Soccer Mommy
Circle the Drain
Nashville’s new admiral of a genre no one whatsoever is calling “slacker-feels” manages that deft switcheroo of zhuzhing the achingly subjective into something universally, almost joyously sad. For a plaintive ditty about the downward drag of depression, and the pyrrhic exhaustion that rides pillion with trying to hide it from those around you, this is impossibly lovely, as any song that sounds exactly like High by Feeder is likely to be. Although, from Friday this will be Brexit Britain. Call yourself Football Mummy, please. Ta.
Rina Sawayama
Comme des Garçons (Like the Boys)
Having had quite enough of having to adopt “male” attributes in order to appear strong, Rina has concocted a sultry, whomp-bassed disco slammer, snatching the conch back from the patriarchy through the irresistible medium of glowstick. Even without its message, this is superbly polished pop. With it, I’ll never pretend to like football again. Although, from Friday this will be Brexit Britain. Drop the French song titles, please. Ta.
BTS
Black Swan
You cannot fault the sheer see-what-sticks chutzpah of this baffling cut-and-shut Pollock of Auto-Tuned melody spasms, all barked over each other like some six-Jagers-deep closing-time row outside a ’Spoons, and marbled through with wild, erratic stabs of classical strings. Bizarre. And, somehow, brilliant.
Green Day
Oh Yeah!
Right: because they know it’s iffy, they are donating all royalties to charity. So I suppose this is fine, in the same way that lobbing chip fat down the khazi is fine because it keeps the people who carve up fatbergs in a job. But you still have to ask: in a tune railing against the “alt-right”, why would you use a sample of a Joan Jett cover of a Gary Glitter song? What are you doing, Green Day? Don’t you think it will be weird if that “Oh yeah!” chanty bit takes off and a stadium full of kids – all born after you stopped being good – are raising their fists to Glitter? It will, won’t it? Would it be less icky if the song were good, though? Oh no!
Moby
Power Is Taken
In an apparent week of musical mea culpas, vaguely problematic legume enthusiast Moby is also donating proceeds from this to charity. And it’s a perfectly actionable analogue banger, the likes of which Faithless haven’t slung since Val Kilmer was Batman, with Dead Kennedys’ DH Peligro howling about injustice where Maxi Jazz would usually be saying something filthy about tights. But it’s Moby. And he’s a prat, isn’t he?
