New Music Friday: The best albums out Sept. 6

Famous people play fictional versions of themselves on screen all the time.

Actors, athletes, even politicians have done it.

But what makes it work when it works?

Sometimes it's just a flat-out, unflattering take.

Sometimes it's just specific. It's just weird.

We're talking about when celebrities portray themselves,

and we're breaking it down from the mundane to the inspired.

Listen to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR.

A quick heads up, this podcast contains explicit language.

And it's September.

I can't believe it. Back to school.

Yeah, I felt the first little chill in the air today on the way to the office.

When fall hits in Nashville, is there a visual tell?

Like, can you look out your window and know that pumpkin spice season is starting?

Well, you know, the fields of bridesmaids thin out on Broadway.

We have false fall. I don't know. Do you have that?

Yes.

No. I mean, I'm most interested, I think, in how different climates affect this question,

because what really interests me, and I can tell you in the Northeast, this was definitely true,

like my time in New York, less apparent in D.C.,

because a lot of people's jobs have a stricter dress code.

But the thing that waves the flag for me is men's fashion in particular.

Right, right. Like the jorts go away.

Uh-huh.

Do you all call them jorts?

I think so. I think that's acceptable nomenclature.

I just, the same way that in the spring you see, like, all the brightly colored dresses coming out,

maybe a little bit more revealing at the hem and the neckline.

Yes, exactly.

That first day in September, when you see a lot of young men in striped scarves and coats with high collars,

like, you know what time it is.

There's all these professional boys who've been waiting for months to be like,

I finally get to be cute.

I'm trying to think of, like, what the fashion tell would be.

I mean, honestly, it's been such a ridiculously climate-crisis-driven hot oven in the summer

that I guess what fall means is what summer should have meant,

which is we can go sit on a patio and have a margarita or have a great dinner on a patio,

which was honestly impossible for almost the entire summer.

So that's what I did over the weekend.

I haunted the patios of Nashville, and it was very, very fun.

One thing I can say for the music heads,

that was when the earbuds maybe get tucked away and those big over-ear cans come out.

That's the fall subway look.

I'm always about the cans.

I'm 365, 24-7 cans.

We salute.

Well, why don't we talk about some of the music that might be playing in those headphones today?

Hey, everyone.

It's New Music Friday from NPR Music,

here to talk about the best and most discussion-worthy albums out today, September 6th.

I'm Daoud Tyler-Amin, here with critic and correspondent Ann Powers.

A good day to you.

Hello, Daoud.

On today's show, we've got at least one artist whose name has been touted far and wide lately

as the next big thing in certain music circles.

So, a little later, we'll spend a little time thinking about how those moments happen,

what the factors are, apart from just the quality of their music, of course,

that coalesce around an artist to give them that spark of potential

that people love to watch and discuss and make their own predictions about.

But, first...

Drumroll, please.

We are starting off today with a guy who was certainly the next big thing in his time

and has come back to show us that he's still got the juice.

Incredibly, we've got a new record by LL Cool J,

produced top to bottom by Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest.

It is called The Force.

And let's kick it off with Saturday Night Special.

So many different hustlers you meet in the game

Shit is cold, I'm what you trust in them

Let me explain

The greedy killer, he wanna fuck hoes?

And get the money, but he quit the field disrespected

One slip of the tongue, wrong words selected

Bullets drillin' in your melon when you least expect it

Number one priority, self-preservation

That applies to majority different situations

The dead devil type

So, a couple of things bear saying right away.

First, The Force is apparently short for Frequencies of Real Creative Energy,

which is just one of those very proudly unwieldy hip-hop acronyms.

Like, that's what it is.

KRS-One being knowledge reigns supreme over nearly everyone,

which I remember hearing for the first time being like,

nearly everyone, not everyone?

Because KRS-OE wasn't, didn't really work.

Number two, produced by Q-Tip also implies co-signed by Q-Tip.

And these are guys who are, I mean, they're about the same age.

We've talked about this on the show before.

And it's not surprising to me at all that they're,

they're friendly with each other,

that they have a lot of respect for each other,

but they exist in pretty different realms in people's minds now.

I think Q-Tip has sort of aged into a sage of sorts.

He has kept busy as a producer and sort of a production consultant.

LL Cool J, as much as he, you know, his recording career didn't end in the 80s,

has aged into a sort of broad, family-friendly, jack-of-all-trades,

entertainment.

industry ambassador.

Does that sound right?

Yeah, well, totally.

And there was a great detail in Milena Ryzik's profile of LL Cool J

that appeared in the New York Times recently,

where she was talking about the contrast between them during a joint interview.

Q-Tip was sitting and eating, very delicately eating a bowl of olives,

while LL Cool J dipped into a saucy seafood dish.

So there you go.

I mean, a complete Mediterranean meal on this album.

So look.

Right away, there are some surprising elements here to me.

I heard a lot about this record.

People have been talking about it for months.

The singles really lit people up and said, wow, this actually seems really interesting.

The most interesting thing to me, just hitting play on this record,

is that LL Cool J's persona when he broke out in the 80s was as this brash, boastful kid, right?

Yeah, battle rapper, total battle rapper.

Battle anybody, I don't care who you tell.

And charisma.

Was his weapon.

At first blush, here, it sounded to me like he was moving a little bit more like a street rapper.

Like, there's gunplay lines, there's, you know, there's talk about violence and threats in vivid language.

The whole record to me feels more like a reestablishing of his bona fides.

Because he is one of the most important figures in the culture's history.

It's easy to forget that due to the role that he's occupied for the last 25, 30,

30 years.

I love the way you keep saying the role that he's occupied.

Okay, he wasn't NCIS for, like, ever.

He's an executive producer.

We think of him as a television detective, you know, now.

And no shame in that.

Ice-T did the same thing.

But I will point out, though, just as far as the bona fides go,

alongside his longstanding career in network television,

he also has received some very impressive honors,

including the Kennedy Center honors a few years ago.

So, Kehinde Wiley's painting of him is in the Smithsonian.

And, in fact, for all the street references, there's also a reference to that on this record.

Uh-huh.

They're both here.

So, that's the thing that I think is coming into focus for me,

is I think I hear him saying,

yes, I'm a founding father, but don't put me in a museum.

Because, like, I've never stopped listening and I've never stopped working.

