Personal Bangers is a weekly email newsletter produced weekly by fellow NJ Nicole Johnson aka Method Horse where she shares her music recommendations. Nicole is quantifiably cooler than I am musically and so I recognize almost none of her recommendations. Seriously none of them. This recap is a how I experience the weekly email in all my ignorant glory.
Intro
I realize that my first recap is for email #44. It is as if I started doing episode recaps of The Sopranos in Season 4. I'll certainly be called a Johnny-come-lately (yes, that is the right capitalization and hyphenation) by some, but I'm willing to live with that.
Most of the PBs start out with a witty introduction. An amuse bouche to the main content. Something to clean whatever the audio equivalent of your palate is. This week's iteration is no different and the shit gets sassy!
I've spent the last 10 minutes trying to rack my brain as to if I have any recollection of Sassy Magazine. At first I was convinced that I had made it through 40+ years of life without any clue to its existence. Then I convinced myself that I almost assuredly did know about Sassy, because how could I not? I've landed somewhere in the middle – I've likely seen issues of Sassy sitting in the cellophane-esque magazine wrappers employed by libraries of the time which leaves me with the unanswerable question of what the hell purpose did those magazine wrappers serve?
In any event, I'm not feeling nostalgic for something that I'm not sure I was aware of, which is a fucking vibe.
Recommendation #1: Joel Culpepper - “Return”
Three words into our first banger and I already feel like I'm missing something. The title of this section of content is He’s your pusherman. I'm confident in my understanding of 66% of those words. Pusherman sounds like a word that I could probably suss out the meaning of if I sat and thought about it long and hard and was given some context, but I don't have that kind of time kids – off to the Google I go.
It turns out that Pusherman is a reference to a 1972 Curtis Mayfield song by the same name. Much like the magazine Sassy, I feel like I might have been aware that the song existed, but in reality it is probably a false memory.
The recommendation itself is for a Joel Culpepper track. As will be the trend in this recap, I've never heard of Joel Culpepper. At first I thought he might be related to Daunte Culpepper, but the fact that the email refers to Joel as a "London soul artist" dissuades me of that idea. Daunte was born in Ocala, Florida and I can assure you that London and Ocala have nothing in common.
As I'm rereading the recommendation as I stream the tracks a hard reality hits me when Nicole drops the line "(his) voice hits angelic highs and grimy depths, tempered by a thin veneer of gentlemanly restraint." Nicole is a much better writer than I am. If you gave me all of those words and a full year to construct that sentence I wouldn't get the job done. I'll have the last laugh though when GPT-3 starts doing all of my writing for me. The singularity is near mother fuckers!
The tracks were both funky and poppy, and part of the show featured flashing lights and lasers. (Editor's Note: This sentence was AI generated)
Recommendation #2: Gaidaa feat. Saba and Jarreau Vandal - “Stranger”
Great, this track has three people featured that I've never heard of. You would think of the 7.5 Billion people on Earth, just by pure chance I would know at least one person if any three people were picked at random.
Another pop culture reference is introduced as the lead in to the recommendation. The HBO show (I had to look that up) Insecure. I've never seen it, but I know the feeling.
“Stranger” is a reflection on grappling with one’s identity v. the identity you imagined as your younger self
Turning off the snark for a second, I am for the first time trying to reflect on the identity I imagined as my younger self and I've got nothing. Did I not imagine my identity? Have I just blacked it out? Come to think of it, I don't know if I even think about my identity as my current self. I'm left wondering if this is a white cis male thing or if I just don't think in those terms? I probably need therapy.
The song itself starts out low key with a smooth Sade vibe and then picks up in the middle with some verses by who I can only imagine are Saba and Jarreau Vandal. Just like the first pick, I'm digging the vibe, but it probably won't make it into heavy rotation in what is assuredly my basic Spotify playlist.
Recommendation #3: Dawn Richard - “Bussifame”
My first though was "Damn, that lady from the Real Housewives is dropping tracks?" but then I realized I was thinking of Denise Richards not Dawn Richard. So Dawn Richard, yep another artist that I've never heard of, but I will not be deterred!
