But I’ve got something good for you now, and it’s an article I’ve been preparing to write for about fifteen years. I’ve been a fan of Snow tha Product since she dropped her first album, Unorthodox, in 2011, and if you’ve ever heard any of her work, then you probably are too. Pope Innocent X ostensibly said that the only way to avoid hiring artist Gianlorenzo Bernini was not to see his work (and the pope went from hater to immediate stan when he did). And as with the fiery sculptor four hundred years before her, the only way not to be a Snow devotee is never to have heard her.

For Richmonders, there’s no better opportunity to watch this verbal fire-thrower in action than her show at the National tonight. While I’ve been waiting years for this LA indie goddess to tour in my neck of the woods, there’s a solid chance some of my fellow East Coasters might not know her work yet. So I wrote a primer in five tracks: Five Times Snow Tha Product Wrote a Damn Bar.

Ever seen Snow live? Tell me in the comments.

In Part 1, Ramona Martinez and I chatted about everything from tarot to the Beatles to Sondheim and the virtues and pitfalls of growing up abroad. In Part 2, we explore musical influences beyond country, performing in Spanish as a “no sabo” kid, and the impact of opera training on vocal and spiritual growth. Like a good conversation, a great musical performance should take you somewhere outside of yourself.

Rebecca Shields: Are there influences beyond country on the album?

Ramona Martinez: For Sure. My main one is a band called the Magnetic Fields. That guy can write a fucking song. Definitely Y2K pop music in general, like Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, all that stuff. The Beach Boys [are a] big influence too.

Subscribe now

Sometimes I feel like I write pop songs more than country songs. I have country chords, pop structure. Either has to start with a hook or a really good concept. We have a song called “You’re Not My Dad.” I had argued with my ex and got in a car and wrote this song in 20 minutes. “When you treat me like a baby/Oh, it makes me mad/I’m tired of being scolded because I did it bad/Know that I’m the best one that you ever had/I like to call you papi, but you’re not my dad.” That’s definitely pop.

RS: Did you grow up speaking Spanish?

RM: Oh, I’m a “no sabo” kid! I can have a conversation and be understood, but I will conjugate things incorrectly. I have enough of a vocabulary that I can explain something in a really roundabout way, and if it doesn’t work, I have Google Translate.

RS: You have a Spanish song on the album — do you perform more live?

RM: Yes, we do three Spanish covers. We do “Historia de un Amor.” My favorite version is by Pedro Infante, and it’s one of the most famous mariachi songs ever written, probably known by every single person in Latin America. And then we play “Volver, Volver” by Vicente Fernandez, which is another song every Latino knows. We do “El Rey” by Vincente Fernandez, another one that everybody knows. And then we do “Esta Herida” and another waltz that I wrote called “Nuestro Amor.” And then I have a tango in the works. The Texas Tornadoes is a tie we try to connect to sonically, like “Esta Herida.” That was definitely a huge inspiration for that song.

RS: How did you explore mariachi and Spanish-language music deeply?

RM: Vicente Fernandez was my in. I watched a Netflix show about him called El Rey. It took you through that world and introduced you to a lot of other famous mariachi singers. My resources were basically Spotify, YouTube, and then just listening to the music, reading Wikipedia, watching some of the films that these people starred in, because a lot of them were movie stars as well as singers. The fashion was a big influence, looking at the clothes, the charro suits, but also what women would wear.

The singing style was really what I studied more than anything else, learning the songs, rehearsing them for my solo sets and for the band. Mariachi has really helped me as a singer, because you really have to be open. When I started the band, I had not taken singing lessons, and I was not a very good singer, and I’ve been working for two years with an opera singer. Because I was forcing everything out. You just have to relax your lungs and learn how to use your head and your whole body as a resonating [chamber]. Singing mariachi really helped me just release. All of my songs, even the ones in English, are better because of studying mariachi and opera.

RS: That’s remarkable. So it’s physical training, but is it also spiritual?

RM: Oh my gosh. The whole journey of me becoming a singer is directly rooted to my childhood wounds of not feeling heard or feeling afraid to speak out, and that’s why I was so tight. I was afraid! I hadn’t started trying to be a professional musician until age 31. I’ve kind of always known that I was meant to do this, but I’ve thought, “No, it’s too hard” - not admitting that I was afraid to go for it until it became really clear that this is my vocation. This is 100% what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, and to do anything else would be dishonoring God and my ancestors. And the universe has given me all of these opportunities, with four men who are absolutely committed to the project and lovely human beings, to a town where people supported us to the point where we became a big fish in a small pond, and we’re able to make an impact. God has opened so many doors for me, and it is hugely connected to my soul’s journey into stepping into what I’m meant to be in this life. It’s very spiritual.

Subscribe now

RS: You mentioned channeling a poem earlier…

RM: Yes…I told myself that I was bad at writing verse. Then when I wrote that Christmas country song six months before, it was good, and it felt like it came from outside of me. I prayed, got in the zone, and one day I wrote this poem that felt like it came from maybe Jesus or the Virgin Mary. It feels like it’s a message to me from God that said, “Don’t be afraid. You’re already there…in my hands and in my heart.”

