta on a first-name basis. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the sixth single off her self-titled debut exploded, landing a top ten hit in the US and a #1 all over Europe. Having spent a month in Europe in January 2020, I can confirm she is absolutely massive over there off the back of New Rules and a handful House music collaborations of varying quality. One may not have found New Rules‘ runaway success all that surprising, it’s an excellently-written pop song and arrived as the more conventional side of the pop landscape was at its lowest point that decade. Consequently, it instantly catapulted her from perfume commercial purgatory to “one to watch” status. Dua Lipa’s true breakout moment was followed by an excellent Calvin Harris collab and a couple more unremarkable singles. Her place in the top 40 pantheon was hardly guaranteed. And then, in the early months of the COVID pandemic, she did something truly remarkable: Dua Lipa evolved. Future Nostalgia was truly a revelation. Armed with a tight circle of writers and producers (and some much-needed dance lessons), Dua & co. crafted a polished, sleek second album that blended 80s aesthetics, late period Disco grooves, and 90s House glamour into a fully synthesized, novel (if not completely “new”) conception of dance-pop. Released as it was approximately two weeks into the pandemic, it dominated 2020 and, along with Lady Gaga’s Chromatica, established a new domain within pop music that, for want of a better descriptor, I’m just going to call nu-disco. This trend, which has ruled the radio for the first half of this decade, was not without precedent and may have been an inevitable counter-reaction to the post-Billie Eilish wave of desaturated, minimalist alt pop, but, regardless of any alternative, Dua Lipa’s sophomore record was the one that broke that ground and in doing so landed her in the upper strata of pop music. A decade-defining album is a tough act to follow. Radical Optimism arrives after a series of weak non-album singles, but it’s three teaser tracks are all solid, and her even-tighter circle of co-writers and musicians for this cycle includes music royalty. Did Dua Lipa evolve once more?
Not really! I’m writing this review long after Radical Optimism has made the rounds critically, and after its nonexistent impact on the hot 100 has been chronicled. One could, objectively, observe this third album from the Albanian diva as a misfire. I would not be so harsh, and Dua’s biggest successes have always been late album singles anyway, but let’s start with the problems. Not to be overly superficial, but this feels (even) more Charlie Puthean than the last one. The jokes that pop artists hire a bass player and everybody loses their minds are not without foundation, but Future Nostalgia had more going on under the hood. By contrast, Radical Optimism sounds like she took those jokes as prescriptions. Kevin “Tame Impala” Parker handles the lion’s share of this album’s production, and I will give him his due, but I do not think having him be the dominant cook in the kitchen yielded ideal results. In a word, this record is samey. In another, at times its boring. These Walls feels like 2000s radio filler but without the meticulous writing that, I’m told, is the appeal of that kind of thing. French Exit is…okay. Conspicuously grooveless on an album that banks on its basslines, it also features hokey airline-style narration. I don’t know who listened to Charli XCX’s CRASH and decided to take lessons from it. This album is short already, making the inclusion of an unnecessary half-finished piano ballad, Anything For Love, even more perplexing. Happy For You is fine. It’s got Acid-flavored embellishments, no doubt courtesy of the album’s other major contributor, hyperpop savant Danny L. Harle (more about him later), but they’re attached to an otherwise very conventional, nearly adult alternative instrumental that once again causes Lipa’s otherwise serviceable songwriting to punch under its weight.
