5.30.25
Thank God it's Friday
The phrase “Thank God it’s Friday” originally came to prominence as a fixture of the typical 9-5 working week. A way of saying “My life may be a ceaseless nightmare of pressure to produce and consume, but at least I am on the cusp of receiving a brief reprieve from the never-ending chore that my adult life has become.” This phrase became so prolific and repeated throughout culture that it was eventually adapted into an acronym: “TGIF”. From there it was adapted into a themed restaurant chain, which aimed to capture the spirit of the saying by creating a dining environment almost as hostile and unforgiving as the workplaces of corporate America, so that upon being told it was almost time to leave it’s patrons would say “Thank God.”
In this context, “Thank God it’s Friday” refers to the fact that the third installation Pack Rat’s Rat Trap comes out today.
This week, we’ve got a lot of weird postmodern electronic/pop nonsense for you to soothe your tired earholes with. A lot of “Gen-Z” artists here, and I think a lot of these songs are pretty clear products of this internet age we’re living in. I hate that I called out how “Gen-Z” this playlist is… oh well… Give it a listen!
Sugar Pit - Supply/Demand
Sugar Pit makes these freaky little modern punk songs that are doing that trendy kinda talk-sing thing all the kids are into these days. However, unlike a lot of their peers, Sugar Pit knows when to add in interesting melodic elements to keep stuff fresh. The lyrics of the majority of their music reflect the mind-numbing, quite rage of life in late stage capitalism (check out “Customer Service”, probably my favorite song of theirs). They put out an album last year and it was good. This song is from 2023 and it is also good. They will probably keep getting better.
Kill Bill: The Rapper & Rav - THINGS WILL GET MUCH WORSE FROM HERE (ft. Hatsune Miku)
Honestly such a genius move to use Hatsune Miku, the virtual robot popstar, on your song about A.I. taking over everyday life and art. An online friend recommended this to me (I don’t remember who but you probably know who you are so thank you!), and I had never heard of Kill Bill before but I definitely love this track. He’s got an interesting vocal delivery, the lyrics are solid, and I love the hypnotic rhythm this song has. Ups the horror of our machine-learned reality.
femtanyl - ATTACKING VERTICAL
Wow surprise surprise the trans girl music lover enjoys the loud trans girl music. Who could have ever predicted this? At some point right before I started transitioning I found femtanyl’s music and it just clicked. I don’t know if this is some weird law of nature that if you’re trans you like this shit but something about the aggressive throwback rave sound and the super chopped and pitched vocals just gets me. Anyway, this was my favorite song off the recent Reactor EP.
Dev Lemons - You Tear Me Apart
People might flame me for putting “YouTuber music” on here and they are right to do so. But, I like the way she sings, the music is catchy, and I like the bass sound. There’s something genuinely artistically interesting going on here! It’s not the most unique thing I’ve heard by far but it is a fun and funky little pop track with more to it than the usual.
cumgirl8 - Karma Police
I love this band. The band name is hilarious, and they’re doing this whole modern spin on old school 80s new wave stuff which is just right up my alley. It’s like if New Order was a bunch of girls who drank too much Monster Energy and were addicted to vaping. Plus I like the way she sings “mental masturbation”.
We’re definitely on a postmodernist kind of tilt this week huh?
Talking Heads - Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
A little throwback to carry us away from that last song. I feel like this is one that doesn’t get enough play from the Talking Heads discography. It’s clearly off the same album as the much more popular “Once In a Lifetime” but I like that you can also hear hints of what David Byrne will eventually go into on later Heads records and his solo stuff like “Uh-Oh” with the chanting of “the heat goes on”. Also shoutout to random computer noises in songs, I love you.
jimrat - i hate shoegaze
For someone who hates shoegaze, jimrat made a pretty solid banger of a shoegaze song. It’s definitely deconstructing things a bit and pulling from some places outside the genre, which is exactly what modern shoegaze needs. Some of the influences maybe feel a bit obvious to more well-listened music fans, but it’s still early in their artistic career. They’ve only got 904 Spotify listeners at the time I’m writing this, so give em a listen! With the help of my readers, we can get that number up to 906!
Passion Pit - I’ve Got Your Number
I think I got this song from the automated robot that would play on the radio before I started my show Saturday mornings. I remember being confused because the song started when I was almost to the radio station, and then was still playing when I was sitting there ready to start my show. Turns out it’s a 6-minute Passion Pit song, which is unusual on it’s own, but the style of the track compounds it’s unusualness in the larger Passion Pit discography. It’s much more minimalist and slow-building than their other songs, and the production is much less polished. I like it a lot. I don’t know who added it to the robot playlist1, but I thank them!
LCD Soundsystem - x-ray eyes
Moving on to another little minimalist electro-pop tune. This song is on the list this week for a few reasons:
I like LCD Soundsystem. I like that he’s still making music.
From a radio perspective, this is the sort of song I would have included in my playlist so I could talk over half of it. These kind of songs that go on for a while slowly building on the same idea are invaluable to DJs. It means we can play them at half volume without them being too distracting.
From a mixtape perspective (which is what I want these weekly lists to be more like: digital mixtapes) this song just flows well out of the next track and into the next one.
Frost Children - Shake It Like A (ft. Danny Brown)
Danny Brown has really just been doing sidequests recently. I swear it’s like he’s trying to get a feature on a song from every trans artist out there. Ethel Cain ft. Danny Brown coming when?
Jokes aside, this song is a certified club banger.
Rebecca Black - TRUST!
We should all consider ourselves goddamn lucky we’re getting the career arc out of Rebecca Black that we are. The internet came together to bully a little girl and she turned around and proved she completely had the moves to be the diva she was acting like in the “Friday” music video. This song is also a banger, easily in my top ten pop songs from last year. If you need some bad bitch energy in your life you can harness this tracks raw power to get some.
Alice Longyu Gao - Little Piggy
Alice Longyu Gao is my favorite new musical discovery from last year for myself. Her 2023 record “Let’s Hope Heteros Fail, Learn and Retire” is such a top tier elevation of what hyper pop has been and can be I hesitate to even call it part of the genre. She just kicks ass, and her new music has been no exception to that. This song manages to at once be sickeningly personal, foot-tappingly catchy, and musically inventive in ways most artists would never be able to pull off, let alone while making it look so effortless. Plus it has a saxophone solo. Which is… I mean come on.
SOPHIE - BIPP
I don’t think I’ll ever emotionally be over the world losing SOPHIE so young. I just know she had so much more to offer the music world and would’ve continued to shape the development and evolution of modern music so much more that she already has. I’ve been listening to her back catalog a lot recently. Especially as the world seems to grow more and more hellbent on making trans people feel worthless and small, SOPHIE’s music reminds me that we can be powerful and creative and unique and fun. She pushed the boundaries of music production like trans people push the boundaries of the social construct of gender. She was right: She can make me feel better.
That’s it for Pack Rat’s Rat Trap this week! Let me know what you’ve been listening to and what you enjoyed from this week’s mix, and I’ll see you next Friday!
If I had to guess it would be DJ Catrophy, known Passion Pit fan, who like me no longer DJs at KZSC. You can now listen to their show online at www.brainrotradio.com! It’s called “Feline Funky” and it rules.