2022 PopJustice Advent Calendar: 12 Days of XMAS Edition (DAY 2)

credit: @aux

That’s right girls. Back by my popular demand is everyone’s favorite end of the year tradition that isn’t the BPG rate or the Yearly Poll.

We’re here to celebrate 2022’s best, most beloved, and maybe even a few of the most underrated releases. Now typically the advent calendar takes a review for each day of December leading up to the 25th, but since it was a bit up in the air whether anybody was even going to host it this year, we’ll be doing things a little differently this year. Starting on December 12, we’ll instead be celebrating the 12 days of Christmas by posting two reviews per day instead. Same number of posts. Different number of days to give everyone a little extra time to think about writing while still putting it off until the 11th at 11:59.

I know what you’re thinking: “Petty, that sounds amazing! How do I force the forum at large to read several paragraphs about MY flop fave? I wanna know how Imperialsteroid feels just this once!” And I’m here to tell you just how easy it could be to waterboard all of us with your sure to be illuminating takes on 2022’s music!

• Simply send a PM to BOTH myself and my lovely cohost @Jonathan27 with a list of three albums/EPs/songs (or even a combination of the three) that you would want to write about!
• These aforementioned musical contributions need to have been released in 2022 (debatably like December 2021 would also be acceptable since it would’ve missed the cutoff for most end of year festivities last year)
• Do so by December 2!
• You’ll then receive a PM from us with whichever of your choices you get assigned (not everyone is guaranteed to get their #1 after all just by the nature of the beast)
• If in fact more than 24-25 people sign up, I’m happy to simply add more posts to certain days (since there’s usually a couple that don’t actually end up submitting nn)
• You’ll then have until December 11/12 to send us your reviews so that we can divvy them up through the rest of the month.

I understand the timeline is a bit more of a crunch this year, but this really is one of my favorite festive forum traditions, and your thoughts are always a joy to read…mostly. Please sign up xx


​

 

Gonna sign up for this even though I've managed to fail to finish and send reviews every time I've tried.

 

Me arriving late from the weekend holiday festivities after my good sis @Petty Mayonnaise got the ball rolling



Thankfully my work environment now consists exclusively of Christmas music against my own volition so we're having an extra festive tagging spree!



If you're tagged, you've taken part in a previous PJ Advent Calendar and we would love for you to return this year!

Please send your top 3 choices in a PM to me and @Petty Mayonnaise by Saturday, December 3rd so that we can distribute the choices. Reviews are due Monday, December 12th!

@nikkysan
@constantino
@evilsin
@VivaForever
@Sprockrooster

 

If you're tagged, you've taken part in a previous PJ Advent Calendar and we would love for you to return this year!

Please send your top 3 choices in a PM to me and @Petty Mayonnaise by Saturday, December 3rd so that we can distribute the choices. Reviews are due Monday, December 12th!

@R92
@pop3blow2
@Stradiwhovius
@eccentricsimply
@klow

 

If you're tagged, you've taken part in a previous PJ Advent Calendar and we would love for you to return this year!

Please send your top 3 choices in a PM to me and @Petty Mayonnaise by Saturday, December 3rd so that we can distribute the choices. Reviews are due Monday, December 12th!

@ohnostalgia
@WoW73
@aux
@berserkboi
@Oleander

 

If you're tagged, you've taken part in a previous PJ Advent Calendar and we would love for you to return this year!

Please send your top 3 choices in a PM to me and @Petty Mayonnaise by Saturday, December 3rd so that we can distribute the choices. Reviews are due Monday, December 12th!

@beyoncésweave
@Blond
@HeartSwells
@Ironheade
@Lila

 

If you're tagged, you've taken part in a previous PJ Advent Calendar and we would love for you to return this year!

Please send your top 3 choices in a PM to me and @Petty Mayonnaise by Saturday, December 3rd so that we can distribute the choices. Reviews are due Monday, December 12th!

@Kuhleezi
@londonrain
@Inland Empire
@RJF
@RUNAWAY

 

If you're tagged, you've taken part in a previous PJ Advent Calendar and we would love for you to return this year!

Please send your top 3 choices in a PM to me and @Petty Mayonnaise by Saturday, December 3rd so that we can distribute the choices. Reviews are due Monday, December 12th!