So, this is a showcase to show you that, like, I can do street raps and I can do sex raps

and I can do, like, Afrocentric, like, comedy.

And I can go bar for bar with Eminem, who is also featured on this record.

And Nas.

Doing the super fast polysyllabic thing.

It's like, I know I'm old school.

I know I'm, like, the Grammys guy, but I'm an MC first and foremost.

And please don't forget that.

Yeah.

And Nas is on this record, too.

So, like, he's going for the most esteemed partner.

Snoop Dogg is also on this record.

Snoop Dogg is here.

Busta's here.

Sweetie's here.

That song's a lot of fun.

Yeah.

It is a lot of fun, though.

I have to say, like,

at first, I raised my eyebrow.

Is he actually doing a sex rap with a woman who is maybe younger than his own daughter?

Fair enough.

Just saying.

You know?

But, hey, all's fair in love and hip hop, right?

Yeah.

It's all good.

It's a performance, and it is a lot of fun.

But I want to talk, too, about the production,

because it is really fascinating what Q-Tip has done with this voice we're so familiar with.

Look at mama.

She's in the kitchen.

She's swinging her hips and dipping the chicken in flour.

She got the music, it's bumping.

I smell the food in the oven while I two-step in the shower.

We know what LL Cool J sounds like.

Yeah.

But setting his rhymes to these different musical beds, it's really interesting.

There's, like, Black Code Suite, for example, which has LL rapping about his mama's cooking

and then opening up into a chorus about not forgetting, you know, where you came from.

Then there's just this beautiful coda.

From the Gambian singer and choral player, Sona Djibarte, which, you know, was completely unexpected to me.

Yeah.

Or, like, the electro-funk of Basquiat Energy, which, you know, it's, hey, Basquiat, that's LL Cool J's era, right?

It makes sense, you know?

Yeah.

But maybe a little before, actually.

He's looking back to a slight elder.

But that track is very forward-thinking, I think, you know?

I mean, Q-Tip is also at the top of his game here.

He is.

I mean, Q-Tip is so well-known for the jazz-inflected stuff that he did for A Tribe Called Quest,

but his later discography is, like, pretty eclectic.

Like, he did two tracks on Watch the Throne.

He's worked with Danny Brown.

He's worked with Pusha T.

He's worked with Solange.

And what I hear between the two of them, it actually reminds me a lot of Black Thought's solo releases,

the ones that he did.

Oh, yeah.

That he's made over the past couple of years with Ninth Wonder and Salaam Remy and Danger Mouse,

where they feel sort of like sparring sessions.

Right.

It's two participants who are sort of in peak condition, who know each other's tastes and instincts

and are testing one another to sort of see what the best is that they can get out of them.

I think, you know, it's unlikely that—don't take this the wrong way, LL Cool J—

but it's unlikely he's going to—any of these singles are going to go way up the chart.

I mean, it just doesn't really happen for artists at this point in their career.

But it's interesting to me that he's got a tour that's been happening, right, that also is called The Force.

And this seems like the perfect vehicle to sort of support that return to the hip-hop stage as well.

For sure.

I'm sure those shows are so much fun.

I would love to see one of those shows.

And I think this is maybe the kind of record that gets him back into the barbershop conversation,

which is maybe the most important place to be.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

That is The Force by a resurgent LL Cool J.

Anne, what's next?

Well, as you said, David, there's a bright new star, a bright young star in the indie rock firmament.

And his name is Jake Lenderman.

He goes by MJ Lenderman.

This isn't his first record.

This is actually his fifth record under his own name.

And he's also released five albums with the band Wednesday.

But this new album—

Manning Fireworks—is truly a breakthrough for Lenderman.

Burdened by those wet dreams

Of people having fun

Cause I know going on vacation

Brings the worst out of everyone

And every day is a miracle

Not to mention a threat

Of the world's worst victims of the pandemic.

And every day is a miracle

A beast nest nestled in a hole in the yard

Of Travolta's bald head

So who is Jake Lenderman?

He's a 25-year-old guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Asheville, North Carolina.

Definitely a Southern rocker and just as much an indie rocker.

Those things are not contradictory any more than it's contradictory to be Southern and a punk

or Southern and a progressive or any of those things.

But on this album, Manning Fireworks, Lenderman really perfects his songwriting.

And his band is on fire.

The album is loose and fierce at the same time.

So much energy on this record.

I just absolutely love this record.

I mean, he truly is being anointed.

There's been major media coverage, features in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, etc.

And indie fans on social media have been declaring this.

It's the album of the year since the day the promo became available for anyone to listen to.

So I think Manning Fireworks is going to do very well in year-end lists.

And it's marking a new phase for Jake Lenderman and his career.

Which is interesting because the character of this record,

it struck me over and over that what I was hearing was sort of a catalog of solitude.

Solitude.

It's a lot about...

different kinds of sadness and the sort of mundane details that accompany them.

That sort of accrue meaning because of that emotional state.

Did that ring out for you?

Well, it's interesting, though, because I hear what you're hearing.

And a lot of people have been hearing this.

I mean, Amanda Petrusich in The New Yorker talked about the songs as being about people at bottom.

You know, hitting rock bottom.

Yeah.

Will Hermes brought up the idea of toxic masculinity as a theme.

I think it's a little more complicated than that because one of the things that makes Lenderman a special songwriter, I think.

And why I do think, although, you know, he's very young still.

And this is such a cliche to even say this.

But why I do think he's worth mentioning in the same breath as John Prine,

which everybody is, many people are saying right now, is that his songs are very tricky.

On the one hand, they are full of pathos.

Like the song we just heard.

It's called On My Mind.

You know, there are lines throughout the record about, you know, in the title track, you know,

he's singing about just a guy who's hanging around in his friend group or whatever.

And he says, you once was a baby and now a jerk standing close to the pyre manning fireworks.

Now, I love that because we've all known that guy, right?

Like the guy who's going to start something.

You just know he's going to start something pretty soon.

So these characters are there.

But then there's also so much wordplay.

And so much kind of like surrealism in these songs that there's a distance as well.

And I don't think it's confessional particularly.

Although it is true that you could read some of these songs as confessional.

Because Lenderman and his former girlfriend, Carly Hartsman, who's also in Wednesday, recently broke up.

And there's definitely some songs about breakups on this record.

But she's also on this record.

And she's on this record.

She sings on several of the songs, including a song called She's Leaving.

