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. Beyoncé – Hold Up
Nate vetoed my request to just make this week’s post every track off of Lemonade, so I had to choose one. The whole album is basically perfect, but Hold Up is the song that gets the most stuck in my head. Produced by Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and Diplo, with a verse by Father John Misty, the song gives nods to both the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Soulja Boy. — Charlotte Wilder
2. Drake — Controlla
Drake may have cute Popcaan out of the album version of Controlla, but the song is still a standout in an uneven and — let’s face it — little bit bloated album. Views only came out last night, and I need time to work with it, but it is long, and some of the songs didn’t grab me. Controlla did. — Nate Scott
3. Mali music — digital
It’s Mali’s rapping that I like most about this song. “Now love is digital, no longer sacred, no longer spiritual, now it’s just physical,” he says. There are great computer noises that drift over the beat, mingling with Mali’s occasionally auto-tuned voice. — Charlotte Wilder
4. PUP — Doubts
Toronto punk band PUP have released two songs off their upcoming album The Dream is Over, and both instantly jumped to the top of my favorite songs of 2016. Like their last track, If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You Then I Will, Doubts is about getting older, and having doubts (duh), and about the pains of tour life — “I haven’t felt quite like myself for months on end / I spend more nights on the floor than I do my own bed” lead singer Stefan Babcock hollers, and you see that the rocker life isn’t the endless party we all imagine it to be. The fun exists, yeah, but as we get older, and the parties start to blend, who’s having fun now? — Nate Scott
5. Popcaan — Ova Dweet
As Nate mentioned above, an early, leaked version of Controlla off of Drake’s Views featured the Popcaan on it, but Views came out last night in full, and the Jamaican dance hall artist appears to have been cut. Did Popccan get angry? No, he just released music of his own. It might be a bold move to call this the song of the summer (or one of them, at least), but I think I’m going to do it. What else could you possibly want as a soundtrack to your outdoor parties? — Charlotte Wilder
6. Twin Wave — Matador
This song may not have worked for me three months ago, but now that the sun is out and the temperatures warming, I can’t resist it. It’s bright and has elements of The Drums and Bruno Mars and whatever. This is sunny music to play on a roof. Go find a roof. Trust me on this. — Nate Scott
7. Ingrid Michaelson — Hell no
I mean, any music video that features a singer contorting their face using Snapchat filters is probably going to make it onto a list I’m compiling. But the song is also great — it’s one of those fun anthems of the “Don’t mess with me” variety. Michaelson sings: “Girlfriends say, ‘Are you gonna be sad?’ If you calls you up you’re gonna take him right back?’ Hell no, oh, hell no.” Don’t know many people who haven’t been there before. — Charlotte Wilder
8. Elle Watson — Losing Any Sleep
I haven’t been able to find much information about Elle Watson online, but good lord, this is wild music. Backup voices swirl, synths bang against each other. Complex, ornate, with her voice holding the entire thing together, this is dance music to think to. — Nate Scott
9. 24hrs– 25
24hrs is a rapper from Atlanta who just released his first EP, and I already can’t wait for more. He’s a mysterious dude and we don’t really know much about him, which makes his music even more intriguing — it sounds a little bit like Young Thug’s, but slightly more ethereal. 25 is my favorite track, but all of it’s really, really good — especially Belong to You and Rightback. — Charlotte Wilder
10. Beyoncé — All Night
Yeah it’s our second Beyoncé song of the list, and I don’t care. Lemonade is a staggeringly dark and angry album, a woman confronting the infidelities of her man by working through the five stages of grief. There are moments of humor, but mostly this is pained music. Which is why the release of All Night, the album’s penultimate track, is so liberating and perfect. Beyoncé has forgiven the man who hurt her. This is a new day. She sings of love, of forgiveness, of hope for the future. Your heart breaks and swells at once. Then the OutKast horns come in, and you submit. — Nate Scott
