This here is a terrific piece of writing on the lady of the moment. Well, I glazed out a bit during the bar-by-bar musicological breakdown (while also thinking that, if one had the skills, one could possibly do the same thing to “prove” how great, interestingly aberrant in structure etc, any number of grime tunes, dancehall tracks, etc etc, are) Still the stuff on the lyrics is mighty evocative--far more (and you saw this coming didntya?) than the lyric itself. Extra cojones for singling out as the song’s nub of profundity a couplet that must be among the most irritating on the record (“trendsetters make things better/etc…”). No, but seriously, the reading of “Pop” here almost sells me on the idea that something special is going on. Anyway, now is perhaps the point at which we should all graciously (and gratefully) agree to disagree....

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in further shanty-house related bizniz, cheers to peter maplestone for pointing out this Mike Davis essay a New Left Review piece called Planet of Slums, a "future history of the Third World’s post-industrial megacities", that envisages a "billion-strong global proletariat ejected from the formal economy, with Islam and Pentecostalism as songs of the dispossessed."