Monthly Playlist: May 2023

3 Jun

It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these. As you may know, Top Five Records is a small company with just a few writers, and life events derails our plans of getting new music to you. But never fear, we are making our way back to putting out info on all the best tracks out there. Starting with – our top five picks for the month of May!

“UNHEALTHY” by Anne-Marie feat. Shania Twain

British pop singer-songwriter Anne-Marie has had reasonable success on her side of the pond, with her 2018 debut album Speak Your Mind reaching as high as #3 on the UK Albums Chart. Buoyed by giant singles such as “FRIENDS” and “2002”, Anne-Marie is one of those singers whose tracks you’ve probably heard a bunch of times on an algorithm-driven playlist somewhere. “UNHEALTHY” is off of her upcoming new album, also called Unhealthy, and features Canadian country star Shania Twain. The country-pop song features Anne-Marie’s strong vocals in a beautiful duet with Shania’s iconic vocals, set against a jangly guitar and a driving beat. Another great pop song from Anne-Marie – definitely check it out!

“From the Start” by Laufey

Laufey is a pop singer from Iceland blessed with a beautiful voice that transports listeners to elegant jazz clubs of yore. Indeed, the classically-trained singer lists female  singers such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald as the key influences to her sound. Her sound is perfectly exemplified in her new track “From the Start” which mixes in an element of bossa-nova with plinking piano notes into her jazzy vocals. The crisp and clean production makes this a repeat-listen kind of song – as seen through the more than 5 million streams that it’s already racked up on Spotify.

“Should I” by Sir Chloe

Sir Chloe is an indie rock band created by singer-songwriter and guitarist Dana Foote, along with her four band members Emma Welch, Teddy O’Mara, Palmer Foote and Austin Holmes. The band first caught our attention due to their presence on the upcoming Beck and Phoenix tour across the US this August and September; however, this hasn’t been their first brush with fame. Tracks like “Michelle” and “Animal” from their 2020 album Party Favors have hundreds of millions of streams online, and for good reason – Foote’s drawling vocals are confident and rambunctious in a restrained punk rock sort of vein, and her bandmates do well to support her. With “Should I” – off of their latest album I Am The Dog – the band amps up the energy to new levels, showing an edge that hasn’t been on their earlier tracks. You’ll instantly find yourself nodding along, especially to the noisy and well-structured chorus. And for fans of early-aughts teen movies – we can’t be the only ones who see a similarity between this track and the one that Lindsay Lohan’s garage rock band performs in Freaky Friday…

“The Narcissist” by Blur

Britpop legends Blur have made a couple of attempts to get back together in the intervening decades since their Parklife (1994) heyday. They released their first new album in 2015 – The Magic Whip – after a twelve-year drought, and embarked on a couple of reunion tours and shows since then. Of course, on the side, lead singer Damon Albarn is more than busy creating album upon album as Gorillaz, and the other members have done sundry solo albums and so on. Now, the iconic band is back with a new track, “The Narcissist”, off of their upcoming and recently-announced new album The Ballad of Darren.

“Infinity Repeating (2013 Demo)” by Daft Punk feat. Julian Casablancas & the Voidz

In 2013, French dance music duo Daft Punk released what would be their final record – the smash-hit Random Access Memories – to critical and commercial acclaim. The album went on to win just about every award possible in that year’s music awards circuit, and still holds up 10 years later. The album features an all-star guest list, from Pharrell Williams to Stevie Wonder, but perhaps the most mellifluous collaboration on the tracklist was the subtle “Instant Crush” featuring the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas. The song came at the perfect juncture of the two artists’ evolving sounds – Daft Punk softened their club / house sound, just as the Strokes were also mellowing out in their peak Comedown Machine-era – indeed, the two albums released within 60 days of each other. Turns out, that collaboration had one more fruit to offer. “Infinity Repeating” was a demo from those sessions ten years ago, and offers a snapshot in time of Daft Punk and Julian Casablancas in 2013. Julian’s vocals are soft and beautiful, and the instrumentals have just the right touch of melancholy and yearning to make you hit repeat just as the track finishes. “Infinity Repeating” is the rarest of gifts – a last-ever song that adequately closes out a beloved band’s discography. (Side note: Not sure what the Voidz were doing here but it’s all Julian’s show here.)

Miles Davis – Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud

6 May

As a jazz aficionado, I know a lot of people for whom the genre is really just background music. It plays in movies and lounges and at best it sets tone and at worst it fills space but it’s not really music to pay attention to. You might be one of those people right now. If you are and you’re looking to change that, this is the album for you and the nice thing is that even if you’re already a jazz fan, it’s still the album for you.

