Posted by You can tell by my 3 day old sunburn still peeling off my face and from the sweat dripping down my knee-pits while working from inside my home…it’s officially summer baby. And this weekend is the highlight of many people’s summers, the Fourth of July.
A weekend where you might be on the UE Boom at the barbecue playing some pop music while people pop a buncha gluten-filled food into their mouths. A weekend where you might be on the aux cord in an uber on the way to bar and playing some bangers to get you all jacked up and ready to talk to some ladies at the bar. A weekend where you didn’t find love at the bar and you listen to sad music in your headphones on the way home wondering if you’re the problem….but a music-filled weekend nonetheless!
No matter which person you are above, there’s plenty of new music out there that is AMAZING. I’ve had trouble finding the time to listen to it all and actually go back and let all of the musical juices of an album marinate on me, so I thought I’d share what’s been sticking to me in this post.
Tyler the Creator – Call Me If You Get Lost
If you’ve ever read this blog before, you know I’m a huge Tyler fan. So you had to know this was coming. THIS MAN DOES NOT MISS. I thought for sure he was going to have somewhat of a fall-off after the commercial and critical success of IGOR but NOPE. Dude comes in HOT with another album of immaculate production, creative and contained aesthetics and visuals, and some serious BARS.
I can already see this being in my top 3 Tyler albums, mainly because he takes some of the things I love best from all of his previous albums. He’s got hard tracks like “Lumberjack”, “Juggernaut”, and “Corso” that sound like the Wolf Era. He’s also got the dreamy distorted songs like “Rise!”, “Hot Wind Blows” and “Safari” that could’ve been off Cherry Bomb. And then the more sing-song ones like “Sweet/ I Thought You Wanted to Dance” and “Wusyaname” that sound more like the IGOR era. He’s just taking all his best talents and STILL progressing in his style without treading on old territory.
Favorite Tracks (right now, I’m sure they’ll change): Wusyaname, Corso, Hot Wind Blows, Juggernaut, and Wilshire.
Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee
If you haven’t heard this album yet you need to change that immediately. It is GORGEOUS.
I heard about this through tik tok where some dude was claiming “Be Sweet” could be the fun alternative song of the summer, so of course my interest was peaked. And he was not wrong, this album has some wicked fun yet beautiful and unique alternative songs. “Be Sweet” lived up to the hype with “Savage Good Boy” and “Slide Tackle” following suit. But if you’re not feeling fun, there’s plenty of sad-boy shit as well. “Posing in Bondage” is a ballad that brings in some wild sounds as the song progresses that blew my mind into an existential crisis. She literally says “the world divides into 2 people, those who have felt pain and those who have yet to” and DAMN it cut me.
The best part about this album is that each song has a part that will stand out to you in a good way. Similar to Frank Ocean’s Blonde (quite possibly the best album of all time), you can tell a lot of work was put into each song, with small details making a huge difference. For example, the horns on “Paprika” or the string section on “Kokomo, IN”. There isn’t a bad song on here and I can already tell it’s gonna be in my top 10 for the year.
Favorite Tracks: Slide Tackle, Savage Good Boy, Posing for Bondage, and Paprika.
Myd – Born a Loser
When I was talking about throwing on some fun music in the background at the barbecue, this is what I was talking about. Myd takes beachy alt-rock sounds and blends it to perfection with house music. Creating a perfect poolside playlist. “The Sun” is his most popular song and a great introduction to his style. Super groovy and such a unique sound that you know he can expand and explore it more, which he does throughout the rest of the album. “Always a Light” and “I Feel Better” have the repetitive house-ness you’d expect from a Disclosure banger but with the addition of some funky guitar riffs and synths. This album got me really excited to find a new unique sound I could really dive into. I’ve also been loving the single he released with L’Imperatrice called “Loverini”. It really screams “beach-side DJ set as the sun goes down” and if that doesn’t make you wanna give it a listen I don’t know what else to say.
Favorite Tracks: The Sun, I Feel Better, and Loverini.
Lucy Dacus – Home Video
This is definitely the “cry on the way home” part of the post. This album is very sad, although it does come with a few bright spots. I honestly only listened once through yesterday and was in a pretty good mood so wasn’t really feeling the sad sad ones, but I can tell this will fill the Phoebe Bridgers sized hole in my heart once I’m inevitably depressed again. For example, “First Time” gives me “Kyoto” vibes of a fast-paced song with some cool vocals, which I obviously loved. But other parts of the album really surprised me too, like “Going, Going, Gone” sounded like a Jack Johnson cover talking about young love and how your perspective changes as the time goes by. Such a unique chorus, the stripped down production is perfect for the vibe and I’m a sucker for a messy chorus sung by multiple people.
Favorite Tracks: First Time, Going Going Gone, and Brando.
Benny Sings – Music
I am OBSESSED with this album and have been telling everyone to give it a listen. It’s just such a smooth vibe and right up my alley with how kinda groovy and simple it is. I wasn’t super familiar with Benny Sings before this, but a friend sent me “Nobody’s Fault”, the lead song off this album with a Tom Misch feature and I had to listen as Mr. Misch is a LEGEND. I loved it and when the full album dropped I couldn’t stop listening. It’s got super fun positive songs like “Lost Again”, “Kids”, and “Miracles” that will guaranteed put a smile on your face. While also having super chill songs you can put on in the car while stuck in traffic this weekend to calm you down like “Here It Comes”, “Rolled Up”, and “Sunny Afternoon”. I just absolutely love the vibe of this album and it was definitely made to be listened to in the summer, so if there’s one project you check out from this post I hope it’s this one before it’s too late.
Favorite Tracks: Lost Again, Rolled Up, Miracles and Nobody’s Fault.
Kings of Convenience – Peace or Love
This is great music if you wake up hungover this weekend and just want to lay in bed and listen to some soft strings and harmonies to make you feel like everything’s ok. I’ve only given this 1 or 2 listens through as well but I really enjoyed it as a whole project. I stumbled across the YouTube video for “Rocky Trail” a few weeks ago and fell in love with the song so was eager to check out the rest of their album. These guys are insanely talented and have apparently been around for like 20 years now. They have a great acoustic folky sound and kinda sound Simon and Garfunkley at points throughout the album, which should mean a lot because S&G RULE.
Favorite Tracks: Rocky Trail, Catholic Country, and Fever.
Yung Bae – Groove Continental
To be fair, this isn’t an album. It’s a radio show on the superior streaming service, Apple Music (please get mad about this the engagements will help the blog).
Again, if you’ve read the blog before you probably know I’m the number one Yung Bae promoter. The guy makes future funk music that is impossible to not dance to. The future funk train is about to leave the station so hop on if you’re not already. This genre is perfect for the summer because it takes all the groovy elements of Disco and revamps it for the 21st century of EDM. If you’re a galaxy brain with Apple Music, check out his radio show on his artist page, and if you’re in the majority of losers in America with Spotify, here’s the top 3 songs I found from his show via Youtube.
That sums it up folks.
EDIT: I FORGOT DOJA CATS ALBUM BUT IM GETTING DINNER RIGHT NOW SO CANT UPDATE. ITS GOOD! Fun! Classic Doja! Has a little more of a carribean/latino vibe which I feel like has been overdone lately, but some good ones! Obviously kiss me more is super fire heat. Give it a listen!
Hopefully I gave you some stuff you hadn’t heard before that you can play to impress friends and family this weekend. Was there anything I missed? What were your favorite tracks on these albums? Is there something you checked out here that you ended up loving? What’s your address? Is it protected by any sort of security? If so, what’s the passwords to disable the alarms? Will your whole family be there? Let me know in the comments!
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