RS: You’ve said you’re a folk Catholic. What does that mean?

RM: I was raised Episcopalian and around the plague, a little bit before, I started praying the rosary and praying to the saints. My grandparents, on both sides of my family, were Catholic, and so my parents were the broken link. Which is fine, there’s a lot of fucked up stuff about the Catholic Church. Folk Catholicism was a term that I adopted back then to describe my spirituality, because I was praying to Catholic saints and really feeling connected to God in a very profound way for the first time in my life. But I wasn’t actually Catholic, and I didn’t have any interest in converting, because of all the things I disagree with about the institution - like Catholic dogma. I don’t believe in Hell. I think you should get divorced. Women should be able to be priests. I spoke with a lot of friends of mine who were Catholic, and they were like, “Ramona, the Catholic Church is not just the priests or the official church, it’s the people who make up the church. And you have very similar views to people who grew up in the church who are just more progressive.” So I converted last Epiphany, and hilariously, I’ve stopped going to Mass and because I’m a real Catholic now, and I haven’t been praying to my saints as much. I know they’re there for me, and I do talk to God all day long. Like, constantly. I’m either asking for help or saying thank you. So all my saints are in there too. But, that’s my journey, and I continue to call myself a folk Catholic instead of just a Catholic because of my views. Some of them get really out there theologically. I believe in reincarnation. I believe it’s okay for you to work with other gods or deities, if that aligns with you.

RS: Mystic, maybe?

RM: Yes, I think that’s part of it, definitely. I think also all artists are in touch with the same thing that mystics are in touch with. It’s all connected.

One thing I should mention too, since it is today, is that performing mariachi and coming back to Catholicism are definitely my way of honoring my ancestors. My grandparents on both sides of my dad’s family are all passed, but they, I think, are super proud. And I feel really honored to be half Anglo and half Mexican, and to be an ambassador to both. I never claim to be a traditional, authentic mariachi performer, but to introduce people to how closely connected those two cultures are, especially the cowboy cultures, is so important, especially in today’s climate where you’re just thrown in an unmarked van if you’re Mexican or Latino of any kind.

RS: Is musical performance spiritual for you?

RM: It happens in two instances - when I’m clocked in solo and channeling the emotion behind a song, or when I’m playing with the band and the crowd is really into it. When we had our album release show here in Charlottesville, we had like 250 people come out. When I walked on the stage, I was actually really nervous because I had acid reflux really bad, and it kind of destroyed my voice. I walked out on stage, and I was like, “Oh my God.” The love that they had for us. We were gonna give it 110%. I was wearing leather chaps, and I sweat my ass off. I was kept going by the vibes. If the Smokes were to get huge and play amphitheaters, it will never feel like it felt like at the Southern. That’s the pinnacle of what we do. Nothing better than that.

A few days later, I realized I’d neglected to wrap up with my favorite line of questioning, so the following exchange took place over email. Like the timing of our conversation, that worked out for best too. It seemed only fitting that Ramona responded with a poem. And a Blues Brothers reference.

RS: Now for what I call the Full Casablanca. Since you are an old movie buff, I know you’ll know this scene. I’m convinced that the perfect interview is in the flashback in Casablanca to Rick, Ilsa and Sam in Paris, just before the Germans occupy the city. Rick asks, “Who are you really, and what were you before? What did you do, and what did you think?”

So…

Who are you really? What were you before?

What did you do, and what did you think?

RM: I am on a mission from God 😎 😎

It has always been this way, but didn’t know it til recently

Before, I used to beg him to speak to me

Like Joan of Arc

I so badly wanted to be of use

It turns out he has been singing to me all along

And I just didn’t have the ears to hear it

It’s not every day that a band releases their debut album, let alone sees it notch on the Americana charts. So I was thrilled to sit down recently with Ramona Martinez of Ramona and the Holy Smokes, whose self-titled album debuted on September 26 and has been steadily gaining ground ever since. The Holy Smokes - quick round of applause for that band name - blend vintage country and Mexican folk genres to create their unique Latin honky-tonk sound, appropriately dubbed “Mexi-tonk.” Meanwhile, Ramona’s voice is unmistakably contemporary. The band reveres the past without living in it, hitting a sweet spot that just might be timelessness.

We talked tarot, time signatures, folk Catholicism, and what it means to sing in Spanish as a “no sabo” kid with Mexican ancestral roots. We hadn’t scheduled a talk on Dia de los Muertos on purpose. It was just when we had free time. But some conversations happen exactly when they need to.

Rebecca Shields: Congrats on the album! Releasing an album is enough to celebrate, but you’re charting too.

Ramona Martinez: It’s wild.

RS: What is this like?

Subscribe now

RM: It’s so cool… Honestly, thank you for saying that. Sometimes, when people ask about the band, it’s like you don’t know how fast you’re going if you’re in the vehicle. It’s sometimes even hard to get a sense of how much distance we’ve covered because we’ve only been a band for three and a half years. So the fact that in three and a half years we have an album out, and our name is even being mentioned in the same breath on the charts as these artists who’ve been doing it for decades…

We have a radio promoter that we hired for three months. She’s really, really good at what she does. She works with all country and Americana artists. I believe the music is certainly strong enough to chart. But if we hadn’t hired her, I don’t know that we would have been on the charts at all.