What this album does have, in spades, is grooves. Houdini and Training Season both pack wry, propulsive baselines from Tame Impala that themselves are the selling point of this 36 minute breeze of an album. In some ways this project is the negative image of Future Nostalgia, an apparent effort to strip back the pop compositions to their bare essentials, in the hopes of further advancing the sound. It doesn’t succeed in that goal, but it does result in more than a few quality offerings. Whatcha Doing sees Harle finally bringing his powers as a songwriter to bear. The melodies crash beautifully against a conventional four chord groove courtesy once again of Parker, creating the best instrumental on the album. Were I to bet on a potential late album single to have a supercharged chart run, it would be this one. Speaking of singles, I only really like Illusion for the keyboard solo. It’s chorus is undeniably awkward and the writing isn’t anything special, but a strong instrumental and solo salvage the track for me. By contrast, Falling Forever is Lipa’s strongest vocal performance and also has the strongest melodic construction, making up for relatively weaker production work from Harle. Finally, the most undiluted praise I can give Radical Optimism is for Maria, which opens with a line about about how big a guy’s dick is…I think. It also has the same guitar chords as Flo Rida’s Good Feeling and some fun touches of Acid, once again courtesy of Danny L. Harle and…Julia Michaels?! As a day 1 JM hater, I must acknowledge, this is the best-written track here, a matured version of the scenario described in Olivia Rodrigo’s Obsessed. Grown adults understand their partners likely had past loves, and have the perspectives to understand that those experiences will inform how partners approach their new relationship. And here can be found Radical Optimism‘s greatest quality: its maturity. This is not a new development. I have noticed a trend in the popular music of the 2020s, this year in particular, where artists (with the gargantuan exception of Taylor Swift) approach their subject matter with a degree of nuance and postpubescence not seen in significant amounts this millennium. Pop artists in their 20s and 30s are writing like people in their 20s and 30s, not teenagers. Throughout Radical Optimism, Dua Lipa approaches the nameless prospects and lovers she sings about with a degree of seasoned acceptance that is genuinely refreshing to hear in this kind of music. Her frustration is measured, her requirements reasonable. It is possible, in fact, to have expectations that are higher than accepting the bare minimum but lower than demanding your man be Jack Dawson. It is a breath of fresh air to hear the kind of thoughtful, moderated songwriting one might expect on an Adele album brought to H&M-core radio pop. In doing so, Lipa fully earns the air of discrete sophistication that has been instrumental to her branding from the beginning.
This is a good album, even if it has almost no shot at impacting either my or Billboard’s year-end lists. Hindsight may recast it as a transitional point between more defined eras for the artist, rather than a failed next step forward. Furthermore, aside from some occasionally weak songwriting, which has always plagued Dua Lipa, there are no strictly bad ideas here. Kevin Parker is an excellent choice to spice up her existing nu-disco formula, as is rave guru Danny L Harle. The issue is that the former almost completely overpowers the latter while also eroding Lipa’s perfectly functional dance pop sound. A pair of bassline-focused lead singles is great! A whole album of nothing but that yields mixed results. You hire one of the most distinctive bleeding edge pop producers, one who specializes in electronic dance music, and you relegate him to noodling on his keyboard save for a couple of acid synth tones? This is the man behind ILY2, Anthems, and most of Caroline Polachek’s work. Let him cook! It is bewildering that an album co-produced by the namesake of an entire genre of Hardstyle never gets out of second gear. Even so, the hooks abound, there are few genuine missteps to be found, and the result is a good album. Functional, even. Strong 6/10.
I have to confess, the bad music of last year just didn’t hit like usual. Certainly, there are plenty of objectionable tracks to choose from, but there’s nothing profoundly, totally awful; no Reinventing Your Exits or even a Trouble. Further, with some exceptions at the top, this list could be in nearly any order. The honorable mentions are stronger choices than 2022’s, but the list proper lacks the same awful escalation. 2023 was a pretty good, if somewhat one-dimensional year (more on that in a few days), and that is reflected in a worst list that contains a multitude of genres but lacks some variety within those genres. With nothing else to add, let’s get into the list proper:
#10: Grenade by QUIX
Looking at this title, you might wonder why it made the list proper. A track from a perfectly respectable Trap producer with a violent-sounding name? Sounds like a banger. And you would be justified in assuming so, but that’s how they get you. This, the lead off single for QUIX’s otherwise solid EP from last year, contains a poison pill in the form of one Andrew Taggart of disgraced, mercifully irrelevant EDM ruiners The Chainsmokers (I’ll bet you didn’t even know they put out an album in 2022!) Three years removed from playing a festival amidst the height of Covid, Taggart lends his wimpy, faux-softboi vocals to this track. Not sparingly, either! He’s all over this thing, croaking out generic nonsense about some girl. As for the instrumental…it rips. I’m not gonna lie, if there was no singing, I’d love it. The drums are propulsive, the first drop is this wild polyrhythmic synth line that sounds as good as anything QUIX has made, but it’s all marred by two full verses from an uncharismatic shitheel and a frankly unnneccesary sample of Kendrick Lamar’s ELEMENT.
