Reposted by bradluenNvidie @dervine7.bsky.social · 09/10/2026ok I know it's not the main issue but identifying *jazz* as peripheral in *academic music studies* is insane 5719
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 09/10/2026I think Congolese soukous is the finest music of the late 20th century (even when it's Zimbabwean) so I'll pencil in a vote for "Dynamos vs. Tornados", but will hold off voting to see if anyone can explain what the hell "No! No! Señor" is about 000
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 09/10/2026"Bang Zoom" takes this handily for me; the last verse ("MC cemetery" plus a better "period" than City Girls) is classic. "Triangle" is solid but iirc the Detroit scene is going to get *much* better in the remaining years of this poll. "I'm Chillin'" is less than meets the eye (sorry King Kurtis.) 010
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 09/10/2026(if it was common for cultures to have sequences that meant "mother" I'd change my tune) (GT points out that music's "abstracting of pitch from meaning" goes in the *opposite* direction from language) (maybe recognizable music came before recognizable human language; the latter seems very hard) 010
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 09/10/2026My take: There's no strong reason to think language evolved out of music or that music evolved out of language. Likely they co-evolved distinctly, taking advantage of many of the same cognitive and cultural capacities to formalize systems of gestures and vocalizations. 120
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Bluesky: "how come I haven't heard this Choosin' Texas song out in the real world" My spouse, a Worldly Person who leaves the house at least twice a week, as soon as the riff starts up: "NOOOO why are they playing this again asgsaghrsgauh" 040
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Perceiving and using "discrete pitch"* is the major remaining prereq. Getting this ability maybe helped Paleo humans to offload some of the cognitive work of understanding vocalizations to culture *in a looser sense than in Western music, e.g. I sing some notes and you can reproduce the basic shape 110
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Neanderthal toolmaking involved sequencing different kinds of discrete operations. While it wasn't so sophisticated as to necessitate semantic language, having to somehow communicate temporally-ordered info is another advancement towards potential language and music en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%...en.wikipedia.orgSchöningen spears - Wikipedia 120
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Tough group, but as someone who mowed the lawn wearing a T-shirt saying "monogamy" earlier today, I am obligated to vote for the Frenchified but still groovy "Une seule femme". (Helps that I don't love-love the vocal on "Massu", while I'll wait for PPP26 to give the French Caribbean its due.) 021
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Not my favorite group, but "No Conversation" does at least elevate from "pretty" to "very pretty" with the key change and outro 000
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 08/10/2026I enjoyed Coloured Stone sounding like they were an organist away from being an Aboriginal Sir Douglas Quintet, but "Rebelión" is un gran clasico, for its in-your-face brass and great piano solo as much as its (easily translatable) anti-slavery lyrics. ¡No le pegue a la negra! 020
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Finally an easy one! Sweet Tee is highly lovable and so is her beat, friendly without being weak. Now to see if the past PPP penchant for electro hands it to (the perfectly fine) "It's Automatic" 051
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 06/10/20264x fun! Voting Antoinette as she's different from anything I know from the era (even though if you extrapolate from recent Ivorian music back to '86 you'd end up somewhere around here) 040
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Didn't think Pato would top falsettoing his mum for funny voices, but the white ruffian he meets on the train might be even better … and then "The Tragedy" is nearly as good on the same subject. Would run the risk of "Teen Angel" kitshciness if the rapping and beat weren't so hard 020
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Neanderthals had much more sophisticated toolmaking than their ancestors and maybe had the "distant thinking" for trade, yet there's no strong evidence of musicking: the simplest explanation for the Divje Babe "flute" is that its holes were made by carnivores. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divje_B...en.wikipedia.orgDivje Babe flute - Wikipedia 130
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Not sure how to choose between the many stories of how social complexity led to intelligence (e.g. 'physical grooming got too time-consuming so Homo did "vocal grooming" and hence [some steps omitted] language.') Seems like at least one of these has to be at least partly true; does it matter which?en.wikipedia.orgGrooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language - Wikipedia 120
