Frank Kogan

Laryssa's voice is penetrating with a whipcrack when necessary but is fundamentally as solid and steady as she is. She's able to ride her own rhythm into other rhythms that are as aggressive and mobile as any in the world. I don't know the production process so I don't know how much it's her wending her way through rhythms, her being the center and rhythms being put around her, or her vocals being sampled and chopped into rhythm through technical means. Probably all of the above. So she's supported and punctuated by percussion, adorned in percussion; sometimes she is the percussion. She's been on several hundred tracks in the last several years, all collaborations, different configurations. Usually she's the only woman. And usually she's the central motion of the track, and the central emotion.

And that's all I know, pretty much. When I type "Laryssa Real" into search engines, they don't locate much, and don't locate her. I assume her orbit is round Recife rather than São Paulo, but that's an assumption based on the sound and the brega funk hashtag, not on any journalism. Google isn't giving me lyrics even, so I've been painfully transcribing TikTok captions into Google Translate. From what I can find, I gather that sex acts are a frequent topic of discussion. This disappoints me because I'm hoping for canny, witty commentary and comebacks on all sorts of subjects, to match the sound of her voice. And maybe within the range of what's allotted to her, slyness and wit are the actual truth. I don't know.

At any rate, it often seems like fun:

Neguin Da Base, Laryssa Real, Gelado No Beat – Vem De Boca
[EDIT: Okay, the TikTok embed code doesn't work – or I can't get it to work, anyway – so here's the direct link, and a pic.]
https://www.tiktok.com/@laryssareal__/video/7137409016052993286


A sampling from the last couple of years:

Zoi De Gato, Marlinho RDC, Laryssa Real – Os Ratos da Favela

A slap, and a snake uncoiling, but still incredibly friendly (for a ghetto rat). The other two vocalists sound a bit dogged by comparison. The mayhem she puts in her voice – is that the producer sampling it and adding manipulations? I think she just does it.

Neguin ZN, Klose Vilao, Laryssa Real – Vem Me Comer Vai

The atmosphere is slow humidity but penetrated by gun cocks and dings and bells. The vocalists keep cutting in on each other, so it's as if each finishes the others' sentences and completes each other's beats. Laryssa sounds happily wicked – unless I'm misinterpreting and she sounds distressed.

Neguin Da Base, Laryssa Real, Gelado No Beat – Vem de Boca

The one I TikTokked above. It's date night for Laryssa and Neguin, with a hippopotamus of a tuba to undergird the candle-lit cheek-to-cheek. But then producer Gelado no Beat shoots ball bearings across the floor, which our lovers delightedly dance upon, keeping their balance as if it's the most natural thing in the world – though for all her fun and jitteriness, Laryssa's still the center of gravity, the steady hand.

Anderson Neiff, MC Terror, Laryssa Real, MC Magrinho – O Neiff Me Ligou

Beats like machine guns, gunshots like gunshots, and a tour de force from the vocalists who keep up their own rapid fire. In the back, behind all this genius, a slow synth makes a sad, imperturbable descent. You wonder how this music emerges, with so much in it.

Same old disclaimer: With my talent for imposing deadlines and then missing them, I eventually hit upon the idea of making June the month to write up the previous year's Artist Of The Year – March being the month for my Top Singles. (Um, the last I posted a completed year's singles list was the one for 2017, which I posted the following December.) This time, I lit a fire under myself by finally posting 2021's artist this May and snapped to it to get this one up in June; but no, we see it in September, which is certainly better than losing it to a summer love, though I hope you enjoyed the Seo Taiji post, and MC Loma, and the spare accompaniments and openhearted vocals that intervened.

CROSSPOST: HTTPS://KOGANBOT.LIVEJOURNAL.COM/390500.HTML

CROSSPOST: https://koganbot.substack.com/p/laryssa-real-artist-of-the-year-2022

Just Tuesday I sent my ballot for the Uproxx critics poll for 2022. For my “outlets” I put "Dreamwidth" and "Peoples Pop Polls." I hope Philip doesn’t actually know what Dreamwidth is and decide to disqualify me. The reason I didn’t put “koganbot” is that I’d already put @koganbot as my Twitter handle.