I know.

Which is very heartbreaking.

Very heartbreaking.

But even in that song, again, like you never know exactly what the perspective is.

And I think that's one of the most interesting things about him as a writer.

No, I agree.

I mean, She's Leaving You is the one that's stuck with me the most.

Because it starts with a very clean, strummed guitar that to me felt almost clumsy and kind of awkward and naked.

Right.

And then comes the opening line.

You can put your clothes back on.

She's leaving you.

You can put your clothes back on.

She's leaving you.

No time to apologize for the things you do.

Right.

Exactly.

Now, is he singing to himself, about himself?

Is he observing that?

I was interested to hear from him that the song Wristwatch, which is another song very much about loneliness,

you know, it's a guy singing about all his possessions.

I have a compass and a cell phone and a wristwatch that tells me I'm alone.

Although it actually says, tells me you're alone.

This song is about Andrew Tate.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

The, I think it's fair to say, misogynistic edgelord of the internet, Andrew Tate.

So, again, like, is there an element of confessionalism here?

Is it tender young Jake Linderman singing this song?

Or is he?

Does he have a totally different character in his mind?

I think that's what's so interesting about this record.

Yeah.

Observational is maybe a better word.

And also musically, as you were just pointing out, the sound and the arrangements are very shambolic,

to use an often coined term describing indie rock.

The guitar lines weave in and out.

The drums are tight but loose at the same time somehow.

The fiddle that's not quite in tune.

Right.

And all weird instruments that are modified.

There's all these weird instruments mentioned in the credits.

And Linderman's singing.

I had a little moment of revelation the other day.

I was listening.

I'm like, he sings like a guitarist, you know?

I think this is what Neil Young also does and why Linderman's earning comparisons also to Neil Young.

His melody lines are like guitar lines.

And they kind of weave in and out all the other elements in a very prismatic way.

Well, we are going to have the chance to return to this record a little later on in the show.

So, why don't we go ahead and do that?

Let's do that.

So, why don't we leave it there for now?

That is Manning Fireworks by M.J. Linderman.

We need to take a quick break.

We'll be back with more new music in just a minute.

Sabrina Carpenter has had two of the year's biggest hits with Espresso and Please, Please, Please.

Now she's released a new album called Short and Sweet.

It serves up more catchy silliness and high drama.

This is almost like a concept album about having a really bad ex-boyfriend.

Does the album keep that espresso magic alive?

Listen to the pop culture.

Happy Hour podcast from NPR.

Famous people play fictional versions of themselves on screen all the time.

Actors, athletes, even politicians have done it.

But what makes it work when it works?

Sometimes it's just a flat out unflattering take.

Sometimes it's just specific.

It's just weird.

We're talking about when celebrities portray themselves and we're breaking it down from

the mundane to the inspired.

Listen to the pop culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR.

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But the 1A podcast guides you beyond the headlines and cuts through the noise.

Listen to 1A, where we celebrate your freedom to listen by getting to the heart of the story

together.

Only from NPR.

We all hear things differently.

That can be tough when there's so much noise.

This election year, we're a space to speak up and to listen.

Listen to 1A for the latest on election 2024.

Only from NPR.

Hey, we're back.

Our next record is by Nala Senefro, and it is called Endlessness.

Nala Senefro is a harp player, and she's from a few places geographically and artistically.

She was born and raised in Belgium.

Her father is from Martinique in the Caribbean.

She studied briefly at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

She left after like a year, I think, moved to London, tried her hand at music school again.

But where she finally found her people and where I think her career kind of begins in earnest is in the U.K. jazz scene,

particularly an artist collective called Steam Down, which includes Chewbacca Hutchings and, notably here,

the saxophonist Nabaya Garcia, who is all over this record and is sort of a secret star here,

the way that M.J.

Lenderman.

was for Waxahachie on her album earlier this year.

I know we didn't mention it.

Oh, my gosh.

I totally forgot to mention that.

Well, we'll talk more about that later.

Yeah.

So why don't we hear a little bit of a track that features Garcia?

This is Continuum One.

By the way, every song on this album is called Continuum.

It's Continuum and the track number, which says a little something to me about, I suppose,

the endlessness that is advertised by the title.

Here's a thought.

Nala Senefro's main instruments are harp and modular synth, which I've never thought of as analogs before,

but it says something to me that as this album starts, I struggle a little to tell which instrument I'm hearing at any one time.

Is it a synth patch that's dialed in to sound kind of harp-like, or is it a harp that is filtered and distorted to be kind of synth-like?

Oh, yeah.

The other thing is that some of the instruments here are sort of bent to the logic of others in the ensemble.

Like, I think a lot of modular music, it gets its texture from sequences of notes that are rhythmically simple,

but they're playing in multiple time signatures at once, or they're changing time signatures over time,

and you get this polyrhythmic effect that can be very hypnotic,

because you're hearing familiar phrases return,

over and over again, but you can't really tell where they begin and end,

because they're all sort of staggered in intervals that are hard for the brain to count along to.

So I hear the synths doing that on this album, but also the harp, and also the drums, and also the saxophone.

And it's weirdly satisfying, I think, to hear these sort of organic, earthy sounds be drawn into a logic that's a little bit mathematical.

Well, how do you think it serves her theme?

Which is rather grand, I have to say.

It is a—endlessness, the notes for this album say, is a deep dive into the cycle of existence,

which is—that could encompass anything.

I can really only speak to the images that this thing conjures in my mind.

So, Continuum 8, it's this series of beeps that anchors it.

They have a noise layer, I guess you could say.

That thing is a noise layer.

It's a thing that synthesizers can do that sounds a little bit like a snare drum.

And all I kept thinking was, there is a sentient feeling to this.

It feels like the beeps are like little jellyfish in a nature documentary.

Interesting, interesting.

Kind of a Holly Herndon vibe, maybe.

We've got the machines coming to life on this album.

I mean, I will note, though, that the saxophones really jumped out for me,

grounding this album in jazz in a way.

That I didn't expect when I saw the title and kind of read the mission statement for the album.

I actually thought it was going to be closer to kind of new age or ambient music.

And it's not like that at all.

I mean, there is definitely a lot of ensemble playing and strong jazz elements.

Yeah, totally.

But I think you're right there that it's—I mean, ambient jazz is what you would slot it under

if somebody twisted your arm to choose one or the other.