My research department really earned their paychecks today. It turns out Ms. Richard is a member of the made by reality TV group Danity Kane, which is a musical act I've heard of!
Quick aside: What are Danity Kane fans called Inkanities? The DK crew?
For those of you who aren't as culturally attuned as I am, Danity Kane was formed in the third iteration of MTV's Making the Band show. Making the Band was a Diddy vehicle where he brought a bunch of talented (!) musical artists, made them live in an apartment in NYC together, while he had them record and perform nonsensical challenges.
In the end, only the best survived and he had himself a new superstar group. I'll reserve judgement on the groups that formed, but there is one episode of Making the Band that has stuck in my mind for over a decade. I present to you Making the Band Season 2, Episode 1. The Cheesecake Walk!
Honestly, I think I may have to do another post that is a straight up episode recap of the whole episode. Shit, I might do the entire season, but for now I need to talk about The Cheesecake Walk!
The setup is simple. Diddy wants some mother fucking cheesecake. And you don't feed the king just any old cheesecake. My man needs his fix from Junior's. And being the mogul he is, he will not have his cheesecake travel in a vehicle. It needs to be picked up on foot.
Our heros have to walk from Midtown Manhattan to Downtown Brooklyn and back. This is what top shelf television in the early 2000's my friends.
Spoiler Alert: Da Band was besides themselves that they had to make this 10-mile round trip trek. To the point that they told Diddy they weren't going to do it (this was a mistake). In the end cooler heads prevailed and they made it Brooklyn, got that Cheesecake, and high tailed it back to Midtown. Sadly Diddy had already left the studio, because well... he didn't want the cheesecake in the first place.
At this point you might be asking yourself what this has to do with Dawn Richard who was part of Making The Band 3 and not Making The Band 2. The answer. It has nothing to do with Dawn Richard, but damn it if we can't all learn a little lesson about perseverance from the mogul behind Bad Boy Records.
In terms of the song, Bussifame, I'm a fan.
Recommendation #4: Django Django feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg - “Waking Up”
Nicole bills Charlotte Gainsbourg as "cool royalty," so clearly I've never heard of her nor Django Django. Are you spotting a trend?
I really want to like this song. It starts with a strong riff, but in there end there is something that's missing for me. The vocals seem muted and on the first pass I'm convinced the chorus is going to be an ear bug, but then it is immediately forgettable. Don't get me wrong, the song is aight, but it doesn't quite hit the way I want it to.
In less than 1500 words I've turned into a full blown music critic. I'm insufferable.
Recommendation #5: Panda Bear - “playing the long game”
Did Darwin ever explain the evolutionary imperative of panda bears? Because those things don't seem to have much going for them, and yet they exist.
Editor's Note: I just spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to embed a Giphy of a panda bear falling off of a platform. As you can see, there is no such GIF present, meaning my computer science degree is effectively useless.
I am torn about this song without even listening to it. I love the concept of playing the long game. That is right up my fucking alley. I am very anti-lowercase titles. I notice that Nicole went ahead and fixed the casing catastrophe for Mr. Bear in her email, but I'm not getting paid to be his editor so I'll keep it as is.
The song itself is fine. I like the beat, the lyrics are kind of whiney and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I probably won't be throwing it on the jukebox when the world opens back up because I don't think it'll make the ladies dance on the pool table, but in all honesty we already have the entire Ja Rule catalog for that.
Bonus
And how. Honestly the bonus content really hit me demographically. I 🎉 have 🎉 heard of Rick Ross (although I couldn't name a song) and I've definitely heard of NPR (left leaning middle aged white dudes unite!)
Something about Rick just lounging in that throne brings a smile to my face and makes me say to myself "I need a fucking throne." Most of the thrones on Amazon seem to be complete trash, but there are a couple of contenders:
I feel like I'm going to regret not adding my affiliate code to those links because you vultures are going to be throning up your cribs for sure.
That's it until next time. Stay safe out there.