Music Recommendation – Disco Pop Symphonies by Róisín Murphy

Last week we recommended a super fresh country, pop rapper, Lil Nas X; who brought us to tears with his letter to younger self while pole dancing to hell- and this week we are happy to say that his song Montero (Call me by your name) managed to climb on top of the Billboard hot 100, earning him a second no1 song on that chart! Congratulations queer queen!

With that being said, as much as we are glad that a young, super queer, gay, African American is slaying the charts, we believe that we have to acknowledge how both Montero and his record-breaking song Old Town Road managed to climb on top of these charts… and it is, you guessed it – tiktok. A social media, based on short looping videos that makes it easy for catchy tunes often accompanied with viral worthy visuals or dancing challenges, to be repeated, over and over again, which, of course, counts in the streaming of songs and helps songs climb the charts.

We can notice that the songs in pop industry are getting shorter and shorter and shorter, and in our opinion, we are quite frankly afraid of the future in which pop music will be looking only for catchy beats and tunes that tiktokers can easily dance to. Here at KET we absolutely adore Lady Gaga, but when you compare her album Chromatica from 2020 where most of her songs barely cross a 3 minute mark, you will notice that that is a giant shift from her 2011 album Born This Way, where almost all the songs were longer than 4 minutes, while songs like Edge of Glory, You and I and Hair were even longer than 5 minutes.

On that note, we are recommending a true veteran in music. An artist that keeps reinventing herself and her music and whose last album, Róisín Machine became her highest-charting album in both Ireland and the UK, without tiktok, dance challenges and with songs lasting easily over 6,7 minutes. We are recommending Roisin Murphy and her disco infused, electro-pop, house-ish, HEAVEN Roisin Machine! Roisin first became known in the 1990s as one-half of the UK-Irish trip hop duo Moloko. After the breakup of Moloko, Murphy embarked on a solo career, releasing her debut solo album, Ruby Blue. Fast forward to 2020 and she has blessed us with Roisin Machine, and her fabulous, extravagant “I’m tripping on mushrooms and LSD” lockdown concerts from her homes in the UK and Ibiza.

Our favorite songs from Roisin Machine are basically all the extended mix tracks from the deluxe version of the album, like Incapable, Narcissus, Murphy’s Law, Simulation and Something More. Please go to our Spotify and listen to the extended versions of these tracks which no tiktok challenge pop songs could ever top. They wish they could…

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To discover all of Vjeran’s music recommendations, follow KET magazine’s playlist on Spotify.