RS: Your sound is vintage, but with a contemporary point of view. [Pedal steel guitar meets the stark reality of artistic economic precarity in “Down & Out.”] Does having that throwback feel create tension in the digital era?

RM: Totally. The one thing I definitely don’t want as a country artist steeped in the tradition of midcentury country-western music is to sound like a novelty act. Sometimes some of the people in this space can kind of go there, whether it be a country-western accent that’s not real, whether that be production that reads way too 1960s Patsy Cline, Jordanaires. I just don’t feel like that’s what we want to do. The songwriting itself is definitely heavily inspired by those eras. But I don’t sit down to write a Hank Williams song. Everything comes through the lens of my own experience. And something I think is really cool about being any kind of artist is that I think the universe uses us as vessels to transmit art into the world. Through that mystical experience, there’s sort of the anima of all of the music that’s come before, and that gets mixed into it too. I call them my honky-tonk angels.

RS: That connects with the weekend’s focus on ancestry. [We spoke on the Día de Muertos, a holiday dedicated to honoring one’s ancestors that originated in Mexico and is observed in many Spanish-speaking cultures.] How did you get drawn to that vintage sound?

RM: I’ve always loved old music. My parents really instilled me with a love of music from the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s - everything but country, though! My mom got me really into classic movie musicals from the golden years of Hollywood. And that had so much great songwriting. Cole Porter, all of Gershwin, Sondheim. And I loved the Beatles. My dad was super into Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, the Temptations.

When I started listening to mariachi about three years ago, I just gravitated towards the ‘40s, ‘50s-era, more so than modern stuff. Whenever Latinos hear me play music, they’re always surprised. “How do you know that? That’s old mariachi!” I don’t know if in a past life, I was alive during that period…

RS: There’s something about hearing instruments made from wood, or the texture of that vintage sound. It feels… different emotionally than contemporary recordings.

RM: I didn’t grow up in the States, and so this might be the answer to why I personally like it. I grew up in military, embassy compounds overseas, and so my exposure to American culture was largely through classic films - ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s films. That shaped my music taste.

RS: Especially seeing it from abroad.

RM: Exactly. Because you’re not in it. You’re one step removed. And honestly, that’s how I feel about how I ended up writing country music too. I didn’t grow up with it, but I have listened to enough of it to know what’s going on. And Patsy Cline didn’t grow up in Nashville or Austin. She listened to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. Her early music was super honky-tonk because she knew what it was and could play the style.

That’s something I think people don’t realize about country music history in terms of the debate over authenticity or whatever. Many legends of country didn’t grow up on a farm, weren’t cowboys. I don’t know where that came from.

Subscribe now

RS: How did the Holy Smokes come together?

RM: On Christmas Eve 2020, I wrote a country song randomly. About six months later, I channeled a poem, and after that I started writing a lot - about 20 songs in a year. I had a solo show at the end of 2021. My pedal steel player, Brooks Hefner, was there and said, “If you ever want to have pedal steel behind your music, let me know.” I said, “Absolutely.” The band played its first show in April 2022. After some early change-ups, it’s been the same five guys for three years now. The mariachi elements came about a year later.

RS: So you didn’t start as a mariachi-style band.

RM: No. As you can see from our album, we’re really not. We play two [Spanish-language] originals and three Spanish covers. I’m writing more songs in Spanish that I hope to incorporate into the band, so it’s definitely a part of our show. I sing in Spanish better than in English because the vowels are more operatic.

RS: How did this album come together?

RM: We’ve been playing these songs for a long time. We had 30–35 originals to choose from. We wanted variety: slow songs, fast songs, different feels. “Even in My Dreams” is 12/8 swamp pop — more like Freddy Fender or even Patsy Cline.

RS: That’s my favorite on the album. And you do soar in that song vocally as well. It is that sort of operatic sound.

RM: Thank you. And that song almost didn’t make the album!

“Somedays, Sometimes” is countrypolitan, Tammy Wynette-style wall-of-sound with strings, and “1000 Little Heartbreaks” is a straight two-step. And then what if we only make one album? We don’t want to hold back. We’re gonna make the best album we can possibly make.

And then the story of the album was figured out in post [production]. It was pretty clear that my songwriting revolved around some pretty consistent themes. The woman who painted my album cover is a close friend of mine, and I asked her, “Can you please listen to the album and tell me what you think is about?” Are you into tarot at all?

RS: I dabble.

RM: She says, “I think your album is the seven of cups and the eight of cups.” The seven of cups is - you’re kind of captivated by the fantasy, right? And that can be really full of potential, but it also can keep you stuck. And the eight of cups is about walking away from something that is holding you back from your spiritual growth. And like all the songs do this. “Gonna Be Mine” is definitely a seven of cups song. “This Little Heart” is an eight of cups song. “Even in My Dreams” is a seven of cups song. “Esta Herida” is an eight of cups song. “I’m stuck. I don’t know how to get out of this”, or “I’m stuck. I should get out of this. I’m not ready to get out of this” - whether it’s a relationship, drinking, being poor, whatever.

RS: Or holding yourself back? Do you see your story in that as well?

RM: I think “Gonna Be Mine” might be the most thematically connected to that one, because my friend and I wrote it as pure satire, but it actually is like, “Oh yeah. I’m gonna make it. It’s gonna be my life when I do (wink).”

Subscribe now

In part 2 of the interview, Ramona and I chat about songwriting influences from the pop and indie worlds, her brand of folk Catholicism, and music as mystic ritual. Part 2 drops later this week.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

And anyway, who has the fucking time to plan an operation like that? One thing I can guarantee - the thieves weren’t art historians. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no one better to single out specific works for the taking. (And these were specific.) We’re great at selling you on why a specific brooch or painting or doodle is the best damn thing in the museum. I once went to the International Print Fair in London with a friend and convinced her within five minutes that a David Hockney litho was the most spectacular thing on the wall. I mean, it was, but it’s not always easy to communicate why, especially to someone who’s initially skeptical. We know the objects in museum collections, and we know their backstories like they’re our damn siblings. We have a very specific set of skills.

But even this analog-as-fuck heist took planning, and no art historian has time for that. First of all, we’re horrible at planning. Just putting together a syllabus for a class I’ve taught for ten years makes me sweat, yearn to deep clean my kitchen, and fixate on running random errands (preferably out of the country). But more to the point, we’re too busy dashing from one part-time contract job to another to pull of a daring heist, since we’re pretty much all employed as contingent faculty now. Or we’re going to be. But I digress.

I should point out, reader, that nothing good will come of this theft. It is deeply serious. The many comments on the multitude of social media accounts that have covered this news or mined it for memes (rich material there) are largely farcical and occasionally pull a face at the Louvre for having stolen works in their collection to begin with. While it’s true that the stones in the jewels were extracted from India and Colombia as a product of colonial exploitation, the jewels, if not recovered, may be recut and sold, the mounts melted down. Whoever nicked them, I’m wagering, does not intend to repatriate the stones to their countries of origin.

But dammit, you guys, I am conflicted about this entire episode because, on the one hand, theft is awful. But on the other hand, holy hell this is entertaining.

I was not prepared for my own response to the theft, which was one of nostalgia.

I’m taken in by the vintage element. I can’t help myself. It’s almost refreshingly romantic. It wasn’t a hack, a cybercrime, a data breach, a pipeline shut down remotely. It was an old-fashioned, analog jewel heist. The thieves got away on a pair of scooters. A pair of scooters. It all sounds so charmingly retro that it’s spawned a universe of memes striking comedic gold. A roundup of my favorites:

The feeling of being entertained by this is a weird one. What happened was a crime, and a big one. As an art historian especially, I understand how heartbreaking this is for research and for the museum-going public. But whenever I start to feel like a bit of a shit for finding the humor in the situation, I remember that Marcel Duchamp reacted in exactly the same way when the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911.

Mostly, though, I have to wonder…how the fuck bad is it when the feel-good news story of the fall so far is a jewel heist??? Is our reaction to the incident reflective of the general hellscape that is the current state of affairs?

As always, the whole thing got me thinking about music. If I were to plan a heist in France - and I absolutely am not, to be clear - there would be a soundtrack. The tenor of this Thomas Crown-type shit isn’t hyperpop or glitchcore. It’s dark wood, smoky atmospheres, and jazz. It’s Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman.”

So, without further ado (or adieu), here is the top of my jewel heist playlist:

1. Henry Mancini, “The Pink Panther Theme”

   Rather goes without saying, doesn’t it? Sleek, suave, and sexy, it’s the anthem of heist tunes for a reason. Goes perfectly with a waistcoat and fedora (even if it’s not a detective wearing them). A Parisian jewel theft just demands jazz.

2. Charley Crockett, “A Stolen Jewel”

   This one feels poetic. Crockett’s throwback style perfectly fits the vintage vibe of the heist itself. Bonus points for Charley’s own history in Paris as a busker.

3. The Kills, “Jewel Thief”

   This cowpunk rambler is pretty on the nose and a perfect mix of retro jangle and modern dissonance.

4. Henry Mancini, “Peter Gunn Theme”

   Mancini might as well be the official court composer of sexy-ass criminality. This rock-jazz hybrid is practically made of stealthily opened windows and the muffled cracking of skylights.

5. Jimmy Buffett, “The Great Filling Station Holdup”

   I know, stealing from the Louvre is no laughing matter. But I can’t help but find humor in it, and I think Buffett would have understood. He penned this honky-tonker about a real-life pair of backwoods bandits who robbed a gas station - in Florida, naturally - and got caught showing off their haul at a local beer joint.

Honorable mentions go to:

• Bob Dylan, “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts” and anything off the album Love and Theft

• Paul Simon, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” (about a drug bust rather than jewel theft, but it just sounds like getting away with some mischief)

• Beastie Boys, “Rhymin & Stealin”

• Hank Snow, “The Man Who Robbed the Bank at Santa Fe”

• Jane’s Addiction, “Been Caught Stealing”

• Tom Waits, “Small Change”

What would be on your heist playlist? Drop a tune in the comments.

