Best November singles: Portugal. the Man, N.E.R.D., Rihanna, Captain Squeegee, Johanna Warren
Ed Masley
In late October, Portugal. the Man hit No. 4 on Billboard's Hot 100 with a platinum breakthrough 10 years in the making, "Feel It Still," while being hailed in the pages of Rolling Stone as 2017's "Hot Reinvention." What concerns us here, though, is the followup, "Live in the Moment."
They premiered a trippy video for the single in early November and ended the month at No. 1 on playlist of the month's best single. They also earned a Grammy nomination – their first – for "Feel It Still," which some would argue is a bigger deal than where they landed on my playlist.
There are also great new tracks from Captain Squeegee, Johanna Warren, Elvis Costello, the Sink or Swim and N.E.R.D. work, work, work, work, work, working with Rihanna.
1. Portugal. The Man, "Live in the Moment"
How reinvented are they? This song feels more like the next step in the psychedelic evolution they've been charting since following "Waiter: 'You Vultures!' " with "Church Mouth" a decade ago. Which is to say it sounds like Portugal. The Man. And that can only be a good thing.
There's a hint of Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll" as filtered through Kanye West's "Black Skinhead" driving Jason Sechrist’s drumbeat, propelling the track with a glam-rocking swagger while John Gourley brings his upper register to bear on the proceedings.
Blessed with one of modern rock's best voices, Gourley sets the scene with "My home is a girl with eyes like wishing wells / I'm not alone but I'm still lonely," following with a singalong chorus that makes a solid case for living in the moment.
Lyrically, the singer hits his stride on a second verse that feels inspired by current events without getting overly topical. "My home is a girl who can't wait for time to tell," he sings. "God only knows we don't read history / When your family swinging from the branches of a tree / God only knows we don't need ghost stories."
As for the video, Wieden+Kennedy creative director Erik Fahrenkopf told Consequence of Sound that when the men of Portugal. The Man approached him, he offered this pitch: "What if we worked with Lance Woolen to build a 10-foot puppet and had him ride around on a Cadillac like it was a skateboard, and then he gets chased by a 10-foot cop on top of a giant Segway?"
Their response? As Fahrenkopf told CoS, "They said, ‘That sounds pretty stupid. Can we shoot it next Thursday?’ We said, ‘How about Wednesday?’ And they said, ‘Wednesday’s actually better.’ And we said, ‘Let’s shoot in Portland, with a local crew. Even the stuntman.’ And they said, ‘Stuntman?’ And we said, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna kickflip a Cadillac.’ And they said, ‘If we don’t total the Cadillac, can we have it?’ And we said, ‘Of course.’ ”
2. N.E.R.D & Rihanna, "Lemon"
It's been seven years since the men of N.E.R.D. – Pharrell "Happy" Williams, Chad Hugo and Shay Haley – hit us with an album, although they did contribute to the SpongeBob SquarePants movie soundtrack in 2015.
But this is the first proper taste of "No_One Ever Really Dies," their first album since "Nothing." And it boasts a featured vocal from Rihanna, which definitely qualifies as value added.
Williams sets the scene with a spoken intro, telling us "The truth will set you free / But first, it'll piss you off." And if that appears to suggest a more socially relevant single than "Everyone Nose (All the Girls Standing in the Line for the Bathroom)," that's exactly what this represents.
But this is politics as N.E.R.D. plays the game, which is a bit more playfully than most, with a shout-out to bath salts, a contagious groove and a carefree chorus of "Bouncin' around, bouncin' around, bouncin'."
As for Rihanna, she raps with conviction and swagger, loose-rhyming Lebron and the Fonz, to which the only sane response is "Ayyy."
But Williams gets all the best lines, most of which are squeezed into a timely second verse, with its references to nativism, borders, guns and the drinking of Kool-Aid (which he feels is best avoided, ending the verse with "Hate! I tried to tell y'all about this dude"). There's no mistaking who the dude in question is.