Anyhow, since 2022's year-end lists are now already in play, I should at least somewhat try to continue my grappling with 2021. Last January 23 I sent a ballot to the Expert Witnesses poll (Expert Witnesses were a group of people who back in a somewhat-recent day created a community out of comment threads on one of Robert Christgau's post-Village Voice endeavors, a blog called Expert Witness, where he continued his ongoing Consumer Guides; "Expert Witness" is now a Facebook community). For some reason, or no reason, I never got around to posting my Expert Witnesses ballot here on Dreamwidth, so here it is. From my voter perspective, at least, it's the best of the three current-day Pazz & Joppish polls in that it doesn't have Uproxx's way-too-early deadline and stupid scoring system and irritating date restrictions; also, unlike Uproxx or Pazz & Jop Rip-Off it gives EPs their own category and 10 not 5 singles, or 0 singles as in Pazz & Jop Rip-Off. Also doesn't have Pazz & Jop Rip-Off's ungainly alphabetization rules. (See the footnotes here for my gripes about those, though when reading those gripes take into account that the people doing these things are putting in the labor and I'm not, and for the P&J Rip-Off and Expert Witnesses I'm sure unpaid.)

My number 1 album here, Babes Wodumo's Crown, is also the number 1 on the ballot I just submitted to Uproxx, in that it came out in December '21 and therefore is within Uproxx's Dec.-1-to-November-30th time period, and obviously wasn’t even out when I submitted last year's Uproxx ballot. Is the densest music I've ever heard from gqom, most packed with voices and sounds, takes the basic suspense of gqom and overloads it with life.

[I don't think the Wikipedia write-up on gqom is all that useful, but here's the link.]

Frank Kogan
Ballot for the Expert Witnesses Poll 2021

ALBUMS
1. Babes Wodumo - Crown - 20 points
2. Various Artists - Sounds Of Pamoja - 14 points
3. MC Carol - Borogodó - 10 points
4. Bee DeeJay - On The Map - 10 points
5. Squid - Bright Green Field - 10 points
6. 75 Dollar Bill - Live Ateliers Claus - 8 points
7. Ashley Monroe - Rosegold - 8 points
8. Slant - 1집 - 8 points
9. Juçara Marçal - Delta Estácio Blues - 7 points
10. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever - 5 points

SINGLES
1. DJ Wesley Gonzaga, MC Cyclope & MC Laureta - "Sarra Nela Com Fuzil Na Bandolera"*
2. MC Thammy, MC Jhenny (DJ Malícia) - "Vulgo Malvadão"
3. MC 2Jhow, MC Rennan & MC Fahah (DJ NBeat) - "Vem Sentando Vem"
4. Anderson Neiff, MC Terror, Laryssa Real, MC Magrinho - "O Neiff Me Ligou"
5. DJ Wesley Gonzaga - "Mtg Ta Brotando No Plantão Pra Tira Foto Com Revolver"
6. MC Thammy ft. Eo Don & Barca Na Batida - "Eu Adoro Eu Me Amarro"
7. MC J Mito, MC Yuri, MC Menor da Alvorada, DJ Will DF - "Aquecimento do Striptease"
8. DJ Guuga & MC Don Juan - "Acabou Você Não Deu Valor"
9. DJ Guuga & MC Danny - "Faz um pix pra mim"
10. Nathan Evans - "The Wellerman" [TikTok ver.]

MINI ALBUMS/EPs
Tia Maria Produções - Lei Da Tia Maria - 3 points
Grrrl Gang - Honey, Baby - 3 points
Hello Psychaleppo - Jismal - 3 points
Annie - Neon Nights - 1 point

Conflict of interest: Was bandmate briefly with Rick Brown of 75 Dollar Bill in 1982. Great guy.

Babes Wodumo ft. Madanon, Rhythmsounds & Bongzin "Sanbonani"


Anderson Neiff, MC Terror, Laryssa Real, MC Magrinho "O Neiff Me Ligou"


For the Expert Witnesses Poll results go here and scroll down about halfway.

*The asterisk after "Sarra Nela Com Fuzil Na Bandolera" actually had some significance for poll scoring, but I forget what it was. Maybe it got 2 points instead of 1.

CROSSPOSTS: HTTPS://KOGANBOT.LIVEJOURNAL.COM/387219.HTML

Here are my Uproxx Music Critics Poll ballot and my Pazz & Jop Rip-Off poll ballot. These are exactly* as I sent them except since my Uproxx email was just for my write-in votes, I've now inserted my number 2 Uproxx album into it in brackets (I originally voted for that one via their dropdown menu; nothing else I voted for was on their menus). For Uproxx I was allowed up to 10 albums and 5 singles; P&J Rip-Off was albums-only, also up to 10. The Uproxx deadline came first, obviously, and I made an easily avoidable mistake in my comments, and I followed-up with a correction.

My votes were restricted by Uproxx and P&J restrictions, sometimes to amusing effect (see footnote).

MC 2Jhow, MC Rennan & MC Fahah (DJ NBeat) "Vem Sentando Vem"

From: Frank Kogan
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2021 9:21 PM
To: Critics Poll, Uproxx
Subject: Write-In Ballot Frank Kogan

My number 2 album is on your dropdown menu so I've left that spot blank here. The rest are all write-ins.

