It’s 2024: Genre’s dead, a cappella’s getting a second life and the jaw harp is so unbelievably back. In other words, the state of music today is in total anarchy — but we at the Michigan Daily’s Music Beat are here to sort it all out for you. Although we’re a third of the way through the year, we’ve decided what’s hot and what’s not in music for the foreseeable future.
— Thejas Varma, Senior Arts Editor and Amina Cattaui, Music Beat Editor
OUT: “Experimental” Titling Conventions
The new norm of breaking standard letter case in song titles has overstayed its welcome. What started as a simple way to showcase a track’s personality or to make songs stand out in a playlist has oversaturated modern music, defeating its purpose of creating some defining facet of the track. While it may appear to be a minute and innocuous thing to take issue with — especially when it sometimes works quite well (see anything off Damn) — it is more often than not superfluous, with its singular purpose serving as an indicator that the track might not be very good, like a form of aposematism. For every Damn, in which the unconventional capitalization of the title serves the music and acts as a reflection of the tracks, there are numerous examples where the off-kilter title case is a nuisance. Billie Eilish is talented, but she finds herself situated at opposite ends of this trend’s obnoxious spectrum with “Copycat” (stylized in all-caps) and “Xanny” (stylized in all-lowercase). Unfortunately, she is far from the only one to partake in this trend (see some examples here). There are instances where there is artistic merit in breaking title case; however, oftentimes, lazy artists will do so as an attempt to push the envelope, despite not doing anything even remotely interesting. You cannot use a funky manner of titling your song as an attempt at avant-gardism, or otherwise label your work as “experimental” when your music is the antithesis of these genres. Your lowercase song title does not make us think you’re more authentic just because people on the internet utilize all-lowercase as a colloquial texting style, and your all-caps title can not save your mediocre song from being anything other than mediocre, no matter how visually striking your track title is. We need to learn to be more OK with not standing out all the time because otherwise, you might end up with something like this.
Daily Arts Contributor Amaya Choudhury can be reached at amayach@umich.edu.
IN: Listening to ambient house on the treadmill
Planet Fitness is an odd place. To fully soak up the experience, you need to look past the gym’s perpetual humidity and eclectic clientele (I saw an unaccompanied 12 year old on a stationary bike yesterday). This task is easier said than done, especially with boundless opportunities for people-watching which often detract from my exercise goals. Since getting a membership last November, I’ve struggled to find music that effectively distracts me from these surroundings.
In the past, this task was achieved through lots of Megan Thee Stallion and Charli XCX, quintessential running music in my mind. But lately these forces haven’t mentally removed me from the large TVs playing Fox News and Shark Tank or the hot dads going to town on the elliptical. I’ve had to take a slightly different approach in the form of ambient house music.
The genre is soothing but upbeat, just enough motivation to keep me focused on the treadmill. In heaviest rotation has been the work of British musician Aphex Twin, whose experimental techno makes me feel like a robotic running machine. Canadian electronic musician Khotin has proven similarly potent, with his dance-worthy beats and meandering synths. German musician and producer Jan Jelinek’s 2000 project, Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records, removes me from the fluorescent overhead lights with its rich basslines and jazz-imbued texture. Ambient house music has allowed me to disconnect from my environment and reconnect with running, something I would never have thought possible within the bright purple walls of Planet Fitness.
Daily Arts Writer Nora Lewis can be reached at noralew@umich.edu.
OUT: Hating on a cappella
This is dedicated to all those who shout, “they sang this on Glee” when a song comes on at a function. For years, the Gleek community has been fighting against the hate and lack of enthusiasm from average music listeners. While fans and creators of a cappella have treated musical accompaniment as an “out” since the genre’s genesis, this year everyone else will follow suit. Let’s enjoy music in its purest form! Without the strums and thumps of instruments, listeners can truly appreciate artistic lyricism and natural human talent. Who needs instruments when you’ve got vocal cords tuned to perfection? A cappella renditions are the key to fully understanding songs like “Dream On” or “Don’t Stop Believing.” As a collective, let’s look at “Pitch Perfect” as not just the best thing to happen to film in the 21st century but the catalyst for a musical revolution — a revolution that doesn’t require instruments. So, the next time someone says a cappella isn’t pure artistic expression, just tell them to listen and prepare to be harmoniously humbled.
Daily Arts Contributor Carolyn Lira can be reached at carlira@umich.edu.
IN: SoundCloud Pluggnb remixes (also, making music as catharsis)
Recently, I’ve been trying to recapture the highs of my brief flirtation with SoundCloud in 2016, when I used the website to upload my own music and discover new artists, including a community of Pluggnb remixers. Plugg is a hip-hop subgenre pioneered by MexikoDro in the mid-2010s (listen: “Broke Boi”) that uses pretty minimal drum patterns punching underneath frost-tipped synth keys. Pluggnb, as its namesake might suggest, takes inspiration from older R&B music, featuring soulful, almost jazzy chords and chiptune-esque synth patterns to create lush, immersive atmospheres and often veers more vocally melodic than Plugg (listen: “No New Friends!”).
Some of my favorite flips: rxi – “twice – moonlight sunrise pluggnb flip”; Willare – “Ariana Grande & The Weeknd – Love Me Harder (Pluggnb Remix)”; and ilypvc – “newjeans – hype boy (pluggnb flip).
Although leaning towards pop in general, many of these remixes specifically reshape K-pop songs into rich, head-grooving bops. And why wouldn’t they? The ultra-processed, bubblegum vocals of many of these songs fit snugly into the saccharine instrumentals, acting not as the focal point, but as one of the delicate brushstrokes that produce many hues of pink on the easel. It’s awesome to hear a song that you loved or, hell, hated become part of these sonic expeditions, melded and mangled till it’s impossible to understand them in their original contexts.
