trying to impress you
feat. Pearl, Audrey Hobert, Petey USA, Chinese American Bear, Guitarricadelafuente
I’m not really trying to impress you, but this week I’ve been more into window shopping and link hopping than settling into one playlist or another and I prefer to have something interesting to say. So I’ve compiled five more songs that have caught my attention, feat. starlets, papis, millenials and little bears. Listen here if you like.
No Man - Pearl
I did promise to talk about Pearl again. In order to enjoy Pearl I think you first have to get on board with her aesthetic, a type of Americana-feminine that is so immediately recognizable that I think it can’t be quite real: fur coats and hot pants, trailer parks, getting wasted in parking lots, criminal records, dive bars, hair curlers, motorbikes etc. I have nothing against any of this, really, but I think if you’re going to do a well-trodden schtick you need to put your own spin on it. Pearl’s spin is threefold: firstly she’s good at TikTok, and whatever that says about her artistic credibility it does mean I found her when I otherwise wouldn’t have; secondly, she has a genuine knack for storytelling. Methamphetamines is the best example, a song which narrates the beginning, middle and end of a complex platonic relationship, complete with hot girl howling chorus - I also like Fuck It Up, which is about dating a Bad Guy until he, as the title suggests, fucks it up. The third part of her spin is her crackly, textured, raspy voice, technically strong but just frayed enough that it grants her a pop star’s most precious resource - authenticity. No Man is probably the most generic of her songs to date (also the most popular) and yet as she croaks through the rote lyrics about being young and wild and free, I can’t help but feel like she really means it - she really does just wanna dance. She really does not wanna worry bout no man. I can get lost in this song. In the best way, it is like being accosted by a drunk girl in the club bathrooms on a bad night and having her hold your face through mascara tears and tell you how very, very beautiful you are.
The Yips - Petey USA
A goblin has been stalking Berlin, and it is me muttering over and over: “I’ve got the yips!” That line is so infectious, so very satisfying, and the blessing is that Mr. USA seems to understand that too, for how many times he repeats it throughout the song. The chorus is entirely dedicated to it, as well, and yet I never get tired of it. The yips is a term used by athletes for the sudden inability to do something you used to do well. Wonderful for me, because I feel like that all the time, and as an added bonus our current main character often feels that way too. Despite the fact that it is narrated by a yelping white man with Jesus hair, this song is a really striking portrait of milennial mid-life crisis, and the genius is that it already sounds like a milennial hit from twenty years before - those cowbells like something from New Young Pony Club, that bouncy bassline like a HelloGoodbye intro, the punchy piano chords from a fun. b-side. I guess this is the ecosystem of milennial pop in the 2020s; Jack Antonoff, Beyoncé, and a series of increasingly self-conscious indie musicians. “I’ve got the yips, but I won’t quit!”
Sue me - Audrey Hobert
Add Audrey Hobert to the list of girls who are gonna make it big soon maybe. Her debut album Who’s The Clown comes out in a couple of weeks and so far every single has been a catchy crowdpleaser. She sits midway in the modern singer-songwriter spectrum, a little too energetic and upbeat to be a Phoebe Bridgers acolyte but a little too honest and homespun to feel at home with Sabrina or Addison. The vibe is guitars plus drum machines and a 2000s girl-band vocal style, the aesthetic is long hair and clumpy shoes and too-old-for-high-school-but-still-in-high-school, the persona is self-deprecating, unapologetic, heartfelt, toxic.
小熊 - Chinese American Bear
I’m cheating because this isn’t a new fave, it’s a song I loved a few years ago and recently rediscovered. I don’t know what to say about this song except that it sounds like something that would play at the start of a teenage hijinks movie as the kids are riding carefree on their bikes. It is concentrated quirky, the audio equivalent of the 🌸 emoji (which the band uses liberally in their own profile), entirely DIY with the vibe of a young married couple playing around with a karaoke machine after their kids fall asleep.
Full time papi - Guitarricadelafuente (video mildly nsfw)
I’m man enough to admit I would have overlooked this song on whatever random playlist I found it on if not for the title, which titillated and intrigued me. I was not expecting to be so wholly engrossed by the romance of it. Guitarricadelafuente describes himself as an “old soul”, which is always funny to hear from a baby with abs. I guess there is something old school about this ballad, and not just because it opens with chords from a sombre organ. But then again I think it is doing some interesting new things, not least in its chorus, which as you may have hoped is just a repeated refrain of quiero ser tu full time papi, full time papi, full time papi. While most of the verses are intimate whispers, the chorus expands out into a wide, bellowing, almost comical chorus of feeling. This does risk negating the impact of the lyrics - turning it into a bit of a joke, or forcing levity into a statement of pure devotion. If that’s the intention then he has failed. This chorus hits with its whole heart. The multiple voices only add to the intensity, like there are thirty oiled young men outside your window begging you to come down and see them. Don’t even get me started on the angelic backing vocals during the second verse. It feels like the boys spent weeks practicing this for me. I’m leaning on the sill with my chin in my hands.
If you read another substack this week, I’d like to recommend Adam Tooze’s recent piece on the starvation of Gaza, below:
