Not wasting a good song on him. Cue up Steam.

i agree about the mixed feelings. i'm a music over lyrics person, but i also privilege music in languages i understand (spanish and portuguese primarily, french to a lesser degree) than in languages i don't because lyrics are rarely contentless (even in funk/dembow) and i get a richer experience

#TheTenX5 42. Inna Modja, “French Cancan (Monsieur Sainte Nitouche)” (2011) Another more famous French singer born in Mali will be along later in this countdown, but I'll always be grateful to Inna Modja for this easily digestible bit of classicism easing me into francophonie. youtu.be/hdnGfzzk18k

to expand on this, "Gasolina" didn't even hit #1 on the Hot Latin chart, which tracked nationwide Spanish-language radio play. its peak position was #17! even on the Tropical Songs chart, it stalled at #2 behind a bachata hit. less "Rock Around the Clock" and more "Good Rockin' Tonight."

a lot of the potted histories of latin crossover in the u.s. start with jelly roll morton's "spanish tinge" but i would start with vernon & irene castle's adoption of the tango and maxixe (played by bandleader james reese europe) because dance has been the key diffusion method for a century

With respect to my compatriots, there’s only one guy I want to read on last night, and now you can click the dang link

this was about ricky martin singing "lo que le pasó a hawaii" btw

FYI, in case anyone in my circles is tempted by the idea that only one little brown boy can be notable at a time

he didn't play my favorite BB song (it's too much of a slowie for the energy of that performance) but he did do a bit of my second favorite, so i'm happy

god, the insistence on regular everyday humanity throughout, the children, the elderly, the mamás, the community, always community. bad bunny is something bigger and better than a rockstar

holy shit

nbc universal got my 11 dollars, i'm not waiting to see benito

in the mid-2000s, bewitched by a theory of thirty-year popular music cycles (1920s jazz, 1950s rock, 1980s rap/electronic), i speculated that the next wave would be coming from the u.s.'s latin underclass rather than (or in concert with) its black underclass.

we talk a lot about conservatives living lives built around spiting liberals, but the way social media has been serving me up white people who have no natural interest in him embracing bad bunny anyway forces me to conclude that there’s a lot of the reverse going on too

#TheTenX5 43. Mariah, “Perreito” (2019) The pattern for a whole genre of deadpan, uninflected young women’s reggaeton that has exploded in the 2020s. Mariah Angeliq has the misfortune of being 🇺🇸 rather than 🇲🇽, 🇪🇸 or 🇦🇷, so like most prophets she has little honor in her own land. youtu.be/8vPxDAMqGeI

keith’s post below informed me about the existence of this movie, which i just got out of at the gene siskel. very good, extremely poetic meditation on ritual, violence, and the enormous consequences of line go up

“Please send it to me for recycling.”

#TheTenX5 44. Far East Movement ft. the Cataracts & Dev, “Like a G6” (2010) This one is pure nostalgia. I drove two hours to work at this time and almost always spent it soaking in the radio after a decade of considering myself too intellectual for what the masses enjoyed. youtu.be/w4s6H4ku6ZY

The one that immediately came to mind is more of an ensemble piece, but everyone who matters is a woman.

essay i mentioned previously on how independent music gives you the basic tools for organizing even if you didn’t realize you were building those skills, and how great it’s been to watch people hit the ground running

i've been doing 50-song countdowns of my favorite music since 2020, but now i'm considering doing a 300-song megalist for 2025 with 10 songs each from 30 different countries/regions/ethnic subpopulations in order to cover the actual variety i'm hearing

Two newsletters in one week’ I’m on a roll buttondown.com/jonathanboga...

bluesky-only experiences: scrolling past all the furry art and resist libs on what's hot classic until you find the discourse people are talking about

#TheTenX5 45. Miguel, “Adorn” (2012) Maybe one reason I don't include a lot of male voices in my pop diet anymore is that few of them can approach the sensuousness and command that Miguel has over his instrument. An unreasonable standard to hold everyone else to, I know. youtu.be/8dM5QYdTo08

taking in more culture

i should maybe note for the record that when i post a 2025 music video this month it's because it's not making my own shortlist but i thought people here might like it