At their core, these are simply remixes: They uproot a track’s stems and propagate them into other musical gardens. But these remixes exist to represent the unlimited potential of the internet, with SoundCloud as only one of many outlets to express one’s DIY ambitions. 2016 is long gone, but I’m only beginning to understand music creation as catharsis. Sure, you don’t have to make Pluggnb, or even be “good,” but pick up FL Studio and some sample packs — maybe music’s for you too.
Senior Arts Editor Thejas Varma can be reached at thejasv@umich.edu.
OUT: Children’s song interpolations
In recent months, I’ve begun to notice something. On the way to class, or on an airplane or on a train, a stray sound sucks me back into 2020. The same TikTok audios are trending again, folding in on themselves in a recursive loop. Every time I hear that dreaded sample — oh no … oh no … oh no, no, no no no … — I can feel the machine breaking down. Without anything new to feed from, the algorithm cannibalizes itself.
Looking at the Billboard Hot 100 is a similar experience. Old songs are stuck full of formaldehyde and wheeled in front of an audience — a trend that peaked in 2022, when David Guetta vultured some of the worst songs of the past 20 years and Latto did Mariah Carey by way of Tom Tom Club. Worst of all, some artists even repurposed nursery rhymes, bringing back their childhoods for a “Weekend at Bernie’s.”
I can draw a straight line between these punky pre-K anthems and the early work of Melanie Martinez. These days, she wears her Björk influence like a pastel prosthesis — but in her career’s infancy, she played the part of a whiny brat. She’d subvert the trappings of a middle-class American childhood (Cry Baby, K-12, After School) to deliver her big fuck-you — a logical extension of kinderwhore, defanged and depoliticized.
One person tying a bonnet around their head and going preverbal is an artistic choice. But, whether it’s “Twinkle Twinkle”, the Grammy-nominated “abcdefu” or the Barney rework “u love u”, the trend’s chart-wide popularity makes me think everyone’s undergoing age regression. Adopted alongside Olivia Rodrigo’s prom-queen aesthetic, these artists (and their many, many songwriters) churn the signifiers of childhood into a nubile soup.
Nothing’s new under the sun; every decade is in. The only one left to rip off is the one you can’t remember.
Music Beat Editor Amina Cattaui can be reached at aminacat@umich.edu.
IN: The jaw harp
Typically relegated to antiquated folk music from across the world, the jaw harp is primed for a major comeback in 2024. I predict this to be the number one most sought-after instrument in local music shops for its unmistakable and coveted boing sound.
Now, the jaw harp has had brief moments of revival in popular music with the Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill” (only a “single boing” according to Wikipedia), The Clash’s “The Guns of Brixton” and Animal Collective’s “Lion in a Coma,” but rarely do we see a track that pays proper homage to the musical giant that is the jaw harp. Big Thief’s “Spud Infinity” is first class among these nontraditional iterations — the jaw harp, here, is front and center, even featuring a nearly 15-second solo that absolutely shreds. Frogs croaking and jumping from pad to pad become nearly tactile manifestations through their emotive capabilities.
It’s about time for musicians of all kinds to follow suit, bringing the jaw harp to new audiences worldwide. If you want to stay ahead of the curve and aren’t worried about the potential dental damage, I suggest you pick one up before everyone beats you to it.
Daily Arts Writer Claire Sudol can be reached at cjsudol@umich.edu.
OUT: Lazy DJs
If I have to listen to “Rich Baby Daddy” or “SkeeYee” one more time at the bar, I will cross the threshold of that endearingly mildewed wooden doorway and never again turn my heel back. Dramatic? Sure. Theatrical? Entirely — but is the weekend ritual of going out as a 20-something not ceremonious in itself, a suspension of reality that we can repaint more vividly with the colors of free-flowing sociability and spirits? The college dive bar: an unassuming treasure trove without so much as a window to illuminate the gritty feeling of the sands of time slipping through your fingers as you whip your hair back and forth, picking it from your freshly-lip-glossed smile in cadence with … “Astronaut in the Ocean?” Rubbing salt in the wound, it’s undoubtedly the second play within that same night — which I can attest, through involuntary lived experience, only serves to painfully accentuate Masked Wolf’s offensively acerbic, yet somehow also tragically white-bread, attempt at gaudily dressing up a pop track as hip-hop.
On that token, and as a frequent flier of the dive bar, I feel that I must assume the position of fashion police and Joan Rivers the living hell out of the DJs doing such a disservice to an entire generation. Already robbed of the euphorically Y2K, luscious soundscapes of Nelly Furtado, 50 Cent and B’Day-era Beyoncé simply because of the progression of time, we are thrust yet deeper into an artless purgatory and held there under lock and key as contemporary disc jockeys abandon what once was a meticulous — and even titillating — craft. In lieu of what should be the full-bodied, glittering soundtrack of our early adulthood — the tunes that we will hear years down the road and wistfully recognize in their charmingly feverish melodies a begotten, bodacious, untamed innocence — we are berated with indolently composed Frankenstein playlists of Rap Caviar and Today’s Top Lists recycled every Thursday through Saturday. Standing now with 13 weekends at my back and 39 more to come in 2024, I’m insatiably prickled with nostalgia for the sonic landscape of a time I’ve never known, and I call for change. We have nine months to resuscitate the early 2000s; all the material we need to surrogate bedazzled flip phones and True Religion low riders is already at our fingertips, and we must start now. There’s no time to look to the past like the present, am I right?
Daily Arts Writer Meli Birkmeier can be reached at melib@umich.edu.