I sometimes shy away from including dance tracks on this list, which isn’t really fair.
It’s natural, I guess, to associate “beauty” in music with slow tempos, soft instrumentation, and lyrics that evoke longing, love, or nostalgia. But who’s to say that a song engineered to get us dancing can’t be beautiful?
A quick scan of the archives tells me that we haven’t listened to a really up-tempo dance track since week 311, and the last dance track with vocals was all the way back in week 140.
So I’m very happy to break this streak of bias towards downtempo songs with this song by Jain.
If her music feels hard to place in terms of genre or geography, it’s likely because her trans-cultural, “child of the world” type upbringing has infused her music with a broad mix of influences. Born in France with Occitan roots, Jain (pronounced “Jane”) was raised partly in France, partly in Dubai, partly in the Congo, partly in Abu Dhabi. Her interest in music was fed by so many disparate influences that, even in her more western-pop moments, there is always something un-western about her music.
Her 2015 track “Makeba” can fit just about any mood. If you’re feeling militant, joyful, motivated, or eccentric, this song works. And that’s beautiful.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The repeating “oo-eee” is the catchiest use of vowels in any song I can think of.
2. The groove seems to take some cues from The Jackson’s “Shake Your Body” but there’s something more driving and less carefree about it, which probably has to do with…
3. …the subject matter. The song is a tribute to activist and musician Miriam Makeba, whom we featured just a couple weeks ago, and whose life is definitely deserving of memorialization in such a powerful, exuberant, and beautiful song as this one.
Recommended listening activity:
Getting work done, but also dancing.