#9: Wait by Derek Minor
What happened to Derek Minor, man? Five years before this he released The Trap, one of the greatest Christian Hip-Hop albums of all time (don’t laugh). In the years since he’s let artistry take a backseat, releasing three full compilation LPs of juvenile, cheap sounding jock jams designed to fill time on ESPN, a collab EP with Propaganda that should’ve been much better than it was, and a 17-minute lo-fi mixtape. Then, after years of conscious mediocrity, he finally buckled down and made a proper album again. And it shows up multiple times on this list. Nobody’s Perfect is ironically only barely a step above the preceding five years of forgettable output from this artist, coasting on (very strong) features and production that finally sounds like it cost something. But the album is full of the problems present in latter-period Christian rap: ill-advised melodic hooks, and many staples of the genre that just need to die, which brings us to this entry. The “song for the wife” is a trope of Christian rap going back more than a decade. Minor himself gave us one of the better versions of this (by blatantly cribbing from Jeremih’s Dont Tell ‘Em,) and of course Andy Mineo has practicallymade it an art form. This is…not that. To be completely fair, California legend DJ Mal-Ski crafted a perfectly serviceable instrumental with plenty of West Coast appeal, aside from a somewhat irritating saxophone loop. The real problem here is Derek himself. He is certainly an above-average singer, but his performance here is grating. Anytime he gets into his upper register he has this whiny affect that’s completely at odds with his intended smooth delivery elsewhere but not remotely at odds with the lyrics, which range from banal to really, really pushy. “BABY. WHERE YOU. BEEN. BRING THAT. LOVING. TO ME. RIGHT. NOW.” Be still, my beating heart. This is the problem with trying to make songs about desire within a culture that is scared of it, you’re left with very few avenues of expression. Either talk shit about other men or resort to lines that were played out in the R&B of fifty years ago. This song does both. At least it’s short?
#8: Bad For Me by Skrillex, Corbin, & Chief Keef
I really hate that album cover. Whiny hooks abound here as well, only this time the artists are bitching about women, not trying to seduce them. Joy. Skrillex’s second album from 2023 was a frustrating listen, but more on that later. His production here is decent enough, a pleasant melodic Trap groove that better frontmen could make good use of. Unfortunately the bulk of its brief runtime goes to Corbin, who grouses about some girl who’s bad for his health, rejecting her while trying to sound like he’s the one hurt in this exchange. “Girl you’re bad for me, like cigarettes” OOOOOOOOO GOT ‘EM! Chief Keef is barely on-topic when he can even be understood, it sounds like he was dragged into the booth and charged Skrillex by the minute. Another short experience but all the more obnoxious, capped off with a pointless anti-drop right at the end.
#7: Don’t Get Too Close by Skrillex & Bibi Bourelly
Oh look, here’s that terrible album again. While Quest For Fire was a masterpiece welding together innovations in the past half decade of UK Garage, Bass House, and EDM Trap into a cohesive listening experience, Don’t Get Too Close was like a CV to pitch Skrillex’s inclusion on pop albums going forward. A pointless endeavor, as his work on RENNAISSANCE alone guarantees he will have plenty of work for the next half decade. There were a handful of good tracks, mostly the ones centered on vocalists who can sing well, but overall the album felt like it was chasing the spotlight, not generating it. The title track, however, is a different beast. Bibi Bourelly has fully earned her status as a legend in electronic music, as the vocalist on SOPHIE’s magnum opus Faceshopping, to say nothing of her work with TOKiMONSTA, Rico Nasty, etc. etc. These two working together ought to produce greatness (as it does on Quest for Fire). Instead, a meandering, listless collection of marimba and distorted synth gives way after ninety seconds to Bourelly’s stream-of-consciousness musings from, if I had to guess, middle school. This entire song is very juvenile, repeating the same platitudes about how “you don’t know me” and “my mom hates me” and so on. The real ugliness here, though, is Sonny’s vocals. I’ve never cared for his metalcore-but-weaker style of singing, and it’s especially odious contrasted with Bourelly and the spaced-out production. I do not begrudge this dual-album’s victory lap endings, and that tone does work in other cases, but Sonny channeling his inner teenager is not something I or anyone asked for.
