It’s that time of year again: the twilight week between Christmas and New Years’ Day. Most people are off work or school, staying warm (or cool, depending on your hemisphere) and stuffing themselves silly with every combination of carbs and sugars. As you’re lying there in your food coma trying to block out all thoughts of January 4th, take a whirl through our Quite Literal holiday playlist. Happy holidays and stay tuned for our end-of-year content!
5. “Holiday” by Little Mix
First off is the tune by British girl group Little Mix. The pop song’s saccharine notes coupled with the ladies’ perfectly synced vocals make this the perfect tune to soundtrack an impromptu tipsy dance party. (You know you’re almost there.)
4. “Holiday” by Green Day
Next up is a blast from the past – the tune from alternative rock band Green Day. This song was all the rage when it was released as a single from the landmark American Idiot (2004) album, and is still catchy enough to strike nostalgia in the entire millennial cohort. The “holiday” that Billie Joel Armstrong and the gang are talking about alludes to the apathy that the average American felt at the Bush-era Middle East wars, so that’s always a fun talking point at your holiday event with the broader family.
3. “Holiday” by Vampire Weekend
Once you’ve brought up the anti-war sentiments on the previous track, be sure to flip to this tune from New England indie rock band Vampire Weekend to lighten the mood. With an irrepressible beat and Ezra Koenig’s lackadaisical vocals, this song is the stuff of catchy advertisement music – and indeed, it was aptly featured on ads for the classic-prep fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger. One of the best tracks from their overall-great Contra (2010) album.
2. “Holiday” by Madonna
Going back several decades from all of these songs is this tune from Madonna’s eponymous debut album in 1983. The synths and handclaps are simply peak ‘80s, and Madge’s voice is carefree as she sings about the entire world coming together for a holiday. “If we took a holiday, took some time to celebrate / Just one day out of life, it would be so nice” she suggests, and that’s exactly the energy we need to be taking with us out of this hellscape of a year.
1. “HOLIDAY” by Lil Nas X
And now the song that inspired us to create this playlist – this tune from rapper and pop culture icon Lil Nas X. We’ve already lauded the track on our last Monthly Playlist and we admit we haven’t stopped playing it on loop since then. Lil Nas X’s smooth vocals layer over a tight, catchy beat for a new, alt-classic holiday standard. Bonus: Check out his recent performance for Amazon’s live holiday show!
In May of this year, indie pop-rock mainstays Vampire Weekend released their fourth full-length album, Father of the Bride. We are aware, yes, that we are a little late with this review; but with the end of the year coming up fast, we thought it best to close the loop on some albums that we haven’t gotten around to reviewing just yet.
Vampire Weekend burst onto the scene, almost literally, with a sparkling, eponymous debut album about a decade ago. Their sound was a mystifying mix of mainstream and hipster – think clean-cut prep school kid with surprisingly deep life experiences. That first album had songs like “Oxford Comma”, literally devoted to a grammatical element (but a hipster one!), and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, a juxtaposition of idyllic New England summers and Congolese dance.
The next two albums, Contra (2010) and Modern Vampires of the City (2013), had a similarly well-traveled mishmash of sights and sounds, with hits like “Horchata” and “Diane Young”. Although their sound was a little more grown-up, the essence remained intact. Things are now different, though, with the departure of one Rostam Batmanglij.
Vampire Weekend, in its original iteration, was a four-piece consisting of vocalist / guitarist Ezra Koenig, guitarist Batmanglij, bassist Chris Baio, and drummer Chris Tomson. Koenig and Batmanglij had a great song-writing partnership. Batmanglij’s wildly creative, global influences provided, in our minds, the X-factor to the band’s otherwise tidy sound. In January 2016, Batmanglij left the band to pursue solo projects – and this is the first Vampire Weekend album without him.
Vampire Weekend without Batmanglij essentially becomes an
Ezra Koenig project. That’s not necessarily always a bad thing. For one, Koenig’s
ability to write a great indie pop song is perhaps unrivalled today. Also,
Koenig now has a celebrity status (see: has a child with girlfriend Rashida
Jones, has a Netflix series and an Apple Music radio show) that allows
him to pull together a galaxy of musical guests onto the project. The end
result, however, is pleasant, charming, polite – and ultimately a bore.
Our readers may be surprised by this assessment; we have, over the past year, done our fair share of gushing over the album’s singles (see here and here). When all the pieces are put together, however, Father of the Bride paints a different picture. It’s the soundtrack to your child’s pastel-themed second-birthday-party. It’s the backdrop to the flowery end of a romcom. It is the sound of entering your mid-thirties considerably less cool than you were in your twenties – albeit armed with a sensible savings account and a postcard-perfect house.
Father of the Bride is packed with fantastic, beautiful songs that deserve to be heard. There are some truly beautiful riffs on here, from the bright “Sunflower” to the deft “Harmony Hall” . Danielle Haim of HAIM joins Koenig for three pretty duets, most notably on the folksy opener “Hold You Now”. It’s a great album – just don’t expect the old Vampire Weekend.