ALBUMS:
 
1. Squid / Bright Green Field
[2. Ashley Monroe / Rosegold]
3. Equiknoxx / Basic Tools (Mixtape)
4. Juçara Marçal / Delta Estácio Blues

SINGLES:

1. DJ Wesley Gonzaga, MC Cyclope & MC Laureta / "Sarra Nela Com Fuzil Na Bandolera"
2. DJ Guuga & MC Don Juan / "Acabou Você Não Deu Valor"
3. MC Thammy, MC Jhenny (DJ Malícia) / "Chamo Teu Vulgo Malvadão"
4. MC 2Jhow, MC Rennan & MC Fahah (DJ NBeat) / "Vem Sentando Vem"
5. Sofía Martín, le Shuuk / "Tóxica"

The top four singles are all baile funk. I think Sofía Martín is also Brazilian, but she's not baile funk.

Juçara Marçal is also from Brazil, and also isn't baile funk.

From this you might get the idea that I know something about Brazil. But I don't. This is just what happens if you knock around YouTube and Twitter enough; you find the wild things.

Equiknoxx are Jamaican and Squid are Brits; they're not so wild, but they're good.

Enjoy your December.

Frank Kogan

From: Frank Kogan
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2021 5:41 PM
To: Critics Poll, Uproxx
Subject: Fact check

"I think Sofía Martín is also Brazilian..." To underscore that I don't know what I'm talking about (or how to search the Internet, apparently), I learn that she was born in Germany, grew up in Spain, and now records in Berlin.

https://www.curiousformusic.com/post/get-to-know-sofía-martín

I think one of the YouTube sites said her track was licensed by a Brazilian version of some international label. That's my excuse.

From: Frank Kogan
Date: Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 11:27 PM
Subject: Pazz & Jop Rip-Off Poll ballot - Frank Kogan
To: pazzandjop

Babes Wodumo - Crown - 20
MC Carol - Borogodó - 16
Bee DeeJay - On The Map - 12
Squid - Bright Green Field - 10
Ashley Monroe - Rosegold - 8
Slant - 1집 - 8
Hello Psychaleppo - Jismal [EP] - 7
Tia Maria Produções - Lei Da Tia Maria - 7
Juçara Marçal - Delta Estácio Blues - 6
Sexyy Red - Ghetto Superstar - 6

Glenn and Keith - Thank you for taking the time to do this.

Frank Kogan

The P&J is the first 10-item album list I've submitted or posted anywhere since EOY 2014. And since way before then I've been letting singles and tracks, in streams and downloads and on playlists, way supersede albums in my listening. I think albums are still a meaningful format: can in a small way throw me more into particular artists' (and labels') own contexts. But that's less and less anyone else's context for listening, and e.g. lots of baile funk DJs and performers don't even release albums. I'm thinking that if I submit album lists in the future I might decide to include streamed DJ sets.

I joked that I was doing the Uproxx as a conceptual art piece, i.e., I knew my ballot wasn't going to make an impact. But I was actually doing it to combat my alienation and to engage with some of my critic friends via email. Then when Chuck tipped me off to the P&J Rip-Off thing I jumped in further. I worry that this conflicted with my other listening and writing, and that I'm e.g. putting off writing about singles and about baile funk in particular 'cause I want what I write to be good and not too overwhelmingly ignorant, meanwhile I'm lounging around in album rabbitholes.

Anyway, I hope to engage with you all in later posts by commenting on the music, either from these albs or elsewhere. We'll see how life and writing go. In the meantime I'll be doing the ILM tracks poll and Tom Ewing's World Cup Of 2021, both of which are somewhat different animals, more about discovery than about tracking what a social set thinks is best.

Babes Wodumo ft. Mampintsha, Rhythmsounds & Bevst Niggvs "Dumelang"


( Footnote )

*Er, and I've now fixed my typo in the Hello Psychaleppo album title, which is Jismal, not Dismal

EMINEM: Into The Labyrinth And Out Of Control
Frank Kogan, The Village Voice, Pazz & Jop 2000 Supplement, February 14-20, 2001

I think gays genuinely give Eminem the creeps, but I also note that in the oft-quoted song where he seems to be saying that he kills fags and lezzes, the oft-quoters leave out the beginning, where he makes clear that he's not killing anyone, or believing in killing anyone: "A lot of people ask me stupid fucking questions. A lot of people think... that if I say that I want to kill somebody that I'm actually going to do it or that I believe in it. Well, shit, if you believe that, then I'll kill you." According to the lyrics, it's just his words that are like a dagger with a jagged edge, that'll stab you in the head whether you're a fag or a lez. And in the same song he kills Dre and a bank teller, neither of whom represents people he's prejudiced against. But Eminem likes to have things both ways, and his lyrics have trapdoors and escape hatches all through them – but then again the escape hatches have trapdoors too, which means that he ends up escaping back into the trap and so continually does end up implicating Marshall Mathers and not just Slim Shady. Listen to the joy with which he says "I'll kill you." He genuinely doesn't know whether Slim is a guy who's standing tough against the jerks or is an out-of-control asshole who will hurt his own loved ones. And he doesn't know how much of Slim's pathology is or isn't his own potential pathology. And he's got us not knowing either, which absolutely increases the power of his art.