#6: Without u by Juuku & Holywatr
Who wanted a song about being sad about a breakup that lists no reasons for missing this girl except “sex is fun”? Beyond the classlessness of it, it’s boring! Juuku was one of the most exciting producers of the early ‘20s, with his blown-out, psychedelic walls of synth with a vaguely chiptune-adjacent aesthetic. Here on his major label debut, he sacrifices all of that for a pretty generic Drum n Bass drop, otherwise taking a backseat to give Holywatr’s unbearable vocals center stage. There is no continuity between the vocalist’s tortured verses and the bombastic drops in between them. Of special note is the acoustic version also included on this EP, if you want to really punish yourself.
#5: Graves by KB & Brandon Lake
I am so very very tired of KB lifting choruses from worship songs. This one is fine. Pretty generic but not objectionable. The problem is that KB velcroed a generic Trap song onto it. KB really earns his title as the Christian Big Sean too, with lines like “now I’m giving ya kids bops” and “‘Til the Spirit raided my whole tomb like Laura Croft”. He’s always been able to flow like nobody’s business, but here he mostly keeps it in neutral, with some truly awful mixing in places and one long triplet verse for no reason.
#4: Phonies by Dorian Electra
(Sigh). I like this artist. I like this artist a lot. I donot, however, like being trolled by this artist. Everything about this song is ugly. The crunchy, dissonant bass guitar loop, the “doo-doo doo doo doo!”s, the completely asinine lyrics bitching about, well, “phonies”. Unlike many other entries on this list, there’s nothing objectionable, it’s just annoying.
#3: NEW GROUND by Juelz & KILLY AI
This one doesn’t even top 2 minutes, but it grinds one of the best albums of last year to a fucking halt just to show off this bullshit AI voice of some rapper nobody’s ever heard of. Juelz barely even tried here, grafting on an inferior version of the Moondance drop, then making the AI sing the Floorspace motif at the end to justify slapping this onto the album RIGHT before the best track on it (ooooo, foreshadowing!). It’s boring, AI is the death of creativity, and one of the most exciting young artists in EDM should know better.
#2: Holland by Showtek & Earl St. Clair
No moral crusades here, this is just bad. Earl St. Clair chose to deliver his lines in a, uh, stereotype-laden manner, and that’s his prerogative, even if I’m surprised he didn’t go “shhhheeeeeeiiiittt” at any point. Fun fact: he produces most of Machine Gun Kelly’s music! Somebody stop him! Outside of the computerized tourism voice and St. Clair’s response brimming with (ahem) flavor, that’s all in service of a painfully boring House track with abundant misuse of the amen break. Showtek peaked ten years ago, they could just hang it up at this point.
Dishonorable Mentions:
3am by Skrillex, Prentiss, & Anthony Green
As whiny as Bad for Me, but without the misogyny and with much better production. In the interest of fairness, the drop at the end is pretty sick.
Nothing’s Perfect (VARI Remix) by NGHTMRE, Oliver Tree, & VARI
What’s worse than Oliver Tree? Oliver Tree slowed down.
A couple good musical ideas (the guitar and the “la”s on the chorus) buried under a mountain of frat bro nonsense.
It’s Okay by Derek Minor, Susan Carol, Byron Juane, & Greg James
A pile of empty platitudes on top of a pop instrumental straight out of 2017. Derek needs to stop giving features to his cousin who can’t rap, but Derek’s own performance is actually pretty good, which along with Byron Juane’s excellent verse saves this from the list proper.
Laserbeam (Stumpi Remix) by Ray Volpe, Wooli, & Stumpi
You know what the best dubstep track of the 2020s really needed? A progressive house remix! That’ll show those kids! Why enjoy loud aggressive music when you can listen to the same four-beat loop for three minutes? My favorite part is when it briefly pretends it’s building to something interesting then falls back into the same archaic “groove”.
Help Me by Deorro, NIIKO X SWAE, & Kiiara
Y’all remember Kiiara? That Selena Gomez clone who rode the most obvious Spotify payola ever to a one-hit wonder? No? Well she’s been relegated to EDM hook artist for a while now; made a pretty solid track with Jauz years ago. This is on here because she’s still a shit singer and it’s physically painful to listen to Deorro water his sound down this much in a naked bid to land on the Kohl’s department store playlist.
