Constantly Hating's Songs of the Year (So Far)
Usually I wait until the end of the year to give out platitudes but given the absolutely gorgeous summer we’ve had here in New York City, capital of the world, currently lording over you peasants, I figured I might as well flip the standard Constantly Hating script and give out some effusive praise. Here’s 10 songs that I’ve been bumping all year you need to tap into or may already have tapped into.
Liim - “R.I.P Peace”
It’s deeply unfair Liim wasn’t born 15 years earlier, because “R.I.P Peace” would’ve been a prime candidate for Total Request Live. R&B is at its cultural nadir, but Liim and his excellent record from last year Liim Lasalle Loves You might be the resuscitation the genre needs. He is a true natural; an artist with an easy pop ear, swag, and the kind of radio-readiness we don’t see anymore. The east coast zayALLCAPS if you will.
CFCF - “Babes”
The past few years have seen an eternity’s worth of “hot girl” music, some good (brat, C,XOXO) and some very not good (whatever Meg Statler is doing). If you are to rise above the glut, you need to call Michael Silver. His discography runs the gamut from electronica to minimal house to downtempo, but L.U.V. and “Babes” in particular feels like an immaculate proof of concept: hire me and I will make you the coolest and sexiest pop star on planet Earth. They say rubes believe the stripper actually loves them—“Babes” is the universe where it’s true.
$wagzilla - “Adjusted”
First as tragedy, then as farce, then on some truly real shit. Part Spooky Black, part Lil B, part Kodak Black, $wagzilla’s “Adjusted” is a psychological tale of getting back to the self. “I'm dressing clean, but I'm feeling so disgusted / I lost my dawg, lost my self, but I adjusted” echoes a man on the brink, in the throes of something he believes he cannot handle. Off glance it seems easy to dismiss a Jeff Hardy-lookalike as corny but in between his sing-rap alternation and reticent boasting, the baring of $wagzilla’s soul is so earnest it’s hard not to be compelled.
Charli xcx - “Rock Music”
Yes she’s winking at you. Yes she wants you to be on the joke. Yes she is purposely starting goofy online discourse that has a half-life of about 3 hours before it becomes corrosive and exhausting. But who are you to judge? You love it baby! Also the ode to “Celebrity Skin” is absolutely perfect, while she has nowhere near the instability nor effervescence as Courtney, it’s a nod that really typifies Charli; she knows the game, she knows the history, and she’s better than all you new niggas.
Oneohtrix Point Never - “Dim Stars”
There was a point in my late high-school to mid college era (2013-2016) where Daniel Lopatin was essentially a demigod. He had the Midas touch, his albums were unimpeachable, his side projects and loosies felt effortless in their imagination. The type of musician that is so easy to fall into obsession with, as his conceptual framework spawns universes upon universes. But it’s impossible to keep that imperious streak. By the late 2010s he put out a string of records that I still liked but you could tell weren’t his best (this despite his great work on Uncut Gems). With Music and Tranquilizer, though, Lopatin has his fastball back. “Dim Stars” reminds of R Plus Seven and Rifts without being wholly referential, playing in his classic synth pockets that remain irresistible. It still feels weird for me to say OPN is “late-career”, but like Lebron, Messi, and Sidney Crosby, some things just stay great with age.
ST6 JodyBoof - “NOBODY SAFE”
When I got to write about ST6 JodyBoof for POW Mag, it was with bemusement. In what world is a street rapper supposed to be rapping off Abandoned Pools’ “Sunny Day” made famous by Clone High. The sample barely fits the beat, if you can even call it a beat in the sense of being made to be rapped over. It’s just another edition of the strange, outre world DMV crank collective TooManyStrikers inhabits, where producers could pull from obscure animated series just to hear dudes swear vengeance on their opps with gusto.
My New Band Believe - “Actress”
I made a pithy tweet about how Cameron Picton is making prog-folk cool again in a way not seen since Joanna Newsom, but that’s a bit of a misnomer. Is cool the operative word for this music? Not really—no one ever accused Gentle Giant or Jethro Tull of being cool, and covering it with a hipster sheen doesn’t really remove the dorkiness. Doesn’t really matter though when it’s this piercing and adventurous, rapturous that suggests the best moments of the Sufjan 50 states project. It’s okay to indulge your inner theater kid.
username - “CC PLS”
Over a flip of Lil Uzi Vert’s “Chanel Boy”, Nashville’s username arrests you with his stutter juke. Though the location on Bandcamp says Nashville, this is unmistakably Memphis jookin music, intensely rhythmic dancing that’s inverted by the production and turned into a melancholic flood most reminiscent of Michael Myers hitting that shit in a dimly lit alley.
Picture - “Tyyyyyyyyy”
Classic minimal techno shit from Denmark. This is ear-burrowing stuff, rhythmically pulsating and everchanging in line with the best tracks the Field ever put out. No one can beat Northern Europeans for techno that envelopes your brain and refuses to leave.
kelela - “linknb”
I was pretty unsure on Raven, a record with cool ideas but felt like listening to the equivalent of going to the kava bar and drinking some shit infused with CBD while waxing poetic about your cosmic energies. new avatar suggests that Kelela is best to her most imperious cool, as “linknb” throws it back to her time as an ascendant prog rock kid alongside Tosin Abasi. The past few Deftones albums haven’t been good but fortunately for us, Kelela Mizanekristos is here to pick up the slack.
Thanks for reading! If you like the blog, consider a paid subscription so I can eat and things like that.