Last week, this little newsletter got suddenly exposed to the wider world, thanks to the advocacy of my friend Anthony, who’s always a trusted partner and now a certified pop culture visionary. So, to the few people who subscribed after finding the Sade Beyond Sade piece on Instagram, you are all welcome. If you want to know what you really signed up for, these stories on the Sanremo Festival, The Fugees’ perfect bonus tracks, and why on Earth Gary Moore’s “Parisienne Walkways ‘93” was ever a hit record are a good place to start.
Now is the time for the fifth instalment of A Decade on Shuffle, a marathon series where I randomly discuss my hundred music classics from the last decade, five songs at a time. We are now twenty-five-song deep, after various ramblings regarding Kanye’s alternative path, the only YouTube video that matters and William’s Sheller songs of abandonment.
Next stop: Alabama.
37.
Yelawolf - Have a Great Flight (2015)
Love Story, the third album by Alabama rapper Yelawolf, was an exercise in course correction. His 2012 major label debut, Radioactive, had been a capable, if slightly overcooked attempt at crossover appeal. Released on Eminem’s Shady Records, the album nodded at Yela’s influences—from Memphis rap to Kid Rock—but its hyper-polished production felt a little clean-cut for an artist whose own label name, Slumerican, suggested a rougher sound. In Love Story, Yelawolf imposed a more focused vision by going full Americana, using Southern rock and country to fuel his confessions of struggle and despair (in the last song, he had a pointed word for Shady Records: “Thank you for letting me be me with no holds barred”). “Have a Great Flight”, a farewell to his grandmother, was the emotional peak of the album. It was also the revelation of Yelawolf, soul-baring country singer. A rare moment of grace in the Shady pipeline, the song felt so pure, one have to wonder why nobody in the room asked Yelawolf and producer Malay to just hold on to that feeling, and keep pursuing that somber vibe for a few more songs. In a way, Yelawolf did: he’s still a versatile presence in hip-hop, collaborating with legends and underdogs from coast to coast, but he’s now a competent rock star and seems freer than ever. Leaving the Shady formula behind and Eminem’s shadow certainly helped.
39.
How to Dress Well - Cold Nites (2012)
The early 2010s marked a moment when R&B turned inward. Building upon past innovations, a boom in DIY production and a newfound appraisal from (white) critics, the genre morphed into the soundtrack of millennial dread, born out of uncertainty and digital isolation. It was an era of bizarre descriptors, such as PBR&B (don’t ask), that mocked the supposed gentrification of the genre while actively enforcing it. Tom Krell, a.k.a. How to Dress Well, a former philosophy student and a scholar of nineties R&B, became a poster boy for a trend that lumped together artists as diverse as Frank Ocean, FKA Twigs or Miguel. In a way, “Cold Nites”, off his second album Total Loss, covered classic R&B grounds: a breakup and its aftermath. But Krell’s production, with its ominous chords and distant screams, made the experience a leap into the abyss. That was soul music for lost souls, the sound decaying into oblivion like it was playing in an abandoned cathedral. Over time, Krell remained a best-kept secret, but in my book, he bridged the gap between a lo-fi maestro like Burial and a nihilistic megastar like The Weeknd, who was coming of age at the same period. His contribution to this new idea of R&B, therefore, is essential.
68.
Flynt - Chanson pour ton fils (2018)
French rap and chanson are neighbouring genres which, despite their obvious links, can hardly be compared. Their lyrical playbooks—from word count to the ability to ingest new slang—are too just different. So anytime a rapper tries their hand at chanson, they walk a fine line between reverence and rebellion. Enter Flynt. The blue-collar MC from Paris’ 18th arrondissement wasn’t really expected to venture into the genre—his 2007 debut, J’éclaire ma ville, had been a true-school cult classic. He made the leap years later, in 2018, with “Chanson pour ton fils”, an affecting tribute to a deceased friend, written for his orphan son. With remarkable nuance, Flynt channeled the conciseness of chanson with his own everyman flair. As Flynt remembered life’s crossroads and happier times, he didn’t rely on his rap voice, and didn’t openly sing either. His tone was restrained, gently conversational, a subtle contrast with the classical piece tailored for him by Sofiane Pamart, who would soon become a French rapper’s favorite pianist. The shadow of Renaud’s “Mistral Gagnant”, an unmatchable standard and probably the most beloved French song of the late twentieth century, was looming. Flynt, who later acknowledged the inspiration, crafted a low-key masterpiece on his own by composing a sensible portrait of a friendship through elliptical memories. And silences, too: in the final verse, Flynt mentions the words his friend had stuttered when he met the future mother of his child. But he leaves the actual words untold, out of view, in a graceful touch that illuminates the song’s profound decency.
13.
Sade - The Moon and the Sky (2010)
The opening seconds of a Sade album are always a precious moment, and not simply because they appear only once every decade or so. These intros also serve as a statement of purpose. They present the dominant mood of the London quartet at a given time—think of the latin jazz percussions that opened their first album, Diamond Life, or the sparse beat and quiet guitar that set in motion the reggae-influenced Lovers Rock. “The Moon and The Sky”, the opener from 2010’s Soldier Of Love, Sade’s sixth and latest album so far, introduced something unexpected. The tone was resolutely mournful, with a plaintive guitar giving way to Sade’s cosmic tale of unfulfilled love. All of it was classic Sade, a world of heightened passions and pains. But something felt different. The gentle shift was due to a telling detail in the credits: the song featured a new cast of session musicians (Ian Burdge on cello, Everton Nelson on violins, Noel Langley on trumpet), a notable feat for a band known for its timeless stability. The miracle here was that these new additions perfectly fit in, adding new threads to the Sade fabric without altering its core DNA. They made “The Moon and the Sky” both a divergence in the group’s discography, and still one of its most faithful incarnations.
65.
Alex Beaupain - Loin (2016)
Alex Beaupain and I have one thing in common: we both come from Besançon, a small city in Eastern France, where the singer-composer grew up before migrating to Paris (as I did too). So when he sings about the distant memory of indoor swimming pools, I know what he’s referring to—that’s likely the piscine Mallarmé and no, I don’t miss it for a second. Homegrown chauvinism alone couldn’t explain why I have such a bound with his music, which represents a solid three percent of my hundred songs from the 2010s. It would rather be Beaupain’s vivid observations on love and loss, his unabashed sense of drama, plus a storytelling sensibility tailor-made for French cinema. For some reason, I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard “Loin”: I was landing in Berlin, of all places, in January 2016. The sky was low, and the moment wasn’t especially bright. I still remember the gut punch of hearing Beaupain, ever the nostalgist, as he contemplated the ever-expanding gulf between now and then, like a child coming back from school only to find out adulthood had been underway for a few years. It’s a soul-crushing sentiment that the singer, as often, addressed with a certain detachment over an unassuming pop track. The odd beauty of “Loin” lied in his impressionist lyrics. A song about shadows, silhouettes and (yes) the scents of shower gels, “Loin” opened just enough voids for anyone to fill in, and see for themselves what’s forever left behind.
In the previous entry, I wrote about Justin Timberlake, Abd Al Malik, PNL, Kanye West and The Night VI. Check out the full playlist on Tidal and Spotify.