Dagny: Strangers / Lovers
(2020.10.02)
Dagny’s story is similar to many pop artists in the age of Spotify: a never-ending stream of digital singles while moonlighting for more well-known pop stars like Katy Perry. Often this entails trying to gain a foothold in the industry by contributing to the packed song-writing labs of today’s Frankentstein-ed Billboard hits (in this case, “Never Really Over,” where she joins seven others with songwriting credits). So it’s nice that Dagny finally gets her moment in the spotlight, here proving she has the ability to surpass the bigger names who might as well admit it’s time to pass the torch. Like the massive hooks of a single like “Come Over,” the entire album is rooted in conventional dance-pop, drawing upon little variety in production for a consistent, rather than diverse, palette of sounds. While it could do with a bit more surprises, it’s not a hard sell in a month where the only other major release from a female soloist was Ariana Grande’s positions, though it’ll really have to fight harder to be remembered in a year full of them.
WJSN Chocome: “Hmph!”
(2020.10.07)
With the world’s eyes on K-pop like never before, the niche groups of the Golden Age, the ones content to focus solely on a domestic audience with in-jokes and culture-specific references, have fallen to the wayside. There is almost no incentive to promote groups like Orange Caramel or Crayon Pop, groups with no chance of making their way outside of Asia without LOLs attached. Since every new or comeback group’s aesthetic nowadays is “cool,” “dark,” or “sexy,” it makes a sub-unit like WJSN Chocome even more novel and enticing. Their cues stem from off-the-wall sub-units before them in sight and sound from gugudan OGUOGU to OH MY GIRL BANHANA (and hey, whatever happened to FANATICS-FLAVOR?), to vintage J-pop (those Chisato Moritaka outfits!), though of course most comparisons to peak-Orange Caramel are most accurate, the eurodance, saxophone-loaded “Hmph!” one big Neapolitan-flavor-melt of uninhibited, geeky K-pop at its best. As these groups get fewer and farther between, it makes the ones that come along just that more radiant.
The Newton Brothers: The Haunting of Bly Manor (Music from the Netflix Horror Series)
(2020.10.09)
Like it’s fellow anthology series, American Horror Story, the second installment of Netflix’s The Haunting series casts many of the same actors in a loose re-telling of Henry James’ The Turning of the Screw. Like its predecessor, the real horrors are those that are less supernatural than ultra-natural, the ghosts of guilt, and shame, and past lives re-surfacing at a person’s most vulnerable moments. The Newton Brothers are back for the soundtrack, although in lieu of composing brand-new themes or re-inventing their sound, they’ve largely expanded upon their original work, dashing off a series of new snippets among a collection rife with quotes from the most iconic themes of Hill House. Luckily, they’ve learned a thing or two, trading in atmospherics for more melody, drawing out the first’s best elements: the eerie, melancholy piano most prominent in cues like “Beginning of the End Movement IV,” eschewing the necessary, but superfluous, sharp violins and abrupt dynamics. This makes for an overall more unsettling, and more listenable, experience of the two outside of their visual elements, perfect for any rainy autumn evening.
Nao☆: gift songs
(2020.10.13)
It’s inevitable, but disappointing, whenever great idol groups peter out. Sure Negicco’s peak-era run was short, ending with Rice & Snow, but at the time, they were as close to a bonafide idol group as possible, one both passionate idol fans and casual indie kids enjoyed. That cred has lent itself to other Tower Records-adjacent soloists like Michiru Hoshino, and to the other members themselves who have been dabbling in the solo waters since at least 2018. Their sounds are similar: last month Keade’s Stardust in Blue and this month, Nao’s gift songs are two EPs as close to mirror images as they get. Nao’s boasts help from groups with some rising clout like the band apart, it’s low-key vibe an antidote to Kaede’s more low-effort attempt. It’s a matter of personal taste, but Nao’s gift songs retains a kind of warm, whimsical charm missing from its sister EP, one closer in sound to the Rice & Snow sound. Neither of these are particularly game-changing, memorable EPs, but their throwback, warm-water oases are refreshing in a desert full of dusty, major-label idol pop that only Keyakizaka46 (RIP, kind of) can nominally transcend.
LOONA: [12:00]
(2020.10.19)
After the long wait after 2019’s double mini-albums, we only had to wait eight months since LOONA’s last, [#], released in February. A disappointing collection to say the least, I’m happy that this month’s [12:00], while still veering into unoriginal territory, is at least less of an attempt to compete on the same sonic world stage as BLACKPINK than more local girl groups, though all the mystery is still visibly reduced by the amount of stock samples in some of the tracks, especially the lead single, “Why Not?” which is clearly stitched together from various sources (check out the first three tracks of Super M’s Super One for an instructional guide in stitching independently-composed choruses, verses, and bridges together to create one massive hit, not unlike the origin story of every K-pop group itself) to encompass a songwriting-credits list as long as some telephone books (for anyone who remembers those) and nearly as many emotional beats. I’m partial to the more straight-forward dance-pop of “Voice,” one of [12:00]‘s strongest tracks, but as someone who no longer falls within their direct marketing demographic, I’m probably mistaken. The rest of the EP boasts some fun tracks, rounded out by obligatory subdued moments. It’s better than [#], but only just enough to keep me interested, rather than impressed.
