Charli XCX – Brat [Atlantic 2024]
I can’t even say there’s a secret to the aural heft these 15 lime green beat-pop tracks exude. Just lessons she learned along the way and a dedication to the work, not that she isn’t talented obviously. Owning neither a vagina nor a Grindr account myself, my familiarity with Essexian Charlotte Aitchison’s pop project has been peripheral – limited to the hit singles she featured on more than a decade ago when she fleetingly first broke through on this side of the pond. And now amongst 41 minutes of bleeps, bloops, bangs, crashes, whirrs, and beats that supposedly bring her back to her hardcore rave roots, Charli XCX has provided the latest in a long line of girlhood-is-a-spectrum elucidation seeking not just to find her place within its lineage but craft an entire definition of the thing so potent it might set off fears of formalism in the greater terminally online girlies text groups. Perversely enough, even though they’re my favorite ones, don’t let the world beating braggadocio fool you – her great subject in tableau is the kind of middle-class insecurity that allows for such detailed ruminating. 4.5/5
Miguel – War & Leisure [RCA/Sony 2017]
Coming hot off the tail of Trump’s election you’d think this guys who knows damn well his mere existence is political would have more teeth in his bite. Pleasant and melodic R&B further removed from the rock palette he worked with before it’s a good not great jam record for those bouncy afternoons in the sun. 3.4/5
Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft [Interscope 2024]
She’s gone on record that this was a rediscovering of her dark roots for herself since her blonde bombshell era was more coping mechanism than genuine change up – which, ya know, good for her. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that this now out and still very very young pop star and her brother have given us basically a video game soundtrack, perfecting tone, mood, setting, all that stuff that aggregates to “vibe” but with a surprising lack of follow through on substance. Slower and slower and slower they move around a listless remnant of young love, is it any wonder that the ears perk up on the first half of “Blue” when it feels like she has something to actually get off her chest? Or on “Lunch” where her sexual attraction to another woman is so strong that it’ll get anyone straight or gay, left or right at least a little aroused? This is the one that feels like fog unfortunately and no matter how much I want myself to like it I can’t force it. 3.3/5
Drive By Truckers – American Band [ATO 2016]
There’s too much that this 11 song collection by America’s greatest living Southern songwriters could and does mean to dissect it all at length. So with brevity on my side let me point out it’s their most accessible coming in at under 47 minutes and articulating the part exhausted, part enraged, part exasperated national mood in the months leading up to this country’s closest brush with fascism in 100 years. Both Hood and Cooley are in top form, detailing school shooting, Evangelical lies, depression, and that ever Southern ever American original sin of racism racism racism. The shocker is how upfront the duo is this time around, there’s still stories as morality tales but it’s much less “conniving poor bastard kills or runs” and more of “this is really happening”. Between the clarion “It all started with the border/And that’s still where it is today” to detail the injection of white supremacy into the NRA’s most political leader through Hood’s double entendre of “Baggage” (racism AND depression ooooooooooh) pinning this country’s tipping point as Robin Williams’ suicide are enough blood pumping and tear inducing dispatches to convince anyone with a pulse that we’re not okay. 4.7/5
Cosmic Hero 