I don't think he's at all settled in his own mind whether his words can kill or not, or whether he wants them to. He actually hopes that his message of sympathy will reach psycho Stan – potential Stans, real Stans – in time, before the Stans hurt themselves. Hey, Slim, that's called codependence, to think that your words can change a psychopath, that you can either set him off or save him. But anyway, Eminem also wants to tell you that he doesn't give a damn, that you can sue or shoot and he doesn't give a fuck – since he himself doesn't know whether he gives a fuck, since he wishes he didn't give a fuck, since he says that he's proud to be out of his mind and out of control.

Em isn't challenging his primary audience all that much in "The Real Slim Shady." But "Stan" and the two songs where he kills his wife, Kim, might challenge them more, since he's drawing a picture that his primary audience may not want to identify with. Actually, I'm not even sure what I mean by "primary audience" – when you've gotten as big as Eminem you're not like the Dixie Chicks, who can be ignored outside their genre, you're a pop phenomenon, everyone's your audience, everyone's got an opinion, even people who've never heard you. But what I'm thinking of as his primal primary audience is (1) hip-hop guys who dream of living crazy and not just living large and (2) trailer-trash guys and middle-class trailer wannabes. If you put "Shady" together with his non-"Shady" songs he does challenge those guys, in that when he urges them to be proud to be out of their minds and out of control, he then goes on to depict a really OUT out-of-his-mind drunk-and-jealous Em killing his wife, and an out-of-control psycho Stan killing wife and baby.

And when you get down to it, Eminem is his own prime audience; profound contradictions dog him and dig into him and spill out of him. For instance, he's probably really old-fashioned in his sense of normality – his weirdest line goes, "no worse than what's going on in your parents' bedrooms." Wait, Em, what's wrong with what goes on in bedrooms? Yet he seems to believe that the heterosexual nuclear family that he never had as a kid and barely had as an adult is normality, and is warmth and love and daddy playing with baby. And as I said he really seems creeped out by gay sex, which he thinks of as dirty and weird, not just as sex, and maybe he thinks all sex is dirty. I mean, he considers girls in makeup provocative! Adultery and gay sex are pretty much the only explicit sex that appears on his records, unless you want to count Carson and Fred getting head from Christina. So it's like anything that deviates from this nonexistent norm is weird. Yet his lyrics wallow in deviance, because the deviance itself, the breakdown of the heterosexual nuclear-family norm, is the precondition of his freedom. It's what allows him to cuss and go out of control and yell Fuck Him And Fuck You Too. Complicated guy.

The Real Slim Shady

Chuck Eddy sent me his Pazz & Jop and his Country Critics ballot early last month (which I've reprinted down in the comments along with shitloads of other stuff from Chuck and other people's lists). I actually had no idea there still was a Pazz & Jop. I'm not commenting on the results because I haven't read them yet — still — but here are my Freaky Trigger Readers' Poll ballot and my ILM tracks ballot. Haven't looked at ILM results yet either, but here's the link; here's the link to the ILM album results, though I didn't vote in the album poll. Here are the four links to the Freaky Trigger results rollout: link, link, link, and link.

These were both "tracks" polls, so I included singles and nonsingles.* For the ILM poll you vote for tracks that are nominated; anyone can nominate a total of 30 albums and tracks, split however you want (say, 29 tracks and 1 album), but I always nominate very few so that I'll vote for/pay attention to stuff that at least some other people are plumping for. My two nominees this year were Kidd Kenn's "Slide Remix" and KeshYou & Baller's "Swala La La." The deadlines for the two polls were three-and-a-half weeks apart (Dec. 31 for Freaky Trigger, January 25 for ILM); sharp eyes will notice that I keep changing my mind on the relative merits of the Kidd Kenn, the Cassie, and the KeshYou & Baller.

*My 2018 top 100 or so singles playlist is still ongoing, if you want to take a look at its current makeup; and in late December I finally posted my Top 100 Singles And Commentary for 2017, where in the comments we talk about 2018 and 2019 too (esp. Jvcki Wai, who's like a 16-year-old just discovering anarchy and the joys of anticlericism, which is pretty appealing even though she's 22).

