As we say goodbye to August and look to November, Joe Biden is maintaining his slight lead in the polls. But it should be an 80 point lead. Americans are dying from a virus that our president has ignored, and from racist police officers and vigilantes that our president has encouraged. It makes me wonder, do we really hate each other and ourselves this much? Counterpoint: Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion topped the charts this month with a watershed of a song that celebrated the joy that human beings can give to one another. We do love ourselves! Now we just need to apply all that positive energy to canvassing, and donating, and VOTING.
1. Cardi B (feat. Megan Thee Stallion) – “W.A.P.”
Yes, the world’s reaction to “W.A.P.” included some tired old sexist pearl-clutching from conservative politicians and Fox News types. Yes, it’s annoying that two women rapping about their sexual prowess is still a headline-making event. (Men will be rapping about their boners until the mountains crumble into the sea.) But “W.A.P.” absolutely deserved this level of global attention – because it’s an ebullient feat of pop craftsmanship. Over a three-note bass rumble and an instantly iconic loop of the 1992 Frank Ski house track “Whores in this House,” two of the best rappers alive pack as many hilarious innuendos as possible into three minutes – staking their claim as peerless artists, making it clear that there’s no shame in consensual sex, and bringing some much-needed joy to the world.
2. Bully – “Stuck In Your Head”
Alicia Bognanno’s alternative-nation rocker seems to be about never acting on your feelings, and then dealing with the fallout of that inaction. But its blistering hook will get stuck in your head all the same.
3. Marie Davidson – “Renegade Breakdown”
This bilingual robo-funk banger is so catchy, I don’t even mind when it reads me to filth: “Your cheap headlines, your lazy writing / I wonder how it feels for you to sit around all day.”
4. Machine Drum (feat. Freddie Gibbs) – “Kane Train”
What Freddie Gibbs does to this beat is some gold-medal-worthy gymnastics.
5. Orville Peck (feat. Shania Twain) – “Legends Never Die”
Shania Twain is indeed a legend, and she sounds as charismatic and arena-ready as ever while harmonizing with old-school country’s most compelling modern torchbearer.
6. Mourn – “This Feeling Is Disgusting”
I never understood music theory, so I can’t tell you what note this Barcelona pop-punk quartet is playing at the apex of this track’s rollicking lead riff. A seventh? A suspended fourth? I was too busy bouncing around my living room to look it up.
7. MF Doom – “Coco Mango (FloFilz Remix)”
A German producer gives a 2012 MF Doom track a summery piano-jazz makeover.
8. Laura Veirs – “Turquoise Walls”
A ballad about being alone in a room, waiting for a text from someone who betrayed you, that somehow feels like hope.
9. Black Thought (feat. Pusha-T, Swizz Beatz & Killer Mike) – “Good Morning”
This quartet of forty-something rappers might be over the hill, but holy shit are they gaining speed.
10. A.G. Cook – “Today”
Smashing Pumpkins’ deceptively sunny-sounding classic gets a loving electro-pop makeover from the head of the PC Music collective, bringing out its inherent darkness without blunting its shimmer.
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