Nothing’s Perfect (OddKidOut Remix) by NGHTMRE, Oliver Tree, & OddKidOut
What’s worse than Oliver Tree? Oliver Tree pitched up a couple whole steps. Awful drop on this one too.
Shut Shit Down by TroyBoi & Armani White
White’s flow is solid despite TroyBoi’s boiler plate beat, but then the drop is one of the most annoying things I’ve ever heard. Landed a spot here off the crypto reference.
The Love You Give by Derek Minor
I have nothing against this track or songs like it. Christian Hip-Hop has been holding up a mirror to the hateful rhetoric and behavior of evangelicalism for a decade now. Hell, Lecrae has 2 albums worth of material about them. This is just unbearable to listen to, a lethargic, plodding drum loop with awful auto-crooned vocals all over it.
#1: Believe the Hype by Alice Longyu Gao & Oli Sykes
I get no pleasure from this. Oli Sykes has been credibly accused of assault by female fans. In addition to being a piece of shit, he is also a gigantic poser. Yet here he is, glomming onto a nascent genre populated by mostly young, mostly queer people. Of particular note is the line “I don’t even splice, baby, I fucking abuse it”. Cute. Alice Longyu Gao is great, but aside from a serviceable metalcore drop in the middle of the thing there’s just nothing here but Gao’s sound reduced down to cliches. I come away from this relatively brief single filled with disappointment in an artist I respect, and also a splitting headache. The hook is just screaming and it’s annoying as hell. If this is the future of music, heaven help us all.
As this is my first review for this artist and I have minimal context for this juncture in his career, instead I’ll recap the year thus far, because this is also my first proper review for 2024. It’s been a slightly below-average year on the whole. Swoope released an album centered around the death of his mother that has some moving moments, but is pretty sleight, outside of a strong Lecrae feature and some inspired Gospel turns. ericdoa’s mixtape has strong hooks and not much else. The Juelz remix album goes hard. Gupi dropped two very good breakcore EPs, the second one being much better than the first. This is the first major release of my year so far. Does it raise the bar?
You fucking bet it does! Pop, with an electrifying Rico Nasty feature and a hard left turn in the production, sets the tone for an abrasive, raucous listen. THank god 4 me is a slippery west coast stomper that the artist glides over masterfully. Blueslides slows things down for some introspective jazz rap anchored by Q’s voice and the interplay between some gorgeous piano and upright bass. By the time the saxophone introduces itself the atmosphere is already pristine. The TDE veteran sounds seasoned as he ruminates on the pitfalls he avoided and, despite his success, the struggles that still dog him and those close to him. It is at this point in the album that the album’s dual nature becomes most apparent. Following this thoughtful song comes Yeern 101, a scorching single verse of lyrical flexing that showcases Q’s prowess as an emcee. Fellow Black Hippy alum Ab-Soul joins on Foux, another song that presents Q’s Janus-faced appeal. This track is in some ways the fulcrum of the album. Q presents both the Apollonian and Dionysian sides of his music, juxtaposing his lust for pleasure and the perspective that age has given him. Soul’s contribution is solid as well.
This album is not flawless, of course. Love Birds could grow on me. It’s got a great bassline & Q sounds good but I do not care for the features. Movie is a glorified interlude with one decent verse. Nunu is straight up terrible. Rap songs in 6/8 are rarely good but this one is a real stinker, as is Back n Love, which contains the worst hook and the worst feature on the album. Its the worst kind of Trap music: no melody and nothing to grab onto, just oppressive, disjointed noise. Schoolboy Q sounds great on his verse but it’s not enough.
Those are really the only complaints I have, though! Cooties is some real shit, despite not being very fun to listen to. oHio is fantastic with a fantastic trap skitter on the front half an a non sequitur jazz outro that sounds outstanding. Freddie Gibbs sounds as great as ever too. First should have been a single, it’s not amazing but a serviceable trap beat and Q rapping with charisma on 10 goes a long way. This may sound like a backhanded compliment, but Lost Times coming after the worst tracks on the album is excellent sequencing, juxtaposing the artist’s more mature current day mindset against the obligatory “I got hoes” flexing that precedes it. Same for Germany ‘86, an even better track with a great sample. Time Killers is a brief but grimy slice of west coast rap. Finally, Pig feet has the best production on the album. And it’s the best song I’ve heard all year. You will hear more about it in January 2025.