My ILM's 2018 End of Year Tracks Ballot

Kidd Kenn - Slide Remix
Cassie - Don't Play It Safe
KeshYou & Baller - Swala La La
bhad bhabie ft. lil yachty - gucci flip flops
Cardi B - Be Careful
Valee ft. Jeremih - Womp Womp
Niniola - Saro
Bali Baby - Backseat
Cardi B ft. Bad Bunny & J Balvin - I Like It
Bích Phương - Bùa Yêu
blocboy JB ft. drake - look alive
Dladla Mshunqisi ft. Nokwazi & Prince Kaybee - Wangibamba
Tropical Fuck Storm – Rubber Bullies
DaniLeigh - Lil Bebe
LOOΠΔ/Olivia Hye ft. JinSoul - Egoist
Doja Cat - Go To Town
NCT U - Baby Don't Stop
Wande Coal - So Mi So
Vince Staples - FUN!
Lil Kesh - Apa Mi
MEUTE - You & Me (Flume Remix)
Tropical Fuck Storm - Chameleon Paint
Panic! At the Disco - High Hopes
Lady Leshurr - RIP
City Girls - I'll Take Your Man

My Freaky Trigger Readers' Poll Ballot 2018

1. Lil Pump "i Shyne"**
2. Bhad Bhabie ft. MadeinTYO, Rich The Kid, Asian Doll "Hi Bich (Remix)"
3. Cassie "Don't Play It Safe"
4. Franko "La remontada (Freestyle)"
5. Ninety One "Ah!Yah!Ma!"
6. KeshYou & Baller "Swala La La"
7. Kidd Kenn "Slide Remix"
8. Fairies "HEY HEY ~Light Me Up~"
9. Zulu Mkhathini ft. DJ Tira "Uniform"
10. 6ix9ine "Billy"
11. Bhad Bhabie "Thot Opps (Clout Drop) / Bout That"
12. Bhad Bhabie ft. Lil Yachty "Gucci Flip Flops"
13. 6ix9ine "Mooky"
14. Sheck Wes "Do That"
15. Cardi B "Be Careful"
16. Niniola "Saro"
17. A$AP Rocky ft. FKA twigs "Fukk Sleep"
18. Crowd Kontroller ft. Niniola "Bambam"
19. Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J. Balvin "I Like It"
20. Bali Baby "Backseat"

Despite not looking at P&J and ILM results yet, I will say that by one definition of "pop" — poppy-sounding stuff that's popular or at least semi-popular — Anglo-American pop these days is worse than at any other time in my life and has been for a decade (though maybe the earlier part of the decade qualifies as another time in my life; I don't know). But by another definition of "pop" — stuff in styles that are popular from all over the place, especially including hip-hop — pop is doing great, even in Anglo-America, and even with K-pop having an off-year. Anyway, I won't elaborate on these opinions just yet. Robyn is worse. Ashlee is worse. But neither is particularly representative of what I mean. As for my lists, the Bhad Bhabie I have as number two for Freaky Trigger is a remix of a track I liked even better last year but only had as number ten (though it made it up to number five when I eventually closed my 2017 singles list); so the top of my list may not be up to the top of last year's list but I assure you my number 100 will be way better than last year's number 100. Lots of really interesting stuff from all over. Very little I vote for or listen to represents my sensibility, owing to people culturally like me having stopped making good music around 1980, so in mucking about the world on YouTube I always feel like an outsider. But I'm sure my lists still manage to represent my attitudinal footprint in some way, "the sort of stuff I get taken by" or something, even if I don't feel at home in the musical worlds that are generated and depicted.

Chuck and I overlap on Bhad Bhabie, Bali Baby, City Girls, and Mylène Farmer, 50% of whom are baby.***



**I probably should've credited this to "Lil Pump and Carnage."

***Well, Dev now too but I hadn't heard "Rock On It" until he listed it. It's yet another year with Cassie, Dev, and K-pop.

Best-ofs for 2017 are already appearing,* and here I am finally posting my Top Singles for 2016. It's not that I've been ruminating all these extra months about 2016's music: I was done with this list in February, and I've refused to add to it since. It's just that I wanted to write something good before posting, or at least something interesting about some of these songs. And it kept just not happening, a combination of busyness and some sort of block. But here we are; I worked hard on the list back then, which is odd and deserves some explanation, that I worked so hard on it then and that I still feel it should be posted, no matter how late.

So here's a quasi explanation/justification, followed by an embed of the YouTube playlist, all 100, then the Top 100 list itself, and then maybe something interesting about several of these songs.