I’m not that surprised that both grunge and Y2K pop have made a comeback, but what interests me even more is the absolutely massive ‘90s pop culture phenomenon that didn’t: the swing jazz revival.

There was a moment in the late ‘90s when swing and big band jazz of the 1930s and ‘40s was not just back, it was everywhere. From about 1994 to 1999, we traded our flannel shirts and Doc Martens for porkpie hats, t-strap heels, and whatever vintage duds we could get our hands on, and, I shit you not, rocked out to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Contemporary bands, mostly out of California, but with some East Coast representation too, decided everything old was new again, and suddenly top 40 radio had horn sections and jump blues rhythms. Swing was just about ubiquitous by the end of the decade - on the radio, in commercials, on the runway, making cameos in movies, providing the storyline for entire movies. But it isn’t having the same kind of nostalgia tour as Y2K excess (or minimalism, if you’re gauging by the size of the tops I wore at the time).

I’m an art historian, so I'm constantly investigating two main questions: why this and why now? In this case, the question becomes, why not this, and why not now? Put another way, in well-worn narrative of the fashion cycle, why do we relegate some trends to the dustbin of history while reviving others? Why isn’t swing coming back?

Subscribe now

Neo-swing was a slow burn that emerged from the punk scene (which was why the music of the neo-swing era never made it as high on the pop charts as it did on the modern rock, later called alternative, charts). Hollywood picked up on it quickly. In the early ‘90s, swing dance scenes were a splashy way of adding historical context in several blockbuster movies - Swing Kids (1993), A League of Their Own (1992), Malcolm X (1992), Newsies (1992), to name a few. And in a couple of flicks, it even moved the plot forward. In The Mask (1994), a zoot suit-clad Jim Carrey delivered his signature line, “Ssssssssmokin’!,” in the midst of a cartoonishly exaggerated swing number with Cameron Diaz, choreographed to the brassy “Hey! Pacheco!” by the Royal Crowne Revue, one of L.A.’s hottest swing bands. And while it wasn’t at all a swing dance showcase, the iconic 1995 blockbuster Clueless featured the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, who would have an absolute smash on their hands two years with the ska-pop head-bopper, “The Impression That I Get.” The Bosstones were ska, not swing, but when you’ve got a horn section wearing suits, you’re part of the trend.

The movie pinnacle of swingcore came two years later with Swingers, the 1996 shoestring budget indie turned box office gold that became a kingmaker for Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. As it had in The Mask, swing featured in a pivotal scene for Favreau’s hapless but charming Mike, whose competent swing number with Lorraine (Heather Graham) saw him get his literal and figurative groove back. The setting was the Derby, a neo-swing hot spot in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, and the vintage-tinged tune was Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s “Go Daddy-o,” the first of a string of hits for the band. Royal Crowne Revue crawled so Big Bad Voodoo Daddy could jump, jive and wail.

In pop music, the Stray Cats' 1981 rockabilly hit, "Stray Cat Strut," was a precursor of the swing fad. Likewise, the popularity of ska in the 1970s and 1980s, with groups like the Specials and Toots and the Maytals bringing it into the mainstream, and then the ska-punk crossover with bands like the Clash, all lead to the swing explosion as well. It is no coincidence that virtually all of the founding members of neo-swing’s core outfits came from the punk scene. The hopped-up, turbo rhythms of ska were easy bedfellows of punk, which took the principles of pop and cranked them up to supersonic speeds. (Think the hyperrhythms of the Ramones’ “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker.”) Add horns on the upbeat, and it’s a quick leap from punk to ska. Ska is by no means big band jazz, but but had a vintage vibe and a hot horn section. And the overlap is considerable in terms of both music and fashion. You could wear the same outfit to a swing dance club as you could to a ska show - spats, a porkpie hat, baggy trousers. Good to go.

There were regional variations on the style too, and as an East Coaster, I can attest to this. Before I’d ever heard of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, I was rummaging through my big brother’s album collection when he was home from college, looking for new shit by a local Virginia ska band called Boy-O-Boy. They would shortly change their name to Fighting Gravity and would feature in a seven-page spread in the March 21, 1996 issue of Rolling Stone. As a high schooler and a college student, I caught gigs by a host of east-coast ska and swing bands like the Pietasters, Mephiskapheles, and the Squirrel Nut Zippers in addition to Fighting Gravity. It was an actual scene.

Meanwhile, after their appearance in Swingers, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy exploded into the mainstream. Though they didn’t crack the pop charts, “You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three Tonight (Baby)” made a dent in the alternative charts in 1998. The year prior, the Squirrel Nut Zippers had the genre’s first smash hit with “Hell,” a hot little number about burning eternally in the afterlife that was a satisfying combination of New Orleans ragtime and a teensy coda of hardcore screaming. Also in 1998, “Zoot Suit Riot” by the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, another west coast punk-turned-swing outfit, became a surprise smash. The band, recognizing the swing craze when they saw it, threw together a compilation of jazzy tracks in their repertoire to take advantage of the rising tide, and it worked. “Zoot Suit Riot” peaked at number 15 on the alternative charts and managed crossover pop success too, snagging airtime on top-40 radio. Swing was indie and cool, sitting right there on the alternative/modern rock charts with the Foo Fighters, Radiohead and the Beastie Boys.

