No. 220 · Aug 22New York · London · Berlin
Original
Music Review
Honest reviews · since 2019
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116 reviews

Devi Sri Prasad Yellamma Theme (From "Yellamma")

A single tied to the film "Yellamma," Devi Sri Prasad's "Yellamma Theme" is a lean, high-energy piece of Indian devotional folk that puts its faith squarely in rhythm and communal voice. The dholak-led groove arrives first and sets the terms; everything else — the plucked melodic motifs, the drone holding the floor, the male chorus that follows the lead — exists to reinforce a single, purposeful idea: the act of praise as physical event, not just expression.

Charli xcx Rock Music

"Rock Music" is a new wave/synth-pop single from Charli xcx that arrives fast, urgent, and wired on 80s drum sounds and driving synth bass — a track that frames reckless love not as a wound to nurse but as a dare to accept. The thesis is right there in the production's refusal to slow down: damage, here, is performed with style.

SIENNA SPIRO Great Expectation

"Great Expectation" is a new single from Sienna Spiro, built on acoustic guitar and an earnest lead vocal that refuses to dress its longing up as anything other than what it is. The thesis is simple and quietly brave: that wanting something — someone — can be its own kind of sustaining force, even when disillusionment keeps pulling at the edges.

Ceca Ne racunaj na mene - Live

"Ne racunaj na mene - Live" is a live single from Ceca, one of the defining voices of Serbian turbo-folk and Balkan pop, and in this rendition the song's governing argument — don't count on me, because I belong to no one — lands with the weight of a verdict rather than a lyric. The stripped-back instrumentation keeps the focus precisely where it belongs: on a lead vocal that refuses to be argued with.

Steve Lacy is it cool? (feat. SZA)

Steve Lacy's latest single "is it cool? (feat. SZA)" is an alternative R&B confessional built around a question the narrator seems genuinely afraid to answer. Lacy wraps self-doubt and relational vulnerability in a spacious, reverb-soaked production that knows exactly how much air a bruised feeling needs — and the arrival of layered harmonies at the chorus turns the track's central anxiety into something that moves, quietly and unresolvedly, toward another person anyway.

The Strokes Lonely in the Future

"Lonely in the Future" is a new single from The Strokes, and it does what the band does best when operating at full voltage: it makes urgency feel like a philosophical position. Driven by overdriven rhythm guitar, a punchy locked-in drum kit, and a higher-register melodic guitar line that cuts through the low end like a needle through cloth, the track plants itself firmly in the post-punk revival tradition the band helped define — then uses that familiar chassis to carry something more reflective. The lead vocal arrives strained and conversational, insisting that the past and present are further apart than they look.

JAŸ-Z Girl's Best Friend

"Girl's Best Friend" is a mid-tempo R&B and hip-hop soul single with a dancehall undercurrent, built around a recurring female hook and the sudden arrival of a deep, rapped male voice. The governing idea is singular desire — the song doesn't reach outward; it pulls inward, insisting on one person and one person only, and the production's warm, bass-heavy architecture is engineered to make that insistence feel inevitable.

Dexter and The Moonrocks If You Could Talk

The debut single from Dexter and The Moonrocks, "If You Could Talk" is an alternative rock track that earns its emotional weight the honest way — by building toward it. Starting restrained and melancholic, the song shifts from introspective verse to a chorus that opens up with real force, the band using the gap between quiet and loud not as a trick but as the argument itself.

aespa Serenade (KARINA & WINTER)

"Serenade," the synth-pop duo release credited to aespa's KARINA and WINTER, opens on a contradiction: a driving, arpeggiated pulse beneath a vocal so breathy and reverb-washed it barely seems to be in the same room. That tension — forward motion locked inside something contemplative and aching — is the song's whole argument, and it makes for one of the more quietly insistent things the SM orbit has delivered this cycle.