Quasi Explanation/Justification

When I was 12 I drew up lists of songs I liked, drawing stars next to each song to show how much I liked it: 1 star was good, 2 was very good, 3 was better than that, 4 the best. A very positive rating system. "Turned Down Day" by the Cyrkle was one of only two that got a 4, though I don't remember what the other one was. It's possible "Eleanor Rigby" got the 4, though she might have only been a — still impressive — 3. "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" certainly would've been a 4 except I stopped making the lists by then. And "Hanky Panky" and "Mother's Little Helper" were surely 4's as well, except they were older, from back in the summer, so I didn't feel I needed to list them. At least, I don't remember listing them.

(Why 'Turned Down Day"? That's a question to return to some other day, maybe.)

"Sunny Afternoon" was a 2 or a 3. "Sunshine Superman" was 2 or 3. Obviously they're connected in my memory. "Last Train To Clarksville," the band name Monkees meaning nothing to me yet, got 2 or 3. When the show appeared several weeks later, "(Theme From) The Monkees" got a 1. (That's a good score, remember.) Those are all I can recall, though I surely listed far more than just those.**

Why did I make such lists? Was one reason to remember song names? To remember which band did which song? Did I even write down band names?

One reason, I think, was that the lists made listening more exciting. And the ratings, they made it a competition, a car race, a competitive event. Making it a race drew me in, maybe even kept me listening more than I'd have listened otherwise.

Several years earlier when I was alone I'd run marble races on a track I had. Spent hours at a time doing it, scoring which marbles did the best. I'd play a game outside — also alone — where I'd throw a tennis ball against the basketball backboard nailed to a tree at the side of our driveway and try to catch the ball. One "team" was the thrower and the other "team" was the catcher, and if the catcher missed, the thrower scored a point, assuming the throw was in-bounds. First team to score 12 was the winner. I'd have tournaments. The teams were called Pic, Poc, Pook, and Peek. Each had its own throwing style and personality. Different windups, different arcs, sometimes different hands. Poc was my favorite and, not surprisingly, a frequent winner.

In retrospect this seems like a very boy thing: listings, scoring, winners and losers, competing.*** The imaginary tennis-ball competitors, though, had more specific criteria for winning and losing than songs do.

I never showed anyone my song lists, the ratings.

This doesn't mean there was no public purpose in this: remembering songs, knowing where I stood. But it was its own adventure, too.

So here we are. I'm still making lists, pitting songs against each other, sort of. Anyway, almost a year late, my 2016 list: as I said, I worked hard on it, listened a lot. Besides my public ongoing list I had a private YouTube playlist called "Borderlines" and another called "Interesting Songs Maybe, 2016," kept mining both for new entries, at the end had an extra 12 or 14 remaining on Borderlines that I kept relistening to, to make sure they shouldn't make the main list. I thought a lot about which songs deserved to be higher or lower, as if there was a difference between 58 and 68. (I'm going to be more casual tossing things in order this year. Just not going to spend the time.) All this on a blog which almost nobody reads anymore.

But I keep wanting to do these lists. It's one way of organizing my listening, keeping at least some of it contemporary, now that no one's paying me to review and I myself am not remembering to even look at the Great Competitive Election like the Voice's year-end poll (if it's still even a thing; I have no idea who won last year).

Of course there are plenty of other ways I organize my listening, and plenty of other questions I ask of music and of myself besides the big blunt-instrument ones, "How good is it?" and "Do I like this more than that?" But there's something pretty basic here, the question "Do I like it or not?" and "What's good?"; maybe even basic because the answers are so unsteady and the reasons so opaque.

Also, you're not seeing enough of my other questions anymore. I keep saying I'm going to post more. Maybe one reason the lists at least get posted — even this one, so horribly late — is that they have a timeline: first quarter, half year, three quarters, year's end. This one sort of has a deadline too (I'm on my sixth or seventh): at what point is it even beyond ridiculous to post it?

Here's an embed of the playlist. Honestly, I'd be surprised if anyone gives it the afternoon it would take, but I urge you to anyway. Just let it go in the background.



1. HyunA "How's This?"
2. Britney Spears ft. G-Eazy "Make Me..."
3. Crayon Pop "Vroom Vroom"
4. 4minute "Canvas"
5. FAMM'IN "Circle"
6. Céline Dion "Encore un soir"
7. Tiffany ft. Simon Dominic "Heartbreak Hotel"
8. Era Estrafi "Bon Bon"
9. DLOW "Do It Like Me"
10. Wonder Girls "Why So Lonely"
( 11 through 100 )

( Commentary: Céline, Tiffany, Kenji Minogue, Yoonmirae, MOBB, Tacocat )

Stubs of ideas, some of which may turn into future posts:

(1a) A punk votes for a punk (Johnny Rotten says nice things about Trump). Okay, he's not necessarily saying that he did vote for Trump, though from what he said it's a good assumption he did; but anyway, my armchair psychosocial analysis of the Trump win already had been "Punks voted for a punk," my using the word punks in a sorta pre-punk-rock sense, meaning people who compensate for subconsciously feeling weak by scapegoating and bullying and hurting the vulnerable; but such "punks" can include normally nice people too, people who let the punk aspect of themselves do their electoral thinking.