@sfmartin
@swim
@thommyh
@Trouble in Paradise

 

She has signed up.

 

This looks fun and I would love to take part! (but just FYI @Jonathan27, for those "If you're tagged..." posts, the last person on each list won't get a notification as five people have already been tagged).

 

Thank you for the head's up sis! Gays being bad at math stereotype locked in nn.

 

Just sent in my review – I almost can't believe I made the deadline! (Now to dedicate the same amount of focus to the actual work I need to finish today...)

 

Speaking of gays being unable to do math…so in order to do 12 days of reveals with the final one being Christmas Day, we would actually start posting them on December 14! So breathe a sigh of relief if you needed another day or two to polish up your reviews nn

 

Fossora - Björk

Reviewed by @Isobel



Before I get this show going, I want to acknowledge that Björk has had more influence over the development of my taste in music than any other artist in my collection. Indeed, much of that collection wouldn't have even been discovered if it weren't for my digging into the names who remixed her, produced her albums alongside her, were mentioned by her in interviews and posted by fellow fans on her official "4um." My PJ username is even a reference to one of her songs. But this doesn't mean I can't be objective or critical about her output.

Her last album, 2017's Utopia, left me floating in a formless landscape. It wasn't bad, per se. It just didn't grab me on an emotional level. And thinking back on it now, I think I know why – the POW! was missing. Though they're useful tools, music with POW! doesn't need beats or bass – you can get POW! from an orchestra or even a single piano. It's more of an attitude. POW! music doesn't float, it roots.

This isn't an indictment of Utopia, in fact it's proof that her concept for it was successfully fulfilled. But that concept just wasn't for me. I waited patiently for the next project, knowing it would likely take a different track and maybe deliver something I didn't need to work so hard to connect with. When Fossora's first single "Atopos" finally arrived this summer, I pressed play with few preconceptions. When I heard those those deep woodwinds lead into that mutant reggaeton beat, it felt like home. The POW! was back, and it was out for blood.

My first listen to "Atopos," serendipitously, was on a ship off the coast of Iceland. I had just spent some time exploring that landscape, marveling at how it could shift so dramatically over relatively short distances. Salt-scented seascapes turned to mossy highlands and moonscape lava fields overtaken by glacial ice. Seeing those environments primed me for "Atopos," whose sounds suggested damp soil and jagged rocks. At the risk of sounding a bit precious, Iceland is a very POW! place. It's impossible not to think about roots and rock and groundedness there.

All those things are what Fossora is all about, being named after the Latin word for digger(ess). Built on a foundation of woodwinds (especially bass clarinet) and shapeshifting beats, there's nothing airy and light about this album. Björk has spoken at length about how she found inspiration in fungi, and this influence comes across in the very damp, boreal, moss-green soundscape that doesn't shy away from naughty dissonance. The woodwinds lend much of that musty funk, but the impact of strings can't be overstated. In her recent podcast, Björk talked about the influence that Icelandic composers like Jón Leifs have had on her music, especially their work for string quartets which she describes as a characteristically Icelandic way to play music. She tends to return to strings when she's feeling particularly rooted in her Icelandicness.

Like Homogenic and Vulnicura before it, Fossora finds her connecting to her homeland, so it's no surprise that strings do the emotional heavy lifting on this album. That connection was quite literal this time around, with the album made during COVID lockdown and after the passing of Björk's mother. The melodies are another reflection of this – I picked up a few albums of traditional folksinging while I was in Iceland, and they shed new light on the way she structures songs. Listen to this and then to "Sorrowful Soil" for a taste of how her roots guide her art and shape her delivery. Those among us who love the vocal rhythms of Medulla can find many treats here.

While I acknowledge it's likely not for everyone, I encourage all of you to give Fossora a listen. It's thrilling, complex, nuanced – and just might make your emotions go POW!

Spoiler

PS) As a personal aside, I spent my lockdown writing a short story about underground miners, which I'm now turning into a full novel that I hope to finish drafting by spring. I find it funny that Björk and I both spent quarantine preoccupied with things that dig – perhaps there's something buried in the collective unconscious?

 

Thank you to everyone who contributed write-ups and also much appreciated to everyone for collectively allowing us some mid-week grace on getting this started!



We will post a second review later today to make up for yesterday. Looking forward to continuing to recap the year with you all through Christmas Day!