Best songs: “Harmony Hall”, “Sunflower”, “This Life”
What a month May has been for great music. Stalwarts made a strong mark, with Vampire Weekend releasing a highly-lauded fourth studio album and Tyler the Creator releasing a fifth – and his best-rated – record. Newcomers, too, blew it out of the water: notably, British rapper slowthai and relative newbie Jamila Woods, who has put out one of the best albums of the year. With all this great music, we really had our work cut out this month picking five great songs to share: but here goes.
5. “We Belong Together” by Vampire Weekend feat. Danielle Haim
As longtime readers would know, anything with one of the Haim sisters is almostalwaysalright in our books. “We Belong Together” – the second Danielle Haim collab from Vampire Weekend’s fifth album, Father of the Bride – is a great, old-school duet love song with a quintessentially-Ezra-Koenig melancholy twist. Black and white, day and night, left and right, bowls and plates – Koenig and Haim list off the timeless and kitschy ways pairs the two lovers belong together. But wait, what’s this? “Baby, there’s no use in being clever / Baby, it don’t mean we’ll stay together,” they say, on a sugary-light bop, following it up with a devastating “We go together like lions and lambs / Oh, we go together”. This is another irresistibly great song from what has been a solid album front to back. Look out for a full review of FOTB from us soon – until then, take a listen through this track (and the other we’ve covered in our playlists!).
4. “Doin’ Time” by Lana del Rey
Speaking of melancholy crooners, the absolute queen of mournful murmuring is back. Lana del Rey has announced a new album in 2019 (the brilliantly-named Norman Fucking Rockwell), and “Doin’ Time” gives us a good taste of the excellent things to come. A cover of the ska / punk band Sublime’s 1996 single – and itself sampling the jazz standard “Summertime” – “Doin’ Time” is a head-fake that starts off like a cheery hit and segues into an adult-contemporary drive through Lana’s, well, sublime vocals. The result, as you may expect from a story about feeling trapped by an unfaithful partner, is a mixture between fuzzy contemplation and spiky regret. More to come from Lana this year, and we couldn’t be more pumped.
3. “Record Collection” by Kaiser Chiefs
In another throwback to the mid-aughts, Kaiser Chiefs are back with “Record Collection”, a song that’s basically an updated version of every one of your favorite songs from your high school years (think Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs themselves, and so on). According to lead singer Ricky Wilson, the band recorded their seventh studio album Duck, slated for July 26th (featuring this new track) after going back and reminiscing over their own first few records. You can hear it too: after a forgettable couple of records in the middle, Kaiser Chiefs finally sound rejuvenated. A thick bassline and poppy drums elevate Wilson’s vocoder-style vocals on “Record Collection”, and the song is peppered with the sort of supple hooks that made “Ruby” all the rage more than a decade ago. (Has it really been that long?!) With “Record Collection”, it looks like we have yet another great summer album to await – mark your calendars!
2. “Vacancy” by Havelock
With so many releases from well-known artists this month, it’s easy to miss tracks like “Vacancy”, the second track (ever) by English singer Havelock. But, wow, are we glad we didn’t miss it – and we are so happy to recommend it to our readers, too. “Vacancy” tells a tale well-known by young people around the world – hustling until you make it, with an end in mind but not in sight. Beyond his chill vocals and the warmth of the production, what Havelock really cracks is that clever yet effortless turn of phrase. In fact, there’s a line on here that we loved so much that we’ll transcribe it here in full: “’Cause you got a brand-new vacancy, and I want to join the agency; I hope that it can give me something that I could hold, somewhere that I could go, without working to the bone: can you give me that?,” he asks; achingly poetic in his naivety. “My snooze is on repeat / I know I’d better wake up or I’ll wake up in the streets” goes another splendid couplet. We haven’t been this excited for a new artist in a long time – and we hope you feel the same way, too. (If you liked this tune, you’ll love “Pig Latin”, his debut single.)
1. “Inglorious” by slowthai, feat. Skepta
From an arrangement standpoint, “Inglorious” has a very simple layout: a short intro, followed by a verse by slowthai and the hook, followed by another verse by Skepta and the hook. But what happens in those five parts may well have changed the topography of British rap. Of course, Skepta is already famous; his unapologetic display of British culture – in a genre dominated by American culture – has placed him on a 2017 list of the most influential people in the UK. On “Inglorious”, his talents and persona are put to the best possible collaborative use with newcomer – and inevitable star – slowthai. A dreamlike intro leads into one of the best beat drops we’ve heard all year, along with a volley of British-isms and descriptions of struggle (“Remember when they wouldn’t let me in / Now their wages just a day’s per diem”). “Inglorious” features on slowthai’s debut album, Nothing Great About Britain, which is honestly one of the best albums we’ve heard all year. Listen to “Inglorious” – if you like it, you’re in for a treat for the rest of the album.