3. Captain Squeegee, "Our Children"
Imagine a New Orleans funk band playing jazz as aliens invade during Mardi Gras. The groove is undeniable, especially the horn arrangement. A baritone sax riff takes the lead, the other horns providing accents, offset by the sort of sonic eccentricities we've learned to expect from Captain Squeegee.
And then there's Danny Torgersen's lead vocal, setting the tone with "We can't just suspend this state of pretend / Earth soakin' wet with our cement / Her spirit is bent but not broken."
The first video from a forthcoming effort called "Harmony Cure," produced again by Bob Hoag, this new song is "the uneasy anthem," Torgersen says, "of passing on a broken world to the next generation," adding, "We wanted it to sound like a funky party song that slowly unravels into apocalyptic doomy-ness."
It's only so apocalyptic, though, as the singer's inner hippie finds hope in the believing, much like Whitney Houston before him, that children are, indeed, the future.
As Torgersen sings at the end of the chorus, "And when our children hang out, I hope they save the world / I hope they know about our weapon / And drop it again, that harmony cure."
That gave director Cory Davis plenty to work with and he rose to the occasion. There's even a tribute to "Back to the Future," with Torgersen stepping out a a DeLorean.
As Torgersen sees it, it's "like a kids' birthday party that got mixed up with a rave or an Illuminati brainwash video," adding, "In the end I sure hope somebody saves the planet... whether it's us or the kids (nervous laughter)."
4. Miguel, "Told You So"
Miguel's falsetto is the perfect instrument to put across this contagious electro-funk sex jam, managing to channel '80s Prince and Michael Jackson in the same intoxicating breath.
The video features him dancing to the squelchy groove as missiles are being tested in the desert, interspersed with images of protests, tanks and American flags. But the song itself, the second track Miguel has shared from the forthcoming "War + Leisure" album, seems a little more concerned with the first half of the "Make Love, Not War" slogan than the second part, reminding us that sometimes missiles are just metaphors.
5. Johanna Warren, "Here to Tell"
This spellbinding ballad is the first track the singer has shared from her forthcoming sequel to "Gemini I," titled "Gemini II." It plays to Warren's strengths as a composer and a vocalist with atmospheric understatement.
The song takes the form of a conversation between a sleeping man and a visitor from the spirit world. "Wait, come back before you go away," the man implores. "It’s three in the morning, don’t you think it could wait another day? You and I both know I won’t be here for long."
The spirit responds with some friendly advice: "My son, you have a body, it is young and strong / Use it while you have it; you’re gonna miss it when it’s gone / I didn’t know until it was too late / I’m here to tell you so you don’t have to make the same mistake."
The song ends with a powerful scene in which the spirit explains the reason for his visit: "It’s three in the afternoon / I’ve said everything I have to say / Now you know, and it’s not too late / You’re here to tell them so they don’t make the same mistake."
6. Bee Bee Sea, "Sonic Boomarang"
This five-minute title track to the Northern Italian rockers' first release on Dirty Water Records USA is all forward momentum and reckless abandon. The result is as hypnotic as it is propulsive.
The motorik beat of the drumming combines with the churn of distorted guitars to suggest the Stooges chasing Kraftwerk down the Autobahn on acid while the singer shouts his lyrics with total conviction, unconcerned with whether you can make out what he's saying over the glorious racket they've stirred up behind him.
It's exhilarating in a way that music all too rarely is.
7. Superchunk, "What a Time to Be Alive"
This is the title track to Superchunk’s first album in more than four years, a melodic punk anthem whose chorus sardonically sums up the state of the world (and more specifically our fractured union) with “Oh what a time to be alive.”
The album was written almost entirely between last year’s election and February. As Mac McCaughan says, “The album is about a lot of things, of course, but mainly dealing with anxiety and worse in the face of incipient authoritarianism."
