SEVEN summer bangers
Indisputably
Is there anything greater than dancing?
For myself, it’s an expression of soulful joy. A great song is almost overstimulating in how it infects my mind with the desire to move: rhythmically, as a slave to the subtleties and intonative movements the artist has hidden in their music specifically to hypnotize me. Dancing is above all the relaxation of control, the softening of my barriers of self for the invasion of the creative work of another to overpower me, manipulating my body and extremities in perfect harmony with the invading force. A twirl; a goose step, am I to differentiate these two movements? Perhaps music could force both from me, against my free will — by the force of pathos alone.
Regardless, I dance on, languishing in the physical expression of hyperstitious joy as the Summer heat gains it’s own coercive force. They battle within me, joy and the oppression of all movement, and joy wins again and again as I dance to spite the heavy face of the sun as it beats down on me.
Here, you too can dance to the SEVEN songs that have defied the heat and defined my summer.
Bob Moses - “Enough to Believe”
I only just discovered Bob Moses this year, and on a surface glance they shouldn’t be my thing. An electronic group whose two members come from rock and trance backgrounds? A focus on creating big stadium bangers with romantic optimism and soaring vocals? Yeah, I think I can judge this book by it’s cover.
Except, even though the music wavers somewhere between derivative and banal, Bob Moses just gets it. You know, it: that unspeakable form within a song that transforms it from just a combination of ideas new or borrowed expressed through songcraft into a fuckin’ tune. You wouldn’t expect raw chutzpah from a group whose entire identity is “indietronica”, and, in a way, ‘chutzpah’ is also a misunderstanding of the strengths of “Enough to Believe”. It is a subtle, careful song, which slowly builds upon a tension of yearning vocals and restrained instrumentation until finally exploding into a tsunami of synths. If this description sounds like a thousand other songs, it’s because “Enough to Believe” is also like a thousand other songs. Except somehow it’s also different. There’s an earnest conviction that explodes through the vocals and the motifs of “Enough to Believe” that has drawn me back again and again. The production is masterful, layering thoughtful ideas into a slow building of tension that could so easily content itself with just fulfilling a role and not augmenting the experiene. Isolating any one trait of the music as the source of it’s power feels fundamentally reductive when it coheres into such a fulfilling and realized whole. Cohesively and in pieces, “Enough to Believe” is a song for all the summers of my life.
El-P: Fantastic Damage
Here at gatekeep! we try to keep our core principles close to heart. Metalcore is cool if you’re spiritually 15 still, we like writing and you won’t find us selling our passion out to AI, and you have to glaze El-P’s production. Yeah, I said it. If you’re an author reading this blurb and find any of these standards unacceptable, we can discuss it over your exit interview.
Basically any song off Fantastic Damage could have gone here, but, for the sake of playlist cohesion, I chose the title track. Its slow burn into an utterly crushing beat helps marry Bob Mose’s delicate indietronica into the rest of the playlist, but “Fantastic Damage” also just massively rules as an individual song. The first minute of tension building only makes the release into a crunchy, stop-start beat hit even harder, and hell if it isn’t one of the crunchiest, hunkiest beats ever. El-P’s hunk-o-meat chunked-up production has aged spectacularly well, especially against other futuristically minded producer’s of his era. In the age of sub-woofers and bass-maxxing, “Fantastic Damage” still stands out as one of the greatest hip-hop songs ever from an all-time producer.
Against All Logic - “Faith”
Unavailable everywhere for its Beyonce sample, “Fantasy” is simply one of the greatest songs ever written. Against All Logic is Nicholas Jaar’s side project, and it maintains a darker, heavier sound than the moody space his self-named work tends to occupy. He’s produced countless bangers under the Against All Logic moniker at this point, but “Fantasy” easily stands above everything else in the Jaarverse. The production is heavy and oppressive, wavering between heavy industrial beats and masterful, restrained space, which perfectly contrasts against Beyonce’s beautiful, desperate voice. Sure, tracking down this song does take some effort, but it’s well worth it. 5/5, no notes, c’mon Beyonce allow this on streaming services pleaaaase.
Kendrick Lamar - “The Recipe”
Speaking of incredible samples, Kendrick’s reappropriation of Twin Sister’s “Meet The Frownies” fucking rules. Why this was only a bonus track when it was also the first single for Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City is beyond me, but its one of Kendrick’s best, and as much a playlist staple for me as “Money Trees” and “Swimming Pools (Drank)” at this point. Few songs capture the hazy hash-mirage of Los Angeles so totally, but “The Recipe” is the California anthem to my mind. I also come for women, weed, and weather, thx Kendrick.
Daft Punk - “Instant Crush”
“Instant Crush” captures, well, the feeling of an instant crush, along with helplessly watching it slip away. If there’s a consistency to this playlist so far, it seems to be that I need a song to deeply yearn through a danceable exterior for it to make it onto my summer playlist. Summer is already a time full of continuous slipping-away as is, but “Instant Crush” exemplifies this with all the nostalgic, club-ready bombast you expect Daft Punk to bring. The guitar lick is infectious, as is the chorus and the bridge. Julian Casablancas (an artist who I’ve never heard another song from) perfectly compliments the earnest, passionate, and desperate atmosphere Daft Punk set, all within a punchy pop song that I’ve played over and over since first hearing it. Getting lucky is one thing, but impotent yearning is the stardust great songs are made from.
Brockhampton - “Back N’ Forth”
Yes, you have to slow the video to 0.50x speed to actually hear the song. Yes, doing so also absolutely destroys the audio quality. Yes, you can download it off the Brockhampton leak tracking table if you’re a sweaty nerd (just like me frfr).
Regardless, “Back N’ Forth” is the best song Brockhampton ever wrote, and it’s criminal that it never got an official release, even if I understand why. It’s an excellent showcase of their boy-band talents, giving every member the space to flex their unique role and skills while retaining a remarkable sense of pop songcraft throughout. Regrettably, Ameer’s verse is awesome. The “lalala” chorus works fantastically well. Everything is paced incredibly well, unlike later Brockhampton songs like “Windows” or half of the runtime of Ginger.
“Back N’ Forth” feels like the final hurrah of a group at the height of their powers just before the foundation got knocked out from under them, and heights like these are quite hard to forget.
Bob Moses - “Enough to Believe (Jamie Jones Remix)”
Uhm well speaking of judging a book by its cover, I actually heard this remix of “Enough to Believe” before the original. Sure, putting it at the end of the playlist is probably cheating, but I love a cohesive bookend. That and Jamie Jones has fully transformed “Enough to Believe” from a pensive slow-burn into a raging tinderbox, allowing the playlist a full-circle moment while maintaining the energy of the shameless basement dancer I’ve tried to cultivate. The remix allows the passionate, desperate vocal hook of “Enough to Believe” to ascend above its original purpose, coiling around the hammering energy of Jamie Jones remix and re-expressing the intentions of the original through a club banger that makes me lose my mind and my body convulse in musical spasms of extrusive joy.
Unfortunately, two of these songs are unavailable on Spotify for unrelated reasons (uncleared samples v. torching Ameer for, well), and I have suitably replaced them in the Spotify playlist. However, I have also included sneaky links to every song that isn’t present on Spotify, should you desire to augment your listening habits and experience this as the author intends. If you’re reading this right now and I’m not editing it, know that I’m probably dancing and hoping you’ll do the same. Join me—take my hand and feel the delicacies and intentions of the music move your soul, and let it flow out of your body into joyous, rhythmic movement.