Afro-French pop in 2025 is not typically influenced by shoegaze and riot grrrl, but the world is a big big place youtu.be/VspyR320paA

#TheTenX5 46. Ivy Queen, “La Vida Es Así” (2010) After 15 years at the forefront of urbano boricua, la Reina del Reggaeton delivers hard-earned wisdom about trusting male promises. Her authoritative style will be old-fashioned by mid decade, but here she's still the queen. youtu.be/Lbpr-mEEnRo

Cy Twombly, Study for Presence of a Myth (1959) Me, Scuffed-Up Interior Wall of a Tractor Trailer at Work (2018)

goddammit youtube are you still doing the glitch where after 400 songs in a playlist you won't autoplay the next one

found this picture of me online, very concerning for privacy

#TheTenX5 47. DJ Snake ft. Lil Jon, “Turn Down for What” (2014) Sometimes you just need a guy shouting at you while the beat does the musical equivalent of shouting at you. The self-immolating recession death/dance drive boiled down to pure throat-burning essence. youtu.be/HMUDVMiITOU

2020s mexican-american hippie-lucha cumbia outfit reinterpreting a 1980s spanish goth-funk classic, sorry to everyone who isn't cultured enough to get it youtu.be/WYIZ3teJf6c

the first artist on my 2025 queue this morning is mc pipokinha. almost as good as coffee at jolting me awake. but i do also have coffee

just glanced at at my 2024 music longlist on youtube. out of 657 videos, 7 have been either privated or deleted in the year since, a full percentage point. now, i'm particularly interested in volatile, low-budget, often exploitative genres in the global south, but still. the internet is NOT forever

the particular pain of an episode of a companionable-chatter podcast devoted to something you actually know a bit about

neoperreo is back (it never really went away)

sometimes i miss tumblr, where i would have posted a song like this and written 300 words ruminating on the decade since i first fell in love with yuri and ary, but because it's not quite distinctive enough to make my year-end list i won't write about it at all youtu.be/7qmJ24cWtow

genuinely what arts coverage can feel like sometimes

my local movie theater has been closed since 2023. looks like it's reopening this year; i'll definitely be supporting it when it does chicagoreader.com/film-tv/movi...

first newsletter of 2026, detailing a fun play i saw on friday: buttondown.com/jonathanboga...

#TheTenX5 48. Fuse ODG ft. Tiffany, “Azonto” (2011) Not the first viral African dance of the internet era, but the first one I was aware of. It led me to expect Ghana to be a pop powerhouse equal to Nigeria, and even today I'll perk up when a Ghanaian artist has a lively beat. youtu.be/GTUIlOudlHI

nearest i've been able to figure is that being a peasant in the u.s. was apparently more attractive than being a peasant in germany (father's side) or england (mother's side) in the early 19th century

glanced at the glossary of my theoretical light fiction book today, and it's probably the sharpest and funniest writing i've done on the subject, just because it's brief notes for my own use so i don't have to explain anything or put a sober, professional gloss on my opinions

going to start a thread of the albums i listen to on my daily walks, to keep me honest 26/2/2: Bad Bunny, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (2025) danceable enough that i shuffled a few pasos waiting for walk signs, music-history enough to keep my brain buzzing, long enough that i had to finish it at my desk

first newsletter of 2026, detailing a fun play i saw on friday: buttondown.com/jonathanboga...

#TheTenX5 49. Nicki Minaj, “Super Bass” (2011) Like everyone else I was in conversation with at the time, I was besotted with her flamboyant cartooniness between 2009 and 2013. More than a decade later, I stubbornly refuse to let her villainy bury Esther Dean's best topline. youtu.be/4JipHEz53sU

Joan Butler was the penname of Irish novelist Robert William Alexander, whose comic novels gave those of P. G. Wodehouse a run for the money for over 30 years. Now, they're probably as much sought after for their dust jackets as for what's between the covers. neglectedbooks.com/?...