Single · Independent
AI

KAROL G Te llevas To

"Te llevas To" is a new single from Colombian superstar KAROL G that bets on a familiar contradiction: the body keeps moving while the heart hasn't. Over a polished reggaeton-inflected Latin pop production — punchy electronic drums, a deep synth bass, a melodic synth hook that catches and holds — she navigates the wreckage of a one-sided love with the poise of someone who's already decided she's done explaining herself. The production is bright; the feeling underneath it is anything but.

Single · Hip-Hop / Trap
AI

Lvbel C5 NKBİ X YAPAMAM - Remix

A Turkish trap remix that doubles down on the original's resolve: "NKBİ X YAPAMAM - Remix" pairs Lvbel C5's driving, semi-rapped delivery with a second vocalist's higher melodic responses, all riding a bass-heavy electronic production that treats urgency as its default mode. The thesis is in the repetition — falling is not an option, and the beat won't let you forget it.

By Noah Vale7.4

M!LK Tsumi to Batsu to Ame to Kiss (Hayato Sano & Jinto Yoshida)

The Hayato Sano and Jinto Yoshida-credited single from J-pop group M!LK lands as a piece of orchestral pop architecture — drums driving hard, strings soaring at precisely the right moment, and a single lead vocal carrying the full emotional weight of a plea. The thesis is confession as momentum: the track doesn't wallow in guilt or silence, it accelerates through both.

The Strokes Dine N'Dash

"Dine N'Dash," the latest single from The Strokes, arrives draped in the band's familiar grit — arpeggiated clean guitar against a heavier, overdriven melodic line, drums that push without rushing — but the emotional register is darker than their usual restless-youth cool. This is a song about regret that has already set in, a narrator looking back at violence and mourning with nowhere comfortable to land. It's not a departure so much as a deepening: the Strokes machinery running at the same mid-tempo clip, now pointed somewhere more somber.

G. V. Prakash The Wedding Song (From "Vishwanath & Sons")(Tamil)

The single "The Wedding Song (From 'Vishwanath & Sons')(Tamil)" by composer-singer G. V. Prakash arrives as a filmi pop set piece — fast, dense, and engineered to fill a banquet hall. It fuses a modern drum-kit backbone with dholak-adjacent percussion, synthesized nadaswaram-like winds, and a plucked string figure that keeps darting through the mix, arriving at a sound that is neither purely traditional nor comfortably crossover. The collision is the point, and for most of its audible thirty seconds it holds together through sheer kinetic pressure.

Single · Independent
AI

Steve Lacy nice shoes / in your world

The double-title is a tell: "nice shoes / in your world" pairs the mundane with the existential and refuses to separate them. Over a trap-leaning production anchored by deep 808 kicks and a spacious synth bed, Steve Lacy moves between weary spoken-word rap and a chanted chorus that insists, repeatedly and without ornament, that something has to give. It is melodic rap with minimalist instincts, and the tension it generates — reflective verse giving way to urgent hook — is its whole argument.

By Noah Vale8.4

Tame Impala Hummer

Kevin Parker's latest single under the Tame Impala banner arrives as a study in deliberate discomfort — a synth-pop track that uses processed vocals and spacious, reverb-heavy production not to soothe but to keep the listener slightly off-balance. "Hummer" is about reflection and what slips through memory, and the sonic architecture keeps insisting on that same unsteadiness: everything sounds clear, and nothing quite resolves.

Anuradha Paudwal Om Jai Shiv Omkara - Shiv Aarti

A devotional single rooted in the classical Shiv Aarti tradition, "Om Jai Shiv Omkara - Shiv Aarti" is Anuradha Paudwal in her element: a lead female vocal ornamented and clear, answering and being answered by a male chorus, the whole thing riding a steady tabla pulse and the resonant lines of what sounds like sitar. The thesis is restraint as devotion — nothing here reaches for effect, and that discipline is the point.

JAŸ-Z In My Lifetime

"In My Lifetime" is a mid-tempo hip-hop single from JAŸ-Z that trades flash for friction. Over a lo-fi synth instrumental and programmed drums, a laid-back but deliberate flow draws a hard line between ambition and outcome — the hustle is present, but so is the reckoning. It is a track that earns its confidence by acknowledging the cost.

By Noah Vale7.2

Akbar Chalay Emang Boleh?