It’s also a record, he says, “about a pretty dire and depressing situation but hopefully not a record that is dire and depressing to listen to.”
Mission accomplished. If anything, it feels more like a celebration of resistance than a resignation to defeat, from the soaring guitar leads to the bashing of the drums to uplifting chorus hook.
“It would be strange,” McCaughan says, “to be in a band, at least our band, and make a record that completely ignored the surrounding circumstances that we live in and that our kids are going to grow up in.”
8. Yaeji, "Raingurl"
The Korean-American DJ/producer told Pitchfork this track is "the definition of introspection at the club," going on to explain, "It’s all from these experiences where I think about the things my music is about, which includes being Korean and American, and therapy, and when people are depressed and how to get out of it."
She sings in a mix of Korean and English, alternating between the two as she eases you into the track with a near-whispered opening verse of "Every week I have the same thought / What if it’s just me / As if a movie is ending / As real as it can be / All the suffocated memories / Where I can’t just see / In a room with no windows/ When I am set free."
There's a thumping house beat – and thick, heavy bass tones – through that first verse, but coming out of the beat-free bridge (where she first utters "Mother Russia in my cup") is where this single hits its full potential as a club banger, Yaeji chanting "Make it rain, girl. Make it rain" until she's drowned out any thoughts of introspection.
9. Elvis Costello, "You Shouldn’t Look at Me That Way"
I've always thought of Elvis as an underrated balladeer, considering the wealth of classic ballads in his catalog, from "Alison" to "Almost Blue" to "Poisoned Rose." "You Shouldn't Look at Me That Way" recalls his brief collaboration with Burt Bacharach, especially "God Give Me Strength."
But I also remember him saying that he'd written "Almost Blue" in the hope that Sinatra would cover it. And this sounds very much like the sort of ballad a person would write with Sinatra in mind, from the opening line: "Am I fine? Am I pleasing? Are you pretty? Are you teasing? You shouldn't look at me. You shouldn't look at me that way."
The orchestration is sublime, the singing pure and emotional, the lyrics more straightforward than the early records that continue to define Costello's legacy.
As he explains, " ‘You Shouldn’t Look At Me That Way’ is a song dealing with two people who have a lot of secrets. They were in a relationship and perhaps had difficulty seeing each other as they really were. All lovers have secrets. One lover has some vanity but also a lot of vulnerability. The title really came from that. It could refer to a seductive gaze but also a plea not to be judged.”
10. 21 Savage, Offset and Metro Boomin, "Still Serving"
This slow-rolling gangsta-rap track features 21 Savage, an Atlanta rapper whose street cred is based in part on having celebrated his 21st birthday by taking six bullets, painting a cold-blooded portrait of thug life with the vocal equivalent of a shoulder shrug. Consider the opening line of the opening verse: "AK with the scope, n---a, and it's real dirty / It don't got Glock on the bottom, n---a, it ain't no real 30."
Offset's verse is much faster, but he sounds just as casual, from his opening boast about having a lot of codeine habits to "I'm-a chop the block up like a samurai."
It helps that the production is as ominous as the imagery. It sounds like it was meant to score a scene of a Cadillac (or possible a Lincoln Continental) creeping down the alley in slow-motion as the prelude to a cinematic bloodbath of Scorsese-esque proportions.
11. Fever Ray, "This Country"
"This country makes it hard to f--k" may be the purest artistic expression I've heard as to the impact the political is having on the personal in Donald Trump's America.
There's more to this abrasive electronic track than that, but it's how Karin Dreijer brings the record to an overheated climax, repeating it eight times like a troubled mantra.
Dreijer also touches on our national obsession with computers over human contact ("Tell me something sexy and I'll log off my whatever") and how "the perverts" have defined her sexual history, a line that seems more timely than intended given all the stories that have broken in the wake of Harvey Weinstein and others being outed as sexual aggressors.
