Favorite New (to Me) Albums of 2020: Part V

Part 5 of 5:

Joji - Nectar (2020)

This one was only released less than three months ago, but it’s already a big favorite.

Before he became known as “Joji,” George Miller was most famous for his comedic online characters Filthy Frank and Pink Guy.

Who knew that his talent at creating viral content for YouTube would translate so well to the world of “serious” music?

Apparently, Joji knew, because a large amount of the production of Nectar is credited to him.

Of course, this isn’t his first go-around. He turned his efforts to performing as Joji back in 2017, and his first full-length, Ballads 1, was released a year later.

But this new record really caught my ear. There’s a consistency that impresses me more with each listen, particularly in regards to the theme of sadness that runs through the album, as well as its minimalist production.

My two favorite songs are “Daylight” and “Run.”

"Daylight” is highlighted by a melancholic chorus about dealing with loss (I assume of a lover). There is a beautiful string pad that fills out the mix nicely and contrasts well with the more sparse and staccato production of the verses.

Joji’s vocal harmonies also build perfectly in the second half of each verse, leading up to the chorus, showing off his skill at structuring music.

“Run” starts off with an electric guitar part that repeats throughout the majority of the song.

After the first verse, the beat breaks in, and Joji rises to a well-controlled falsetto that carries through the chorus.

In general, his voice sounds its best on this song, demonstrating its versatility in multiple ways. There’s a moment in the first verse where he shouts the word “sadness,” even thought we know he can hit the note easily, as if to communicate the narrator’s frustration, and it’s a nice touch.

I really like the production of the second half of “Run,” where a guitar solo seems to carry on forever. Joji’s backing vocals build steadily in the background, until the rest of the instrumentation suddenly cuts out, and Joji’s voice seems to burst out of the mix and into the open.

The music video for “Run” is also pretty creative and perfectly matches the pensive tone of the song’s lyrical content, but I won’t ruin it for you here. Go see it for yourself!

I would recommend Nectar to anyone with an appreciation for R&B who is also open to the elements of pop and rock that Joji brings to his music.

sElf - Breakfast with Girls (1999)

Producer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Matt Mahaffey was a busy, young man in the 1990s. Along with his brother Mike Mahaffey and others, he released a total of seven albums and an EP over the course of six years. Right smack dab in the middle of that run was one of the most unique and ambitious albums I’ve ever heard, 1999’s Breakfast with Girls, a bizarre concoction of rock instrumentation, hip-hop samples, and pop vocals. I’ve never heard a band use samples in a more creative way than sElf. Rather than looping samples simply as an additional layer during particular sections of the music, the way a hip-hop album might, some of the songs on Breakfast with Girls sound like they were structured around the samples. There are parts of the album where a sample transitions the song from one section to the next so effortlessly that it’s hard to imagine it as an afterthought, and not one of the first components in the songwriting process.

In other words, in many ways, the samples on Breakfast with Girls govern the songs not only tonally, but also structurally. This makes for some atypical songwriting at times when it comes to the other instrumentation, which must be more flexible and rely more on meter changes, key changes, and unique harmonies in order to move the music along.

My two favorite songs from the album are “What Are You Thinking?” and “Callgirls.”

The most notable thing about “What Are You Thinking?” a painfully frank song about the challenges of breaking up, is the use of a sample that sounds like it was taken from a recording of a 40s big band. Mahaffey shows off his compositional talent by incorporating the sample perfectly into a song in which you would expect it to be out of place.

The rest of the production on this song is just beautiful, from the fatness of the bass and drums to the tone of the chorus’ overdriven guitars to the lush string section of an extended outro, during which Mahaffey repeats the anthemic “Wait, I’m not down just yet/I’ve got mountains of regret/And my sorrow fills an ocean,” while the rest of the band rages on behind him.

A distinctive distorted bass synth is what drives “Callgirls,” an intense and quirky song written from the perspective of a frustrated john, though my favorite thing about it is a sample used during its more intense moments that sounds like it comes from an old horror film.

The last 30 seconds of the song really captured me as well, as all of the louder instrumentation cuts out and leaves us with a heavy drum beat and a few strange sound effects whizzing around before it all fades out.

The record received a mixed response at the time it was released, due to fans expecting the more rock-influenced approach present on sElf’s debut album, Subliminal Plastic Motives, but I think Breakfast with Girls is some of their best work. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to challenge their own perception of where the boundaries of pop music lie.

BONUS:

sElf - Gizmodgery (2000)

A year after Breakfast with Girls, sElf released an album recorded almost entirely with kids toys and toy instruments. Parts of it were even recorded at Matt Mahaffey’s own home at the time, which every bedroom producer should be able to appreciate.

Be sure to check out my favorite tracks from the record, “5 Alive” and “Ordinaire.”