Bookmarks is an increasingly infrequent* collection of recommendations, recent addictions and subjects for further study.
I suspect you’ll know, within seconds of the intrusion of the drums, within a few seconds of that keen full-throated screech whether The Taxpayers ragged melodic folk-punk is exactly the liberation you needed; if not, they’re over pretty quick but I included two, in case it is.
I’ve nothing much to add to the discourse around Cardi B/Megan Thee Stallion‘s WAP, except that there’s a strong 90s nostalgia in seeing conservative commentators into such a fizz over the lyrics of a song. At least after Columbine there was something at stake, something more troubling than an expression of female sexuality so magnificently filthy it would make Prince blush — extra marks for prompting Ben Shapiro and others to reveal they think female arousal is a medical condition their wives never contracted. For good measure, I’ve also included is a kindred spirit from City Girls — more playful and pragmatic than WAP‘s snarling Eros — that’s been unfairly overlooked in my view.
Miiesha sings with such intelligence, deftness and restraint that Black Privilege would be recommended even if it didn’t contain a couplet as “stop you in your tracks” good as “Survival ain’t that beautiful/I just made it look this good for you”.
Glass Animals occupies that most dangerous of territory– soulful white boy cooing sweet nothings. But the neon-coloured-cloud sound has a richness and texture, at once lively and comforting and frankly, I’m sufficiently charmed.
I’m embarrassingly late to the haunting stomp of Mo’Ju’s Native Tongue — but here we are. And if you need it, here you are.
I didn’t know I so badly needed a new single from Ghanaian veteran Pat Thomas. Thomas’s career spans 50 years and had bridged colonial rule and independence in his home country. While’s he’s never encountered a genre he couldn’t exploit for a single and do something fun with, he’s a true master of Highlife, a genre that absorbed a series of foreign influences, melded them with traditional sensibilities and then spat them back out into the world. The syncretic approach continues with Bome Nkomode, which couples his aesthetic with that of his afro-pop compatriot SSUE.
And the great Gordon Koang has an album out and it simply glows. Go buy it.
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*I’m not sure what it is about 2020 that so savagely wounded Bookmarks, probably one of the more useful and least self indulgent services Dancing to Architecture provides. Well I ‘spose I do: the need for comfort listening, a profound exhaustion with takes and boredom at the sound of my own voice, and perhaps a lack of one of the main ingredients required to properly engage with and share new culture, particularly pop; I’d rather lost my taste for fun.
I guess the point is, maintaining enthusiasm sometimes takes as much work as maintaining perspective or equilibrium or any number of more serious and “weighty” states. And I needed (and need) to remind myself that the exertion pays off.
Dancing to Architecture 