(1b) Only "sorta pre-punk-rock" given that original garage-rock punks such as ? And The Mysterians and the Syndicate Of Sound and the Seeds were indeed punks in the old sense, weak bully-type punks (and sexists as well),† but most of the great punk rockers — I'd start "punk rock" w/ Stones and Dylan, actually, with the caveat that the true punks, the garage rockers, weren't Stones and Dylan but the garage kids who'd dumbed Stones, Dylan, and Yardbirds down into punk, which'd be a fine explanation except that no one limits "punk rock" this way; most critics etc. would also include the Velvet Underground and MC5 and Stooges and Patti Smith and Richard Hell and Rocket From The Tombs and even more would include Ramones and Sex Pistols and the Clash and the Heartbreakers and X-Ray Spex and Black Flag and Nirvana and Hole, generally self-aware nonbully types, and if you're going to do this you've got to go back and count Dylan and the Stones — ...anyway, most of the great punk rockers (as generally defined) were about punk way more than they were punk; nonetheless, being self-aware, they drew the connection between actual inner true punk impulses and the punk rock they were playing, understanding their own weakness and that bullying and scapegoating were in there lurking, sitting dangerously inside. But anyway, of all the great punk rockers, the Sex Pistols, who were maybe the greatest ("They make everyone else sound sick by comparison," said my friend Bill Routt), were the ones who were true nasty punks as much as they were about punk. They were the band that made punk safe for fag-bashers (fortunately only somewhat safe).* None of which explains why Johnny Rotten would shit his brains down the toilet and support Trump (apparently, Johnny can't tell a racist from a hole in the ground). If you want to turn to social affinity and group identification as an explanation, Johnny's loyalty is to real punks, not to punk rock. (Yes, there's no way to come up with a unitary reading of the word "punk" in this paragraph. It'd be a stupider paragraph if you could.) I doubt that many self-identified "punks" — those who embrace the music as part of their social identity — voted for Trump. These people veer left instead. If you go by social category, Trump got many of the rocks and hoods and greasers and grits and burnouts — at least, more than he should have — but few of the punks. (Among whites he got a significant amount of the jocks and middle managers, too, and their psyches are probably as much punk as the hoods' are, but that's not relevant to Johnny Rotten's social identification.) I doubt that many Trump voters had ever bothered to listen to punk rock (not counting the garage hits they heard way back); if they had, the aboutness would've stung them, and they'd have been repelled. Nonetheless, I think I can understand that what makes the Sex Pistols sound true and real to me, the screaming squalling blind attempt to stand against anything acceptable and settled that can get you by, is what makes a lying hollow pathological bully like Trump sound transgressive and therefore real and true and honest and substantial to a lot of his fans.

(1c) Of course Trump doesn't win if he gets only the punks. And my armchair analysis isn't based on any actual research of mine into "the Trump voter." As I said two sentences ago, there's more than one type of Trump voter, and individual voters are multi-faceted in their urges and ideas anyway (so a particular Trump voter can be more than one type). I'm actually doing two questionable things: (i) reading the characteristics of the voter off of the characteristics of what they voted for, rather than actually asking the voters who they are and why they like what they like; (ii) using a psychological model that can apply to an individual person to explain the behavior of a group of people (the punk types who voted for that punk Trump), as if the group were an individual writ large. Obviously I think the analysis kinda sorta works, or I wouldn't have made it. It's a strong hypothesis, punks voted for a punk, strong in my mind anyway, though maybe someone more knowledgeable could beat it down with an alternative. ("Strong" analysis? Seriously? How so? It tells you what most of you already know: (1) that I don't like Trump, (2) that I think many of his voters voted for a lot of what I don't like about him, even if they don't understand the policy implications, and (3) that he's a punk. You already knew that. He's a punk. It's maybe a correct analysis, but not strong, since it doesn't tell you anything you don't already know. Maybe it makes you think harder about punk rock, and what I write below maybe'll help you think harder about social class.)

