July 12, 2019

Ralph’s New Single is the Perfect Way to Escape One Hell of a Long Week

Time to dance.

Ralph

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This week: “Gravity” by Ralph (Crocodile tears Inc., 2019)

Why we’re into it: A delightful mix of house and alternative pop, Ralph has delivered a song made for dancing the long week away.

The first single since her debut album Good Girl—which if you haven’t had the chance, that album is packed with just as much delight as “Gravity” and is worth all your streams—stands in stark contrast to its predecessors. Whereas Ralph has leaned toward a more soft-pop sound in the past (“Cereal,” “Tables Have Turned,” and “Long Distance Lover“)—synthy keys layered over a slow and steady drum beat—”Gravity” is a welcome foray into the dance/house genre.

While still a quintessential pop song—repetition, repetition, repetition—Ralph ditches the soft drum for a harder, disco-inspired beat, the build culminating in a drop that puts us squarely in house’s territory. Keep an ear out for the keys that sound off behind her crush-filled lyrics. The chorus is strong even after Ralph’s vocals die off, the keys keeping you impatient for more. (Young & Sick is another artist using engaging piano/key work similarly.)

It’s not as if Ralph needed to go and explore with different sounds. She was dominating her corner of the pop genre already, her indie white-girl voice hitting you like the first days of fall in the aptly named “September Fades.” But she made the right move in building on the more upbeat sound she toyed with in “Bedroom Eyes.” “Gravity” reaps the rewards of that experimentation, channeling the very energy that made early house so exciting with a twist of the modern pop sound she does so well.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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