Switched on Pop

RAYE names Amy Winehouse and Edith Piaf as her artistic predecessors on the opening tracks of new album This Music May Contain Hope. Both died young, undone by the same darkness they sang about, and placing them there reads as a dare to herself. The album that follows is her attempt to find a different ending: a 17-track, 75-minute work featuring Al Green, Hans Zimmer, the London Symphony Orchestra, and over 80 collaborators, structured around the four seasons as a journey from autumn despair toward summer light.

Every genre shift on the record, from Vivaldi's Winter to post-bop jazz combo to gospel choir, serves that arc: small emotional truths get cinematic treatment, most strikingly when the click of heels on pavement becomes the central rhythm of an anthem about getting dressed to go out with friends. The episode serves as a field guide to the album's vast musical language, and to the argument that hope is something you have to build, genre by genre, track by track.

Links: ⁠Newsletter⁠, ⁠YouTube

RAYE – "WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!" 

Nat King Cole – "Let There Be Love" 

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong – "Summertime" 

RAYE (ft. 070 Shake ) – "Escapism." 

RAYE – "Intro: Girl Under the Grey Cloud." 

RAYE – "I Will Overcome." 

Edith Piaf – "La Vie en Rose" 

RAYE – "Nightingale Lane." 

RAYE – "Fin." 

RAYE – "The WhatsApp Shakespeare." 

Mark Ronson & RAYE – "Suzanne" 

RAYE – "I Hate The Way I Look Today." 

RAYE – "Winter Woman." 

Vivaldi – "The Four Seasons: Winter" 

RAYE (ft. Hans Zimmer) – "Click Clack Symphony." 

RAYE (ft. Al Green) – "Goodbye Henry." 

Al Green – "Love and Happiness" 

Aretha Franklin – "Rock Steady" 

RAYE – "Skin & Bones." 

Fred Wesley and The J.B.'s (ft. James Brown) – "Damn Right I Am Somebody" 

RAYE – "Beware.. The South London Lover Boy." 

The Supremes – "You Can't Hurry Love" 

Iggy Pop – "Lust for Life" Jet – "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" 

Mark Ronson (ft. Amy Winehouse) – "Valerie" 

Charles Albert Tindley – "I'll Overcome Someday" 

Prince - “Purple Rain" 

Beyoncé – "Love on Top" 

RAYE (ft. Amma & Absolutely) – "Joy."

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On a recent podcast interview, Kentucky rapper Jack Harlow said that, to craft his new album Monica, he “got blacker.” The problem is… Jack Harlow is white. The statement, while extremely tone-deaf, speaks to his intentions with this musical pivot: musically, Monica turns to the historically Black genres of R&B and neo-soul to craft a new image designed to shed the stigma of being a “white rapper.”

The pivot is more costume than culture, but in doing so, Harlow seems to be following in the footsteps of several white rappers over the past decade. Artists like Post Malone, MGK, and Jelly Roll have all had radical shifts in sound and image over their career, separating themselves from their roots in hip-hop. So, in response to Monica, Reanna and Charlie ask: where have all the white rappers gone? 

Links: ⁠Newsletter⁠, ⁠YouTube

Songs discussed:

Jack Harlow – First Class

Jack Harlow – Lovin On Me

Jack Harlow – Trade Places

Post Malone, Hank Williams Jr. – Finer Things

Jack Harlow – Tyler Herro

Jack Harlow, Doja Cat – Just Us

Jack Harlow – Lonesome

J Dilla, Common, D’Angelo – So Far to Go

D’Angelo – Spanish Joint

D’Angelo – Feel Like Makin’ Love

Jack Harlow – All Of My Friends

Led Zeppelin - Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

Paul Wall, Big Pokey – Sittin’ Sidewayz

Beastie Boys – Fight For Your Right

Post Malone – White Iverson

Post Malone – Leave

Post Malone, Morgan Wallen – I Had Some Help

James Taylor – Machine Gun Kelly

MGK – LOCO

MGK, blackbear – my ex’s best friend

5 Seconds of Summer – She Looks So Perfect

MGK – cliche

Jelly Roll – F*ck What They Talkin Bout (ft. O.N.E.) 

Jelly Roll – Need A Favor

Bubba Sparxxx – Deliverance

Eminem – Cleanin’ Out My Closet

Eminem – Without Me

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Jacob Collier is a rare musician: an expert in so many musical languages (western harmony, negative harmony, microtonalism) and a phenomenal communicator about music. He's something like an Ambassador for Music, traveling the world and getting thousands of people, musicians and non-musicians alike, to sing in his audience choirs.

