This Sunday, we’ve got eight special tunes that cover pop, r&b, heavy metal, electronic, and hip-hop!
8. Pop Wallace – Out Sick (feat. Boyfrens)
Irish pop artist Pop Wallace has an ability to infuse dark tones and sensibilities to otherwise upbeat pop styled music. With a range of influences from Joji to Timberlake to Frank Ocean, he does try to amalgamate these myriad styles into his own craft. Enlisting the help of Boyfrens, ‘Out Sick’ is an incredibly well produced and mastered pop piece that combines a host of different little sound elements within its four minute runtime. The song is about a mixture of things from self sabotage, excess and self worth. Wallace’s portions of the lyrics are really about binging, being self aware of the damage he’s doing to himself but going through with it regardless.“I know I’ve done this to myself, always picking from the bottom shelf” . Boyfrens verse goes down a similar path, but is more personal to the concept of self, discussing our own conception of self-worth and loathing.
The chorus is, in a way, deeply cathartic. The “I think I might call out sick soon” hits all the more harder after each verse’s completion. As a pure pop production piece, few tunes this year are as addictive, well written, and mastered as ‘Out Sick’.
7. Camila Knight – In My Mind
Camila Knight has an energy to her, one that makes you push relentlessly forward. On ‘In My Mind’, the Spanish singer-songwriter discusses an inner battle between yourself. Discussing mental health, that feeling of overwhelming things to do, That battle with your inner critic, that voice in your head that questions whether you’re good enough, is brought to life here. But, the song is sung with a defiance to it, one that makes you come out the other end with positivity. It’s a pop song at the end of the day, and one that is fully aware of the quirks that it has to satisfy to make it an entertaining ride.
Camila’s distinctive voice, characterised by a thick Spanish accent which beautifully accentuates every lyric’s delivery makes it a a uniquely entertaining indie pop tune.
5. Dad Hat – Florist (feat. Angela)
‘Florist’ is a groovy, intimate, and transportively spacey. It’s a dreamy and mellow piece that is downright hypnotic in its production. A scintillatingly seductive duet between Angela and Dad Hat just add to the air of this majestically emotive piece. Combining elements of jazz, pop, rock, fusion, and soul, it’s got an old school vibe to it that somehow is delivered with a very modernistic style. The track’s strongest asset is undeniably the guitar work on it, all the emotion is carried by each twang of Dad Hats. It’s got a keenly unique but relatable subject matter as well, narrating the pains of loving someone in an estranged relationship when you can’t guess whether the desire is mutual.
Dad Hat is a Los Angeles Indie-Pop duo formed by 23-year-old Steven Gudino and Maddie Barrett, USC and UCLA graduate music students respectively. Their masterful production creates immensely relaxing and sedative trip-hop-esque soundscapes.
“It’s hard to shake this feeling / Is it as it should be? / Do you love me now?”. That, is a climax done right.
4. Max Summers – All I Need
Max Summer sings and writes with sincerity, a quality that is often forgotten in modern pop music. Each lyric, each delivery is matched with an earnestness and passion of a singer who is immersed into his craft entirely. ‘All I Need’ is a deeply personal track, one that Max wrote for his sisters who remain estranged to him. Describing the current situation is irrevocably broken, Max’s desperation and emotion is keenly present through ‘All I Need’. Although an intrinsically electropop tune, ‘All I Need’ is in content a singer-songwriter piece that’s wrapped under the guise of commercialised and over produced electropop.
And, in that vein, it’s able to be a powerful club anthem, chart topping pop tune, while still being a deeply personal track about a familial struggle and shattered relationships. Max’s voice, with a keen French accent present, creates a unique vocal delivery that will be a breath of fresh air to most.
3. Chrome Sky – Desert Sun
Chrome Sky is the result of a decade-long collaboration between the multifaceted vocalist and songwriter Paolo Miano and the creative composer/programmer Mario Ferrarese. Combining metal, industrial, trance, progressive, and goth, Chrome Sky is an ambitious project with an even more ambitious end product. ‘Desert Sun’ is intimidating, it has all the characteristics of a death metal track, but it’s also got the melody and singing prowess of a melodic metal one. That aside, the track also has some incredibly strange extra sonic elements that truly make it a basket of experimentalism. For its ambition, its ability to synthesize all of this together into a single cohesive project, there is undeniable merit in Chrome Sky’s work.
The closing minutes to Desert Sun are nigh cacophonic, bringing together an array of sounds that are at once terrifying, uplifting, and crashing. For any metal fans out there, you’d do well to check out this groups work, and Desert Sun is the perfect place to start.
2. Squid The Kid – Drunk Thoughts
In a world where a new rapper springs up from every nook and cranny imaginable, Squid The Kid is a welcome listen. Lyrically gifted, but with a flow that’s so effectively smooth that you can’t help but groove along, he’s a master of crafting a vibe that’s perfect for the more mellow scenes. He’s got a little bit of the late Mac in him, a comparison I wouldn’t throw lightly, but one that is definitely justified. On ‘ Drunk Thoughts’, the Australian rapper narrates about what people really feel after a night out. Based on the ever so relatable saying, ‘a drunk mind speaks a sober heart’, Squid’s written an entire tune about the depressing but true reality of how we often end up discussing our most personal feelings. He’s funky, groovy, and intelligent. He’s also wildly original, far from the current crop of trap imitations you tend to see in hip-hop. Undoubtedly inspired by a Mac Miller or Anderson Paak, Squid is part of the more jazzy, trip-hop style of modern rap. Definitely a listen you won’t regret.
1 Josh Berkeley – Paradise
Josh Berkeley has a special voice. That isn’t an exaggeration, in fact, it’s probably an understatement. On ‘Paradise’, the soul singer-songwriter has created a blissfully romantic tune that’s an ode to those first few weeks, that honey moon period where you feel absolutely nothing can go wrong. On the eve of a summer that hopefully sees us all return to normality, it’s a soundtrack that we’d be yearning for. Berkeley, who’s had his music featured on Broadway World Blog and and having won a John Lennon Songwriting Competition Weekly Winner, is an accomplished talent who’s only on the edge of a series of accolades coming his way.
Paradise is a gem of a track, one that’s sung angelically with an air of romance and positivity all around it. The subtle and mellifluous acoustic combined with Berkeley’s honey dew cutting voice is a magically reassuring journey. It’s the ideal summer tune.
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