This album comes from the film Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud, a French noir New Wave movie. The director Louis Malle gave jazz legend Miles Davis a private screening and then Miles and his band improvised the entire score. The soundtrack is quintessentially noir but elevated to a degree you have never heard before and so a great way to see what exactly makes the difference.

This is made easier by how immediate the difference is. The opening track “Generique” hits you with Miles’ trumpet from the first note and it is a revelation. He gets such a bold, confident sound from the instrument and it’s completely suffused with the melancholy of the noir. I don’t know if you normally consider the trumpet to be a lonely instrument, but the emotion that Miles builds in this track is undeniable.

His trumpet work in the following “L’Assassinat De Carala” is similarly spectacular. He holds his notes much further than you would expect and so keeps you off-balance. It’s never quite the notes you expect, but they’re never out of place.

There are however a couple of tracks that don’t quite fit. “At Bar Du Petit Bac” is closer to generic lounge jazz than I would like albeit done well enough not to warrant much complaint. Similarly, “Sur L’Autoroute” feels out of place. It’s solid frenetic jazz and the drum work deserves special attention for the amount it puts into the space behind the brass, but it still doesn’t really fit into the noir of the rest of the album. The trumpet and sax both get decent solos as well here. It would be quite the solid track in a different album.

On the other hand, “Visite du Vigil” is unique in the album for the space that it gives the bass, but it fits in perfectly with the rest. The way the track builds up perfectly with so few moving parts is a monument of skill.

The album finishes with “Chez Le Photographe Du Motel” which again brings back the focus on the trumpet and the noir. It’s cinematic and evocative. You can see the gumshoe on the rainy road as it plays. Barney Wilen’s sax is more muted but maintains the emotion and goes into some very interesting solo work. The trumpet solo over a very gentle piano and brush is astonishing though. Throughout this album, Miles sets tone and emotion in a way that’s deeply familiar but with a skill that’s exceptional. You may have heard noir jazz before, but you’ll never have heard any this good.

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boygenius – the record

24 Apr

The first boygenius album is exciting even before you hear it. Their EP was excellent music and it’s also just such a good feeling to see three exceptionally talented women living out the friendship we all wish we were lucky enough to have. This album feels like an evolution both in their music and their friendship and is excellent rock to boot.

We’ve heard a lot of Phoebe Bridgers of late and I’m always happy to hear more so it’s good to hear something like “Emily I’m Sorry,” which is as much of a Bridgers cut as anything on Punisher. She’s as delicate and wistful as ever and the apology of the song gives it a beating heart.

It’s fascinating how well it goes into Lucy Dacus’ “True Blue.” It’s much less gossamer than “Emily I’m Sorry” but they flow well into each other and the robustness is like eating something savory after something sweet. She drops some memorable epigrams in it too. “And it feels good to be known so well / I can’t hide from you like I hide from myself” is a strong lyric delivered well but “When you don’t know who you are / You fuck around and find out” is a truly excellent line in its reframing of a particularly trite aphorism.

Meanwhile, Julien Baker’s “Satanist” is one of the best songs of the album. It’s very funny and very personal and brings in a spectacular grungy guitar. Her “Anti-Curse” is also very strong. The lyrics don’t quite cohere, the two threads never splice together but it’s still spectacular indie rock.

There are some misses in the album though. “Letters To An Old Poet” would be too insubstantial were it not for Bridgers’ exceptional lyrics. “You made me feel like an equal / But I’m better than you / And you should know that by now” is an ice-cold line. The acapella opener with all three of them singing is better as an idea than a song. It has none of the energy that the rest of the album does well with and the it’s thankfully followed by the fantastic “$20” which adds a huge jolt.

“Not Strong Enough” really benefits from the video showing the three of them having fun. It makes a more complex statement about friendship, a statement about how you don’t need to be strong enough by yourself, but can instead rely on the people you love. It’s particularly interesting in an album that features a lot of my turn-your turn from the artists as they alternate songs in which they are clearly the lead.

Maybe though, this is what the album is about. It’s not about subsuming the individual for the collective, but instead of making sure that everyone has space for their own voice and sometimes using your own in support. “Not Strong Enough” does a lot of work with the line “Not strong enough to be your man” and then Dacus later reinforces that with a chant of “Always an angel, never a god” but the song, which is Dacus’ from the jump, ends with the three voices coming together powerfully.