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Pre-sapiens Homo likely communicated with "gesture-calls" (smiles, frowns, laughs, sobs, yells) rather than phoneme-based language (let alone note-based music), but that was enough to facilitate complex sociality by ~480k years ago—and music's deeply tied to sociality www.ucl.ac.uk/social-histo...ucl.ac.ukEating out was a very social matter for early humans: New archaeology from BoxgroveA half-a-million-year-old internationally significant archaeological site in Sussex, England, offers unprecedented insights into the life of a poorly understood extinct human species, according to new... 110
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Cut my last campaign check of the year to Adam Hamilton, who I think could make use of more money and has a real live shot. (I'd say RIP my inbox but that's been a lost cause for several cycles now) 000
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Nothing in wrestling mixes entertainment and poignancy better than AEW tribute shows, and I hope there isn't another one for a long time 050
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026At its peak, Fibber McGee & Molly consistently drew an estimated 30+ percent of the potential US radio audience, though I'm sure 1940s Bluesky went through a round of "how come I've never heard Fibber McGee & Molly" every time the ratings came out 230
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Mimi Pond, Do Admit! The Mitford Sisters and Me. The Mitfords had the rights and means to become who they wanted to be; their choices literally spanned Communism to Fascism. You don't have to revere the sisters as much as Pond does to admire some feats and ponder the terrible burden of free choice. 010
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026"Beat induction" is a key prerequisite: humans can clap/head-nod on the beat while as far as we know other primates can't (but apparently some birds can.) In humans it's a repurposing of more general machinery for experiencing time; not sure what it is in Snowball. www.youtube.com/watch?v=utkb...youtube.comSnowball is a Rockin' to the Back Street Boys Cockatoo!!YouTube video by prezli 201
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I know quite a lot about chart mechanics and I still learned a bunch from this! It's almost as if listening to people with expertise can help you contextualize things, even when the subject is popular music! 140
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026I still aspire to comprehensive coverage of Actually Popular Music, even if I'm not gonna write up every platinum Asian boyband, because the process throws up culturally expressive objects like this: K-pop's top-selling young group going HARD CLAVE. Is it good, strictly speaking no, but fascinating!youtube.comENHYPEN (엔하이픈) 'Bloody Paradise' Official MVYouTube video by HYBE LABELS 020
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Additional point of info: "Choosin' Texas" was not an unusally big radio hit! It peaked at no. 6 on Pop Airplay! Anything with flagrant country signifiers has a pop radio ceiling for the same reason people can uncritically post "lol pop country sux"* on Bluesky! *a lot of it does, believe me I know 010
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 27/09/2026(yes I know there isn't a bright line between melody and performance but humor me) 020
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 27/09/2026and I think this is at least somewhat typical of country: it's not like Dolly's tunes are as harmonically sophisticated as Cole Porter's or Aespa's on the sheet music, but Dolly's tunes as sung by Dolly are melodically great, whereas covers of her tend to rely on performance (and/or words) 110
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 27/09/2026After some diagramming, I think the semi-insipid nature of the tune as written is in the way it always returns to the I chord, with its excursions from the I very controlled (excl. the last chorus's "no-oh-oh"). The melodic interest's in the ways Langley departs from the tune as written ("phrasing") 210
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Pre-Homo sapiens hominids can't have had music as we understand it, but Tomlinson makes the case that stone toolmaking was a sequence of rhythmic actions, and selecting for brains and bodies that can process and participate in "beats" is the sine qua non of musicking www.youtube.com/watch?v=59SX...youtube.comMaking a Neanderthal flint stone tool | Natural History MuseumYouTube video by Natural History Museum 110
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Me: okay, I'm now quite familiar with the last 100+ years of recorded music and decently familiar with the last 500+ years of written music. Is that it? Am I done? Gary Tomlinson: ha ha ha you baby, you absolute baby 2232
