This is our weekly recap of the best new songs released each week because Plato said that music gives soul to the universe and wings to the mind and we care deeply about your physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.
It’s also not a bad way to start the weekend. Here’s a Spotify playlist of the songs (with some substitutions for the ones that aren’t on Spotify yet) if that’s more your speed. Also, here’s our collected Spotify playlist of all the songs of the week we’ve had.
A general warning that many of these songs have explicit lyrics. Here they are, in no particular order:
1. Leon Bridges – Daisy Mae
Leon Bridges put out the deluxe edition of his debut album Coming Home and on it were several unreleased tracks, including Daisy Mae, a song that Bridges has performed live a lot but never released. Like a lot of Leon Bridges songs, it sounds like Otis Redding. Luckily for him, I love Otis Redding. If you aren’t an idiot, you love Otis Redding, too. So you’ll probably love this song. I want to slow dance to this song at the Under The Sea Dance. — NS
2. Drake — Summer Sixteen
OVO Sound radio returned last weekend and featured two very important things. Nas – yes, that Nas – rapping over Future’s March Madness (which, what?) and the street single for Drake’s upcoming Views From the 6, Summer Sixteen.
I talked myself out of it immediately after hearing it for a number of reasons. Not the least of which was him saying that what he did to Meek Mill “coulda happened to anyone” when we all know that both Pusha T and Kendrick Lamar have hand checked him numerous times over the past few years. But the record is predictably an ear worm. — MP
3. Holy Ghost! — Crime Cutz
The new Holy Ghost song Crime Cutz sounds like Kraftwerk but, unlike most things that sound like Kraftwerk, doesn’t feel like it’s trying really hard to sound like Kraftwerk. (The only other band that I can think that accomplished this was Wilco with Spiders (Kidsmoke).) For fans of the traditional Holy Ghost! sound, stick around for the hook. The rigid 80s synth beat gives way to that lush sound we first heard on Wait and See, and everything is just as it should be.
4. Yo Gotti – Down in the DM Remix feat. Nicki Minaj
Yo Gotti’s Down in the DM was already perfect, but a cutting Nicki Minaj verse rocketed it into outer space. What most people pulled from it was her namechecking Miley Cyrus – which she did do – but they missed the rest of it. Like, where she sprayed at literally everybody. Maybe even me. Those are the best Nicki verses. The ones you feel personally victimized by. — MP
5. Carey – You Were Right
Nashville has long been known for its country scene, but as the country hitmakers become more formulaic and saccharine, it’s not a total surprise that a DIY punk scene has grown there. If you were forced to live in a place where a million songs are written in 4-4 time about sipping Bud Light in the bed of a pickup truck, you might go and name your band Diarrhea Planet and start recording thrashing pop punk.
The newest band to come out of the Nashville indie scene is Carey, and their newest song is You Were Right, a three-minute power pop anthem that lovers of early Weezer will want to wrap themselves up in. The guitars are big and fuzzy, the kick drum slapping happily, and the hook simple enough to sing along to: “You were right.” — NS
6. Matt Champion – Punks
Like Kevin Abstract, Matt Champion is one part of the “All-American boy band” Brockhampton, and his newest single is a wondrous, lense-flare-y mess. Punks peaks and troughs multiple times in its short two-and-a-half minutes, occasionally bright but often bleak, and full to bursting with teen angst. Think smashing mailboxes with bats in the bed of a moving pickup truck. — MP
7. Into It. Over It. – Required Reading
Into It. Over It. is the band we’ve written about before on this site who are at the forefront of the emo revival that’s going on right now. The band is Evan Weiss, and like all great emo acts, he’s very particular about his songs and meaning. (I got an email from a publicist last time when I misquoted one of the lyrics.) I won’t make the mistake of trying to decipher his words again, but that’s for the audience, anyway. This is music to pore over, fall in love with, and have your heart broken to. — NS
8. Parquet Courts – Dust
Parquet Courts have a jangly new punk anthem about dust — “It comes through the window, it comes through the floor … Dust is everywhere,” they sing. Their solution: “Sweep.” It’s a silly and lovely little metaphor about the dirt and grime that can get in your life, emotional dirt, existential dirt. It’s everywhere, and sneaks up on you, suffocating. But there’s really only one solution: Sweep. Clean it up. Handle it. Or it’ll take your life over. — NS
9. Hit Boy – TD Celebration
Hit Boy tapped Donnie Trumpet and Rich The Kid for the timely TD Celebration, which sounds like making an impossible tip-drill catch, shrugging off a tackle, and high-stepping into the end zone. Or more specifically that time the marching band came onto the field during the Cal-Stanford game in 1982.
It could also just be the soundtrack to a Cam Newton touchdown celebration. After all he does get a shoutout. Imagine if he actually celebrated for a full two minutes and 39 seconds. Just imagine. — MP
10. Kanye West — Can’t Tell Me Nothing
Forgive me for using the venerable 10 best songs of the week feature for personal use, but I’m going to get a little sappy here. This is Micah’s last day more or less with For The Win (he’s moving on to a new and fantastic job so shoot him some congrats on Twitter), and while this column will continue, this is the last one we’ll write together.
I first met Micah over the internet, when I agreed to help out on a Kanye West feature for a now defunct rap website called No Fillers. Micah was still in college, I was a struggling writer eating a ton of ramen noodles. We were asked to rank all of Kanye West’s albums over the course of a week.
Over that week we sent a ton of emails, joked, laughed. I clowned him for liking College Dropout so much and he ribbed me for my love of 808s and Heartbreaks. (He’s come around on that, though, just so everyone knows.) I think I knew then, that first week, that he was going to be a great writer. But I didn’t think he’d be this good this quickly, and I never thought he’d write something like the Kevin Abstract feature he did this past week. (If you haven’t read it, please, go. Read it. It’ll make your day.) I just knew we had fun writing together, talking music, and watching Swaggy P miss long twos.
When Micah graduated from college I pleaded with my bosses to hire him, though it didn’t take much convincing. Over the last couple years we’ve challenged each other to become better writers, better thinkers, watched a lot of basketball, and written way too many words about Pusha T. He and I have built this FTW Culture site together over the last couple years with no real oversight or direction — it was a labor of love, just thoughts we got up when we had free time. It’ll keep going in his absence, but it won’t be the same.
In that West feature we did back a few years ago Micah said that he felt like, if he ever had a personal anthem, it’d be Kanye West’s Can’t Tell Me Nothing. He’s earned an anthem. Let the champagne splash. — NS