The Weeknd – Live At SoFi Stadium

3 Apr

It’s still kind of crazy to see The Weeknd filling a stadium like SoFi. He’s as big a superstar as anyone in the world right now, but it’s sometimes hard not to see him as the kid with the big hair in the small club. It’s also interesting to see because his music isn’t really stadium rock. He has maybe the greatest voice of any male singer and it’s a delicate instrument. His ability to update his catalog for the less subtle arena atmosphere is an impressive feat.

Every song in this feels different from the recorded version. He makes his music much more muscular and less ethereal and makes it all work anyway. This stadium seats 70,240 people. There are cities with fewer people. I spent a night in Pinhão for my last anniversary. That has a population of 10,486. This is not a small crowd.

He works them all well too. He lets each beat ride for a second with each song just to give the crowd time to get hype and he just lets the audience sing key parts. He’s always talking to the crowd and the album does a good job in mixing in so much of their noise. It’s a far cry from when I saw him around 2014 and he would project images of girls in bondage on the screens around him.

I also appreciate his mixing in old hits. It’s fantastic to see a “Crew Love” appearance. He updates some of them up quite a bit too. There’s a whole new beat for “Wicked Games” and I love it. “Often” also feels completely fresh. His voice is much higher in the original and he shifted the beat to something much more ominous for the live crowd.

You can fell the shift in the arena when he goes for the crowd pleasers though. I never really liked “I Feel It Coming”, the most Michael Jackson of his tracks, but when he performs it for an audience, it fits like a glove. I also didn’t really give “Starboy” its due as an audience track until now and this made it shine in a whole new way.

This is The Weeknd in a whole new aspect for me and he handles it excellently. Of course, he has been a superstar for a long time and that Colbert appearance should have been more than enough to demonstrate his capabilities as such, but sometimes it takes me a while to see. Live At SoFi Stadium makes it more than clear though. The Weeknd really can do it all.

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Top Five Songs To Convince Your Wife To Go To A National Concert

26 Mar

It can be very hard to take a band like The National seriously. They’re really not much of a band for subtlety and they only ever traffic in a single emotion. However, they do it well. They’re evocative and cinematic with every beat. They drown you with their longing and nostalgia. There is no one as able to write characters that would rather wallow in mistakes than fix them and no one as able to make that feel romantic. There is a lot to make fun of in all of this, but there’s also really good music and that’s all the argument they really need.

5. Fake Empire

Really here, I just want to highlight the crescendo at the end of the song. It is a fascinating touch. It’s not unusual in rock but I would expect it more from a band like Speedy Ortiz, not from a band as hermetic as The National.

4. I Am Easy To Find

For I Am Easy To Find, The National featured guest vocalists on almost every track and they were all women. It’s incredible how much adding female perspectives did for the album and for this song. The comedy of two people singing about how easy they both are to find when clearly neither of them is going to look is just a fun listen.

3. Exile Vilify

This is as gentle and as heartfelt as The National has ever been and somehow fits perfectly with the emotions of Portal. RIP Companion Cube. You deserved better.

2. I Need My Girl

I don’t think it’s possible to make a more National song than “I Need My Girl.” That title really tells you everything you need to know for the song. However, there will never be a song that does as good a job of capturing a single emotion as this one does. Sometimes, you do need your girl and if you can’t actually have her, at least you can know that there is someone else who feels as you do.

1. City Middle


“You said “I think I’m like Tennessee Williams”
I wait for the click. I wait, but it doesn’t kick in
I think I’m like Tennessee Williams
I wait for the click. I wait, but it doesn’t kick in”

It’s an incredibly compulsive stanza. It completes the song by itself but then moves into a vocalization that lets both you and the song exhale for a perfect extra beat. This is the best of an already excelllent band.

Bonus: Bartees Strange

I love opening acts. They can be a bit of a crapshoot, but that’s true of every concert and Bartees Strange is an exciting choice. Try “Flagey God” and you’ll see why. This club-influenced rock track does a lot of interesting things and has as much of an earworm for a hook as you’ll ever find.

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Let’s Start Here. / CHAOS NOW*

21 Feb

Lil Yachty – Let’s Start Here.

You have to start with Let’s Start Here. being a psychedelic rock album by an Atlanta rapper. There are albums where the means of production are key. Let’s Start Here. would be a much less remarkable album were it not made by Lil Yachty.

A lot of the album is pretty forgettable psychedelic rock. The frustrating thing with this album is that psychedelic rock is so close to Soundcloud rap. They both love soundscapes and they even use similar ones, they just get there from very different places. There could have been a quite interesting album that fused the two better.