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Maria Reva, Endling. What to do when you write comic fiction about Ukraine and 2022 happens? You go way meta and you don't stop being funny and you remind the reader this isn't enough (you don't need to to remind yourself.) You don't have to write about snailfucking, but you can if it interests you. 000
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Angela Flournoy, The Wilderness. Young Black bougie interactions are as Internet-addled as those of any other middle-class-&-up demo, but their cultural specifics include a hauntedness driving a sense of responsibility, which in America might yet kill you. Also: best group chats in a novel to date. 100
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Maphorisa drove a BMW on to the stage; Kabza played a burning piano thebeatsofafrica.com/beats-news/b...thebeatsofafrica.comScorpion Kings Live at FNB Stadium: Inside the 74,000-Strong ShowScorpion Kings Live drew 74,000+ fans to FNB Stadium. Inside the 11-hour show: 50 artists, a Gusheshe entrance, a burning piano and Ladies of Amapiano. 010
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026If you still have excess 1996 opinions you want to dispense with before starting a new electoral cycle, go vote in my poll! bradluen.substack.com/p/1996-poll-...bradluen.substack.com1996 poll: Announcement and voting threadTell me what you really really want 010
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Meanwhile over there we're still trying to sort out 1996, this time with a guest post from @koganbot.bsky.social covering Korean disco, Korean [unclassifiable], New Zealand ersatz Pavement, and Courtney Love being first on the Fleetwood Mac re-evaluation: bradluen.substack.com/p/1996-e-pak...bradluen.substack.com1996: E-Pak-Sa, Roo’ra, Garageland, HoleSome poll suggestions from Frank Kogan 141
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Still trying to reconcile why (to simplify) the melody of "Texas" in itself reads as ~great to country critics and ~serviceable to pop critics. (Current conjecture is "tune as something the singer can do something with" vs. "tune as an object of interest in and of itself", but I'm not tied to this) 240
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Besides the usual South African dance and countrypop bar songs, in this month's singles there's an emopop bar song, there's onomatopoeia, there's a 15 million monthly listener act without a Wiki page, there's a whole bunch of signifiers to make of what you will: bradluen.substack.com/p/video-and-...bradluen.substack.comVideo & Audio: Count the barsBig beeping questions in the year of onomatopoeia 020
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Have to admire Mistico, one of the biggest lucha stars ever, being willing to absolutely eat shit to try to create the necessary 1% doubt he might actually lose. Still didn't quite manage to create it, but at least Averno had a good pre-haircut time! #CMLL 140
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026I appreciate three of the better worestling minds in the world coming up with way to do a three-way that isn't *all* "third guy lies around outside the ring". Having said that there was still a lot of third guy lies around outside the ring #CMLL 130
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Normally I don't want my #CMLL matches to be too indy/one-county, but I'll allow it for Volador Jr. trying to leave it all out there for… probably not his last big singles epic but he doesn't have too many left 120
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026was not expecting a happy ending* to the women's title match! #CMLL *except for poor Tully 110
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Still nothing better than two guys in lucha masks who hate each other (to the extent that Bandido can't resist getting a few knees in to Soberano's head before stealing his finisher) ripping each other's masks. Aniversario 100 main event plz #CMLL 160
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Going through this thread saying yeah I knew that, knew that, didn't know that actually, knew that unfortunately, didn't want to know that, eh that's a bit of a stretch, WAIT THEY'RE DOING WHAT IN THE HOTEL NEAR MY OLD APARTMENT IN SOUTH BERKELEY, knew that unfortunately 050
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Richard Adams, Watership Down. Been reading lots of heavy stuff lately… well, I've never read the bunny children's novel, that should be fun <several hundred pages of rabbit peril and dismemberment later> Death, it comes for us all and we should embrace it when it does 100
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026James Brandon Lewis knows his gospel better than country stars do, Syran Mbenza & Jocelyn Balu revitalize different streams of rumba-soukous tradition, Nia Archives & (checks notes) Baauer make catchphrases boogieable, and none of them are as horny as Kacey Musgraves in this month's Semipop Life:bradluen.substack.comSemipop Life: More godly, more hornyJames Brandon Lewis, Syran Mbenza, Nia Archives, plus special section: Countrypop Life 4! 020