 

Hey @Jonathan27 – the live links in my writeup didn't come through, and they were pretty important to the review. Could you give it an update? Let me know if I need to re-send anything.

 

Should be fixed now, thank you for catching that!

 

Crash - Charli XCX

Reviewed by @superultra


Crash shines in all its sleek glossiness, but—much like the bloodied album covers—Charli’s heart spills all over its best tracks. Despite her Main Pop Girl Sellout™ ambitions, this album has traces of her signature, avant-garde flair and thoughtful, heartbreaking moments. She reveals much about herself and her vices throughout, providing a candid affair underneath that ‘80s, high-glam sheen.

"Crash" serves as one of two thesis statements that drives the album forward, much like "Next Level Charli" guided her self-titled affair. "Crash" takes her affinity for half-rapped spoken word and juxtaposes it with new jack swing, which sounds great on her. The track and its guitar solo flirt with an industrial sound, reminiscent of "If" by Janet (thee ultimate example of industrial and new jack swing). Throughout the track, Charli frames her self-destructive tendencies as iconic, immediately tying together the visuals and lore of her being pop’s resident bad girl into her lyricism.

“New Shapes” (in all its Human-League-meets-early-Janet glory) sees Charli, Caroline, and Redcar (fka Christine and the Queens) pushing for a less-suffocating, more-liberating love. Being met with resistance from their lover(s), they pull away and insist that this is not what they want.

The era’s lead single, “Good Ones,” clocks out too soon, but lyrically it does work to introduce the themes of the album and prepare us for what to expect: short, punchy songs that detail Charli’s warped sense of romance and self. I love a good song about an artist craving bad boys, and Charli’s got loads of those (“Blame It on U” being among the most prominent). As fun as it is frustratingly short, “Good Ones” is a literal hit-and-run.

"Constant Repeat" gives breakbeat and garage vibes throughout. I'm glad she further explored breakbeat, garage, and 2-step after "i finally understand" and "detonate." Furthermore, “Constant Repeat” possesses some of the best, sharpest lyrics on the album. "When you're lonely, are you ever thinking 'bout the magic in me?" grips me by the throat. She asserts herself well over this beat, knowing her worth despite being fumbled by the guy she sings about.

The original “Beg for You” gets consumed by its sample and possesses uninspired production—reasons why I’m a fervent supporter of the superior A. G. Cook remix. He made the production more interesting and true to Charli's style. Plus, it helps sell the sample rather than emphasize its derivative use. (I’m having flashbacks to “1999” and the EASYFUN remix right now.) Rina Sawayama’s rich tone manages to provide a breath of fresh air and perspective on both the original track and the remix. I only wish she had more vocals on the track!

"Move Me" reminds me of the work that BJ Burton did on both how i'm feeling now and III by BANKS, as well as Timbaland's atmospheric production on FutureSex/LoveSounds. While Charli's voice strikes me as shriller than usual on this one, the lyrics manage to arrest me and endear me to the track. Of all the tracks, this one feels indebted to mid-2000s, Timbaland-esque R&B, but I like this sound on her! She should explore this more. (It reminds me of the "Breathe Out" demo that she recorded and sadly never released for how i'm feeling now.) “Move Me” stands as one of the album’s most underrated moments.

“Baby” is so slinky (and manages to be one of the few songs on the album with a bonafide bridge/middle-8). Charli owns her carnal desires on this disco- and funk-inspired track, something that ties this song to the likes of Vanity 6’s “Nasty Girl” and Janet’s best, naughtiest moments from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

If you’ve seen me in the Charli thread, you know I rave over "Lightning" every chance I get. The snippet she previewed on TikTok Live last year really does not prepare you for that insanely propulsive chorus. It's moody, romantic, and easily the most fleshed-out song on the entire album. After all, it has the longest track length of them all. It serves as a natural progression of her fascination with dark walls of synths, '80s new wave, glitchy pop, and tortured love affairs. Some of the best vocal effects (and vocal takes from this era period) happen in this song. (A far cry from the struggle vocals in "Beg for You.") It's also one of the few tracks that has a breakdown/bridge, so let's celebrate that.

