Why A Giant Muppet Will Ensure Chance The Rapper's New Song Gets Millions Of Streams

Much as we ‘critical types’ try and analyse the form and function of the pop music, it often simply comes down to whether you just like the tune, and the voice delivering it. So, when faced with newly-signed artists, is the backstory an issue, or does it just come down to the sound? 

First case, Brightness. The slightly counter-intuitive brand name and band guise for Alex Knight’s music. Oblivion (I Oh You) comes on his slightly off-kilter, sometimes even slightly broken voice. There’s an odd contradiction in his approach: there is detachment, and yet passion as the music buffets you on its waves. OK, it’s pop music, but perhaps not quite like anything else around at the moment. And those points of difference are what will likely make or break him. 

When the phrase ‘honed his craft busking on the streets of Byron Bay’ appeared in Kyle Lionhart’s bio there was an almost instinctive reach for the skip button. But the label name attached to his signing, and the release of Call Back Home (Ivy League) suggested there might be something more to him and his work. So, it has the easy strum from somewhere along the line of various Johns – Butler to Mayer, say – but there’s a distinctive warble in his voice, and some impressionistic thoughtfulness in his words that might set him apart from the usual cones-around-the-campfire festival fodder. 

Having flirted with the Hottest 100 with her previous Girlie Bits, Ali Barter has the ability to shake your male stupidity slightly not by stomping or sneering, but merely by standing up for herself. Cigarette (Ronnie/Inertia) has a deceptively gentle sway and roll to it, even as she flips the middle finger at one of those blokes who still doesn’t quite that she doesn’t have to conform to his ideas of what she should be. He’ll get it eventually, but she’ll likely be long gone. 

Of course, there’ll always be a place for the big-lunged rock default. Supplementary question: do we really need a new Bush album? Oh well, in a world suffering from a Three Doors Down revival, we best just brace ourselves just in case. Gavin Rossdale has also done the big emote of passion or loss, but lately has been more used to supermarket tabloid appearances than discussions of his own music worth, as a judge on various nationalities of The Voice, and being the guy silly enough to cheat on Gwen Stefani. Mad Love (Zuma Rock/Caroline) is everything you’d expect, right down to the title – big, pretty empty, rock eminently suitable for delivery by one of those big-haired contestants on one of those abovementioned karaoke quests. 

Oh, you can try distraction. If you look closely at Chance The Rapper’s Same Drugs (Chance Raps), it’s a fairly standard bit of soul-ish balladry, somewhere in the middle of the road from John Legend’s split-level in the hills to Frank Ocean’s beach house. The metaphor of the title perhaps stretched a little much – if you missed the joke the first time, it’ll be along again in a minute. So, why will it be streamed over a million times by the time you read this? Well, he’s singing it with a giant muppet. A GIANT MUPPET! SITTING RIGHT THERE AT THE PIANO WITH HIM! Gosh. Try it without the visuals, and realise “…that dog has a fluffy tail!” is apparently an acceptable marketing plan. 

Things can be a bit more challenging. The Dirty Projectors canon has always had some interesting angles. Cool Your Heart (Domino), while ostensibly a stages-of-mourning song of relationship breakup, takes some unexpected turns. Some askance syncopation collides with jump cut edits, as the confusion of the head and heart builds. The Solange co-write wobbles a bit, as The DP’s Dave Longstreth ducks and weaves with Dawn Richards’ second voice. It’s electronic, machines and humans bumping. At times, it almost gets annoying, but somehow keeps gathering itself up to remain compelling. 

So, what is pop music but just a Pissy Flow (Habit)? Perth’s Rag N Bone are regular WAMI nominees looking to go even more national. Kiera Owen voice is a thing of odd wonder – obviously bummed with whatever situation she’s dealing with, but still feisty. It sits among music that has a certain scruffy, and maybe even slightly feral, quality. There is something smart and angry to them, which maybe just needs a little more focus to become truly bi-coastal.

But all this sooky pop angst, punk’s apparently not dead either. Brad Pot are Melbourne now channelling Shepherds Bush 1977, right down to the neckerchief masks that make them look like they’re off to tag a train, or throw a brick through a bank’s window, as soon as they finish with this pesky rehearsing thing. Air Strike (Slovenly) could be a politically-charged Clash title, but the song itself probably owes more to a Buzzcocks-like amphetamine whine. Whatever, it’s got them signed to a respected international label of the genre, so bloody good luck to them.