But I think that, like we were saying before,

you have a collection of instruments that you wouldn't necessarily think of as natural allies

to make this kind of music.

But because each of them are sort of fluent in the other's rules and logic,

they can be summoned to cooperate in a way that does feel kind of natural,

that does feel kind of organic,

that feels like it has a little bit of natural geometry to it, let's say.

Yeah.

That way, it does fit in with what's going on in that scene.

Yeah.

You know, also, I think Chewbacca Hutchings' move toward flute music

also takes him toward the realm even more so of spiritual jazz, ambient jazz.

One of my favorite people kind of connected to that scene, Sarah McFarlane.

You know, in the past, she's a vocalist, and she does straight jazz.

I mean, she does Sarah Vaughan-style jazz,

but she's also worked with loops and experiments, you know, electronic experimental music.

So that scene seems to really welcome hybrid forms.

Yeah.

And that's what we have here in a really beautiful way.

That is Endlessness by Nalas and Efro, a really beautiful record.

Let's go somewhere very different.

Anne, what's next?

Oh, yeah.

Anne, maybe you want to tell me, what's wrong with New York?

Well, I guess you'll have to ask one Harrison Patrick Smith.

Who makes music under the name The Dare,

and who also, like Jake Lenderman,

is kind of wearing the newly minted crown of the next big thing,

although in a very different scene.

Yeah.

I like the girls that do drugs

Girls with cigarettes in the back of the club

Girls that hate cops and bad girls

Girls with no bonds, girls that's mean just for fun

I like girls who make love, but I love girls who like to fuck

Girls with no bonds, girls that's mean just for fun

That's what's up

Smith is 28.

He's from the Pacific Northwest, and he started his musical career

making kind of twee synth pop of the Owl City variety

under the name Turtlenecked.

And if, like, for example, if you listen to the song Kiss Cam,

which is all about getting up the guts to kiss your girlfriend,

I think at a sporting event while the camera is on you,

that is about as different from the song Kiss Cam.

It's as different from this album, What's Wrong With New York, as you can get.

This album is about being trashed, being on the prowl,

knocking over garbage cans when you're walking around in the West Village,

you know, being in a sweaty club where nobody keeps their clothes on,

putting something on your tongue that might cause an altered state.

Yeah.

You know, this is a great New York tradition, of course.

Yeah.

And The Dare sounds very much like New York artists of the past,

of the recent past, right?

Like, who am I talking about?

Well, it's an interesting thing,

because I don't know how much I want to indulge the idea of indie sleaze.

I'm putting that in big quotes.

Oh, I thought you were going to say indulge the idea of The Dare

being an LCD sound system cover band or tribute band,

because they sound an awful lot like it.

Obviously, I hear James Murphy in this vocal affect,

which sort of made me think,

hmm, what was James Murphy riffing on?

What's the common denominator for that style?

But it's, I mean, we were talking last week about art rock,

and we were saying that there's a little bit of a know-it-when-you-see-it vibe to it.

And, you know, in the same way,

I don't know if it's just because I have firsthand memories of it,

but the atmosphere that you're describing,

where it's neon colors and flash photography

and, you know, it's a lot of different things,

and, you know, it's, if you can think of, like,

a dirtier version of the video for Lady Gaga's Just Dance,

it's like, that's the mood and the era that's being evoked.

Or the cover of Lizzie Goodman's book, Meet Me in the Bathroom.

Yeah.

Or just the phrase, Meet Me in the Bathroom.

Exactly.

Is basically what this record is all about.

Now, I did live through this era as a young person in New York.

A lot of it just made me feel bad about myself.

But there was,

there's some good and fun music that came out of it, too.

And thinking a little bit more broadly,

because it's not just New York, you know, you've got,

I mean, listen, it's, what else is in the teaches of peaches?

Right. No, for sure.

I mean, actually, I have to say,

Harrison Patrick Smith himself has said,

you know, I hate the term indie sleaze,

even though maybe I coined it or I'm associated with it.

I prefer electroclash revival or dance punk revival,

which does broaden it and include people like Peaches

or Can't Say This, They're Sexy,

you know, other artists from around the world.

Yeah. Which brings to mind, it's, what is this sound?

Forget the associations of the time.

Like, what is it that we actually hear here?

To me, it is synthesizers that sound the way that zine art looks.

It's this corroded, copy of a copy kind of sound.

Yeah, for sure.

And there is a rawness to it.

It is like drum machines that are playing beats that are rhythmically

simple.

Even if they're loud and pummeling, they're not complicated.

And synth sounds that are really raw and sort of unrefined.

And the trick that I think the best electroclash pulled,

your Peaches and whatnot,

is that it made that unrefined sound feel intentional.

Yeah.

It did not feel like an amateur's mistake.

It felt sort of like a deliberate provocation, right?

Yeah. And sort of a comment on itself as well.

And I think that's a huge part of what the dare,

is doing or what he's doing as the dare.

And I should say, you know, the dare has some major fans, right?

I mean, Charlie XCX had Smith produce one of her tracks on Brat.

And now there's a remix of that track with Billie Eilish.

Smith has been, you know,

he has a club night called Frequencies that all the beautiful people attend.

He's part of Fashion Week, et cetera, et cetera.

So he has definitely been embraced by,

by a certain kind of glitterati.

Yeah.

For me, when I first heard this record, I thought,

oh my God, this is so obnoxious.

But then when I returned to it and I saw it as comic,

not comical, I'm not saying, I wasn't laughing at it,

but I was laughing with it as I saw the humor in it.

And I really focused on the humor and the distance

that he kind of builds into the mix,

even as he's shouting,

you know, it's loud and confrontational,

but it's also, it's also very studied.

This is extremely studied and his lyrics are offensive.

Some people have found them to be misogynist,

but they're also like kind of hilarious, honestly.

What I can say is if you're puzzled by it at first,

like the song Girls, which is,

that's kind of his big, you know, breakthrough song.

That's his hit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It feels like there's this specific kind of,

you know, horny personality that he's,

that he's aiming to channel.

And you might connect with that or you might not,

you might find it repellent, but if you stick with it,

I think this record actually gets a lot better

in the second half because it starts to feel less

like a performance of an idea and more like an artist's

compositions sort of in, in the idiom of a style they admire.

There's a song called All Night that is in some places,

almost like a Black Eyed Peas song,

where he's just shouting the names of different cities.