"Every Rule" made me realize that Charli always has a song about creeping around on a significant other. Since the album’s release, I haven’t returned to this much despite its soft, lush soundscape, but the lyrics do support the album’s themes and add to the cohesion. The lyrics serve as a gorgeous, morally dubious, self-aware yet self-indulgent moment of storytelling. She’s no angel, but we been knew that!

"Yuck" still sends the fuck out of me. The hook’s lyrics strike me clunky compared to the fun wit of the first verse's lyrics. The contrast between "All these butterflies make me sick / Hocus pocus shit, I'm bewitched" and "Looking at me all sucky (?) / Quit acting like a puppy" jarred me. I'll give her a slight pass because of "puppy love" being an appropriate idiom here, though. Overall, it's a punchy, late-night, funk-influenced affair about being turned on and off at the same time. It reminds me of Doja, The Weeknd, and Tinashe's funkiest, most disco-adjacent moments. It also deserved to be a single. #JusticeforYuck

"Used to Know Me" is a Chromatica-type, '90s-house-inspired track, owing its entire sound to "Show Me Love" by Robin S. However, that same sample has suckered me—no pun intended—into giving the song a chance on many occasions. The lyrics and melody on this one are strong enough, and she manages to hold her own against such an iconic sample. It's brief, though, and it could stand to pop off even more, but I've let it slide since it doesn't shit on the iconic "Show Me Love." Besides, it’s refreshing to hear Charli tell a man to kiss where the sun don’t shine.

"Twice" serves a great way of combining her hyperpop sound with more tropical, mainstream pop (not unlike "Warm" and "3AM (Pull Up)"). The version of “Twice” premiered during her Bands in Town concert featured less bubbly and more atmospheric production. However, the album version keeps a consistent, punchy beat before veering into a hazy outro featuring a welcomed key change. The lyrics hearken back to "c2.0." The song plays like a retrospective on her being a sentient car crash. She halts to listen to her mind and her reasoning. She lives fast and impulsively without looking back because she knows that—as she looks to her friends and her future—all of this will one day cease to exist. It almost feels like an ode to the late SOPHIE, especially with its hyperpop leanings, which makes it more of a tearjerker than it already is. Though her self-destructiveness has cost her certain relationships (“Every Rule,” “Sorry If I Hurt You,” and “Good Ones”) and makes her question herself (“How Can I Not Know What I Need Right Now”), she knows it’s led to some of the best moments of her life. Just like “Lightning,” I could wax poetic about this song, as this track has truly helped me make it through this year. It really does touch my soul. It serves as proof that hyperpop is not the “vapid” subgenre that many outsiders dismiss it as. Like any (sub)genre, its sounds can be a vehicle for the most moving, affective lyrics.

Again, if you’ve seen me in the Charli thread, you know that “Selfish Girl” has become my most-played track of 2022—and for damn good reason! I’d been obsessed with this track before we even knew what it would be! Charli previewed this track back in January 2020 on her Instagram stories while in the studio with the likes of Deaton Chris Anthony (who helped helm “New Shapes”). Of course, anything before the pandemic feels like a lifetime ago, so it’s a wonderful delight that she not only returned to the song, but also finished it and put it out into the universe (before the fandom could, ddd). The lyrics of “Selfish Girl” really showcase the reality of being a woman/non-man who finally establishes boundaries and a sense of self. We often get labeled as difficult or—in this case—selfish. However, Charli owns that moniker and makes it the backbone of the whole song. She even turns it into a mantra in the middle-8/bridge, a moment I can see being massive at her future concerts. I totally understand where she’s coming from, though, because—if having more rigid boundaries makes me a selfish girl—I’ll gladly be that. Put your hands up if you’re selfish, indeed!

“How Can I Not Know What I Need Right Now” is a track I never saw coming, especially since I had no idea what to expect from the deluxe tracks. If you told me that Charli would make a sadbanger that would excellently interpolate the hook of “Saturday Love” by Cherrelle and Alexander O’Neal, I would’ve guffawed. (Now I’m crying.) Not only does this serve as one of the three tracks on the album that really lean into hyperpop (“Twice” and “What You Think…” being the other two), but it also serves as a callback to the anxiety and suffocation that pervaded almost every track of how i’m feeling now. Besides “Twice,” this song also helped me through the year. It brought (and still brings) some raw feelings to the surface for me as someone who struggles with anxiety. It accurately captures the numbness of going the motions while having a jumble of messy, anxious, intrusive thoughts.

