banner
LightNews
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart
@jonathanbogart.net
750 followers 210 following 1.8K posts
Library worker, researcher and writer about culture from the first third of the 20th century, depressive. https://jonathanbogart.net
jonathanbogart.net
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Pinned
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 14d
I'll be participating in this challenge for the next 50 days, mute or follow the hashtag according to your preference. For now my writeups will live only on Bluesky, accompanied by a screenshot of the title card from the music video (or just a regular screenshot if there isn't a title card). Enjoy!
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 14d
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 1

50. Yailin La Mas Viral, “Bing Bong”
(Dominican Republic, Nov 6 2024)
prod. Puyalo Pantera & Yailin La Mas Viral

youtu.be/YpoUzo-CflQ
Music video title card. On a background of an out of focus woman with her hands raised in dark rain are the words: BING BONG YAILIN LA MAS VIRAL Parental advisory explicit content 50. Yailin La Mas Viral, “Bing Bong” (Dominican Republic, Nov 6 2024) prod. Puyalo Pantera & Yailin La Mas Viral We begin with a mission statement, or in the Tumblr vernacular, with rent-lowering gunshots, telling those who can’t hang to clear out now. This list is going to be full of songs by, about, and for women of color shaking extravagant amounts of ass, with videos even more monomaniacally focused on the same. Welcome to the post-dancehall world: racialized vulgarity is in, bourgeois auteurism is out. Art is a broad category that has always included sexual titillation, and Puritans, whether of the left or right, are welcome to kick rocks about it. Taxonomically this is a dembow song, although it’s almost post-dembow, a series of giddy sounds in echoey space (is that one break actually just the sound of cheeks clapping?) while Yailin delivers the genre’s usual sexual provocation in a teasing tone. She’s a 23-year-old single mother (her daughter’s coo is one of the sounds in the mix) who has been in in the fast-paced Dominican dembow spotlight since she was eighteen, when I first noticed her among a crowd of young women then entering the field (La Perversa, La Ross Maria, Rosaly Rubio, Arlene MC, Tokischa), but the sproingy, addictive “Bing Bong” has been her biggest pan-American hit yet. YouTube: 264M views | Spotify: 146M streams | TikTok: 851K vids
2 6
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 10h
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 14

36. Luis Eduardo Acústico, “Friky Mory”
(Colombia, Aug 27 2021)
prod. Delaking, DJ Bunde, Leysong, JC Again

youtu.be/jqBcG-DnYNc
Music video title card. Shot of a young woman in an oversized t-shirt shopping in a grocery store. Overlaid are the words: LUIS EDUARDO ACÚSTICO FRIKY MORY LA 19 STUDIOS X DELAKING X DJ BUNDE X LEYSONG X JC DIRECTOR JHAN SALCEDO PROD. MAKERS POST-PRODUCCIÓN JUAN CALLEJAS ILUMINACIÓN SEBASTIÁN HINCAPIÉ PRODUCCIÓN EJECUTIVA JOSÉ BEJARANO PRODUCCIÓN DE CAMPO JOHANN GRAJALES MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA 2021 36. Luis Eduardo Acústico, “Friky Mory” (Colombia, Aug 27 2021) prod. Delaking, DJ Bunde, Leysong, JC Again One of the things that keeps me perpetually excited about the limited range of music I listen to is that there’s always some new ferment somewhere. Colombia’s Caribbean coast has a long and storied history of musical innovation, but its Pacific coast, and specifically the majority-black department of Chocó, is much more fascinating to me these days. Luis Eduardo Acústico has been the face of “ritmo exótico,” the urban dance music of Chocó, since 2019, when he was 18 years old. (He calls it a Colombian afrobeat, and he’s not wrong, but I also hear elements of dembow, 90s hip-house, and Cuban reparto in the mix.) This was the lead single from his debut album at 20, and is one of his biggest hits, to the extent that a younger ritmo exótico performer has adopted the title as a stage name. “Mi perreo es el mejor” (my twerking is the best), he sings, placing himself specifically within the larger urbano conversation, but there’s none of the self-serious cool demanded of reggaeton or Latin trap performers: he’s a gawky kid, and he leans into it. His maturation in the years since has been fascinating to watch, but this is a young classic. YouTube: 350K views | Spotify: 103K streams | TikTok: 26 vids
13
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 14h
maybe unfortunate that the two Brazilians in this heat are in it with songs that bear a passing resemblance to then-biggest band in the world The Police, Sandra arrangement-wise and Djavan vocally, but everyone should listen to more Sandra de Sá and Djavan regardless
1 3
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 15h
Nobody has, will, or can read even 1% of the greatest literature ever written. Every canon is incomplete, every library is only a fragment, even the most knowledgeable reader is a blind mouse in an open field. Every encounter is a miracle.
wiswell.bsky.social
John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 21h
Tell me your most life-affirming literary opinion.
1 12 47
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 19h
exactly the kind of thing AI can't do well, if at all, as both Astaire's dancing and Star Wars fight scenes depend on highly skilled and individualized choreography; a really good team of artisans could synthesize the difference, but AI can only stick Astaire on the Death Star and wiggle him around
4
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 19h
the libertines' up the bracket, which simply doesn't hit the same lossless
2
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 20h
jesus, i step away for half an hour to do a bit of my job and another titan of modern music is gone
1 12
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 20h
that's the one!
1
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 21h
Sandra de Sá (Brazilian soul) is my main, but I also nominated Meliza (electro-zouk). Afraid they'll both do poorly compared to the name recognition of Sheila E. and the rock cred of Witch: listen without prejudice!
peoples-pop-polls.bsky.social
Peoples Pop Polls: Black Pop History 82-85 @peoples-pop-polls.bsky.social · 1d
#BPHM8285 Match B17

1 MELIZA! www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIda...
2 SANDRA SA! www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDdj...
3 SHEILA E! www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsUP...
4 WITCH! www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RcG...