Mazel Tov!

But I realized over time, I was like,

I kind of dig this song and I can't, I'm not sure what it is.

And I think what it is, is that it's like, it has dynamics.

It has a real arrangement.

It has pacing.

It has some breaks from the onslaught and it shows that he's,

he's, you know, he's maybe a little more than just that one note.

Yeah. And, and I will even defend Girls, you know,

I'm just going to do it because maybe they'll take away my,

you know, my feminism membership card or whatever.

But what I kind of like about the song is, you know,

what I like about that song is basically the caveman message of that song is

like, I like all kinds of girls, every kind of girl.

And, and some of the ways he describes women in that song are offensive,

but some of them are just silly and, and contradictory.

And I don't have a problem with it because in a weird way,

it's like so inclusive.

That seems the wrong word to use, but, but.

But I think I know what you mean. There is a,

there is a weird honesty to it, even in its abrasiveness.

I don't know if we're honesty or inclusiveness or like, this is,

this is a record that I could imagine some kid, you know, in,

I don't know, San Diego hearing and suddenly being like, oh my God,

I could put on a skinny tie and I could be Lush.

And then they go on to discover all those other people that,

that Smith is referencing.

And he does musically and even lyrically, he, he's building in all these,

these interesting references. I mean, Charlie XCX,

her comment on him is that he's going to be a really big producer.

And I think in, in that he's very much like Jack Antonoff.

Interesting.

You know, I mean, Bleachers is a concept, you know,

Bleachers is a band, but it's also a concept.

And, and the dare is a concept. It's a persona.

It's a piece of performance art, one that we've seen before,

but he's put his all into it. And the,

the complexity of,

of what he's doing with this scene,

this seemingly simplistic sound and stance,

I think there's potential for when he's working with others,

for him to do some really inventive, creative work.

And I just have to say one other thing.

I love this song, Perfume.

I've got a new obsession of mine.

It's something that I found while shopping online.

It's such a goofy song.

I have some people in my life who are obsessed with perfume.

I have some friends who are very into perfume.

And perfume is like this total social media phenomenon.

Now, you know, it's, to me,

it's all about like,

how 11 year olds are going into Sephora's across the nation and trashing them,

trying every single kind of makeup,

trying every single kind of cologne or perfume they can find because social media is telling them to do that.

And this goofy song about perfume captures the chaos of tweens,

running rampant in every mall in America,

going through every sample of Gucci flora,

that's out there.

out there. It's a horror movie

waiting to happen, but it's a funny one.

Wow. Terrifying.

That is What's Wrong

with New York by The Dare.

One more before we get on to our lightning

round. A new record by

Toro y Moi called Whole

Earth. It's not spelled like

it sounds. That is H-O-L-E

E-R-T-H.

And why don't we start off

with the surprise of this record

for me, Hollywood, featuring

one Ben Gibbard.

No one even calls me by my

real name. I was stone

rolling, I was

role playing

I was

wind blowing

nobody

holding my hand

So, Toro y Moi is the

performing name of Chaz

Bear, who, for a lot of people,

is synonymous with a particular

moment in the, say, late

2000s, early 2010s.

The name that we in the media

gave it was Chill Wave.

Sorry for that.

I think the artists associated with it, you thought

emo bands hated being called emo.

I think these artists pretty much hated that

name. I mean, it's kind of like hearing

like if your Beach Boys

tape melted.

That's a good description.

I like that. It's like, there's this air

of summer fun, but it's kind of slow

down and warped in this

way that made it feel very melancholy. The song

Feel It All Around by

Washed Out, better known as the

Portlandia theme music, is probably the most

enduring text from

this moment. So, this

record, Whole Earth, does not

really sound like that. It has

some of those elements. It's a very

mood-heavy record. It's very steeped

in effects that kind of warble

and warp the textures.

The thing that it evokes most to

me, and I, this is weird,

to say, but I promise I mean it as

a compliment, is emo

rap. The thing that we called emo

rap in the late 2010s. I don't know.

Does that resonate at all? Completely resonates.

That's exactly what I thought, too.

And hasn't Chaz Bear done a lot

with a lot of people in that world?

He's done a ton of production.

Yeah. Right. But it's,

just to be clear, we're talking about this,

another weird micro-genre, more of a 2010s

thing, where distorted guitars

were brought into the

hazy, vibey,

hip-hop that was proliferating on

SoundCloud at the time. And as

in that world, you've got a wild mix

of features here. You've got

some of hip-hop's favorite weirdos

in Kevin Abstract

and Don Tolliver.

You've got Glaive from the

Hyperpop camp. And

probably most notably, you've got

Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie,

whose influence I think I hear

tucked into corners throughout

this album. It's a lot of the

guitars and rhythms that

that band made their signature

sound, but just kind of stretched

and blown out beyond recognition.

Yeah, I think Chris Walla would like

this record, too. The guitarist and

of course, one of

the main architects of the Death Cab for Cutie

sound. Yeah.

I wondered if on this song, Hollywood,

it seemed for a minute like Ben Gibbard

was just going to be limited to singing backup

on the hook, which would be kind of hilarious.

It would have been pretty funny. But then his voice

comes in and that pure,

beautiful, bell-like Ben Gibbard

way, you know.

It reminded me, actually,

there's an old Death Cab song called

Why You'd Want to Live Here, which is about

feeling hopelessly

anxious and out of place in

Los Angeles. And it feels like he's

returning to that same anxiety here.

That's very true. This record

does some interesting things with nostalgia.

You're kind of framing it in a way

that makes me want to talk about

nostalgia, you know, harkening

back to these earlier styles.

There's a song, CD-R, where

he talks about all the

technology that we've left behind.

I remember burning CD-Rs

and going to Kinko's

to hold my CD-Rs.

There's a line, Blackberry Days

I would talk to anyone.

It just put that big old clunky

blackberry in my hand when I heard that song.

It's also a Stryver story, right?

Yes, it is.

A song about being just broke

and luckless on tour.

Yeah, completely.

And like a lot of the songs on this record,

I was reminded a little bit of

some of the genre travels

that 100 Gecs have made

in the past year.

Speaking of The Dare, I should have mentioned that

those guys are buds, by the way.

100 Gecs and The Dare.

I mean, it doesn't surprise

me in the slightest. Of course, of course.