Lindy hop even made an appearance at my suburban Virginia high school prom in 1997. At one point, we were all gathered around a group of three or four theater kids who were cutting it up to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, clad in porkpie hats and suspenders. I was in college from 1997-2001, and the swing dance class at the university’s rec center was far and away the most popular, selling out every semester. When a trend has made its way from the L.A. club scene into sleepy mountain towns in Virginia, it is definitively a pop culture phenomenon.

And then the Gap used it to sell khakis, the least hipster, least anti-establishment, least underground item of clothing you could possibly choose. And that was the end of it.

Really, the fact is that, if we’re talking about top 40 radio at all, we’re likely looking at a fad at the end of its tenure, when it’s transitioned from hipster-endorsed freshness to stale commercialism. And so it went with swing (and, shortly thereafter, its cousin ska). Swing was as mainstream as you could get, and that meant it couldn’t be the locus of whatever was edgy, fresh, and cool. By then, even ska-influenced pop bands like No Doubt were already ditching the horns on the upbeat for new wave sounds (a history recounted in detail in Ken Partridge’s book, Hell of a Hat.) The craze was over.

And it’s not coming back. Which, to me, is the most fascinating part of it all.

Plenty of people have written about the politics of cultural revivals and the why of it all - why the ‘90s are back, why country is having a moment. But I’m interested in why some trends don’t come back. What’s the politics of rejecting an era? If fashion cycles move in sequence, then we’re due for a revival of the mid-to-late 90s swing craze. But it is just not happening. Is this reiteration of ‘90s and Y2K trends just ditching swing and jazz altogether, even though the timeline says they’re due for their nostalgia tour?

To be clear, I’m not lamenting this, ahem, gap in the Y2K revival. Every new cohort of young people picks the trends they want to revamp. It’s not up to me, and I’m decidedly neutral on whether we see it again or not. But I am curious about the why of it all.

So to figure out why swing just isn’t sticking, I enlisted the help of some friends - a sociologist, a music writer, a jazz historian, and musicians who were on the ground performing the stuff. You can read more about this in part 2, so stay tuned, and subscribe if you haven’t already. And drop a line in the comments! Did you live through the ‘90s neo-swing craze? What’s your swing story?

Subscribe now

Where are all the diss tracks?

Not diss-as-in-disrespect-or-disparage tracks. Clipse, Pharrell and Kendrick have us covered with “Chains and Whips,” a treatise on the art form. You could say we’re in a golden age of diss tracks on the heels of the Drake-Kendrick feud.

I’m talking about dissent tracks.

Subscribe now

Pop culture in 2025 is eerily quiet on this front. Considering the state of things, there is (to my mind) very little political discourse in the pop culture arena. There are notable exceptions, like Nicola Coughlin’s advocacy for the people of Gaza and Bruce Springsteen’s onstage middle finger to the current administration. Olivia Rodrigo passionately endorsed abortion rights onstage during her GUTS tour. Rosalía recently condemned the violence in Gaza after a viral pressure campaign on social media compelled her to speak up.

But by and large, the pattern I’m seeing is one of appeasing the kneejerk stay-in-your-lane criticisms of artists who engage in political speech. Media outlets are, instead, sublimating fringe celebs into the Hollywood elite. In the most recent issue of GQ, An article on luxury sunglasses by LA designer Jerôme Mage tosses Joe Rogan and Kid Rock into a roster of A-list celebrities wearing the luxe frames. This need to appeal to consumers across the political spectrum, including its fringes, might be why there is no song of the summer this year (except there was, and it wasn’t a song at all).

If our politics are matching the sixties in terms of upheaval and chaos, the music isn’t keeping pace. Pop music in the sixties was reactionary and rife with dissent. Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” was unabashedly antiwar. In response to unrest following curfews in LA in 1966, Buffalo Springfield recorded “For What It’s Worth,” their most enduring hit (and the most iconic use of a bass drum). Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” penned in 1964 during the Civil Rights movement, remains one of the most moving anthems of resistance ever written. (It’s been covered by artists from Aretha Franklin to Ben Sollee to the Cold War Kids.) The massive superstars of the day didn’t keep quiet. Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” was a plea for love and compassion in a time of division. The Beatles were pressured to respond to the political violence of the summer of 1968 and came up with the sympathetic but ultimately pacifist “Revolution,” prompting the Rolling Stones to write “Street Fighting Man,” their version of a political call to arms that embraced more violent methods of protest.

This is just not happening in the pop music scene now. But diss tracks - the other kind of diss tracks - are out there. They’re just underground.

Anthems of dissent that explicitly address immigration, trans rights, censorship, and authoritarianism are flourishing outside the mainstream. Here are some artists flying (more or less) under the radar who are tossing out tunes that go hard and actually live up to the damn-the-man origins of rock and roll, punk, and hip-hop. Some of these artists, like Earth to Eve and Renee Christine, are posting homespun recordings on social media and going viral. Meanwhile, Snow Tha Product has been spitting rapid-fire verses about immigration and queer rights for years but never blew up, precisely (I’d wager) because she was “too queer” and “too political.”