But the single's hardest-hitting moment is Dreijer repeating "That's not how to love me" with a sense of urgency and agency.
12. Baxter Dury, "Prince of Tears"
This is the title track to Dury's latest effort, a richly orchestrated ballad that sets the tone with a choir of female voices singing, "Prince of Tears / Prince of Tears / No one's gonna love you more than us."
Then Dury grabs the spotlight, beginning his monologue with "And the Prince of Tears stood on his driveway / Washing his hands of all the guilt and bad things," his deadpan delivery adding to the sinister undertones of his lyrics.
What's he done exactly? The song and album trail off with those female vocalists repeating "Prince of Tears / Don't leave me like this, laughing at you?," leaving every sordid detail to the listener's imagination.
13. Bash & Pop feat. Nicole Atkins, "Saturday"
Tommy Stinson's aching vocal makes this track, from the opening verse where the former Replacement sets the tone with "Ain't it too bad? / On the first day of spring and it snowed again" to the boozy slurring of the lines as the song picks up steam going into the chorus. It starts off sparse and folky, recalling the vibe of early '70s Rod Stewart.
But it takes on energy and textures as it goes along, with Atkins adding harmonies on the unabashedly romantic chorus hook.
This song is one side of a limited-edition seven-inch that Fat Possum Records released on Black Friday, with Atkins guesting on both sides.
The other side of the single, "Too Late," is the one that led to Stinson reaching out to Atkins after "Goodnight Rhonda Lee," the soulful singer's latest effort.
"A lightbulb exploded over my head," Stinson says. "And I knew I had to get Nicole to sing a song with us that I had written nearly 12 years ago, recorded several times, and ultimately never captured properly."
14. Mavis Staples feat. Jeff Tweedy, "Ain't No Doubt About It"
The gospel singer and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy have emerged as something of a dream team since the Grammy-winning Staples album "You Are Not Alone" hit the streets of 2010.
This is track is taken from "If All I Was Was Black," the third album the roots-friendly rocker has produced for Staples. In addition to writing the entire album, Tweedy shares the spotlight on this understated highlight, where the playing feels a little like the Band auditioning for Motown on a Dylan cover.
The verses highlight two distinctive singing voices that come together beautifully to harmonize on a chorus "Ain't no doubt about it / You'll always be my friend / Ain't no doubt about it / I can count on you at the end."
15. Mark Lanegan, "Emperor"
Among the many highlights of the singer's latest album, this song is here by virtue of a video as ominous as Lanegan's delivery, making the most of his gently weathered baritone.
As crooning goes, Lanegan's vocal is squarely on the Iggy Pop side of the spectrum on this richly orchestrated exercise in psychedelic swagger with a fuzz-guitar lead that sounds like it was played on strings made of elastic.
Director Joshua Lipworth says of the video: “The story is based on the desperate final hours of a dictator ousted by his own people and loosely based on the fall of Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator. Firmly in denial of his desperate circumstance, he marches steadfastly towards his tragic demise. His grip on reality faltering with every step. The video was shot in 16mm on location in Estonia. Predominantly in the suburbs of Tallin and the deserted underwater soviet prison camp of Rummu.”
And that treatment suits the lyrics, Lanegan at one point asking, "Who is left to kill?" His answer: "Just the emperor."
16. BC Unidos & Carly Rae Jepsen Trouble in the Streets
Jepsen is a criminally underrated singer whose vocal somehow manages to sound as comfortable on a track defined by slinky Afrobeat guitar lines (as filtered through Vampire Weekend) as it did on "Call Me Maybe."
There's a hint of desperation to the way she sings "And everybody warned me / Everybody warned me about you" that elevates the track to something far more timeless than it would have been with someone less expressive on the vocal.
BC Unidos are Markus Krunegård and Patrik Berger, the Swedish production duo whose hits Icona Pop's "I Love It," Charli XCX's "Boom Clap" and Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own.”