But where they are

dipping into these

styles that are maybe not

home base, but there is

a real, genuine

love to them.

The way that

Edgar Wright couldn't have made

Hot Fuzz if he hadn't seen

a million Michael Bay

movies and watched Point Break

on a porch somewhere.

When people are

dealing in pastiche,

it winds up being so much more

interesting if it comes out of

genuine appreciation.

That's such a great

observation, making me think about

that initial reaction I had to The Dare, where I was

like, ugh, this is too much, I can't take it.

Whereas this record,

I just floated in, you know?

I mean, I just lay back

and let it take over.

And it's not just that it is a more gentle

sound. There is something about

the tenderness that these

songs somehow convey.

And yeah, just

a kind of almost like a little bit of

philosophical bent to

the way he builds his sound.

Yeah, totally. He seems to know where he came

from, for sure. Yeah, exactly.

That is Whole Earth by

Toro y Moi, but that is not it for

new releases this week. Here is a

real quick spin through some of the other records

coming out today. Anne, do you want to start?

Yeah, I'm very excited to say that

the uncategorizable English

band The The,

the vehicle for songwriter Matt Johnson,

has released its first album

in 25 years.

It's called Insolment, and it's a

tour de force of expansive

emotional, theatrical, political

post-punk cabaret rock.

This is a super immersive

experience. Highly recommend it.

Those who are looking for up-and-comers in the

pop scene might want to check out

Jessie Murph. Jessie Murph is a

19-year-old from Athens,

Alabama. She got her start on TikTok

but has risen to prominence with

her own songs through a mixtape

she released called Drowning

and duets and features

that she's done with people ranging from

Jelly Roll to Diplo.

She's kind of the female

post-Malone in a way. She's post-genre

working an Amy Winehouse

vibe in cowboy boots, and

she's releasing her album

called That Ain't No Man,

That's the Devil. And from

a post-genre Nashvilleian to

a full-on straight-up country

legend, George Strait

has a new record out. The Texas country

giant retired from traditional

touring more than a decade ago, but

he continues to occasionally release albums,

and Cowboys and Dreamers is the name

of his new album. This is his

31st studio album, and

features, I know, insane, and

features a Chris Stapleton duet and a

Waylon Jennings cover alongside plenty

of Strait's classic country stylings.

Also out today,

Free Energy by the band Dummy,

Luck and Strange by David

Gilmore of Pink Floyd,

Born Horses by Mercury Rev,

Infinite Icon by Paris Hilton,

the heiress with the mostest.

I've been waiting, I've been waiting.

Thank you, Paris, for coming back.

As well as Fred again,

the English super producer with

two periods in his name, certainly

one of the biggest stories in electronic music of the

past year, is back with a new album today.

His fourth LP is called

Ten Days.

There's so much better

than everything

Nice and close in my

chair, there's no compare

I adore you

Ooh, I adore

you

And speaking of

musicians with momentum, stick around

for a discussion of what turns

a new or rising artist into

a next big thing. How do those

anointings happen, and what do they mean?

That's coming up after this.

Welcome back to New Music Friday

for September 6th, 2024.

And in the first part of the show,

we spoke about the new album from

MJ Lenderman, which I know has been

pinging on your radar for

a bit, not just because

you're a fan of his projects,

but because there was this

sense of gathering excitement

around him. Can I ask what tip

to you that he might be headed for a

little bit of a star moment with this one?

Well, Jake Lenderman's been headed for this

star moment for a long time

in the circles where I

travel. First of all, Wednesday

has become a beloved

band among fans

of not only indie rock, but also

Americana music.

They're known for their great live

shows, and Jake

Lenderman's guitar playing is a huge part of that

alongside Carly Hartsman's fantastic

skills as a frontwoman and a

songwriter. So already

he was beloved from being part of that band.

Then in 2022, he released

an album called Boat Songs that made

a lot of critics lists, and including

lists of some of our

colleagues and former colleagues.

I know Marissa LaRusso was the one who was like,

you've got to check out this record.

On top of that, then he released

this live record that did really,

really well, and people loved his live

show. All of those things were

adding up. So it's never

just one release, I think. There's

always a trail you can follow to get to

this point. And then, right at

the beginning of 2024,

Katie Crutchfield, i.e.

Waxahachie, released this

single called Right Back to It,

which is a duet with Jake Lenderman.

And it is just

a killer song. It's

beautiful. Their interplay

on the song is gorgeous.

And it was the harbinger

of what was to come on her great album,

Tiger's Blood, which is a peak

for her career. And Jake

is all over that record, too.

So now he's collaborating with Waxahachie.

He already had a relationship with

Patterson Hood and the Drive-By Truckers,

who are a huge inspiration

to Wednesday and to him.

So he has the

approval of his elders,

or his elder brothers and sisters,

you know. So he has that. He had

all these great releases,

both with Wednesday

and on his own.

And all of that kind of, you know,

we're throwing

ingredients in the pot, right?

And it's simmering. It's starting

to smell delicious. It's starting to smell

great. And I think just everyone

was ready for this breakthrough

from him. Also, I think there was

a space for him to occupy, a particular

space, which is this

songful but

raucous style of

rock and roll that is

beloved by, now, multiple

generations. So

M.J. Lenderman has fans his own age.

He has many fans

who are quite a bit older than him

as well. That's people who

are longing for

the return of Pavement, who are

wax nostalgic about Dinosaur

Jr. They're also excited about

Jake Lenderman. And Truckers

fans. I mean, you know, this is a band

that's touring right now for the 30th

anniversary of its record, Southern

Rock Opera. And,

they have a massive fan base, and they

all love Jake Lenderman, too. So

it's this appeal he has to

multiple generations makes a big difference,

too. So if I can

derive from that some of the

elements that make

a next big thing, you've

got a sort of

scene-stealing role in

a lot of other people's projects, you know,

kind of killing it in the background.

You've got important co-signs,

whether from collaborators or

just, you know, respected elders,

and you've got the feeling of

filling a vacant role.

A moment where there is a perceived

absence of the thing that

this person does.

Yeah, I kind of want to

throw in here, although I also

want to take it back the minute I say it,

but I want to say it,

which is also,

he's a dude. He appeals to dudes.

There's been a ton of memes

about how, you know,

dudes who like indie rock are

so, so happy to

have a male-fronted

band at the fore

again. Now, look, I

also want to say, I think

this record, it

speaks to me, whatever,

you know, as a woman, as a person

beyond gender. I do not think

he is the spokesperson for

dudes, even though maybe

he sometimes calls himself the spokesperson for

dudes, but I do think for, you know,

that's another gap he's filled.

Yeah. Well,

maybe by way of comparison,

we should look at some non-dudes

because, I mean,

in the span of this year, we've

gone from, you know, maybe

feeling like we didn't have a ton of

new stars on the horizon

to now feeling like we've just got a ton

of them. This week, Sabrina

Carpenter's Short and Sweet is the

number one record in the country, and three

singles from it are in the top

five, top four, actually.

Beyond that, when we

were getting ready to talk about this, a name

that kept ringing out,

was Chapel Roan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Have to talk about Chapel Roan in this context

of next big things. So, how

do you think that those elements play into her

story? Because that is somebody who

has been simmering

for a while, too.

The songs of hers that are doing

gangbusters this year mostly came

out last year. Yeah.

But it seems like she,

her team, her label,

whoever, have been able to

recognize an opening for her.

Does that seem fair? Yeah, well,

when you first were saying, what do you think about her,

I didn't know if you meant Sabrina Carpenter or

Chapel Roan, and in fact, the first thing I want to

say applies to both of them, which is, like Jake

Linderman, they've been making

music and releasing music for a while.

I think it's very important to say,

all of these artists we're discussing have had

time to figure out who they

are. You know, they feel

brand new, but

they've taken the time

to hone their

steez, you know, to hone their

superpower, whether

it is, you know, beautifully

shambolic

indie rock, or shiny,

delightful, sex-positive

pop, or amazing

anthemic queer

pop. That's Chapel Roan,

that last one. They've taken the time

to get there, and this is always

the secret behind the next big thing.

It's never truly a new thing.

Very, very rarely is it a new thing,

especially in 2024.

Mm-hmm. You told me something,

about how part of

Chapel Roan's deal

was, sorry, not her deal

like in the Seinfeld way, but her

record deal, was

an assurance that they would work

her songs as singles,

even though a lot of

the, you know, the catchier

ones, the ones that we know the best now, were

out already. Am I getting

that right? Yes, there's a great piece

that ran in Hits, the

trade magazine by Craig Marks,

that is an oral history of

the rise of Chapel Roan. He interviewed

everyone involved in her career, her

A&R people, her producers, Dan

Nigro, who is her main

songwriting collaborator,

and talking about how they,

you know, they went from

a not very good position at all, which

was that she had been dropped by

her record label to this moment we're

experiencing now. One thing that really

stood out to me was something that Dan

Nigro said about why they signed to

Island Records. He said

that his pitch to the

record label was a

little too old. He said,

I don't know if you can

fit in this. I don't know if you can fit in this.

And I said, well, I'm going to

put out a lot of singles, but I'm

not going to put out a lot of

songs. And what he said for

the record label was, you know,

I'm going to put out a lot of

singles, but I'm also going to put out

a lot of albums. And our guy was

that, this is not a linear album,

we have put out a lot of singles

already. They had already released a ton

of the songs that we're thinking of as

any new song. But then releasing Good Luck Babe, which is a 2024 song, was also key. They needed

to have this kind of singular moment that was marking the threshold, you know, marking the new

phase, and then have the willingness of the label to work all the other stuff and promote it to

radio and get it out there. And it's just, again, I'm going back to my ridiculously simple and

stupid stew metaphor. It's like all the ingredients had to, you know, have equal flavor

in the stew to make it palatable to everyone. Yeah. I mean, they really seem to be attuned to

the moments when interest in her was swelling, and timing seems so important to this. I feel

like this conversation wouldn't be complete if we didn't talk about an example of where that

maybe didn't go so well. I feel so bad beating up on poor Ice Spice, but she is the rolling

stone.

Stone cover star in September, and it just feels like a bad place to be after the summer that she's

had. Our colleague Sheldon Pierce wrote very ably about this a couple of weeks ago, basically

identifying all of the things that felt so thrilling and fun and sort of loaded with potential

energy about Ice Spice in the first year of her run. The munch single, the like EP, and just a

certain attitude and a certain

voice that felt like it was filling a void, that felt like it was filling a role that just like

nobody was doing quite the way that she was. And then it seemed as though she grew in stature and

visibility as a celebrity faster than her music catalog could really catch up with. So in the

summer of 2024, we get this record Y2K that feels a little bit slight, that feels kind of mixtape-y.

It's,

it's quite short, which, you know, is okay. But after all of that buildup, and after all of those,

you know, shots of her sitting next to Taylor Swift in a box at a football stadium, you sort of hope

for something that's really gonna land. And, and it feels like she didn't.

Well, on the one hand, I want to attribute this to timing. It's always timing.

Yeah.

You know, it's not necessarily the, the product or the artwork. It's about

how does the artwork interface with, with,

the culture or, you know, with, with all of us, with the public. And,

and with Ice Spice, I think maybe they just took a little too long to get that record out.

Yeah.

You know?

If that record had come out last fall.

Right.

I think we would have felt very differently about it.

Yeah. And it's funny how I think even critics don't necessarily respond to things

in a pure way. I mean, I definitely think critics don't respond to things in a pure way. We are part

of the hype cycle too, you know, whether we like it or not, and we're sucked in. And with each of

the records, we're sucked in. And we're sucked in. And we're sucked in. And we're sucked in.

We're talking about, aside from Ice Spice, with, with the Sabrina Carpenter record, with

MJ Lenderman's record, and with Chapel Roan's. I mean, there's, they're great records. I think

every single one of them is going to stand up. And, and not just at the end of this year. I

think they're going to stand up over time. But it's also exactly when they came out,

you know, exactly when they hit. And, and I guess in Chapel Roan's case, it's not exactly

when the album came out, but it's exactly when her live shows hit fever pitch. It's

about, I mean, she was the story of the summer, because she was filling massive fields with fans

that people didn't expect. You know, people in the industry didn't expect that. So I don't know,

timing is this kind of ineffable thing. You can't really predict it. You don't know where the

culture is going. You know, maybe Ice Spice was partly in a sense, undermined by people getting

sick of Taylor. Could be. Yeah, no, there's an overexposure is,

is a killer here. Yeah. But also, it's, it's a strange moment for hip hop, I think. Like,

what's the, what's the hip hop story of the summer? What's the rap story of the summer?

