An Acute Case: 12 July 2024

Super graphic ultra modern girls like these

Charli XCX: BRAT
Charlotte Emma Aitchison is a 31-year-old Myspace survivor who was baptised in a UK rave scene I know nothing about and has since become the music biz’s worst kept secret. An occasional hitmaker whose sleb status is, in her own words, “famous but not quite”, she makes club-adjacent pop songs I still don’t know how to take. People say the SOPHIE song is the way in, but initially I couldn’t tell if that was “Sympathy is a knife”, “I might say something stupid”, or “So I”, which are all sad and moody and fragile. Once I clocked the lyrics, it was obvious (the third one), but it’s telling that it took me so long. That’s because Charli is so ambivalent that whatever she says and however she says it her sincerity is permanently up in the air. When she plays a “city sewer slut”, she seems insecure. When she monotones “how sublime, what a joy, oh my oh my” about her friends’ baby, it seems vacuous. But the ambivalence doesn’t prohibit personality, even if that doesn’t amount to much more than “girl, it’s so confusing sometimes.” It also throws the unambivalence of her commitment to pleasure into fresh relief, with her Everything Is A Hook organising principle augmented by delicious hypermelodies, bloody-minded repetition, and say-what-you-see sound effects until she resembles a less, um, opinionated MIA. I still prefer strong personality, but I’m not insensible to aesthetic achievement. A MINUS

Billie Eilish: HIT ME HARD AND SOFT
Brother Finneas’s production has certainly got softer, maybe waftier. As have sister Billie's vocals, which have had their gothy edges softened as she leans further into miniaturism. At times, she’s virtually a supporting role, luxuriating in the gorgeous sonic palette (those drums) while themes, ideas, and motifs (those drums!) are introduced, developed, and concluded. As a duo, they’re a record-making super team coolly confident in their brilliance and undeviating in their vision. But however how small Billie makes herself, she’s still the star. So good thing she hasn’t lost her knack for controlling the narrative. On “SKINNY”, she revisits her media studies notes from “Not My Responsibility”. On “DINER”, she plays her own stalker. On “LUNCH”, she distinguishes sexual impulse from orientation. Still only 21-years-old, her romances are fraught. But now they seem less dangerous and she seems more assured. When she mumbles “you said you'd never fall in love again because of me, then you moved on…immediately”, it’s with a barely suppressed a chuckle and an arm around her new girl’s shoulder. A

KNEECAP: Fine Art
If Tom Hull’s description (“Bilingual Irish hip-hop group from West Belfast”) doesn’t grab you, note that they use paramilitary imagery semi-ironically, make rave-rap non-ironically, and title one song “Rhino Ket” maybe sincerely. If you’re still on the fence after that, it’s not for you. *** (“I bhFiacha Linne” “Better Way To Live”)

O.: Weird Os
Vocal-free break-beat and mutated-sax collagists whose jazz church is broad enough to include nu-metal riffs. Then again, I thought I heard foreshadowings of Reginald Arvizu on Change Of The Century, so I could be delusional. ** (“176” “TV Dinners”)

Carly Pearce: hummingbird
Though Pearce doesn’t write comedy songs per se, she’s at her best when she’s punning. But in case you get as much pleasure from the way she flips songs titles as I do, I won’t spoil them other than to say they’re still about the year that she got married and divorced, but with a discernible ‘five years later’ perspective. I’ll also point you in the direction of “still blue” (her tidiest), “oklahoma” (her cheesiest), “pretty please” (her most delicate), “woman to woman” (her worthy successor to “Next Girl”), “heels over head” (which you can probably work out), “rock paper scissors” (which you probably can’t), and “fault line” (which you probably can). She never mugs or runs her gags into the ground. She’s too sincere a writer and singer for that. And here she’s in fine voice, with softer edges and sassier manners. Naturally, the slow songs feel like dips in comparison to the bops, but other than when Chris Stapleton sings, they’re just dandy. Plus, the ratio of great songs is up on 29: Written In Stone. The more low-key development is that Pearce is named as a producer on all of them, so credit her with the loose and lively crack band as well as the cracking jokes. A

Chappell Roan: The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess
The main story here is that this 26-year-old Missourian is every inch a “Femininomenon”. Though with Daniel Nigro as her sole collaborator, the inevitable subplot is ‘but how does she compare to Olivia Rodrigo?’ The answer is favourably, with the distinction that she’s hornier, messier, tackier. She’s also queerer and curioser. So, unlike Rodrigo, it seems meet that her romances don’t focus on a single subject (though “Coffee” and “Casual” may map the same ambiguous break-up). Like Rodrigo, she shows no anxiety of influence, applying a balls-out drag approach to every style of bigpop she can conceive of. If I perk up more when she plays dance instructor than when she plays chansonnier, that’s just personal preference—she’s got the voice for the latter and the writerly ear for both (see exquisite wanking song “Picture You” or geometry puzzle “knee-deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out, are we casual now?”) “My Kink is Karma” is her median, though I don’t know if I’d choose it over her extremes. Luckily, her all or nothing approach to this I Have Arrived debut means I don’t have to. A MINUS

Joey Valence & Brae: NO HANDS
Provisionally licensed to scare these hoes. * (“PACKAPUNCH” “THE BADDEST”)

Vampire Weekend: Only God Was Above Us
The mariachi horns on “The Surfer” remind me of Forever Changes—always a good thing. And like that record (among a handful of others from the late ‘60s), this one is a giddy mix of jaded optimism and dense formalism. The ice cream piano, sorbet saxophone, and custard classical (enough, ed) are very pretty. But it’s when they get squiffy that the band evokes a feeling or mood or vibe about the world outside their collegiate interests. It doesn’t mark our current inflection point in quite the same way as those ‘60s albums, which is because Ezra Koenig is still governed by gnomic impulses. “The word was weaponised as soon as it had passed your lips” could be helpful if he identified the “you”. And though “I know that walls fall and shacks shake” gives hope, on the closer of that title, the refrain goes “the enemy’s invincible / I hope you let it go.” Hardly a call to arms. But not a surrender either. A MINUS