"Emang Boleh?" is a bright, high-energy dance-pop single from Akbar Chalay that spends its runtime asking permission for something that already has it — a crush that's settled into your thoughts uninvited and turned out to be welcome. Fronted by a confident lead vocal that drops straight into the hook at second zero, the track moves fast, stays clean, and doesn't waste a beat on hesitation.

Obito nước

Vietnamese rapper and singer Obito steps into full ballad mode on "nước," a single built around warm synth pads, a bright arpeggiated melody, and a vocal performance that earns its emotion without reaching for it. The thesis is restraint: this is a record that trusts the space between the notes as much as the notes themselves, and that trust is almost entirely vindicated.

Single · Hip-Hop / Trap

TINH HÀ "SAY HI" CÓ GÌ ĐÂU MÀ CAY

"Có Gì Đâu Mà Cay" is a Vietnamese trap single from Tinh Hà "Say Hi" that opens its hand immediately: a synth-driven hook in English before pivoting into Vietnamese rap, building the whole thing around a posture of unanswerable confidence. The move is less about code-switching as novelty and more about making the challenge land before the listener can get their footing.

By Noah Vale7.4

RIIZE Sunburst

"Sunburst" is a high-energy electronic pop single from RIIZE that arrives with a clean, punchy production and a chorus engineered for lift. Built on synth layers, a driving kick, and stacked vocal harmonies that surge at the top of the hook, it sells optimism not as sentiment but as momentum — the kind of track that front-loads its best argument and bets you won't need convincing twice.

Mc Magrinho NO PIQUE ANOS 80

Brazilian MC Mc Magrinho's single "NO PIQUE ANOS 80" is a bright, punchy reggaeton cut built around a pitched-up vocal hook and a dembow groove that does exactly what the title promises — it hits with the blunt confidence of something retrofitted for the club floor. The thesis is simple: the track leads with rhythm over nuance, and for three minutes that trade is more than enough.

F3miii NOBLE (with The Kid LAROI)

"NOBLE," the new single from F3miii featuring The Kid LAROI, arrives as a piece of polished synth-pop that builds its emotional case not from grand declarations but from repetition and restraint — a song about devotion circling the same drain, driven by a hook-like arpeggiated lead synth that establishes its mood in the first two seconds and refuses to let go.

Anitta Você Ja Sabe

A hard-hitting Brazilian funk-meets-EDM single, "Você Já Sabe" runs on the premise that Anitta's arrival requires no introduction — and that the sound system will say the rest. Built around punchy electronic drums, a deep synthesized bass, and a group vocal chant that functions more like a declaration than a hook, the track positions confidence not as attitude but as architecture: the whole thing is engineered to announce.

Steve Lacy the feeling

Released as a standalone single, "the feeling" finds Steve Lacy working a narrow emotional corridor — mid-tempo electropop built around layered female vocals, warm synth pads, and a restless synth bass — and discovering that the question asked over and over is its own kind of answer. The track doesn't resolve so much as accumulate, stacking harmonic voices until the uncertainty itself starts to feel like a groove.

beabadoobee Sun Has Set

"Sun Has Set" is a new single from beabadoobee that plants her firmly in alt-rock/pop-punk territory, running on defiance rather than grief. Where a breakup song usually lingers in the wreckage, this one locks the exit — the thesis isn't heartbreak, it's finality.

Beyoncé MORNING DEW (DONK)

A smooth, mid-tempo R&B single built around layered vocal harmonies and a polished, spacious production, "Morning Dew (Donk)" finds Beyoncé in a reassuring register — not the commanding arena mode, not the experimental auteur, but the warm-hearted partner who stays put. The thesis is commitment as comfort, and the track earns it by letting the voice do the structural work.

AI

Carlos Vives Te Dedico - Remix

A remix single built on cumbia's rolling percussion and an accordion-flavored synth lead, "Te Dedico – Remix" finds Carlos Vives doing what he's always done best: folding romantic sincerity into music that insists on movement. The track is bright, polished, and radio-ready without losing the warmth that makes the dedication feel earned rather than performed.