A welcomed callback to the dark-wave melancholia of True Romance, “Sorry If I Hurt You” is an onslaught of heartbreak and self-loathing. Charli revealed that she intended for album to be named after this track, given how the word hurt can be past, present, and future tense all at the same time. It pairs amazingly with the actual title track of Crash, showing the yin-yang of how self-destructive behavior looks cool on paper but has deep consequences in reality.

“What You Think About Me” ends the deluxe edition of Crash as a cheeky kiss-off to Charli’s fans who exist as both haters and supporters. Though this track doesn’t get as much love as it deserves, the track excellently combines her pop-rock leanings (a la Sucker) and her love for hyperpop. The verses also offer nuanced, poignant reflections on standom and having a rabid fanbase that suffocates her with their opinions and criticisms. She also admits to the side of her that lashes out at her fans when the dogpiling becomes too much (“When my blood is boiling, I can’t see the light” / “Wanna prove a point ‘cause it’s in my design”), again tying into the major themes of the album about her impulsive tendencies. “What You Think About Me” ends the album on a confident note of her reclaiming her power through one crass yet simple declaration: “I don’t give a fuck.” That’s Charli, baby.

With the album’s conclusion, I only mourn the lack of bridges/middle eights throughout the album, and I wish the tracks that relied on samples used them in a more clever manner, but "Used to Know Me" manages to not get consumed by its source sample, so it has that advantage over "Beg for You."

“Lightning,” “Selfish Girl,” “How Can I Not Know What I Need Right Now,” “Sorry If I Hurt You,” “Constant Repeat,” and “Twice” stand out as not only the tracks with the best production, but also the best lyricism. They all showcase various shades of Charli—romantic, self-preserving, frantic, confessional, confident, and pensive—and they showcase her excellently.

Of course the tracks with longer durations possess the most interesting soundscapes. However, despite the brevity of the album, it works to her benefit because—without as many features as her previous efforts—Charli has more breathing room to confess her worst impulses and truest desires. She does her best when she spills the contents of her heart instead of chasing after a hit. Furthermore, the great sequencing of the album allow the tracks to flow into one another without being jarring choices.

Overall, Charli serves self-deprecating lyrics that cut deeper than anticipated across high-gloss beats, and she cut deeply enough to make one of my favorite albums of 2022, an album that I find myself frequently enjoying in its entirety. Brava!

 

EYEYE - Lykke Li

Reviewed by @constantino

Full disclosure: I’ve been working through a huge backlog of 2021 and 2022 albums for the last couple of months due to podcasts and the Real Housewives franchise taking over my life. As such, I’m only at July at the time of writing. Regardless, I chose EYEYE because it was my favourite from those that I’ve listened to so far this year that wasn’t a 90 minute Beach House album, so here we go.

I’ve been a fan of Lykke Li since 2007(!), when the video for her skeletal ditty “Little Bit” came on on the music channel The Box (RIP, probably). As a precocious 9-year-old, the minimal production, her intensity and the generous use of neutral tones captured my attention. I’ve massively fucked with every single one of her albums since and followed her career loyally, from her commercial breakthrough era (Wounded Rhymes, 2011) through to her randomly having a child and then releasing semi-ironic anaemic trap pop a couple years back (So Sad So Sexy, 2018).

Now to EYEYE, which is probably her lowest performing album to date, both critically and commercially. I am seemingly the only person who really loves this album, and something about that feels correct. I guess it really met where I’m at in 2022 - doing my thing irrespective of others and doing okay at it. I remember listening to this for the first time, thinking to myself ‘another slay!’…only to check Album Of The Year and see this:



Anyways

*I* think this is an excellent album, and that Lykke is yet to make a misstep in her career (except perhaps for never releasing an album as part of the band LIV, grr). Pretty much everything about this album resonates with me; it clocks in at a merciful 33 minutes, the art direction is PHENOMENAL, there are only nine tracks, and it’s produced with a layer of fog as dense as the artic frost swarming London as I type this review.

I would highlight individual tracks, but I think this album works best as a collection, a ~piece if you will. I encourage you all to take 33 minutes out of your evening, light a scented candle, turn out the lights out and let this album envelop you in sepia

​