Five Obsessions (August 2024)
A decade ago, I launched a column with Pigeons and Planes called 5 On It. Each Saturday for two years, I wrote about my favorite rap discoveries and fixations from the preceding week. It has been almost seven years since I last wrote about music in the way I did for P&P, as much wannabe critic as ad hoc historian and industry theorist. I have not had a desire to return to the kind of music coverage that focuses on “discovery” until recent weeks, as the media landscape continues its necrotic metamorphosis, leaving gaps once filled by passionate, talented people looking to highlight music and art that might not otherwise find its way to the attention of the public.
Five Obsessions brings back the format of 5 On it, but increases the scope to music of all genres that’s in constant rotation for me each month. Some of it will be new, some will be old but new to me, all will capture the thrill of discovery that spurred me in my earliest days as a listener and writer.
I’ll publish on the second Saturday of every month (in honor of my old tradition), except for this first edition, which lands on a Sunday due to extenuating circumstances. As ever, you can find my running Spotify list of 2024 favorites here and embedded below.
Hope you enjoy.
Sturgill Simpson/Johnny Blue Skies - “If The Sun Never Rises Again”
Years ago, I wrote a brief bio for Johnny McDaid, cowriter of many an Ed Sheeran hit. He told me a story about his wandering days as an aspiring songwriter when he first arrived in America: “I went on a writing tour of America. I wrote for months with anyone who would work with me. Hip-hop writers, country artists, guys, girls, bands, producers—everyone who would go into a room with me and write. The idea was to absorb the essence of songwriting with an openness to the possibility of what might be.”
One of tentpole moments of the trip was a session with Burt Bacharach’s lyricist Hal David. Watching the sun set at David’s house, McDaid admitted he felt exhausted, creatively drained, and homesick after the long and often futile trek across the United States. When David suggested they write about that homesickness, McDaid countered that the concept felt cliche. David fired back that McDaid had never written about homesickness at 5pm as the sun faded over the Santa Monica mountains. His point: As important the substance of a song, the framing is just as crucial. Eternal feelings can feel wholly fresh given the right form.
Sturgill Simpson writes songs in this spirit, recasting classic notions through the lens of an eternal wanderer, a restless spirit trying to make sense of limited time on earth. “If The Sun Never Rises Again” may be one of finest examples of that sensibility in his catalog yet, a perfect encapsulation of sliding doors romance that spins tight drama of time’s unstoppable slippage. Coming from his first album under the alias Johnny Blue Skies, it achieves a great deal without overwrought songwriting or production, a meditation on seizing the moment likely inspired by the self-imposed exile in Paris that spawned the writing of his new album Passage du Desir:
“Why can't the dream go on forever?
Why can't the night never end?
All we need is starlight in our eyes, however
What if the sun never rises again?”
(I’m fixated on the meaning you can pull from the title and central lyric alone. On the one hand, Simpson is asking wistfully to extend his night with the subject of the song forever. On the other, he subtly tweaks the question “what if I never see another sunrise?,” hinting at death even as the song attempts to making the most of a moment in life.)
Cash Cobain & Laila - “Problem”
How thoughtful of Cash Cobain to bring back the era of rappers going back and forth with the words in samples with real panache. The time honored New York tradition of rapping in anticipation of or response to a sampled vocal as if it is a collaborating vocalist itself forms the backbone of “Problem,” a song that should be played disrespectfully loud at every party for the fading days of summer.
Pink Siifu, Turich Benjy, HiTech, Milfie - “WWYD?!”
Pink Siifu is consistently one of the least predictable, most exciting rappers releasing music today. Every new album he puts out is an adventure into another sonic pocket. His catalog ricochets from punk and hardcore to Dungeon Family-adjacent, mystical southern rap to songs calling back the hip-hop/R&B blends of the Soulquarians. His restless spirit and dedication to exploring the staggering breadth of his influences puts his elastic, raspy flow in exciting new contexts on each project, his commitment to variety as exhilarating as it can be frustrating for any listener who fell in love with him for something specific. “WWYD?!” with producer Turich Benji, electrifying Detroit ghettotech trio HiTech, and Detroit rapper Milfie is one of the most exciting additions to Siifu’s catalog, buoyant as it is soulful.
Lucky Daye - “Diamonds in Teal”
If the year was 1995, this would have been the single tie-in to a blockbuster Batman movie and it would have been a massive hit for four months straight. The video would feature a lot of rain and cross cutting between Lucky Daye singing and Batman doing Batman stuff.
Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson - “Guerrilla”
As my son nears two years old and laughs his way into cognition, I have increasingly experienced music through his eyes and the movements of his tiny body. One of our morning traditions: He’ll walk to the record player in our living room and point. He gestured this way far more when he was less verbal. Now he tends to shout “Shiny,” a command for me to play the Moana classic on repeat. Months back, he simply pointed in hopes that I’d play something that made him move (which typically meant Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco’s Celia & Johnny). One Saturday morning, I pulled out Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson’s The First Minute of A New Day, a record I forgot I owned and hadn’t listened to since my wannabe beat maker years. Side B begins with “Guerilla,” the sort of song I would have raced to my computer to sample in my teenage years. On this particular Saturday morning, it made my son dance. Magic transported across ages.
Bonus: Watching There Will Be Blood with the sound off while answering emails and doing conference calls.
Nothing puts me in a better headspace to crush my inbox than watching Daniel Plainview square off with H.M. Tilford at a two whiskey lunch that would make the cast of Mad Men blush. With each year that passes, this movie gets better, funnier, smarter, more prescient, and more wrenching.
Applied Science 2024 favorites: