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20. Jaakko Laitinen & Väärä Raha: "Kultainen keskitie"
Finland 2017
Extremely singleton pick. Bouzouki-driven Lapp–Balkan fusion about taking the long way that nevertheless is precise in its tempo variations, culminating in an all-timer of an accelerando.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLD_...
Fourcade & Healy, The Ordinal Society, p. 222 Its operations will become more physically mobile. But this does not imply any sort of convivial post-Fordist utopia. Rather, we shall see the triumph of individual initiative and intelligence in a fully decentralized market with an absolutely minimal institutional infrastructure. Politics itself will also be transformed. The sort of mass democracy that characterized the twentieth century will give way to the “commercial sovereignty” of sovereign individuals who can negotiate their own tax treaties and their own access to public goods. The mobility of capital (and its individual owners) entails that if some jurisdiction fails to offer favorable terms to sovereign individuals, they will simply move elsewhere. In its elitist and selective way, this vision is emancipatory in the sense that it sees individual talent under the present social order as highly constrained by the threat of coercion and violence, and of course repeatedly bled by the state and its tax collection and welfare-provision schemes. Echoing the likes of Ayn Rand, the idea is that talented individuals have for too long been stifled by the power of parasitic governments, expressed most recently in the egalitarianism of mass democracy. Now, at last, information technology will allow people to shake off their fetters, devolving sovereignty from states down to individuals—at least, sufficiently entrepreneurial and clever individuals.
This recaps an arg from Davidson & Rees-Mogg's The Sovereign Individual (1997). F&H say virtualization of e.g. money makes it more feasible, and Thiel's disciples have made major headway. (But how much is b/c virtualization vs. "they're really rich & they bought a large ownership stake in the GOP"?)
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21. Mon Laferte: "Si Tú Me Quisiera"
Chile-Mexico 2016
Since 2015 one of the world's least predictable art-pop stars—certainly one who should be in the wheelhouse of anyone voting for second-tier Gaga singles
(I might HM some second-tier Gaga singles)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=y73M...
It'd be amusing to live long enough to be annoyed that the "Most Beamed Straight into Brain Songs from Good Old 2025" chart is full of Chinese(/South Asian/Southeast Asian) songs none of us here have yet heard
And that's it! Top 60 albums of the Sixties coming March 15th!
The Chris McGregor Group: Very Urgent! (1968)
The exiled Blue Notes are caught absorbing avant techniques whilst grounded in S. African melodics. McGregor shows you can use Cecil clusters w/out going all out all the time. Alto Dudu Pukwana shows a romantic side, then that squawking is romantic too.
Can recall hearing two of these (nos. 2 and 4)! Don't think I'm going to do better than that this month…
most recent album is good btw
Docteur Nico & African Fiesta Sukisa: L'Afrique Danse No. 8 (1969)
Up with the Stones, the Velvets, & CCR among the world's great guitar-driven bands at the time, and I wouldn't have them fourth. Between Nico, De La France, Dechaud, they have triple the number of great guitarists as some of those!
wrote a little about Langley/Moroney and What It All Means in my latest for @billboard.com ! www.billboard.com/music/countr...
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22. Taylor Swift: "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"
USA 2012
The night this came out I was exhilarated, thinking *finally*, this was gonna be her first number one. And it was!
(except in the UK, b/c it's no "Look What You Made Me Do" is it)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4i...
Fourcade & Healy, The Ordinal Society, pp. 207–208 Although McLuhan was writing for the age of television, in retrospect his picture of things accords better with our present than his own. McLuhan’s media landscape was dominated by a relatively tiny number of gatekeepers. Authoritative broadcasters periodically spoke live to a national audience all watching at the same moment. From time to time they drew on a fairly fixed stable of experts. That world is long gone. Now, knowledge never settles. It is provisory and conflicted, a dynamic, gushing, never-ending flow of data and updates. Its distribution is fragmented and disaggregated. Not only are there fewer institutions doing the work of cultural integration—the way national broadcasters may once have been chartered to—but the production and distribution of knowledge is actively dismembered into small islands connected by more lateral flows.
Understanding complex social phenomena requires both better data than academics can afford and the expertise to think through it (for which math is necessary not sufficient.) That leaves a tiny number of people capable of figuring out the big picture, and the bad news is they're all still on Twitter
Rochereau & African Fiesta National: L'Afrique Danse No. 4 (1969)
Allegedly some of Rochereau's best writing, like "Toyota" contrasting a rich lover and witchcraft as paths to a Corona. Lingala non-speakers can focus on Attel Mbumba's guitar, for a couple of years a draw rivaling Tabu Ley himself.
The Best of the Nebulas (ed. Ben Bova)
Reading most of these: okay, remember this story is a product of the Sixties/Seventies and a response to all the SF that came before it both in content and form, ah, that's better, I get it now
Reading a Tiptree: OH GOD OH FJUCK OH GOD FJUCK OH GOD OH FJUCK
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23. DRAM ft. Lil Yachty: "Broccoli"
USA 2016
The most enjoyable vegetable metaphor pop song since Maggie Jones's "Anybody Here Want to Try My Cabbage" (1925)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=K44j...
correct answer: movie then trailer
Should I watch the F for Fake trailer before or after the movie?
L'Afrique Danse No. 1 (1966)
Eight O.K. Jazz songs, including the infamous "Quatre Boutons" (the amount she unbuttons to get a moped), plus four songs by Conga Succès, who sound more like the platonic ideal of O.K. Jazz than O.K. Jazz do—a reminder of the depth of talent in newly renamed Kinshasa.
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24. Cardi B, Bad Bunny, J Balvin: "I Like It"
USA/Colombia/Puerto Rico 2018
24th seems right. Bunny's the standout (for a more fitting pro wrestling reference than Balvin), tho I never guessed he'd be one of the world's biggest stars in a couple of years.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTlN...
Manga: spread from Kagurabachi 110 by Takeru Hokazono. Swordmen Samura and Soga face each other. Narration: "The shock of both men sheathing their swords sends rubble flying… Their surrounding pulverized by the Magatsumi's destructive power… and restored by the Tobimune's flames. And now… as both men draw their swords, the rubble begins to melt from the heat… and within that surreal miasma… they meet at the very apex of swordplay."
Winter '26 Shonen Jump rankings:
1. Ichi
2. Kagurabachi (absolute hype boss fight and now a reset with no loss of momentum)
3. Akane-Banashi (God of Death training was a nice cooldown after the epic Kaisei stuff, now for a CRUISE SHIP ARC)
4. Elusive Samurai (RIP)
5. Someone Hertz (so easy to read)
Page from Ichi the Witch 72 (clipped for spoilers), written by Osamu Nishi, drawn by Shiro Usazaki. Kizashi the human-hater Octobomb Magik: "And it's my fault! But… but he was weak. That's why he's gone. It's a weakling's fault for being weak, and no weakling is worthy of being my friend. This is what was supposed to happen. I didn't do anything wrong!"
The Chrono arc is taking Ichi the Witch to the tippy-top—it achieves pathos (without getting too wet) while constantly keeping things moving (there were TWO jumpscare page-turns this week.) Very One Piece Arlong Park vibes in that an extrmeely promising series finally figures out what it can do.
Solomon Ilori: African High Life (1963)
Well-recorded West African albums were rare in the early '60s. Ilori & his international crew had to go to Blue Note, where they refused to accede to Eurocentric demands like having your sax pay attention to anyone. Ilori's pennywhistle is just as expressive.
Still working thru Other People's Picks (2025), including Māori Lynchianism, making out in the restroom of a Chevron, "Masters of War" weaponized against a loose tongue, and the good? Sombr song. Plus the Ivoirian World Cup anthem I hope in this month's singles:
bradluen.substack.com/p/video-and-...
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25. Girls' Generation: "I Got a Boy"
South Korea 2013
I only recently realized that in each section, the tempo/mood matches the described phase of boy-getting. So the real precedent isn't "Biology" but the Who's "A Quick One". Fortunately, it's better
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq7f...
Umm Kulthum: Enta Omri (1964)
Painstakingly rehearsed and kept to a compact 33 minutes, the studio version is a fine place to start with her if, like me, you know next to nothing about Egyptian music. If you then decide to check out hours of live recordings to find the best one, tell me about it!
#TheTenX5 Honorable Mention 5
Don Omar & Lucenzo: "Danza Kuduro"
Puerto Rico/Portugal/France 2010
Reggaeton and kuduro! Two international dance crazes in one! Who would ever think of such a thing! (Actually the French did a lot, but this one actually worked.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zp1...
it's bad!
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967)
This should be Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but I can't listen to its soundtrack without crying, so I've put off watching Rochefort indefinitely. I can't follow the lyrics, but I gather there are young girls and a guy who sounds like Gene Kelly but speaks French?
Manga page from Aliens, Baseball, and Civilization by Teito Heji & Sai Yamagishi. Human: It's interesting how baseball-like the chromosomes of life on this planet are! Yaluru: You often say that, Nana. Human: But the genomes, which are the blueprints for life forms… are surprisingly similar between humans and Yaluru. If we use the gene editing technology I developed… we could make a hybrid between a human and Yaluru. Yaluru: Nana. Sometimes you say such the most ridiculous things. Human: Artona! I want you to be my husband! Let's make a baby! Yaluru: <spurts drink>
RIP Aliens, Baseball, and Civilization, which had one of the great pre-cancellation "that escalated quickly"s—in ~2 chapters it went from a cozy story of teaching aliens baseball to king nerd shit about gene editing, a brain in a jar, and sneaking past the laws of physics like you're stealing home.
#TheTenX5 Honorable Mention 4
Riton & Kah-Lo: "Fake I.D."
UK/Nigeria 2017
I like Riton but remain amazed that *he* was the one who got some kind of stardom out of this collab
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp__...
