May Roundup: It’s pop’s moment and I’m living in it
It seems like I was working out my April roundup last week, but apparently, we’ve gone through another 31 days of listening and it’s time for some updates. May has been my highest-rated/averaged month thus far (specifically, the first month to average out in the 8s), which feels as good as Jessie Ware’s That! Feels Good! did to my ears (it’ll make sense when you scroll). That tells me I’m making good listening choices, and my personal taste is expanding to music outside of my usual rotation, which has always been my primary goal. I had many more favorites and standouts that aren’t listed here, so I’d recommend taking a gander at the playlist to get the full picture of the month.
HIGHEST RATED: Something, Chairlift (2012)
While we’re all aware of the buzz Caroline Polachek has been making in 2023 (Desire, I Want To Turn Into You has become a personal favorite of this year’s releases so far), some don’t realize she’s been in the game long before her solo debut in 2019. The synth-forward pop band Chairlift was born in 2005 by Caroline Polachek and Aaron Pflenning, and after recruiting Patrick Wimberly in 2007 the trio released their debut album Does You Inspire You in 2008. That year, the album’s lead single “Bruises” was featured in an iPod Nano ad, and then quickly took over the mainstream. 2012’s Something is, arguably, the group’s answer to their overnight success in ’08, and it cements their position as a leading voice in the synth/dream pop takeover of the early 2010s. Something also only features Polachek and Wimberly — Pflenning left the band between their first and second releases. The duo forged on after losing a foundational part of their early success, and what came out of it was a refined, confident duo that doubled down stylistically to hone their sound.
Something opens with the swirling and disorienting “Sidewalk Safari,” which cuts right to the chase with an opening synth theme that persists and alters throughout the track. The album continues into the catchy, dream-pop-esque “Wrong Opinion,” with incessant percussive hooks (dare I say, from a cowbell?) that keep the listener tapping along until the end, leaving them anticipating what’s to come. Throughout Something, Polachek doesn't shy away from those sweeping operatic vocals we all love her for (see “Take It Out On Me,” “Amanaemonesia,” “Frigid Spring”), and the vocals work in tandem with Wimberly’s crisp and to-the-point production. The two balance each other out through the album’s points of both over and understatement (the clearly-’80s-inspired anthem “Met Before” vs. the smooth and jazzy “Ghost Tonight” vs. the heavenly and dreamy “Turning”). The ability for all of these genres and moods to exist in one album is a testament alone to Polachek and Wimberly’s studio mastery. The album closes with the cutesy “Grown Up Blues,” which I feel is the perfect, most realistic end to the album’s exploration of love, relationships, and time: the plights of adulthood come for us all, no matter how fast we try to run from them.
“Each of us is the same in our way / A lonely madness inside is what they’re trying to hide / And what they can’t goes all away / Is a story to wake up to each day”
Top tracks include: “Sidewalk Safari,” “Take It Out On Me,” “Cool As A Fire”
May Honorable Mentions: Stereotype A, Cibbo Mato (1999); That! Feels Good!, Jessie Ware (2023); Sometimes I Sit and Think, Other Times I Just Sit, Courtney Barnett (2015)
SHOCK OF THE MONTH: Gag Order, Kesha (2023)
*TW: SA*
Nearly 10 years after Kesha sued producer Dr. Luke for sexual assault and battery, the singer-songwriter has released what she says is “the most intimate thing” she has ever created. Kesha worked with producer Rick Rubin on the project, who she deeply bonded with throughout the creative process to get her emotions to the forefront.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the Kesha of Gag Order is not the Ke$ha of 2010’s Animal. While there are glimmers of her party-pop/rock roots, albeit updated, for example, with a hyper-pop/folk twist (“Only Love Can Save Us Now”), the album also explores stripped-down production, isolated vocals, spoken word, and slice-of-life looks at Kesha’s various emotional states as she continues to grow and heal (“Living in My Head,” “All I Need Is You,” “Hate Me Harder”).
While these two extremes of excess and scarcity exist, there is also so much that happens in between, which becomes another world of emotion, creative freedom, driving beats and loops, and the kind of out-of-pocket lyrics you’d expect based on your prior knowledge of Kesha. A personal favorite example of this is the end of the blunt and harsh “The Drama”: a relentless loop of the sing-song-y phrase “In my next life I wanna come back / As a house cat as a house cat.” Maybe not something you’d expect to hear in a song, but I can’t say I’ve never felt that myself. But that’s not all. Intertwined with these vocals is a slowed, warping rendition of the Ramone’s “I Wanna Be Sedated,” which makes Kesha sound, well, sedated. This jumps immediately into the spoken word “Do you approve of me? Do you like me? Am I good enough?” looped opening of “Ram Dass Interlude.” This pacing continues from song to song, propelling the listener to various places between unhinged chaos and intimate reflection throughout the album’s 13 tracks.
I think this is my Shock of the Month because this truly just was not what I was expecting. I hadn’t listened to any of the singles, so I went into Gag Order as a blank slate on release day. By the time I hit the seamless transition between “Something to Believe In” and “Eat the Acid” (tracks 1 and 2), I was hooked. Any expectations, preconceived opinions, or assumptions I had went out the window, and I was immediately ready to open myself up to anything else that was to come. I’m both shocked by how well Kesha and Rick Rubin have pulled off combining all of these different styles and niches and still releasing something that is as raw and vulnerable as this, and by how much I thoroughly and genuinely enjoy it.
Top tracks include: “Eat The Acid,” “Peace & Quiet”
And with that, we wrap up another month. Here’s hoping June gives us as bountiful of a listening harvest as May has.