Cain Culto, “KFC Santería” and “KFC Santería Remix” ft. Sudan Archives

If I it were up to me, Cain Culto would be a household name already. His single “KFC Santería” went viral in March, and it’s a dissertation on political resistance that blends hip-hop rhythms and cheeky rap verses with Latin folk stylings and a bluegrass fiddle. A scorching hot bar calling out “too many Ku Klux Kardashians” is the line of the year, and it’s not even close. Cain is already burning it down on “KFC,” and the remix (linked above) cranks up the political discourse to an eleven and features a sublime verse by Sudan Archives.

Earth to Eve, “THREAT LEVEL ORANGE”

Redhead curly girls are having a moment in rap, with Sophie Hunter just finishing her first tour and now Earth to Eve serving up some serious middle finger energy in “THREAT LEVEL ORANGE.” The 50501 Movement featured the track in their social media post promoting upcoming Labor Day protests. And it’s no wonder why. It’s as bold a dissent track as we’ve heard and a total banger from an artist who recorded it in her own bedroom. “Fuck a fascist puppet show,” she sing-talks, while sampling the squeaking tanks limping down DC streets during the military parade in June.

Renee Christine, “The Bomb”

You mean you didn’t have a TikTok cellist who can wail on your list of figures leading the musical resistance? Any song by Renee Christine would do here - her “Turtle Island” is a driving, pulsating anthem of the Land Back movement - but her latest is a bewitching interlacing of the personal with the political. “It’s the small men with the big heads who choke the life from the best of them, but they had to burn the rules to win the game,” she laments. In the end, though, “When they drop the bombs, I’m gonna love you all day.” We all have to find our moments of joy in the chaos.

Snow Tha Product, “No Traigo Nada” and “Alligator”

Snow is a veteran of political tracks and actual diss tracks and, for my money, the hardest-spitting rapper out there. The level of breath and vocal control required to spin just one of her verses has to be in the same league as an opera singer’s training. And she’s always repped the Latinx community. The first song of hers I heard was the exquisite “Unorthodox,” where she called out the haters for dismissing her based on her gender and ethnicity. That was 2011, and fourteen years later she’s still calling bullshit when she sees it. “No Traigo Nada” is an emotive response to the immigration raids, written from the perspective of a parent crossing the border. (Snow is the daughter of Mexican immigrants.) “Alligator” sees Snow returning to a more feral place, referencing Alligator Alcatraz while also warning that she’s capable of skinning an alligator if her family were to be threatened.

Nath, “Alligator Alcatraz”

Search “Alligator Alcatraz” on any music streaming platform, and you’ll find plenty of results. Artists are tackling issues like ICE raids, and I can’t pretend to have gone through every song, though I’ll keep an ear to the ground. (I do have a day job.) This one came to my attention because Nath is a local Richmond artist and because it’s a moving acoustic meditation on contemporary tragedy. In Nath’s hands, the heartbreak of Alligator Alcatraz becomes a reimagining of the story of the taking of Jesus - this time being snatched by ICE while praying.

In researching this list, I did notice a trend of political speech (as song) flourishing on social media. TikTok is positively awash in songs called “Alligator Alcatraz” (though some of them are by right-wing artists celebrating the establishment). The trick, I suppose, is crossing over from viral stardom to pop stardom, which is a fascinating topic worthy of another post.

What songs have come your way lately? Did they pop up in your algorithm or come across your fyp? Did you see an artist performing a diss track live? Leave a note in the comments, and feel free to add to the playlist. In the meantime, I’m packing something interesting for next week’s post…

The smash hit of the summer was the Coldplay concert video and the millions of memes it spawned.

Subscribe now

Think about it. The pop Song of the Summer is the one thing that just about everyone consumes, the piece of media that breaks through the almost impenetrable algorithm-driven compartments we now occupy as viewers and listeners. It often takes a megastar to do it, but Taylor is laying low after a historic tour, Beyonce is on the road, Gaga’s album came out too early to qualify, etc. A breakthrough artist can claim the spot as well (see Sabrina Carpenter and Shaboozey), but it just hasn’t happened yet. And it’s getting late. The Song of the Summer is usually something you bump for weeks, a tune that becomes a family member for a few months and attaches itself to memories.

I’m not as cynical as the WSJ and Business Insider and think that “Golden,” a track from the Netflix movie “KPop Demon Hunters” is a solid contender. I’m not hearing it at the grocery store yet, but it has made appearances at pool parties and rec league swim meets, which is suburban-coded for successful. Nonetheless, it’s not yet as dominant as “Espresso” was last year. Likewise, Justin Bieber’s “Daisies” is being tossed around as a possibility, and while it hasn’t been out long enough to be ubiquitous, who knows? Maybe it can make up for lost time. But as of now, I’ve heard it once and couldn’t hum it back for you.

