Whenever things get worse—and really, when don’t they?—some ’60s nostalgic who believes we can fix things with just three chords and an annoying new epithet for Trump invariably asks, “Where are all the protest songs?” Well here they are, along with some unprotesty picks as well.
Local Picks
Molly Brandt, “One Helluva County”
On this standout from her latest album, Museum of Being, Brandt stands like Walter Benjamin’s angel of history, glancing backward at the catastrophe of U.S. history, lamenting, “Blood spilled since the beginning/Ain’t no liberty left for you and me/We the people.” Yet she belts it out with hope against hope for the future regardless.
Dillinger Four, “Don’t Happy Be Worry”
D4 hasn’t really gone anywhere, and now they’re back with their first new song in 18 years, released, appropriately enough, on April 1, sounding familiar yet fresh in that pop-punk way. The frustration the lyrics vent never specify the cause, so you can apply that sentiment to any irritant in your life, from the micropersonal to the geopolitical.
Secret Rivers, “Worthy of the Stone”
Activist, poet, Livie, and occasional Racket contributor Guante joins with fellow forward-thinking St. Paul MC SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE on an Andor-referencing cut that even borrows a backing track—“Niamos! (Morlana Club Mix)”—used by that most revolutionary Star Wars product. Sample lyrics, dedicated to those arrested by the FBI this week: “You and me love the city; they love the atlas/The map is perfectly tight and ordered/They salivate over straight lines and borders.”
These jitter-funk electro-poppers have never taken the “panic” part more seriously. This is a funky anxiety attack, the Minneapolis Sound at 2x, and barely more than one-minute long. (Hence the title.) And just when you think they’re gonna take it to the bridge, they head over the cliff.
10 Items or Fewer, “Life Sentence Fragment”
Mike Hallenbeck calls it “zydeco-surf-folk-bop” and I couldn’t dub it better myself. Are there handclaps? How could there not be? Gramscian words of wisdom: “This world will end and then the next one will begin.”
Non-Local Picks
Carsie Blanton & the Burning Hell, “Everything Is Great”
Libs: “We need more protest songs!” Carsie: “Everybody knows that Luigi was right.” Libs: “Not like that!”
Lucy Dacus, “Planting Tomatoes”
This track’s spry enough to defeat the sadgirl accusations that we true fans knew were always overstated, but listen up and Dacus is singing about—ta-da!—death. Which is inevitable, etc. “But before then, I’ve got some ideas,” she sings.
MIKE, Earl Sweatshirt, & Surf Gang, “Minty”
On POMPEII / UTILITY, a 33-track album that stretches out to an epic length of one full hour, two of the lowest affect rappers in the game compete to hear who can slur the least comprehensibly. I personally prefer MIKE’s half, which perks up midway for a spell, to Earl’s, which tries a little bit too hard to prove he’s got nothing to prove. And I’ll add he couldn’t pull it off without the Surf Gang production crew, which blurs the contemporary and trad into suitably disorienting ahistoricity. No this doesn’t reach the two-minute mark—but that’s because it moves, not because MIKE loses interest.
Calling out snitches, the most songful drum ‘n’ bass revivalist returns with an insistent guitar hook and a backbeat no one would mistake for jungle.
Vince Staples, “Blackberry Marmalade”
It’s rap-rock because there’s a guitar, but the Long Beach provocateur doesn’t so much rock out here as roll, daring you to drop the N-word over slick backbeat with no funky speed-bumps. As for that first-person shooter video, it’s both a cheap gimmick and genuinely disturbing.
WORST NEW SONG
Why yes, I did dutifully listen to all 42 tracks of Drake’s three simultaneous new releases, as closely as patience and indifference permitted, and my big takeaway is that if that if his narcissism remains this impenetrable as he slides into middle age (repeated thought as I listened: This chucklehead turns 40 in October) he’ll be braying grievances long after I’m dead. Drake marks the spot where the lust for lore and the obsession with celebrity meet—like a later MCU installment, listening to this Kendrick diss track (I’m told) can feel like showing up to class without doing the reading. Why’d does the opening line address Lisa Rinna’s daughter, as Genius tells me? Why does the title reference The Sopranos? Why do people listen to this for fun? As always, Drake’s mediocrity is his superpower—as many will listen just to hear him fail as to lend support. Some will tell you the future of rap sounds like an Auto-Tuned podcast with 808s underneath, but it ain’t gotta be like that.
Wanna get a local song considered for the playlist? To make things easy on both of us, email [email protected] with MONDAY PLAYLIST in the subject header. (Don’t, as in do NOT, DM or text: If I’m in a good mood, I’ll just ask you to send an email; if I’m in a bad mood I’ll just ignore it.)
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source racketmn.com ’