17. The Sink or Swim, "Life After Midnight"
This is the first track these locals have shared from "Oasis Unknown," an EP due in January. And it more than lives up to the promise of their earlier recordings while taking their sound in an intriguing new direction, running a slide guitar through an analog harmonizer to majestic effect on the recurring riff with which they set the tone.
The end result is dreamier than the Sink or Swim's earlier work, from that opening riff to the understated vocals. And that suits the lyrics: "I think about this every night / When the moon is the only light / Drinkin' this potion never felt so right / Life after midnight."
The track was recorded at Full Well Recording with Mike Bolenbach and according to drummer Louis Resnick, they "wanted to write a song that you could blast with the windows down and cruise on a night drive" while also providing "an anthem for the night owls and the folks who live for the late hours of the night."
Of course, it would also work as an anthem for actual vampires, especially that plea to "come with us / Let us turn your blood to wine / Be like us / For love and sleep we make no time."
18. Selena Gomez and Marshmello, "Wolves"
Gomez teams with the EDM DJ/producer on a track that spends most of its time in the shadows, building tension in several spots that suggests a banger about to erupt at any second without ever actually hitting the dance floor.
It's more about mood, which the song's producers manage to sustain from the haunting guitar arpeggio on the intro through a break that sounds as much like "Every Breath You Take" by the Police as her actual sampling of "Pyscho Killer" sounded like a Talking Heads riff.
The sensual vocals complement that sense of atmosphere, especially when she slips into her upper register for a pre-chorus of "I wanna feel the way that we did that summer night, night / Drunk on a feeling, alone with the stars in the sky."
The song is here by virtue of a suitably steamy music video that opens on a scene of Gomez in a long gown alone in the showers at a swimming pool.
In an interview with Beats1, Gomez said, "This was a song that I heard in Japan for the first time, and I was talking to Andrew Watt, who is one of the writers I worked with for years, and he actually just played me a rough version and I thought it was really beautiful, and he sent it to Marshmello and created a really cool tone and a story with it, and the song is very beautiful and personal and the lyrics just have a whole story of its own. Weirdly, at the same time I was working on it in Japan, I was going through stuff, too, so it’s mirrored everything."
19. Gorillaz, "Garage Palace"
Gorillaz are joined on this surprise release by U.K. rapper Little Simz, who rides a throbbing house beat with speed and conviction in a retro 8-bit video game visualizer. Gorillaz are, of course, an animated pop group led by Damon Albarn, and their cartoon likenesses follow an animated Simz through dark alleys and cloudy skies on a series of combats, missions and obstacles to reach the top of a tower block for her final battle.
It's an uplifting track, Simz rappping, "Wear your strength, you might surprise yourself / Never deny yourself / I live in the space is my thesis / I know you need this / I know you need this."
In an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1, Albarn said of working with the rapper, “I just was really struck by her kind of individualism. She’s just not part of a scene, which is great for her.”
The track is one of 14 bonus cuts on the deluxe edition of Gorillaz' latest album, "Humanz."
20. Pinegrove, "Intrepid"
This is the first new track they've shared since last year's "Cardinal," and it effortlessly lives up to that breakthrough album's promise as the song unfolds.
After setting the tone with a sleepy acoustic-guitar-driven section that feels a bit like the dreamier side of Pink Floyd's catalog, the band kicks in, supporting front man Evan Stephens Hall, whose vocal does a brilliant job of mining cracks in his falsetto for emotional effect with Nandi Rose Plunkett providing the breathtaking harmonies.
It's an emotional track, from the opening line: "'Don't let it get to you,' you said," and then after a long, dramatic pause, "Well, I did."
In a press release, Hall offered insights into how this song might fit into the context of their next full-length release:
“One of the things this album explores is the emotional and creative experience of geometric space. ‘Intrepid’, in particular, considers distance and the outer rim of the magnet’s pull; how the size of the world can bring our personal relationships into focus.”
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