Are your ears seeking fresh new sounds to explore? Your senses have led you right, it’s 3 Songs You Have To Hear! With the sunny weather and its lit-up calendar in tow, there certainly is much to experience in our world right now, including new music, and right now’s in the height of the influx, where things are announced and unveiled in high frequency everywhere you look. Looking here, some of that new music in question (including from two albums hot off the presses), let’s all have a listen!
“Cotton” by Vince Staples
The latest from Vince Staples is out now, and Cry Baby had a great string of pre-release tracks including this final lead-up single, “Cotton”. Staples keeps up the rock-inspired production here (guitar once again the first thing you hear), and weaves a metaphor on music and America’s history-stained crop export, an artform and a commodity that can be both joyful yet sinister. Staples has always been an artist with something to say (and one who says it well), and he’s showing no signs of slowing down on this new collection.
“Callin (feat. Blu june)” by Syd
The Internet (and Odd Future)’s Syd is back this year, with a new album this summer called Beard. “Callin” is love on the sidelines, the phone the vessel for (a missed?) connection that Syd’s more lowkey-minded than to pursue outwardly. It’s the personal impersonal, a direct line that still has some distance inherent but feels so vital and immediate nonetheless, with one question always up in the air: will they pick up the call?
“Wants For Everyone” by Slippers
How infinite the power-pop well still seems to be is always such an amazement to me – devotees of Dayton’s own Guided By Voices certainly know that, as have forerunners and disciples before and after. If you’re also one who’s fascinated by the wealth of little song nuggets out there, turn your ears over to Los Angeles’ Slippers, with a new album out last Friday called Slippers 08. “Wants For Everyone” is “just kidding” love, a hot and cold relationship boiled down into 2.5 minutes of peppy bliss, a little sugar to help the letdown go down smoother.
Get the latest 3 Songs You Have To Hear and more delivered directly to your inbox in The Countdown, our biweekly music newsletter.