Let’s Start Here. sometimes even finds that space. “IVE OFFICIALLY LOST ViSiON!!!!” has some trap vocalizations and some interesting hit-and-runs in the soundscape and is a very impressive track overall. “the BLACK seminole.” emphasizes blackness to good effect and starts the album the right way. “the ride-” works well with a falsetto that could have come from any psych-rock band you could name, but then transitions very nicely into Soundcloud yelps.

However, the majority of the album is just a substandard, uninteresting rock album. “THE zone~” is as boring as rock ever gets and “:(failure):” is, possibly unsurprisingly, the same. There’s even a Bob Ross clipping to really cap off the lack of imagination. He also drops in some more funky songs like “running out of time” and is even less fun there.

Even in the boring parts, this album is something of an intervention and there are pieces that show what this album could have been. The simple fact that it exists is the most interesting part of the whole project, but it finds enough fragments to be at least a little more than just that.

Jean Dawson – CHAOS NOW*

When I was a kid, I would watch VH1 after school and I got fed a lot of 00s alternative rock as a result. I loved it then but when I look back, it’s hard to get away from the fact that a lot of it was garbage. It was a cultural wasteland and there’s not much more to say about it. Jean Dawson tries to take the pieces of it and make something interesting out of them in CHAOS NOW* and succeeds, albeit sporadically.

“THREE HEADS*” has a strong energy to it and punches hard. His changes of pace do well and he keeps a good intensity throughout. “SICK OF IT*” does 00s alt-rock better than any of them ever did and is what it should have been. “0-HEROES” is the song that Blink-182 wishes they made. Unfortunately, even that doesn’t make for a very good song. It just spends too long playing with uninteresting sounds. Sadly, the same is true for “GLORY*”, which sticks too close to the Blink-182 it draws from, even if it has the wonderful line “My mom thinks I keep a gun tucked / Yes ma’am.” There are glimpses of a better song in there, but only ever glimpses.

CHAOS NOW* isn’t as consistent as one would like and so not quite as groundbreaking as one could hope, but it’s always fun to see someone make something of my misspent youth.

Top Five’s Picks of the Albums

https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/16JYGCeftP3Sxdh5Fwcndi?utm_source=generator

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Ice Spice – Like..?

4 Feb

Neeharika just put up her list of the most anticipated albums of 2023, but I already got mine with Ice Spice’s debut. “Munch (Feelin’ U)” was comfortably my favorite song of 2022 and “Bikini Bottom” wasn’t far behind. Her boastful, playful, sexy drill is the most exciting thing in music right now. It’s a little disappointing then that the rest of the EP doesn’t quite live up to the singles.

Firstly, both “Munch” and “Bikini Bottom” are as magnificent as ever. She drops incredible punchlines with tremendous confidence. That whole chorus from “Munch” is infinitely quotable and “Ayo, baddie, what it do? / Ayo, Maddie, what it do?” from “Bikini Bottom” always draws a laugh. When she says “Flow the nicest, but I’m rude” it’s just true. She has solved the question of how to do drill.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album is not close to the same quality. Save for a guest verse by Lil TJay, it’s never actually weak and she brings an interesting deepness to “Gangsta Boo” and “Actin’ a Smoochie.” It reminds me a lot of Pop Smoke. I don’t think it’s her at her best, but it’s an experiment that I really appreciate. She also has bars like “No, you cannot have your boo back (Huh) / If I’m shootin’ my shoot, he gon’ shoot back (Grrah)” in “Smoochie” and “I’m think ’cause I be eatin’ oats” in “Princess Diana,” strong lines that her delivery makes unforgettable.

All told though, the EP really doesn’t do much to expand beyond what her glorious singles already put down. Those are strong enough to carry the EP by themselves, but it would have been very nice if there was something more here.

Top Five Most Anticipated Albums of 2023

1 Feb

Gorillaz – Cracker Island

Everyone’s favorite digital multi-media band has been teasing their new album Cracker Island since last year, with the release of the eponymous title track that quite caught our fancy. They followed that up with the wonderful “New Gold” featuring Tame Impala, and last month’s classic-Gorillaz, mellow track Baby Queen. As with all Gorillaz albums, Cracker Island is shrouded in a mysterious backstory – this one seeming to involve a cult headed by the band’s “bassist” Murdoc Niccals. Although we would have also been happy with Song Machine Vol. 2, we’re certainly joining in on the anticipation for the full-length Cracker Island, set to release on February 24th.

Jessie Ware – TBA

English singer Jessie Ware’s delectable disco outing What’s Your Pleasure was much-loved in 2020, and she followed it up with the pulsating “Free Yourself” in July of last year. Word on the street is that “Free Yourself” marks the beginning of a new era ahead of her fifth studio album – we can’t wait.