We’re back with another edition of the Monthly Playlist! This month’s songs range from Los Angeles lo-fi to Japanese indie rock and more – read on for all the deets.
5. “38’s” by The Vanities
“38’s”, by Glaswegian garage punk band The Vanities, is a whiskey-soaked vignette about drunken nights that last so late you miss the bus back home (ostensibly, the 38 in Glasgow). Within the first few seconds, Vanities drummer Craig Fellowes bursts in at a frenetic pace that never quite lets off over the song’s entire three-minute mark – but don’t let the percussion overwhelm you. The winning element here is the Vanities’ ability to paint a witty, entertaining picture of an inebriated evening. “Wasteland sights, apart from prozzies and rubble / Thirty quid for the night, far from subtle, she’s trouble / I’m coming down now, I wish I’d made my vodka a double,” goes the tune, perfectly encapsulating that no-man’s-land age between late teens and early adulthood (the band’s four members are all in their early twenties).
If you get the feeling that the Vanities’ experiences are cut from the same cloth as the gin-soaked, unsuccessful-clubbing escapades that shaped Arctic Monkeys’ debut album, you are absolutely right. There is a lot more to anticipate from the Vanities, and we are here for it.
4. “Why’d You Have to Act Like That Though” by Inner Wave
“Why’d You Have to Act Like That Though”, by LA-based five-piece Inner Wave, is a chill, lo-fi psych rock track that brings to mind a mix of Mac de Marco and Lonerism-era Tame Impala. The track starts off with a slightly off-kilter melody, layered under spoken-word musings in the style of Julian Casablancas (it’s no accident – the five bandmates apparently grew up listening to the Strokes in the early aughts). Seamlessly, lead singer Pablo Sotelo melts into a hypnotic, repeated chorus – “I’ve been missing you, I’ve been missing you, I swear”; and before you know it, the song’s over. It’s loopy, lo-fi and catchy as hell, and had us pressing the replay button more than a few times. Be sure to keep an eye out for Inner Wave’s upcoming album, wyd, out on May 17.
3. “This Life” by Vampire Weekend
By this point, Vampire Weekend have an unmistakable sound to them. Whether it’s Ezra Koenig’s earnest voice, the Beach Boys-esque pleasantness of the guitars, or the harmonic choral elements, it is fairly straightforward to pick out a Vampire Weekend song from any random lineup. On “This Life”, from the upcoming album Father of the Bride, Vampire Weekend takes their cornucopia of congeniality to a gloomy tale of broken dreams. “Baby, I know pain is as natural as the rain / I just thought it didn’t rain in California,” sings Koenig, hiding the darkness behind a veneer of jangly Americana. It gets worse: “You’ve been cheating on, cheating on me / I’ve been cheating on, cheating on you,” he confesses a few lines later. With its genial music and its weighty lyrics, “This Life” is a great tune that works across two very different angles. Highly recommend this song and album.
Father of the Bride is
out on May 3.
2. “Pretty Old Man” by No Buses
No Buses are a Japanese indie rock band heavily influenced by the 2000s garage rock revival sound. Of course, they aren’t the first with that set of influences. It’s easy enough to write a simple, easygoing tune, but what really surprises the listener about No Buses is their ability to create an instant earworm. On “Pretty Old Man”, No Buses weave a love story with at least one geriatric participant, in between roving guitar riffs and steady-as-can-be drums. The result is an earnest homage to the likes of early Arctic Monkeys (even down to the band’s name) and Oasis without coming off too saccharine. A tough feat, but one that No Buses manage well. We’re excited to hear more from them soon.
1. “Power is Power” by SZA, The Weeknd and Travis Scott
Ten years from now, in the annals of pop culture history, April 2019 will be heralded as an historic month, for two book-to-Technicolor transformations: the end of Marvel’s Avengers comic book saga with Endgame, and the final season of the record-busting Game of Thrones. For GoT fans who want to augment their visual and cinematic experiences, the TV show released For the Thrones, a soundtrack inspired by the characters and thematic elements onscreen. “Power is Power”, featuring three of the world’s biggest stars, is an ode to the reluctant hero of the entire series – Jon Snow.
What we love about this track are the interlocking yet distinct
contributions from the three featured artists. The Weeknd’s echoing beats bring
to mind his chart-topping “Pray for Me” from the Black Panther soundtrack, but his lyrics are far-removed from the
African savannah of Wakanda. “I was born of the ice and snow / With the winter
wolves and the dark alone,” he sings; a perfect battle hymn for the oft-wallowing
Jon. SZA knocks it out of the park with a fluid, strong verse that further
explores the self-doubt / heroism clash within Jon’s psyche. And Travis Scott,
as usual, switches it up with a verse that contrasts but complements the rest
of the song.
All in all, “Power is Power” is a treat whether you’re a
Game of Thrones fan or not.
Top Five Records 