Blue Lips earns a solid 8/10 from me. While it will take time before I’m sure, it might be better than Mr. Morale. It’s certainly an easier listen, and most significantly it’s the first great album of 2024.
This list is extremely late, but I thought I would tie this loose end up before putting out my year-end lists in a couple of weeks. As I noted in my list of the best songs, 2022 was an exceptional year for Electronic music. As such, that ever-expanding genre has a sizable presence here as well. However, the real story of this list is the sheer volume of excellent pop music that, I hope, will soon penetrate into the mainstream. Rina Sawayama was in John Wick 4, so maybe there’s hope? Speaking of whom…
#10: Hold The Girl by Rina Sawayama
The…room temperature critical reception of this album often misses its thematic cohesion. While Sawayama continues the thoughtful genre-blending that defined her self-titled debut, the sonic influences she pulls from are relevant to its themes. The sound of this album juxtaposes more conservative eras of pop music (’80s metal and Bush-era pop country) with the periods more progressive and especially queer artists dominated the airwaves (in so many words, dance music). This in turn frames the album’s exploration of the artist making peace with her younger self and her conservative, religious upbringing. The title track also has the greatest key modulation of the decade thus far, and the bonus tracks from a few months ago are both excellent!
#9: The Body Never Lies by Krewella
Krewella’s best album to date. A modernization of the duo’s sonic palette by way of Drum N Bass, without the lyrical missteps of their previous project and not a single bad track to speak of. It’s quick, cohesive, and has some of the best hooks that EDM could offer in 2022.
#8: Cartel II (Remixes) by Boombox Cartel
This was released as a series of EPs over the span of two months, so I am slightly cheating by including it, but I simply had to. These remixes give a thorough exploration of all of the musical descendants of EDM Trap circa 2014. Flosstradamus, Good Times Ahead, and of course Boombox Cartel all influence the artists who bring their sounds to these tracks, with splashes of Drum N Bass, Dubstep, and Bass House here and there. Definitely the highlight of that summer.
#7: CAGE SCRIPT by k?d
Hindsight really grew my appreciation for this album. When I described the artist as the good version of ILLENIUM, I was being a bit unfair. More than the meatier takes on Future Bass, k?d should be commended for the groovy, well-crafted electro-house that forms the core of CAGE SCRIPT‘s sonic palette. Furthermore, I have to give k?d props for being slightly ahead of the curve, as this album presaged the direction that much of EDM was going into 2023. You can draw a straight line from elements of this album to several albums from 2023 likely to be highlighted by me in a few weeks. While the anime aesthetics still aren’t for me, they can also be completely disengaged with. All-in-all, a worthwhile listen with some of the best house music of 2022, and a window-shattering banger in BACK AGAIN.
#6: Palaces by Flume
I’m going to keep this one brief. Palaces owes a great debt to SOPHIE. While it is heartbreaking that we will never get more music from the greatest to ever do it, it has been beautiful to watch her sounds and her aesthetics show up in so many different contexts. This is possibly the most obvious example(and most intentional, as Flume was a frequent collaborator with the best to ever do it), augmented by outstanding vocal contributions from Caroline Polachek and Damon Albarn. The explosive, offbeat cacophony showcased throughout this project displays a promising vision for what the future of popular electronic music could be.
#5: Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
I have to confess that I don’t revisit this album as often as some of the other entries on this list; “warts and all” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Much like the other TDE record on this list, it’s long, messy, and ugly at times. What makes Kendrick’s latest as rewarding as it is challenging is not only his prowess as a storyteller, but the murderer’s row of producers he tapped for an album that welds the darker, soulful melancholy of untitled, unmastered in particular with DAMN.‘s monochromatic-yet-cathartic Trap palette. The Alchemist, boi-1da, Pharrell, and especially Sounwave all pitch in, crafting Kendrick’s most sedate album of his career while still preserving a rich, textured backdrop for a thorough recounting of the artist’s relationship with patriarchal masculinity and how that relationship has poisoned both his interpersonal and romantic life, with a clear-eyed look at the self-perpetuating cycle at the center of it all. A pity that it features a rapist two times.