Teddy Swims Break Up in Reverse

"Break Up in Reverse" is a folk-pop single built on a simple, disorienting premise: what if you could run the dissolution of a relationship backward, rewind the slow slip toward goodbye, and meet love at the finish line instead? Teddy Swims frames the question with fingerpicked acoustic guitar, a clean electric bass, and a vocal delivery so deliberate and unhurried that the tenderness reads less like sentiment and more like argument. The result is a quiet, well-constructed heartbreak song that earns its feeling by keeping its production out of the way.

Cage The Elephant Beaches In Tennessee

"Beaches In Tennessee" is the latest single from Cage The Elephant, arriving as a fast-tempo, high-energy alternative rock cut driven by a punchy, compressed mix and a melodic electric guitar riff that announces itself within the first few seconds. The thesis is built right into the title's contradiction — Tennessee is landlocked, and the song knows it — making the longing for a place that can't quite exist the emotional engine underneath all that kinetic guitar noise.

Single · R&B / Trap-Soul

Ella Mai 100

On "100," Ella Mai builds a mid-tempo R&B single around a deceptively simple argument: real partnership is a numbers game, and she already knows the figures. Produced with a clean, spacious trap-soul foundation — sub-bass sitting deep, electronic drums crisp and unhurried, synth pads opening up the room — the track lets Mai's vocal do the proving, blending melodic singing with rhythmic, near-conversational phrasing until the devotion sounds less like a declaration and more like a settled fact.

Dan Wilson Covering Ground

"Covering Ground" is a mid-tempo folk-pop single from Dan Wilson that builds its optimism on forward motion rather than arrival — driven by strummed acoustic guitar, a clean rhythm section, and a slide instrument that punctuates the hook like an exclamation point. The thesis is earned in the music's own momentum: this is a song that doesn't wait around to be understood.

By Hank Cobb8.0

Myles Smith Heaven

"Heaven" is an acoustic pop single from Myles Smith that collapses a grand theological concept into one intimate declaration: the person in front of him is all the afterlife he needs. Built on strummed and arpeggiated acoustic guitar, a warm electric bass, light percussion, and synth pads hovering at the edges, the track earns its sentiment not through scale but through restraint — a breathy, vulnerable vocal delivery that refuses to oversell the word it's carrying.

HuneyFire Big Girl Money

“Big Girl Money” is a polished contemporary country-pop single from HuneyFire, the mother-daughter Afro-Latina duo, built on a loaded idea: financial independence as the surest kind of self-respect. The empowerment theme is well-traveled country-pop ground, but what carries this one isn’t the message — it’s the harmony. When the second and third female voices fold in on the title hook, the song stops being a statement and becomes a family agreeing on the figure, two generations landing on the same number at the same instant.

By Hank Cobb8.0

RAYE Genesis.

A seven-minute, three-movement suite that lurches from hushed piano confession to gospel catharsis to a drum-and-bass release valve — RAYE betting her hard-won independence on maximalism, and mostly making the gamble pay.

PinkPantheress Tonight

The lead single from Fancy That swaps her usual wistful longing for a narrator in full control — riding a clubby house pulse and a sly Panic! at the Disco string sample into one of her sharpest, most replayable hooks.

Addison Rae Fame is a Gun

Addison Rae’s “Fame is a Gun” is a sharp, shimmering synth-pop single that turns the machinery of celebrity into both fantasy and threat. Rather than apologizing for ambition, Rae leans into it, delivering a track that understands fame as something seductive, dangerous, theatrical, and impossible to hold safely. It is glossy pop with a loaded metaphor at its center.

Paul McCartney Ripples in a Pond

Paul McCartney’s “Ripples in a Pond” is a warm, late-career love song built around one of his most enduring strengths: making a small emotional gesture feel universal. Rather than chasing spectacle, the track leans into melody, gratitude, and romantic steadiness, turning the image of ripples spreading across water into a tender reflection on love’s lasting reach.

