music for neighborhood headbanging (megamix 17)

Welcome back to another megamix, which you are probably receiving via email—but if you're reading it from the blog, which I just typo'd as "bog", think about signing up for the newsletter, which means the megamix would come straight to your door, signed sealed AND delivered.

First...quick quesh.....what if I teased something sneaky in the I Enjoy Music universe...sort of a soft launch...something to consider....something akin to Music Television....

Ok enough cryptic shit. Let's get on with the mix...

GREAT song on blah album: 2 recent case studies

I think I was just a child when this classic scenario came across my desk: If aircraft "black boxes" are indestructible, why can’t the whole plane be made from the same material?" I have this similar Mythbusters-style thought when there's a really good yet thematically disparate song on an otherwise middling album too: why can't the whole album be made from this material?? This has happened twice recently, once with Mitski's "That White Cat" and once with Madison Beer's "yes baby."

Mitski has made some of my favorite raw/aggressive/emotional singer-songwriter music of all time, and she's also made some of my favorite quirked-up/narrative/art project zone music of all time. This music got her a lot of fans, and these fans are often pretty annoying, and since then it's like she's been making albums to try to slough those fans off entirely. Music that acts like a loofah. Midtempo pedal steel country-ish numbers that don't inspire the teenagers to scream things like YASS MOMMY.

So on her latest, Nothing's Going To Happen to Me, there's a lot of music that sounds like it would be played at a Texas dance hall...to give the two-steppers a much-needed break. "That White Cat" riiiips though. Mitski's hoppin' mad on it, quite frustrated about the mundanity of home ownership/stewardship as it relates to the enormity of existence and death. And there's also some prominent bass, and she's singing about cats, which is nice. I know it's not sustainable to be angry all the time, but I've had it up to here with 'lush arrangements' and beautiful brass parts sitting low in the mix...the nasty way Mitski sings the line "and the bugs that drink my blood", now that's the stuff.

And my uncharitable thought about Madison Beer, the singer who first found fame by getting schwomped into Justin Bieber's orbit in the early 2010s, is that she might be better suited to providing vocals for electronic music producers, rather than shouldering the responsibility of the pop worldbuilding that today's crop of superfans tends to demand of solo artists. At a time when Tate McRae is the sensual varsity athlete, Chappell Roan is the cranky clown princess, and Sabrina Carpenter is a blonde Betty Boop, pop girls do need some kind of hook beyond just being drop dead gorgeous. As Drag Race commands—you need charisma, uniqueness, nerve AND talent...even in this economy.

Madison has a lovely voice and I really wish her album Locket leaned way harder into the vibe of "yes baby," which is like a Moroder song with the dial turned away from disco and toward sinister techno. The way the chorus instrumentation waits to expand until the 2 count is a neat production trick, a nice shortcut for getting that rush of blood to your head, shared by Charli XCX's "von dutch." Trent Reznor would slay if he covered this song. Madison, stop wasting your time and get in the studio with HorsegiirL or something.

'fork found in kitchen

I reviewed Hot Chip frontman Alexis Taylor's new solo album for Pitchfork. I'm a Hot Chip girl (here, look, a blog post I wrote about "Huarache Lights") and I generally prefer the group stuff to the solo stuff, but I wouldn't be mad at all if I heard "I Can Feel Your Love" out at the clurb.

I also reviewed the new Robyn! Had a GREAT time with this one. Some career-best songs on here. Robyn is just eternally tapped into a mood and sound that is going to work for a wide swathe of listeners, and she lives in Sweden where she can have some privacy, truly living the dream that most pop girls do not get to live. On "Talk To Me," the vocal harmony on the sometimes I get so lonely is sooo beautiful and sad and it's hilarious that such gorgeous melancholy has been applied to a song about phone sex....I'm going to be so real and say that the concept of phone sex has never appealed to me, but that's because my Venus is in Capricorn and I can't tolerate any kind of erogenous abstraction, ha ha.

songwriting + tarot cards = coool

I wanted to highlight the YouTube channel of IEM reader Luke Exuberance! He sent me a video where he used tarot cards as inspiration for songwriting, which is of course up my alley—and bonus, Luke records audio for videos using a Real Ass Full Size Microphone rather than the trendy handheld lav mics that have infiltrated almost all video production...maybe I'm simmering with longterm resentment because when I used to produce videos, I had to hide the lav mics, getting all up in people's shirts in the process, and now Creators are flapping them all over the place, poised in their pincers. Whatever!

Anyway, the video series is such a great idea, and spoiler alert, the 8 of Pentacles is involved—one of my favorite cards ever, a card for hustlers and grinders, just trying to make it happen. The closing song is a cheeky lil lo fi garage rock bop!

I listened to music because I saw people saying it was good

Eavesdropping time.

I listened to Father John Misty's cover of Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" because a TikTok comment told me to. I listened to Naomi Scott's "Cherry" because a TikTok said it was "the song of the summer" even though it came out last fall—I'm susceptible to hyperbolic social marketing, just like anyone. I listened to the new Arlo Parks album Ambiguous Desire because Sharkey Spice liked it, and I think the 'wistful chill pop about partying hard' thing is what Harry Styles thought he was doing with his latest album, and he didn't succeed, but Arlo certainly did. I watched the Automatic set from The Best Show because Brett Davis mentioned it in his newsletter. COOL BAND. Never going to say no to a "dance band." ESG meets Stereolab?!

I was recommended this Angine de Poitrine KEXP performance by Ben on Bluesky and before the first song ended it I had texted it to two people. Loops, crazy costumes, bass-guitar hybrid (reminds me a little of the keyboard-guitar thingy that Chris Taylor from Dancer made that I interviewed him about), psych rock goodness, what is not to love? Top YouTube comment: "When they announce a world tour, I hope they clarify which world."

I listened to Cici Arthur's "Way Through," an end-of-2025 rec from JP that slightly missed the deadline...sophisticated jazz pop, gorgeous stuff, and whoa I love their album art...

I listened to the 2022 Swedish House Mafia...um...deconstruction? of "Roxanne" by The Police? called "Redlight" (technically Sting is the person credited on the song) because it was dropped in this live set, and I was like...ok yes. I listened to "Life (Extended)" by Carlita & Andhim because it was playing from the storefront of a local pawn shop I was standing in front of while I waited for my husband to buy an epic shirt for his live show that he happened to see in the window of the store next door, which was doing a trunk sale; the descriptive copy of this song calls it a "skillfully crafted emotive soundscape" and I must agree.

I listened to some tunes by Haute & Freddy because literally Lady Gaga made a TikTok referencing them...chic cabaret glam pop, babe. Not mad. Not mad at all. I totally see why she likes them. Oh and I listened to MATTDUBz because I was on an evening walk with my baby and I started inadvertently headbanging when some guy drove by blasting riddim—I'm a secret or not-so-secret bass head, here's an example of a song I like in that realm—the man pulled BACK AROUND THE BLOCK to say "hell yeah" and I was like "who is this??" and he said "MATTDUBz!" God I love talking to people about music.

And how about some new music from past I Enjoy Music featurees?

first president of japan has a studio version out of the crazy ass punk tune "whale song," whose live rendition was part of my SPEED WEEK fast tempo coverage...

The City View has a new single out! Lovely synth pop 4 your earz...

New Miserable chillers!! Tap into this album when it comes out, you won't regret it...I literally don't even know how to describe it, is it a Sound or is it a Whole World...