#4: comfort noise (Music Inspired by the Motion Picture) by umru
In 2021, Lady Gaga and Bloodpop released a remix album that catapulted the vanguard of Hyperpop into the spotlight. This remix album does that for the second wave of that burgeoning movement, or at least the EDM-adjacent side of it. Himera, GRRL, both members of food house and more take an already excellent EP from umru and supercharge it with heavy infusions of Hardstyle, Breakcore, and good, old-fashioned Bubblegum Bass. Honest and the title track, two songs I wasn’t wild about, both get outstanding reimaginings, with Himera’s remix of Honest counting among my favorites of the year.
#3: MOTOMAMI by ROSALÍA
Yeezus for people who can get laid. ROSALÍA can fucking sing, and with his album her sound reaches it’s final form, a fusion of Reggaeton, Flamenco, Trap, and experimental Hip-Hop that is at times both abrasive and inviting. Standouts include a gorgeous Bachata duet with The Weeknd, a gorgeous ballad about sucking dick, and COMO UN G, a masterpiece I have already praised to high heaven previously. This project was absolutely robbed by the GRAMMYs and I hope the artist gets the recognition she has earned several times over soon.
#2: Sable Valley Summer Volume 3
It would seem that I will be including this record label’s yearly compilation album on every one of these lists. This one is, much like #8, a delightful survey of the current state of the house that DJ Snake built. RL Grime’s Sable Valley imprint continues to recruit and develop a healthy roster of promising, dynamic Trap & Drum n Bass producers. 2022’s standouts include Ivoryghost and SSOS whose contributions here are unmatched. Label mainstays Holly, Jon Casey, Remnant.exe & juuku also deliver in spades, making this collection of bangers the best one to date.
Honorable Mentions:
Dawn FM by The Weeknd
Jim Carrey is an anti-vaxxer.
TM by BROCKHAMPTON
75% of a BROCKHAMPTON album is still a pretty solid album. I’m gonna miss these guys.
Gemini by Lizdek
What a truly bizarre project, wonderfully idiosyncratic and completely disinterested in easy consumption, aside from the singular banger MUCUS. I remain a tremendous fan of what this guy is doing in his lane.
CRASH by Charli XCX
If you can ignore that this album sounds like it was made at gunpoint, there’s some bops here!
Church Clothes 4 by Lecrae
I was surprised by how much this moved me. This man has been hurt, repeatedly, by his white audience and he continues to dare them to be better. Maybe one day they will be.
Belated Suffocation by Chace
A perfect synthesis of the ideas Chace has been playing with for half a decade. His vocals are beautiful, sensual, and expressive, and the production is inviting and danceable with a dark, seductive edge.
paper eater by Gupi
If I had a nickel for every time an electronic music producer began the year by releasing a contender for best album of that year and then followed it up with a markedly inferior album later in that same year, I would have two nickels! Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice (ooooo, foreshadowing!)
Loner by Alison Wonderland
A victim of bad singles and the artist making vastly superior music both before and after (oooooo, foreshadowing again!)
SOS by SZA
If you cut like, 7 tracks from this album, its a 10. Also, it frustrates me to no end that she keeps choosing the least interesting singles!
Nymph by Shygirl
I’m still trying to make peace with the apparent reality that we’re never getting the abrasive, in-your-face Shygirl of BAWDY or SLIME back, but Woe & Shlut are both great!
#1: you’re it by gupi
If I had a nickel f-oh wait, I already made this joke. No skips, no wasted space, just a breakneck sprint through the wild world of sounds at the fringes of electronic music, infused throughout with gupi’s playful vigor. The few conventional hooks are expertly constructed, as on spiralcourse, and the repeated contortions of melodic fragments across multiple soundscapes are endlessly engaging. This is what electronic music ought to be at its best: euphoric, dynamic, and animated with little regard for genre conventions and limitless potential.
I fully meant to do weekly’s for this month but barely anything came out except during the first and fourth weeks of December so I’m reviewing them all here.
Live & Direct by Axel Boy
I picked a good time to come back! My onetime favorite electronic producer is, for once, trying something new! The bones of this track are still the familiar framework of Bass House, but peppered with reggae-adjacent melodic textures and a low jagged synth lead on the drop reminiscent of the nastier material off Quest For Fire, and that’s a compliment.
