Friday 8/7: Brevin Kim—"Manzanita St."
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song from the Boston ~pop~ duo Brevin Kim.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him) and Eric Bennett (they/them). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. Now we’re, also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc.
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song from the Boston ~pop~ duo Brevin Kim.
Brevin Kim—“Manzanita St.”
Eli Enis:
“Manzanita St.” is a new song from the Boston duo Brevin Kim, who’ve been making shapeshifting pop for a few years that finds common ground among a bevy of styles: mumbly emo-rap, auto-tuned R&B, crunchy pop-punk, and bubblegum bass. “Manzanita St.” adds country to that mix and honestly, this track works so much better than I think it should when I think about it too hard. It’s kind of like Alex G’s “Bad Man” by way of Lil West by way of lil aaron by way of, I don’t know, Post Malone? Trust me, I am not a Posty fan but I mean that as a compliment in that this track is an ear-worm of a woozy pop tune that glides evenly and endlessly until it doesn’t. If all of the production and effects were stripped away and the vocals were slightly more twangy, I could hear this hook ending up on country radio, but I could just as easily imagine it popping up in a playlist of post-SoundCloud pop-rap. It makes a quirky melange of genres sound incredibly normal and I like it for that. I’m in on Brevin Kim.
Eric Bennett:
This song was pitched as vaguely “hyperpop” when we decided to cover it, and I have to say I think that framing is complete bullshit. If anything, this is a perfect encapsulation of where mainstream, Top 40 radio pop already sits. If the writing has any meaning it’s washed clean by the canned drum track and synth pads. Kim’s delivery is the sort of slurred, over-and-under sang “soulful” sound that has helped cardboard cutout popstars like Charlie Puth and Shawn Mendes come to prominence. I think Kim has the potential to climb into that echelon, but why would you want that? This song’s biggest strength relies on it breaking into radio, because it’s certainly catchy enough to be one of those things you hate, and then hear 500 times and come to enjoy after because it’s now familiar to you. Molly O’Brien, co-host of the podcast And Introducing once called out the vapid references to “standing on Canal and Bowery” in The Lumineers “Ho Hey,” a criticism I could not keep from rattling around in my head with every repetition of the hook on “Manzanita St.”