Kim Petras Brutalist

Kim Petras turns a demolished brutalist building from her childhood into a metaphor for her transition — her most vulnerable, least polished song, where restraint replaces the hooks and lands harder for it.

Single · Hip-Hop / Rap

Clipse Grindin’

A 2002 blueprint where Pharrell and Chad Hugo build a hit out of almost nothing — a knocking lunchroom beat and acres of silence — and Pusha T and Malice fill the gaps with ice-cold coke-rap craft.

By Noah Vale8.8

Charli xcx SS26

Charli xcx reimagines the Spring/Summer 2026 fashion season as the end of the world — a cold, deadpan, deliberately anti-climactic art-pop piece where the empty space and the runway film do half the storytelling.

Neko Case Destination

The opener to Neon Grey Midnight Green is a chamber-scaled alt-country ballad that grieves a string of lost friends by reframing a person as the place you were always heading — vivid, mythic, and unmistakably hers.

By Hank Cobb8.6
Single · Country

Hailey Whitters Casseroles

A quietly devastating country ballad that skips the funeral for the worse part — the silence after the dishes are returned and the world expects you to be fine. Whitters earns its small image instead of leaning on it.

By Hank Cobb8.7

MUNA Big Stick

MUNA’s most overtly political song trades synth-pop gloss for furious, rock-leaning directness — a protest track, first released to fund Gaza aid, that names names where it could have gestured.

Single · Hip-Hop / Rap

Doechii Anxiety

A nervy, sample-driven single where Doechii turns a viral hook into a study of a racing mind — alternating rap and song over a recycled Gotye loop, with cadence standing in for the symptom itself.

By Noah Vale8.4
Single · Soul-Pop / R&B

Olivia Dean Dive

A warm, horn-kissed soul-pop single that dresses the fear of falling for someone in 60s Motown shuffle and Dean’s easy, unforced vocal — old-fashioned in the best way, and built to last.

Nick Davies Earth Without Art

Nick Davies’ “Earth Without Art” is more than a piano-pop anthem about creativity — it is a direct plea from an artist watching an entire industry collapse in real time. Written from the perspective of musicians and performers facing the sudden loss of work, purpose, and stability, the song turns pandemic-era uncertainty into a heartfelt argument for why art is not optional. It is livelihood, identity, memory, and in some cases, the reason people keep going.

Single · Hip-Hop / Rap

Doechii DENIAL IS A RIVER

A theatrical, dialogue-driven boom-bap cut where Doechii plays both patient and analyst, narrating her way through a cheating ex and her own evasions — storytelling rap with the timing of a one-woman play.

By Noah Vale8.7

3fixx Fly Away

3fixx’s “Fly Away” is a sincere, guitar-driven rock track built around the familiar but durable desire to break free from whatever has become too heavy to carry. With its classic-rock instincts, steady melodic shape, and unpretentious independent spirit, the song feels less interested in chasing trends than in capturing the emotional release of movement, distance, and starting again.

Single · R&B / Soul-Pop

RAYE WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!

A brass-blasted, theatrically staged soul-pop number that turns the search for a life partner into a one-woman show — maximalist, funny, and just self-aware enough to keep the over-the-top production on the right side of irresistible.

Greg Nestler Fever

Greg Nestler’s “Fever” is a tight, groove-driven slice of funk-blues rock that leans into feel, rhythm, and heat. Built around soulful vocals, dynamic guitar work, and a confident live-band energy, the track captures the sound of an artist who understands that blues-rock is not just about volume or grit — it is about tension, release, and the pulse underneath it all.

JADE IT girl

Jade Thirlwall’s second solo single weaponises pop maximalism — a vocal showcase that slams into thick electro-pop drums — to settle scores with an industry that treated her as a product. Concept and chorus arrive at the same volume.

Edie Yvonne Delusion

The closing chapter of a 15-year-old LA songwriter’s high-school trilogy turns hallway gossip into a jangly, bass-driven hook — gone in under two and a half minutes and back in your head a moment later.