Vote! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Meliza - Paradis En Moin - A woman with cornrows in a black top sits with her arms folded Sandra Sa - Sem Conexao Com O Mundo Exterior - A happy woman holding a set of recursive images of herself, each one with different faces and different coloured gloves Sheila E - The Belle Of St Mark - A woman in heels, a floral dress and black see through trousers stands in a columned doorway Witch - Erotic Delight - Five men in casual clothes standing around a shelf on a brick wall
1 1 6
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 22h
Jesus, he was denying it in 1987! Well I think he's wrong but what do I know, it seemed pretty obvious to me even as a sheltered missionary school kid
1
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 22h
would say Moby-Dick but i didn't study it until college where the queerness was acknowledged
1
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 22h
A Separate Peace is the canonical one, right?
3 2
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 22h
the mirror image of Strong Bad (cool), who imagines Trogdor the Burninator (even cooler)
1 2
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 22h
in fact, the cooler the dragon the less cool the person imagining it is
2 4
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
i should maybe note here that i am not respecting imperial possession in this list, so I'm listing French overseas departments as their own countries (as I will be listing Puerto Rico when it comes up). self-determination for all.
4
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 13

37. Bamby, “Buzz”
(French Guiana, May 20 2022)
prod. DJ Tony 438

youtu.be/8pgMlj_PyG0
Music video title card. A shot of Bamby from behind, from the small of her back to just above her knees. She is wearing neon yellow-green skeeves and booty shorts. She is surrounded by foliage and what appear to be armed men. The environment is dark and reddish. Over top of this, in flaming letters with a pink-to-orange gradient, is the word: BUZZ 37. Bamby, “Buzz” (French Guiana, May 20 2022) prod. DJ Tony 438 Another song that never appeared on one of my year-end lists, even though it could and arguably should have: Bamby made the 2021 (“Haffi Buss”) and 2023 (“Chupa Chups”) editions, but when I reviewed her singles for this list, “Buzz” stood out to me as stronger than both. Almost certainly the current biggest star out of French Guiana, the overseas department of France on the Caribbean coast of South America, Bamby served a five-year apprenticeship as an associate of Guianan dancehall artist Jahyanai King before going solo around the turn of the decade, just as French Antillean dancehall, a.k.a. shatta, was kicking into high gear. Her regal confidence, canny assimilation of a wide variety of trends across Caribbean music, and athletic dancing have made her one of the four or five key figures in shatta this decade. Like most of her peers she sings and toasts in a dense, chewy combination of Antillean Kreyol, Jamaican Patois, French, and English, and the wickedly minimalist electronic throb of shatta riddims provide her with a lot of empty space to fill with personality. “Buzz” pulls off the neat trick of a) being about both attracting attention and feeling good and b) attracting the listener’s attention and making them feel good. YouTube: 467K views | Spotify: 1.2M streams | TikTok: 168 vids
1 1 13
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
shout it from the rooftops
1
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
I haven't! It's a bit later than I've tended to go for, but I'm adding him to the research list.
1
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
but i'll stop before i veer into my Unified Field Theory of Twentieth Century Pop Culture
1 7
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
The same thing was happening to the magazine cartoon around the same time: it had to either be bloodless and privileged (a la the New Yorker) or stupid and smutty (a la Playboy), or transform utterly (becoming comic books).
1 5
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
Material conditions contributed: the death of the general-interest fiction magazine post-WWII destroyed what was left of the market for comic fiction (book-length work was rarer, and had always been incubated by the magazines), and it couldn't move into the pulps without fundamentally changing.
2 6
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
The third reason is that big names like P.G. Wodehouse, because they outlived their own genre, came to be thought of as sui generis rather than as members of a cohort, and so diverted all the attention that might have gone to more minor lights to themselves.
1 1 11
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
Another reason is that certain fans of every other genre (including the so-called literary) have always deprecated a sense of humor, and so the existing corpus has been under a benign neglect, with exceptions for big names like P.G. Wodehouse, for nearly a century.
1 1 6
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
The biggest reason is that the content mills of Hollywood, radio, and television hoovered up the talent that would have gone into writing funny stories in prose, and the audience for the material went with them. But you used to be able to get a wittily-written sitcom episode in a monthly magazine.
1 7
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
Comic fiction in English of the late 19th and early 20th century was a cohering genre as formalized, diverse, and inventive as the contemporary mystery, sci-fi, horror, western and romance that were then consolidating into discrete genres, but it petered out post-WWII for a variety of reasons.
rachelfeder.bsky.social
Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
1 4 25
jonathanbogart.net
J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d
two of my noms in the same group is devastating, especially given the competition. that's what god made bonuses for, i suppose
1 1 7