None of them comes close to the sheer cultural dominance of the Coldplay vid. The Coldplay kiss cam cheater reveal was the dopamine hit we were all seeking, and it delivered. It served schadenfreude - a one-percenter getting caught red-handed. It spawned essays on surveillance culture in the digital age. And in an age when it seems like shitty people are getting away with doing increasingly shitty things with no repercussions, the Astronomer couple were the shady folks who got their comeuppance in the most public way possible. Chris Martin’s awkwardly perfect reaction to the pair’s quick, um, uncoupling upon being caught - and the sheer balls to be cheating at an arena concert, hardly a private affair - gave us permission to find the whole thing funny, even if it had deeply serious repercussions. (Although with the absolute genius move that was hiring Gwyneth Paltrow as a “very temporary spokesperson,” maybe Astronomer won’t be so bad off after all?) The public sphere sprang into action when the kiss can footage went viral.

What does it mean that the song of the summer isn’t song at all? I’m not convinced that the desert of pop hits this summer means anything dire about pop in the long term. I certainly don’t think it means nearly as much about pop artists as it does about how, or even if, massive swaths of the population can agree that a particular product is worthy of our collective attention, and what that thing might be.

On the plus side, it may point to a vacuum of sorts waiting to be filled by a new pop sensation who can rise to the challenge and feed us a catchy-ass smash hit. I know who my candidates are. I’ve been bumping Cain Culto since March, whose deep cut “Dopamine Dream” is as soaring and summery a song as I’ve heard. Never mind that “Dopamine Dream” is a couple of years old. Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” wasn’t new when it became a smash, and Cain Culto is a rising artist riding the wave of a viral hit with “KFC Santería” this past spring. “KFC” is a total banger and a creative masterpiece. It’s not at all uncommon for breakout stars to re-release tunes that never got the audience they deserved before. And Culto’s back catalogue is a damn museum of bangers.

I’m also recently obsessed with “Cunt” by Flyana Boss. For that matter, I’m obsessed with Flyana Boss in general. Will a song called “Cunt” be the breakout hit of the summer? I don’t know, but as someone who is committed to being as feral as possible while the temps rise, I’m making it my theme song and adding it to the Cunt Playlist, which also includes Sophie Hunter’s fantastic track named - you guessed it - “Cunt.”

But that’s another article altogether.

In the meantime, the summer smash hits were a meme and, coming in second, a KPop movie soundtrack by a band that doesn’t officially exist. Whatever’s going on, culture is meeting us where we are.

Ever since those words jumped off the page and invisibly tattooed me, I’ve been dreaming of a starting a series called “Bag Check: Five Things in Your Suitcase.” The idea is to interview musical artists about a selection of things they take with them on tour, from the mundane to the oddball. Just a brief Q&A about items of personal significance. Because objects have stories, and the stories from the road are fascinating.

It may come as no surprise that I’m an art historian. This is, after all, a feature about collections of curated objects. The stuff in your bag tells a story, and when that bag is packed for a concert, it’s a personal story, it’s a travel story, and it’s a music story. My three favorite kinds.

So I started this Substack. I’ve been an art historian for years but always wanted to write about music because I fundamentally believe that rock writing is the same thing as art history. It’s a hill I’ll happily die on, but hopefully I won’t have to. If all goes well, I’ll just get to wave that flag from the top of this hill every day.

what we are

check one two is a hub for storytelling, whether we’re delving rock history for little-known trivia (I’m a historian, after all), debating the merits of rock/pop-as-performance-art, doing a roundup of the most deliciously outlandish concert outfits, or profiling the next big artist. (Dream big, bitches.)

Subscribers to check one two can look forward to series like bag check (peeks inside the suitcase for fans and - fingers crossed - artists), sound check (current listens, new music, music news), mic check (interviews), and fit check (concert fashion stories).

Subscribe now

what we’re not

I’ve never been into reviews. Even when I reviewed art exhibitions, I wasn’t giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down. That never made sense to me. What I think is puerile or vacant or great or moving is, in the end, a story about me, and that’s not what I’m here for. In my arts and culture writing, I only ever tried to explain what the artist was getting at - what the story was - and after a long conversation with them about it. Then it was up to the reader and the viewer to decide if the work had hit the mark or not.

So at check one two, you won’t find stars, up-down voting, or best-of lists.

You also won’t find a crystal ball.

I know enough about music to understand that producing good work isn’t a guarantee of success. Plenty of artists are out there right now, writing and recording astonishingly good music that may never crack through your algorithm, much less the mainstream (whatever that is now). Some of my favorite artists of the past few decades never experienced mainstream success even though I was sure they would, based on talent alone. There is so much more to the music industry than music, and I don’t pretend to be an expert on marketing rollouts, contract clauses, and management groups.

where we’re going

The dream is a Bag Check series that lets me sit down (or Zoom, whatever) with artists as they zip around on tour, or conclude one, or gear up to kick one off. We chat briefly - just 15 minutes - about the most bizarre things in their luggage, the most achingly mundane objects they carry, and items in between.

But in the meantime, fans have stories that are just as rich and fascinating. Maybe not as glamorous - although, shit, maybe more so, I don’t know - but stories worth telling.

One of these days I’d love to sit down with Charley and shoot the shit about that amulet. What the fuck is it? How did it come to be his? Does it change with every tour? How does he choose the amulet? Or does the amulet choose itself? What’s the story? If you’re reading this, Charley - hey, it could happen - the invitation for a fifteen-minute, amulet-focused sit-down remains open.

Subscribe now