Jamie O’Neal There Is No Arizona

Jamie O’Neal’s “There Is No Arizona” remains a masterclass in country-pop storytelling: a breakup song built not around a fight, but around the slow death of belief. With its desert imagery, aching vocal restraint, and devastating central metaphor, the track turns Arizona into something bigger than a place. It becomes a promise, a fantasy, and eventually, the proof that the person she was waiting for was never really coming back.

By Hank Cobb9.0

Andrew Gold Lonely Boy

Andrew Gold’s 1977 hit “Lonely Boy” sounds like gleaming Los Angeles soft rock, but underneath the flawless Peter Asher production sits a comically bitter character study — a firstborn turning childhood resentment into lifelong mythology, and making self-pity irresistibly catchy.

By Elliot Grey8.6

Jackie’s Boy Recipe

Jackie’s Boy’s 2022 single “Recipe” is a bright, theatrical, funk-laced R&B song that turns love into a recipe — slick, flirtatious, and built for full-stage showmanship, with enough vocal command to keep the playful concept from tipping into novelty.

By Theo Bennett8.1

aja monet the color of rain

aja monet’s the color of rain is a 2026, 15-song spoken-word and jazz album that integrates poetry into the body of the band — political, intimate, communal, and a serious musical work by an artist expanding what the centre of a song can be.

By Noah Vale9.0

Wednesday Townies

Wednesday’s “Townies,” from 2025’s Bleeds, is a ragged, brightly-paced indie-rock song that turns small-town memory into emotional static — alt-country storytelling distorted into something rumored, mythologized, and quietly devastating.

By Reuben Walsh8.7

Prince The Beautiful Ones

Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones,” from 1984’s Purple Rain, is a controlled emotional detonation disguised as a ballad — fragile, jealous, pleading, and finally torn open by one of the most famous screams in pop music.

By Theo Bennett9.4

Simon Talbot Never

Simon Talbot’s “Never” is an ambitious solo songwriter album built around love, imagination, escape, and strange emotional geography. Across twelve tracks, the London artist moves through portals, make-believe cities, mysterious men, humanoids, and roads to nowhere, creating a release that feels part rock album, part dream journal, and part personal myth.

Ben Brown Blue EP

Ben Brown’s “Blue EP” is a concise four-track acoustic folk-pop release that favours intimacy over spectacle. Across “Let Go,” “Kathmandu,” “Blue,” and “Dancing With Our Eyes Closed,” Brown works in small gestures, plain feeling, and melodic understatement.

Paul O’Kane As One

Paul O’Kane’s “As One” is a tender pop singer-songwriter piece about loss, family, and spiritual nearness. Written in 2003 and recorded decades later, it carries the feeling of a song that had to wait until the right moment to speak.

Single · Indie Rock

Califone Family Swan (Mecca Normal)

Califone’s take on Mecca Normal’s “Family Swan” is intimate, wounded, and strange in the best possible way. It honours the original not by smoothing it out, but by letting its sadness, humour, bleakness, and humanity remain unresolved.

Single · Electronic

Strategy COMPUTER ROCK

Strategy’s “COMPUTER ROCK” is a hard-edged electronic tribute to Kase2 and the creative resistance captured in Style Wars. Built from bass weight, urban pressure, and cultural memory, it feels less like nostalgia than a transmission from the walls themselves.

Single · Electronic

Austin Millz Rock Any Further

Austin Millz’s “Rock Any Further” is a tight, body-forward electronic cut from the Harlem-rooted New York producer, built less around grand emotional confession than physical command. It is rhythm as architecture: direct, clean, kinetic, and made to make stillness feel like a bad idea.

Pete Murphy Maria

Pete Murphy’s “Maria” is a compact, emotionally literate piece of singer-songwriter pop-rock that treats identity, protection, and family with unusual tenderness. It is not polished in the glossy sense, but its handmade intimacy gives the song its force.

Terry Davies 831

Terry Davies’ “831” is a deeply personal romantic ballad built around memory, marriage, music, travel, and parenthood. Its sentiment is unashamedly direct, but the specificity of its images — Spain, Arizona, Dubai, the stage, and the arrival of a son — gives the song a lived-in emotional weight.