Fluxblog 610: let's time travel to summer '71

This issue’s playlist is THIS WAS SUMMER 1971, featuring what was on the air, in the shops, and in the zeitgeist in the summer of hot pants and brown sugar. I went into this one knowing it wouldn’t be as popular as the 1980s or 1990s versions of this rubric but this is a really good one that covers a lot of ground beyond the expected boomer nostalgia. It’s also a rare edition of the “This Is Summer” series in which all the country songs are strong!

This includes songs by Funkadelic, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Rolling Stones, The Who, Joni Mitchell, T. Rex, Marvin Gaye, Paul McCartney, Carole King, Rod Stewart, Bill Withers, The Doors, Can, Al Green, Delroy Wilson, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Pharoah Sanders, Cher, Carpenters, Olivia Newton-John, Serge Gainsbourg, John Coltrane, Flying Burrito Brothers, Isaac Hayes, The Jackson 5, and more. Oh, and it’s the rare playlist to feature both Barbara Mandrell and Mandrill!

Here’s two more recent This Was Summer playlists:

“Big Life Big Leaf” is a song that’s largely concerned with aging, death, and inevitable natural cycles, but it’s not a downer. It’s bright, it’s up tempo, it’s a psychedelic rush. It’s a song that rejoices in the very fact of being alive and excited for everything that’s possible when you’re still here on Earth. When Jasamine White-Gluz sings “I wish you didn’t have to leave,” it’s less about mourning and more about wanting someone to never leave the party of your life. And so it makes a lot of sense that the song would have to sound like the No Joy version of party music.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

The past decade or so has given us a glut of sexy/sad songs by women about lusting for men who treat them terribly, largely taking cues from Lana Del Rey’s prolific work on the subject. “When I Get Drunk (I Want You Boy)” is pretty obviously downstream from Lana, right on down to starting the chorus with a resigned “fuck it…,” but I think Suki Waterhouse is aiming for something a little more earnestly sexy and openly emotional. For one thing, that slinky bass line is too solidly R&B to give the song much ironic distance from its own sexiness. And the melancholy feels more earned than notional. The piano part carries a lot of heartbreak, and there’s a few too many lines giving away the game that the singer actively wants a relationship with this distant and ambivalent man. That note of futility and tragedy makes the song feel sexier – there’s real stakes to this hookup, even if she’s trying not to admit it.

Buy it from Amazon.

“Expectations” is the result of a songwriting dream team at the height of their powers: an A+ melody from pop topline queen Amy Allen, a typically bold structure and meticulous arrangement by Dan Nigro, and the lyrical POV and effortless charisma of Olivia Rodrigo.

Musically it’s a slight shift for Rodrigo, moving into early 80s new wave territory rather than 90s alt-rock/00s pop-punk, but it’s the same effervescent energy that brings out the best in her voice and persona. But it’s right in the sweet spot for Nigro, as he’s basically pulling in tricks he developed in his collaborations with Chappell Roan. There’s more than a little “Hot to Go” and “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl” in this song, but Rodrigo’s personality is so strong that it’s not necessarily the first thing you’d notice upon hearing it.

There’s a clear continuity from Guts tracks like “Bad Idea, Right?” and “Get Him Back!” to “Expectations” both lyrically and musically, though there’s an obvious uptick in maturity. But that’s kinda the entire point of the song – Rodrigo is growing up, learning, and wanting more for herself and asking more from the men who want to be with her. She’s not necessarily holding herself up as a wholesome role model, but there’s a lot of positive lessons embedded in this god tier ultra-bop.

Buy it from Amazon.

🟡 Geoff Stanfield of interviewed Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma of Mouse On Mars on the Tape Op podcast about how they made Spatial, No Problem, their excellent and fascinating collaborative album with the late dub reggae pioneer Lee “Scratch” Perry. I had a lot of questions about the record, and this episode answers most of them.

🟣 Lizzo’s new record Bitch flopped as expected, not even charting on the Billboard top 200 in its first week of release. I checked in on the Spotify numbers and it’s rather bleak. This is an artist who has two songs around the billion play mark on Spotify and 11 more over the 100 million mark, and her new tracks are getting play counts on par with the latest records by The New Pornographers and Rostam, but not quite on the level of new releases by Ratboys or Boards of Canada.

Lizzo and other less partial observers are offering a lot of reasons for this – not enough promo, the collapse of radio, shifting cultural moods – but I think this largely comes down to her simply not having a significant organic loyal fanbase and that she’s done a few too many things over the past 8 years to sour people on her public persona. Like, set aside that whole thing where several of her employees accused her of sexual, religious, and racial harassment, disability discrimination, assault, false imprisonment (!!!), creating a hostile work environment, and weight-shaming. Remember when she was publicly doxing and attacking a Postmates delivery driver on Twitter? Just a lot of bad vibes adding up over time.