(1di) ( Trump got more working-class whites than he was expected to )

(1dii) ( The terms hoods, greasers, grits, and burnouts as stand-ins for current social identities )

(1diii) ( The class systems in people's immediate experience are not an exact match for the upper-middle-working class grid )

(1div) ( They voted against Clinton because she's a student-council type )

(1dv) ( Kids who bombed out of the classroom still hurt by it )

(1e) ( Middle class divided )

(1f) ( Want to hurt people and feel good about hurting them )

(2) ( The failure of education )

(3a) ( Duncan Watts criticizes idea of 'representative agent' )

(3b) ( How would we measure 'punks voted for a punk'? )

(4) ( The principle of the inferred et cetera )

(5) ( Top 100 singles of 2016 )

(6) ( A punk votes for a brat )

(7) ( Etc. )

Lizzy's advice on how to acquire the voice she uses for Orange Caramel and for trot (but not for After School):

Keep nagging at your mom when you're little.

Demonstrated here, with variants here (happy) and here (annoyed)* (h/t David Frazer).

I'm even more behind than usual (mid-year list to come, once again w/ Lizzy). I keep promising research on After School, never get there. So just several adjectives for you:

After School, who were kinda all over in their early years, have settled into smooth vocals, effortlessly poignant, when required, but holding rough rhythms under their hood. One of the few K-pop groups to sound as good in Japanese as Korean. Meanwhile, Orange Caramel's** rampaging cuteness conquers all, style atop style. No social insights from me. Cuteness doesn't play in North America, probably for good reason, but that doesn't mean we're living our lives better than South Koreans are living theirs.

After School "Triangle"


Orange Caramel "Catallena"


*The hashtag is #twang_Lizzy.

**Orange Caramel is a subunit, consisting of three members of After School: Nana, Raina, and Lizzy.

Singles 2014

1. Wa$$up – "Jingle Bell" – Mafia
2. Chainsmokers – "#Selfie" – 604/Dim Mak
3. HyunA – "Red" – Cube Entertainment
4. BiS – "STUPiG" – Avex Trax
5. Kate Nash – "Sister" – Have 10p
6. Courtney Love – "Wedding Day" – Cherry Forever
7. Orange Caramel – "So Sorry" – Pledis Entertainment
8. Tinashe ft. Schoolboy Q – "2 On" – RCA
9. Nicki Minaj – "Lookin Ass Nigga" – Young Money/Cash Money
10. Crayon Pop – "Uh-ee" – Chrome Entertainment

Albums 2014

1. After School – Dress To Kill – Avex Trax – 15
2. Hong Jin Young – Life Note – Loen Entertainment – 15
3. Wa$$up – Showtime – Mafia – 15
4. Jiyeon – Never Ever – KT Music – 10
5. Kali Mutsa – Souvenance – Shock Music – 10
6. Infinite – Be Back – Woollim Entertainment – 10
7. Hold Steady – Teeth Dreams – Washington Square/Razor & Tie – 10
8. Kitty – Don't Let Me Do This Again – self-released – 5
9. Kelis – Food – Ninja Tune – 5
10. Vixx – Error – Jellyfish Entertainment – 5

Was worried that some well-meaning copy editor at the Voice would not believe me when I listed "Wassup" as by Wassup and would change it to the other "Wassup." But they got it right (or more likely there weren't enough copy editors, well-meaning or otherwise). Some other oddness on the site, though: the first time I checked Matana Roberts' Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile, Chuck Eddy wasn't listed as having voted for it, though he had. But a few minutes later, his name was on there.

Not enough ballots from The Singles Jukebox.

I made no comments this time.

1. Crayon Pop - "Bar Bar Bar" - Chrome Entertainment
2. Baauer - "Harlem Shake" - Jeffree's/Mad Decent
3. GLAM - "I Like That" - Big Hit Entertainment
4. will.i.am ft. Britney Spears - "Scream & Shout" - will.i.am/Interscope
5. MBLAQ - "Smoky Girl" - J.Tune Camp
6. EvoL - "Get Up" - Stardom
7. Cassie ft. Rick Ross - "Numb" - self-released
8. Wa$$up - "Wa$$up" - Mafia
9. Tiny-G - "Minimanimo" - GNG Productions
10. Gaeko & Choiza & Simon D & Primary - "난리good!!! (AIR)" - Amoeba Culture

1. After School - First Love EP - Pledis Entertainment - 15
2. Orange Caramel - Orange Caramel - Avex - 15
3. D-Unit - Affirmative Chapter.1 EP - D-Business Entertainment/Windmill Media - 13
4. Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile - Constellation - 13
5. Kate Nash - Girl Talk - Have 10p - 10
6. SNSD - Love & Peace - Nayutawave - 10
7. Kitty - D.A.I.S.Y. rage EP - self-released - 9
8. Cassie - RockaByeBaby - self-released - 5
9. Sturgill Simpson - High Top Mountain - High Top Mountain/Relativity - 5
10. will.i.am - #willpower Deluxe Edition - will.i.am/Interscope - 5