And it wasn't necessarily the best time to be a rapper in September, August, July 2024. You know

what I mean? That's an interesting question. Yeah. I mean, it's funny, we talked about the

Dochi record last week. I was about to call it an album, but it's not. It's ostensibly a mixtape,

where I just like, you and I were sitting there being like, this is insane.

This is so great. It's like, you know, it's really like technically accomplished. It's so

much fun. She's so funny. Right, right. And why aren't, why isn't that one of the records of the

moment? You know, why? I mean, I have seen some people saying, hey, you've got to listen to this

record, like some, some writers, some people on social media, but it's not, it's not hyped up

like these other records we're talking about, these other artists we're talking about.

She seems precisely like the kind of person who could be teed up for a next big thing kind of

moment. And it just, it hasn't quite happened.

For her yet. And it's extra interesting, because I feel like this sort of launchpad story,

it's big in hip hop. I mean, think about Tupac. Tupac had his verse on same song by Digital

Underground. That was the first time a lot of people heard of him. And everyone was like,

who is this kid? The Chronic, you know, Snoop Dogg is kind of the star of The Chronic more

than Dr. Dre is. And even Chance the Rapper being on Ultralight Beam at the beginning of 2016,

a couple of months before Coloring Book came out. But man, oh, man, people were so

excited.

So you're saying that Dochi needs a launchpad, like she needs to do an amazing feature.

Or something. Maybe that's not the way it's done anymore. I just, I don't know how you

can listen to that record and not think of her as a star.

Well, I'm glad you brought that up, because as much as I absolutely adore

Manning Fireworks, I really do. It made me think of one of my favorite

shambolic singer-songwriters, who's a guy named John Craigie. And he's from the West Coast. He's

been around Portland.

Oregon area for a long time. He's now 44 years old. And he, like Jake Letterman, writes these

very poetic, very evocative songs. He's a pillar of his community, of the West Coast folk scene.

He's beloved by his audiences. He's known for his hilarious shows, his hilarious performances. And

yet he cannot catch a break on the national level. I mean, nobody's ever even heard of this guy,

I feel like, sometimes.

I've tried to champion him, but why is that? And I've thought about it. It's like,

geography also matters, right? I mean, it can also matter.

Sure.

Like Wednesday and being from Asheville, North Carolina. There's a lot of amazing music coming

out of North Carolina lately. Being close to Nashville, you know, having that connection to,

although, you know, they don't spend a lot of time here, but just there's a connection there,

I feel like. There's a lot of energy kind of in that part of the South,

South right now. Some of it also has to do with the desire for the artists, I have to say,

the willingness of the artists to participate. John Craigie seems to have no interest in

participating in becoming famous. I don't even know if he's ever had a publicist.

But whereas, as shy and sweet and lovely as he seems, and I've never met him in person,

but Jake Letterman has been doing a ton of interviews. So yeah, he's in the New Yorker,

he's in the New York Times.

You also have to be willing to grease the wheels a little bit. And that's an interesting thing

about Chapel Roan, because she tried to pull back a little bit. You know, she made that statement,

I don't like the way the fans are treating me. I, myself, the person, am not the character you

see on stage. But that was so fascinating to me, because really, can she pull back at this time?

Is it possible for her to pull back? It's going to be interesting,

to see how things unfold for her if she's starting to feel like she wants to resist

getting sucked into the machine that is, you know, mainstream pop success.

Yeah. I mean, I think the immediate future is the thing to watch for all of the people that

we're talking about. Because that's the thing about A Next Big Thing. It's the nextness of it.

Part of the reason that we love these stories is because these are people who have tons of potential,

but they're just a little bit unproven. They are teetering on the edge of something much bigger,

and they have a lot of decisions to make in a very short stretch, and a lot is going to depend

on those. And that's why I feel confident about Jake Lenderman. And it's also why I feel confident

about Sabrina Carpenter, because as different as they are, they both, in their own way,

are experiencing success that is a culmination, not a beginning. It's actually the culmination

of many years of work and experience. And I think that's the thing that's so important to me,

exploration and great music. And I think if you are in that position when you become the next big

thing, you're in the perfect position. With Chaperone, I am really hopeful, but it's a

little more scary. Because even though we relentlessly hear, well, she's been in the

industry for 10 years. She hasn't been at this level or even anywhere near this level. I mean,

she had rocket engines on her glitter boots, and she just shot,

shot up.

And that messes with your equilibrium in a way that I think the other artists we're talking

about, they're more ready. Even, we haven't even talked about Shabuzy, but he's another one. Like,

he'd been making music for quite a while before he had his breakthrough. So I feel more confident

about those artists who've had some time to become who they are before they become the next big

thing.

Why don't we go out with Shabuzy?

Let's do it.

A lot of the world heard him for the first time on Cowboy Carter earlier this year.

Now he is the one,

the only person keeping Sabrina Carpenter from number one on the Hot 100. Let's listen to a bar song.

My baby born and working

She's been telling me all night long

Gasoline and groceries

The list goes on and on

It's nine to five, ain't working

Why the hell do I work so hard?

I can't worry about my problems

I can't take them when I'm gone

Uh

Here comes the two to the three to the four

Tell them bring another round, we need plenty more

Two stepping on the table, she don't need a dance floor

Oh my

That is it for this week's New Music Friday.

Come back next week for new albums by Foxing, Floating Points, and My Brightest Diamond.

Shout out, Charanova.

In the meantime, you can send your feedback on today's episode to allsongs at npr.org.

Leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash music newsletter.

And remember, you can get this show sponsor-free and support our work by joining NPR Music Plus.

Go to plus.npr.org slash nprmusic or search for NPR Music in Apple Podcasts to sign up.

Today's episode was produced by Noah Caldwell.

Our editor is Jacob Gans.

I'm Daoud Tyler-Amin.

And I'm Anne Powers.

Come back next week for more New Music Friday.

Till then, happy listening.

We need 30 more

Two stepping on the table

She don't need a dance floor

Oh my good lord

Someone pour me up a double shot of whiskey

They know me and J. Daniels gotta hit the street

There's a party downtown near Fifth Street

Everybody at the bar get tipsy

When it comes to two to the three to the four

When it's last call and they kick us out the door

It's getting kind of late but the ladies want some more

Oh my