Live at On Air Fest, this conversation, catches Jacob between projects. Last year he released The Light for Days, a comparatively minimalist collection of songs written on his special five-string guitar, a quiet turn after the massive Djesse quadrilogy, which featured over 50 collaborators from Herbie Hancock to Anoushka Shankar and wove hundreds of thousands of audience choir voices into the recordings.

Given that Jacob is always improvising with the best collaborators, Charlie wanted one of his own own. Five minutes before the show, Charlie spotted Sam Sanders, co-host of Vibe Check and host of the Sam Sanders Show on KCRW, and asked him onstage. Sam's a musician and one of the great interviewers, and he showed how improvising in conversation is just as essential as it is in music.

Links: ⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube
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The dance floor is where Harry Styles does his therapy, and this album is the session notes. Four years after Harry's House, Styles returns with Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally, a record built from minimal ingredients: live drums, Moog bass, nylon guitar, and synth sequences that stretch across entire songs without a drop in sight. This is Styles' anti-drop album. Where classic disco era dance celebrated collective joy, Styles uses the dance floor as a stage for self-examination.

Links: ⁠Newsletter⁠, ⁠YouTubeSongs discussed:

Harry Styles – "Aperture"

Ice Spice – "In Ha Mood"

PinkPantheress – "Boy's a Liar"

Zara Larsson – "Midnight Sun"

LCD Soundsystem – "Dance Yrself Clean"

LCD Soundsystem – "Someone Great"

LCD Soundsystem – "Oh Baby"

Harry Styles – "Pop"

Harry Styles – "Sign of the Times"

David Bowie – "Space Oddity"

Elton John – "Rocket Man"

Harry Styles – "Dance No More"

Chic – "Good Times"

Stevie Nicks – "Edge of Seventeen"

Simon & Garfunkel – "Keep the Customer Satisfied"

Paul Simon – "You Can Call Me Al"

Harry Styles – "Carla's Song"

Paul Simon – "Kathy's Song"

Simon & Garfunkel – "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

Harry Styles – "Are You Listening Yet?"

DJO – "Basic Being Basic"

Harry Styles – "Season Two, Weight Loss"

Sons of Kemet – "Play Mas"

Harry Styles – "Coming Up Roses"

Harry Styles – "American Girls"

LCD Soundsystem – "American Scum"

LCD Soundsystem – "Drunk Girls"

Harry Styles – "As It Was"

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Bruno Mars is back with a new album called The Romantic, his first solo release since 2016’s 24k Magic. At first listen, the lead single, “I Just Might,” sounds like an outtake from 2021’s collaborative album with Anderson Paak, the Philly soul-inspired An Evening with Silk Sonic. Listen closer though and another element emerges: a fast-paced conga drum line.

The rest of Mars’s nine-track confection chases that Latin influence. This is not just another retread of 70s funk and soul. In fact, The Romantic makes the case that Mars is pop’s great counter-programmer, finding styles of the past that no one else has yet mined.

Charlie and Nate break down all the new territory covered by Mars, from Latin boleros to Cuban cha chas, Nuyorican boogaloo to a mariachi “My Way.” The results may not change your mind about Mars, but they might make you appreciate the finer points of what is sure to be an omnipresent new release. 

Links: ⁠Newsletter⁠, ⁠YouTube

Songs discussed:

Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars - Die With A Smile

ROSÉ, Bruno Mars - APT.

Bruno Mars - Risk It All

Eydie Gormé, Los Panchos - Sabor a Mí

Frank Sinatra - My Way 

Bruno Mars - Cha Cha Cha

JUVENILE, Soulja Slim - Slow Motion

Pete Rodriguez - I Like It Like That

Cardi B, Bad Bunny, J Balvin - I Like It

Young-Holt Unlimited - Soulful Strut

Bruno Mars - I Just Might

Redbone - Come and Get Your Love

Leo Sayer - You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

Junior Senior - Move Your Feet

Bruno Mars - God Was Showing Off

Billy Paul - Me and Mrs. Jones

Bruno Mars - Why You Wanna Fight?

Bruno Mars - On My Soul

Curtis Mayfield - Move on Up

Bruno Mars - Something Serious

Willie Bobo - Evil Ways

Santana - Evil Ways

Santana - Oye Como Va

Tito Puente - Oye Cómo Va

Bruno Mars - Nothing Left

Bruno Mars - Dance With Me

Stephen Sanchez - Until I Found You

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