Cardi B – TBA

Yes, we put Cardi on the list last year too. But this time, we have definitive news – Cardi mentioned on the popular radio show The Breakfast Club last month that she pretty much has no choice but to release the album this year. 

Dua Lipa – TBA 

After the worldwide critical and commercial success of her Future Nostalgia album in March 2020 (what a time that was…), Dua apparently hasn’t taken much time off. Joe Kentish, head of A&R for Dua’s label Warner Records, mentioned way back in 2021 that she was “talking about album No.3 when we barely had No.2 done” – hopefully we’ll see the fruits of that soon.

Rihanna – TBA

Rihanna gave birth less than a year ago, but she’s not letting that stop her. She’s back in the news over the past few months – first and foremost, as the Super Bowl half-time show performer in February. She also released a new song (“Lift Me Up”) after many years, on the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack – narrowly missing out on a Golden Globe award for it too. Here’s hoping she can ride the momentum to the finish line for her 9th album.

Other notable mentions

  • Lana Del Rey is set to release her new album entitled Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd on March 24th. She released the album’s gauzy, dreamy title track last month – check it out.
  • Miley Cyrus announced the release of her 8th studio album Endless Summer Vacation, apparently an ode to the city of Los Angeles and its year-round balmy weather. The album is set to drop on March 10th, and new track “Flowers” has just been released as the first single.
  • Sam Smith’s new album Gloria released on January 27th, and he’s already scored the hit song “Unholy” (featuring German singer Kim Petras) ahead of the album drop.

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Fred Hersch & Esparanza Spalding – Alive at the Village Vanguard

15 Jan

Alive at the Village Vanguard does exactly what you would want; it places you right in the middle of the club. This is a recording of a live show at Village Vanguard and it manages to hold all of the energy of a live performance just to drop it on unsuspecting listeners. More importantly, it delivers the abundant charm of the two performers.

In particular, “Girl Talk” expertly recontextualizes an old, chauvinistic standard, refutes the original and reclaims the space with tremendous intelligence and humor. Spalding’s conversations with the crowd are both confident and fun and she interacts with the crowd throughout to great effect. In particular, they add a lot of charm to the already fun “Little Suede Shoes”

It’s not the most challenging album, however. Neither Spalding nor Hersch does much to complicate the music and the piano solos tend to move too slowly. Spalding does some great tonal work through the album though and Hersch plays excellent counter-point to her there.

It’s also just much more fun than your typical jazz release and much more approachable as well. If you’re looking for a pleasant evening with a couple of very talented, very likable performers, it’s hard to find something better than this.

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Top Five Albums of 2022

3 Jan

This is another year with some major disappointments. There are definitely some developments in music that we would have been happier without and some big-name releases that we feel could have spent more time in the oven, but through all of that, there was also some really good music and these are our picks of 2022’s Album of the Year.

5. Bad Bunny – Un Verano Sin Ti

This album takes you straight to the best Latin dancefloors. It’s a compelling and often unexpected mixture of sounds and influences and you’re never quite sure what’s through the next floor and the adventure is exhilarating. There’s so much texture to every sound and Bad Bunny himself paints with only the richest colors.

4. Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

Big Thief has never been more likeable. This album is funny, it’s intelligent and it’s warm in a way that their earlier music missed completely. They have gone from strength to strength of late and this is easily their best yet. They kept all of their usual poetry and all of their usual skill and added humanity to boot.

3. Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers

There’s a lot of really good music in the latest Kendrick and if I could put his concert on this list, it would be an easy number one. There’s also a fair bit of filler though and I just can’t listen to “We Cry Together” any more. His personal growth is impressive as is his synthesis of the various themes he played with earlier albums. The whole thing really comes together with a very coherent thesis as well. It’s not quite at the standard of his best albums, but it’s still complex, rewarding and often innovative. It could have still used an editor though.

2. Wet Leg – Wet Leg

Wet Leg is very, very good punk rock. They know who they are and they are fantastic at telling you who you should be too. They’re the center of the room at the party, they’re the girls you wanted to be friends with in high school, they’re the people who will always be cooler than you. Enjoy spending time with them.

1. Rosalía – MOTOMAMI

Sometimes, an album takes a single feeling and weaves its way back to and around it at every step. MOTOMAMI is not that album. It takes from everything that seems to interest Rosalía in the moment and fearlessly makes it all hers. Even The Weeknd gets absorbed seamlessly and so ends up with music as good as any he’s ever made. There’s no pandering with MOTOMAMI and no compromise, just the best reggaeton album ever made.

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