I did think we were going to get a Robyn album this year, but at this point it seems unlikely?

I have discovered the kind of YouTube React video that I actually like and it's "random hip-hop fans discovering underground rappers I love". I actually found Black Hole Superette underwhelming within the Aesop Rock discography but videos like this make me appreciate it more!

I wrote, in "2025 wishes":

new Lorde album (but good this time)

#lorde #good ideas

almost!

commissioning a thinkpiece about how there's no "where are they now" for the guys who played the musical saw in the wonderwall music video unlike the nirvana baby or the blind melon bee girl and what that means about music criticism's obsession with youth

hey uhhhhhh this is great

on both the interviewers' and interviewee's side! Great job everyone?

realizing too late that the reason I like Sudan Archives' "My Type" is because it sounds like an uptempo version of "The Truth" by Handsome Boy Modeling School

two things can be true: Pink Pantheress's "Illegal", especially the Nia Archives remix, is possibly the biggest earworm of the summer for me,

and also,

"you're recommended to me by some people" is possibly the most TMBG-ass lyric to make it into a mainstream pop song in quite a while

This song/video is such a great encapsulation of the different talents within a given "movement" I see in any genre of music right now. It's from a little over a year ago so things might be different now (or in the future) BUT

Here's three and a half minutes of music billed to Latto but featuring Flo Milli, a slightly more gimmick-credited rapper, and Megan Thee Stallion, who is herself a kind of regulated, brand-safe version of Nicki Minaj. The breadth of their careers/statuses/talents is important here. Also Glorilla, ANOTHER trending female rapper, who has her own distinct place in the zeitgeist, is hanging out and does lip syncing at key moments in the video. She's not credited at all, she just wants to be around. It's a distinct cultural moment!!!

I am having complicated feelings about this just-barely-above-mid Latto single that is interpolating Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody?"