Carlos Rafael Rivera: The Queen’s Gambit (Music from the Netflix Limited Series)
(2020.10.23)
It’s difficult to make chess, with its stoic concentration, and all the most exciting parts happening unseen, cerebrally, riveting on screen, but with the help of camera angles, quick cuts, and most importantly, a thrilling soundtrack, Netflix makes it seem easy. As one of the only companies poised to deliver a constant avalanche of new content during a pandemic that has shuttered theaters around the world, the streaming service is one of the few sources we looked to for a year bereft of blockbusters and their original scores that would have normally rolled off the assembly line this autumn like Lucy’s chocolates (actually, we did technically get Mulan, and I guess, Alan Silvestri’s score for The Witches, which was fine). The Queen’s Gambit, composed by newcomer Carlos Rafael Rivera, who has but a couple low-key credits to his name, relies on the show’s thematic content, deploying suspenseful strings and lush momentum alongside a gorgeous base of piano for his score, all while maintaining distinct themes for each of the show’s most important matches. Making chess as dramatic as the final game in the World Series has its challenges, and Rivera admits, “I grew up with chess in that my dad played a little, but I never cared about it. But as long as you know that someone stands to lose, you can score for it.” With an arresting story line and such a stunning score, it’s a win-win for the viewer.
Ariana Grande: positions
(2020.10.30)
From the moment the lead single, “positions” dropped, it was apparent this was not going to be Ariana Grande’s experimental album. The question was: just how similar would it be to thank u, next? The answer is, extremely. Throughout her career, as a vocalist with incredible range and skill, Grande has had the pleasure and pain of being compared to Mariah Carey. positions proves that’s where the parallels end: while Grande has a hand in composing all of the tracks on this album, it lacks the melodic depth and dynamism of Carey as a songwriter at the same point in career (Carey’s sixth album was Butterfly, widely regarded as the turning point in her career, and one that has enjoyed not only critical acclaim, but popular support). On the other hand, the comparisons can only increase, as Grande seemingly does her best to imitate not only late-era Carey (specifically Caution), but her closest contemporaries, among them Victoria Monet, whose producer worked on both singers’ 2020 releases (and with Monet making a direct appearance on “34+35).” This doesn’t make positions a terrible album at all, in fact, sonically, it’s just as consistent as its predecessor, and boasts some of the best production on a technical level, of the year. Still, listeners looking for a hit single or a pop number in the vein of “No Tears Left to Cry” or “Into You” will be disappointed. That ship, with Max Martin waving from the deck, has sailed, in lieu of an aggressively grown-up approach that boasts an uninhibited and sexually frank lexicon, a sign of the times for Grande who is coming into her own in the age of The Weeknd.
Meghan Trainor: A Very Trainor Christmas
(2020.10.30)
It’s hard to find holiday music that doesn’t suck the life out of classics that were never meant for a punk-rock or trance-pop remix. They exist, they’re just few and far between — if pressed, I could maybe name five albums right now. Yet every year I subject myself to the new year’s crop in search of the ever elusive black diamond of Christmas music. Among this year’s hopefuls, including Carrie Underwood, The Bird and the Bee, Goo Goo Dolls, and Maddie & Tae, Meghan Trainor is the last person I would expect to produce a serviceable, let alone good, album of holiday classics. But this is 2020, where all bets are off and we’ve truly reached an historical nadir, so here we are, in the muck, with Trainor’s album this year’s Christmas front-runner. Earlier this year, Trainor released a collection of pop music so past its sell-by date, it wouldn’t even have been relevant if it had met its original release date, scheduled for a year earlier. Yet the annoyingly jolly desperateness that hallmarks Trainor’s brand of confused feminism translates well into music that is built on joyful earnestness. In fact, Trainor could have easily taken this to JoJo Siwa-levels of exuberance, instead displaying a tasteful level of restraint on classics like “Silent Night,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” that lesser souls have insisted on jazzing up with unnecessary tempo changes. The jazzing up, in fact, is relegated to originals like “Holidays” featuring, of all groups, Earth, Wind, and Fire, “My Kind of Present,” and “Christmas Got Me Blue.” These are not the kind of canon-storming songs planning to meet “All I Want for Christmas is You” on the top of the Hot 100, but you can do a lot worse if you’re desperate to feel some semblance of manufactured holiday cheer this year.
Sam Smith: Love Goes
(2020.10.30)
Riku Onda’s The Aosawa Murders, recently translated into English, unravels the story of a mass murder through interviews with several people related to the crime. One such character, an editor who worked with the woman who spent her graduate years researching the murders, appears at the climax of the mystery, eloquently musing on the book that he helped eventually publish: “In one sense,” he states, “something can only be recognized as having happened if there is a record of it.” Love Goes is Sam Smith’s record, chronicling what appears to be a very tumultuous time in their life. Like many albums this year, the album was delayed due to the pandemic, and in another sense, for a re-branding, its original title taking that of the then-titular track “To Die For,” where the singer laments not having someone in their life worth that very ultimate sacrifice. It is, instead, now named for a song about the tough decision to walk away from an irreparable relationship: “You’re broken, we know that,” they reluctantly admit, “And if you knew it, you won’t fight me when I say farewell.” It’s a total change to the original way listeners could interpret this album, from a place of reluctance, and of tortured loss looking back, to a more hopeful, forward-facing perspective of resigned understanding and acceptance. The entire album is rife with this kind of bruised sensitivity, with heartache, and a spiritual search for home and acceptance. Its highly personal, self-reflecting lyrical content can seem like the most irresponsible kind of self-indulgence in these times, but the care with which these songs were constructed make it more than just a whiny diary of break-up songs about Sam Smith’s former lovers. But even if it was, Love Goes, as a record of that time in their life, finally shared with the entire world, bears witness. It means it happened, and it means it happened forever.
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