(via Shutterstock)
There cheers, and a metric ton more thank you, for absolutely original creativity.
In a world threatened by the monochromatic idiotic blandness of AI slop, it’s exciting to see music artists pushing envelopes, trying new and innovative things and make truly arresting, interesting, endlessly listenable music.
These five artists at the peak of their game in this respect and a sign that creativity is a long way from dead yet.
“ACCELERANDO” by Grimes
(courtesy official Grimes Instagram)
You may not be aware of the name Claire Elise Boucher but I can agree you will be all too familiar with her mononym Grimes through which the Canadian singer, songwriter and record producer has released some dizzyingly catchy, hugely inventive songs.
Like “ACCELERANDO”, with its delicious surfeit of capitalisation, the lead single from the artist’s sixth studi album, PYSOPERA, which sounds like nothing you’ve heard in a while which is a joy because who wants to hear the same-old, same-old?
According to the Grimes Wiki, the distinctive sound of the track came courtesy of sweet happenstance:
I think your best ideas typically come from mistakes. I know my brain is only capable of conceiving so much, so whenever there’s a mistake or an accident, it’s an opportunity for something to happen outside of my own limitations. The entire final drop and chorus of Accelerando came from something like this. We were dragging around tempo automation in Ableton, and it started stretching all the synths into this really interesting, distorted sound. Technically, it was incorrect because the bassline wasn’t changing with everything else, but somehow it sounded cool, so we thought, why not just go with it?
As for the meaning of the hauntingly melodic wall of fast-moving, gothically danceable song? Grimes herself handles this one via an interview in The Paris Review:
The single ‘Accelerando’ was “based on how I felt when I learned about autonomous capital,” she added, referring to a complex set of ideas that, roughly, posit capitalism as a kind of intelligence making temporary use of human beings until it can produce a singularity. “I think Nick Land invented it first, but I first encountered it with that [Accelerando] book, and it just struck this fear into me—I was just hit with this deep fear and excitement about the future at the same time.
I’m not sure it’s about what exactly we’re moving toward. I think it’s about the speed at which we’re moving.
“Melatonin” by Tinashe
(courtesy official Tinashe Instagram)
The mononymically-inclined US music artist Tinashe, known to the IRS as Tinashe Jorgensen Kachingwe has released a song in “Melatonin” which is all seriously Noughties vibes, stuttering beats and thrillingly minimalistic vocals which gives way to some seriously momentum-rich melodically lush music as the song progresses.
It’s magically upbeat and gloriously unique, creating a time and place all its own which wraps you up in some seriously danceable vibes, the kind that make you feel like you’ve been lifted out of the bland everyday to somewhere truly and escapistly interesting.
The third song from the singer’s eight album Popstar, “Melatonin” is described as being “hyperpop and techno” with Nikos Aggelis Anthis on EUPHORIA. seeing the song this way:
Ever since Tinashe went independent, leaving traditional record labels behind, she seems to have completely stopped caring about fitting into the narrow and often restrictive boundaries of the pop industry. Every new release feels like a decision driven by instinct rather than by commercial formulas for success. Her latest single, ‘Melatonin’, may be the most representative example of that philosophy to date.
With a duration that feels more like a club banger than a conventional pop single, ‘Melatonin’, does not rely on complex storytelling or emotionally charged lyrics. Instead, its strength lies in repetition, its infectious club energy, and its commanding bassline. Drawing heavily from underground genres such as rave and electro-house, the production develops an almost hypnotic structure that subconsciously transports listeners to the early hours of a packed dancefloor.
(courtesy Spotify)
Ah the wonderful riches that come from two talented artists getting together in collaboration.
“Moaning” by British singer and electronic musician Aluna, formerly AlunaGeorge has released a catchy slice of buzzy upbeat electronica featuring the very talented Dutch producer Jengi with their combined gifts producing a superbly propellant song which waits for no one, carrying listeners along on a wave of euphoric lightness.
In the media release accompanying the song’s reveal to the world, Aluna said this about the song:
‘Moaning’ is a true story, raw and exposed. There are so many ways our pleasure is taken from us, then sold back in artificial forms. Pleasure is the new anarchy … After becoming a mother for the first time, I carried on pouring all my energy into parenting and working until I reached that classic ‘sunken place’ burnout. In that dark place, pleasure became a fascination. I’d forgotten what pleased me. I had to start thinking about that and finding little ways to take back ownership of my own pleasure. (Stereogum)
A song of rediscovery, release and pleasure, “Moaning” is a gorgeous slice of transportive pop which take you right away from all the pressures and obligations of the everyday world to somewhere where it only matters if you feel something.
And good lord, that’s a sublimely good place to be.
“Hyvää Puuta” by Käärijä x Joost
(courtesy Genius)
Recent controversies aside, and it has been sadly overflowing with them, the Eurovision Song Contest has given us a whole lot of musical joy too.
Take the reunion of Käärijä and Joost, two fantastically offbeat artists who are both Eurovision alumni with the former representing Finland at Eurovision in 2023 and the latter the Netherlands in 2024.
Käärijä particularly has shown a rewarding propensity for edgy, fast-moving, beat heavy songs which, like the song “Cha Cha Cha” which almost won him the contest, absolutely capture your attention and refuse to let it go.
According to Aussievision, ” ‘ Hyvää Puuta’ [Good Wood] takes inspiration from the Finnish song of the same name by legendary singer Vesa-Matti Loiri who represented Eurovision at the 1980 contest in The Hague with the song “Huilumies”.
It’s the duo’s second collab after 2024’s “TRAFIK!” and it’s exciting to see two artists taking their moment in the pan-European spotlight and doing some truly cool things with it.
“Church of Sound” by Rêve
(courtesy Wikipedia)
Hailing from beautiful Canada, Rêve, the mononymic stage name of Briannah Charlie Donolo, has been on the scene since 2021, best known for 2023 single “Ctrl + Alt + Del” which won her the Juno Award for Dance Recording of the Year and “Whitney” which raced to the dizzying heights of the top of the US Dance Airplay chart. (Thank you to Wikipedia for this bounty of great info; make sure you support the site please and don’t just rely on AI slop summaries.)
Her newest release “Church of Sound”, which sounds like the one kind of religion I’d be happy to join, at least for one night on its dancefloor, which as The Wanderer observes on Synth Pop World becomes “a place of worship” as the song weaves its worshipfully melodic magic.
The new song is a three-minute slice of dark synthpop. The chorus sets the tone: ‘Praying to the church of sound / I just wanna live it loud’, with the aside ‘God forbid a girl wants to dance’. Culture Fix reads it as a jab at out-of-touch industry executives and the culture of output over quality.
As a way of combating the sameness of industry product, it’s a masterfully infectious piece of pop which makes a captivatingly good case for letting truly original music artists do their unfettered creative thing.
The result is songs like “Church of Sound” and that can only be a good thing (especially when you’re one of the selected participants for Canada’s Choice, which will pick the first Canadian representative for the Eurovision Song Contest, to compete in 2027).