#tommy richman

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Tommy Richman - MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Official Lyric Video) SHOT BY BELVEDERE

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Mood.

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✨MILLION DOLLAR BABY✨

[localraspberrywoman]

my ancestors watching me get choked by a mid tier white guy once again:

[thesinglesjukebox]

TOMMY RICHMAN - "MILLION DOLLAR BABY"

Depressing math problem: how many streams of this song would it take for Mr. Richman to achieve its title status...

[6.92]

Tim de Reuse: In the TikTok age, when something goes megaviral and catapults an unknown into multi-platinum status, it's usually got, you know, a sound in it: something momentary, immediate, salty and fatty yet ephemeral and light, instantly repeatable, easily recontextualized. What single melodic hook or sound-flourish defines this song's insane popularity? It has found a way to not need one, opting instead to appeal by oozing personality out of every measure. The instrumental is bracingly dry, bright and spiky, with all atmosphere created by an uncountable set of overlapping, processed voices, braiding around each other, leaving no clear single path for your attention to follow. My favorite touch: the crunchy, dissonant minor seconds that are punched out by that synth right in the middle of the mix. The miracle here is that of a stylistic confidence, in composition and sound design, insistent enough to be as addictive as any melodic hook. [8]

Alfred Soto: Watching this model of simplicity -- beatbox, awkward falsetto, fat Miami bass -- go top five made my year. Like other flukes it justified itself. I expect no follow-up. [9]

Kylo Nocom: Great in parts: sticky funk synths, a slowed vocal sample, and some whining backing harmonies make for an impressive, cross-generationally likable cross-section of R&B. Unfortunately, the tune itself is lacking in small but vital ways, and not for the "TikTok era" song-length reasons that so many pop listeners bemoan. The chorus has a slight awkwardness that makes for increasingly grating relistens; the verse is negligible. Richman might be Brent Faiyaz's protégé, but the falsetto errs too close to Justin Vernon shoutiness for my liking. His voice is best as pure texture, so check out the "VHS" version to hear this in its peak form: densely-boosted bass clashing against strained vocal runs in a bid for primacy. It's close to what pop's decades-enduring noise vs. melody juxtaposition should be in 2024, a lineage traceable all the way back to the Wall of Sound and beyond. Gripes with this song aside, I still have hopes that this guy's got it: a recent TikTok snippet has the melodic immediacy I wish was here. [6]

Nortey Dowuona: I don't like you praising Rick Rubin, so I initiate the beef. Fuck those faux Timbaland beats, let's see you push Danja's teeth! You better off hiding his falloff than worming up to me, he's Tim Mosley, I'm Tim Curry, I'm zapping peeps. [4]

Aaron Bergstrom: Just to be clear, when I say "this dude gives me Kreayshawn vibes," what I mean is "hell yeah bouncy novelty summer jam goodness," not "I would like to have an exhausting and ultimately meaningless conversation about race." Thank you.  [8]

Taylor Alatorre: Ariel Pink if he had grown up watching MTV Jams instead of 120 Minutes, except that actually sounds like something with the hypothetical potential to be cool. Tommy Richman was born in 2000 and not 1987, but "Ariel Pink if he had grown up watching curated YouTube playlists" doesn't have the same internal symmetry. This isn't the first digital native to exploit a pan-generational Pavlovian affinity with the 808 cowbell, and it surely won't be the last. [4]

TA Inskeep: I like the vibe he's going for, and I wanna love it ('90s R&B yes please), but this is a series of Casio keyboard presets in search of a song. [5]

Harlan Talib Ockey: Whenever someone unexpected lands a huge hit, I love looking back at their previous discography to see what made this song specifically click. (Just in case there's a One Hit Wonderland episode someday.) Many of Richman’s other songs exist somewhere at the intersection of Jai Paul, Chic, and Trilogy-era The Weeknd, which is theoretically a fun mix, but they’re largely hookless and nondescript. Where's the hook in “Million Dollar Baby”? Technically the chorus, but it's this production that really makes it bang. The ominous pitch-shifted chant (apparently just "do what I should think," according to Genius, which is a little disappointing). The beeps, which are doing a shocking amount of atmospheric heavy lifting. The "oooooohs". It all builds into a particularly grim kind of sleazy desperation. (This is a compliment.) [8]

Jonathan Bradley: What does the Commonwealth of Virginia have to offer us in 2024? Rumors of Drake's hidden progeny still echoing long after Pusha T first whispered them? A download-only Pharrell Williams album? Missy Elliott being accepted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? How about some rando signed by Brent Faiyaz exhuming the one-part soul, two-parts trunk rattler sound of UGK's country rap tunes and sending it to the upper reaches of pop charts around the world? That will do nicely, thank you. [9]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: However funky and fun this will sound all summer long, it’s in spite of Tommy Richman, who sounds underwater and gasping for breath.  [5]

Katherine St. Asaph: Tommy Richman, a rando whose every photo has the distinctive pose of a college freshman trying to look badass, was largely unknown before 2024 except for (checks Google search-by-date) a Complex roundup, an interview about how he idolizes Andy Serkis and Dennis Rodman, and probably some PR juice behind the scenes. This guy listens to some dirty funk and R&B, attempts to match its freak, and... doesn't fail? Must be my critical faculties that are failing. [6]

Ian Mathers: Okay, I'm aware the background genres are very distinct (fuckboy funk-rap here, fuckboy post-punk there), but am I the only one kinda reminded of that Artemas song we covered last month? There's a similarity in vibe (although Richman seems less odious), they both basically just figure out a good hook repeat it for a little over two minutes and that's it, and I suspect the natural environment for each is driving around the city at night in the summer. They feel like beefed up interludes or parts of songs (not a complaint, honestly!). Or am I just telling on myself by revealing I'm too old for TikTok? [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Every time I listen to this I feel like I'm moving further and further away from sanity. This is not a pop hit but a funhouse mirror version of one, a misremembered version of every year between 1989 and 1998 thrown into a blender and then reconstituted; Tommy Richman's falsetto is possessed by an amateurish sort of confidence that ought to have annoyed me to death after a month of this song's omnipresence. Yet every time I hear this song -- whether by my own choice or as it blasts at dangerous volumes from passing cars -- I am all the more endeared to it. The bass, whether VHS-boosted or not, activates something within me that disarms all critical impulse; I feel swallowed up by this groove as much as I enjoy it. It's the kind of song that defies analysis -- what am I going to do, write a 4,000 word essay on the transformative power of Tommy fucking Richman? Those stacks of harmonies, those radar synths and cowbell pops and dense chord stabs: they talk enough for me, self-evident of the delirious craftsmanship of this track. People valorize the garage rock and avant folk savants of the 1960s -- the Alex Chiltons and Norma Tanegas of the world -- and I get it; this feels something like that transplanted to the modern context, a little pop symphony that sounds not quite like anything else in the world. A small miracle of the song; let me stop writing before I embarrass myself any further. [10]

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[fandom-gurrl]

THERE’S MORE??????? HOLY SHIT

[fictionalfantasies]

May 2024 Playlist Youtube Mix