Axelerator by Axel Boy
Oh, I see what you did there. Much more in line with his standard output, but anchored this time by an infectious faux-saxophone melody. What earns this a recommendation, however, is the phenomenal two-phase drop. It’s good to have this guy back and, if not innovating, at least mixing it up.
Love Is Gone (BARELY ALIVE Remix) by SLANDER & BARELY ALIVE
…I kinda fuck with the happy hardcore thing this has going on. I can take or leave the Brostep passage but credit where credit is due, there’s some prime oonst-oonst at the start and end of this. As an aside, EDM people really need to let Dylan Matthew rest. There are other singers who can convincingly emote while singing lazy, banal lyrics. Just shell out the money and grab Caroline Polachek already.
Nervous by BROHUG
Booooooring! Vocals could’ve been left out too.
Bands by Derek Minor & Canon
Unhinged sample on this beat and Derek pops off on his verse. This is legitimately better than anything off Nobody’s Perfect, and that’s even before Canon jumps in and tears the track up.
Choppas by Ookay & Cesqeaux
NASSSSTY. Best thing either artist has done in years, a perfect meeting of the minds crafting a trunk-rattling trap fusion with a climax straight out of 2015.
BOTH (David Guetta & Seth Hills Remix) by Tiësto, David Guetta, & Seth Hills
This song is quite hollow without the verses, and no amount of recycled Trance nonsense can make up for that.
AXIS by Holly
INSD featuring msft & Blush
Absolutely disgusting rhythms here, a rattling, crunchy delight. Expect to hear more about this one in a few weeks…
UOH featuring SUAHN & Dabow
Uptempo DnB snarl with a more conventional structure, but the variations throughout and Holly’s inspired drum programming lend plenty of energy to the beat.
Wiry, polyrhythmic Trap with, as always, unbelievable drum work from Portugal’s favorite son. I cannot wait to have a car with good speakers again so I can blast this. I’m glad to see Flosstradamus putting in good work yet again.
Burning Bored
Good, but way too short. Somewhat reminiscent of Skrillex’s less energetic textures on Quest For Fire, and I once again mean that as a compliment. If any track warrants a lengthy remix, it’s this one.
TOM YUM featuring Wiwek
Welcome back, interesting Wiwek production, it’s been years! If there was ever a producer to breathe new life into a subgenre built on dissonance and percussion like Jungle Terror, it’s Holly.
Love The Day by Fox Stevenson
Yeah sometimes the singer-songwriter stuff this guy puts out doesn’t work. The hook is alright, though.
DON’T SAY (Hex Cougar Remix) by ROSSY & Hex Cougar
Big, reverb-soaked Festival Trap with massive drums. I really need to listen to more ROSSY, she’s clearly got the juice.
Replay (Nasko Remix) by SLANDER & Nasko
Wow, the original melody is really sour. Nasko’s doing the best he can, and he does work up a pretty durable groove, but the drops are too disconnected from the rest of the track to properly land for me and I’m left concluding that the original couldn’t be salvaged.
Imagining by Rina Sawayama & Amaarae
GOD. DAMN. The production is a roided-up version of Clarence Clarity’s original Y2K-but-Garage instrumental, and I think I like it better than the original. Amaarae’s performance is electric, even if lyrically it feels disconnected from the rest of the song.
Flavor Of The Month by Rina Sawayama
A song that boldly asks, “what if Dorian Electra debuted in the 90s?”
Let the Sparks Fly (2023) by Thousand Foot Krutch, Saint Asonia, & Adam Gontier
This is mixed about 50% better than the original. Unfortunately, the guest vocalist here sounds like week-old ass.
For The Love Of Bounce EP by TroyBoi
You know what you’re getting with this guy by now. This EP has a bit more of an emphasis on melody and no flashy producer collaborations, but otherwise pretty standard material. Pyaar goes off, the Armani White feature does not.
Postscript: Yeah, I’m gonna try to bring the blog back this year. Might mess with the format or layout when I have time, and I’m definitely going to try to cover more albums. Speaking of albums, you can expect my much-belated Top Ten Best Albums of 2022 list sometime this week, and then my retrospective lists for 2023 in maybe a month. Happy New Year!
intentionalnachos 
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