Hey, welcome back to New Music Friday, my round-up of brand-new songs. Today (May 28, 2021) we’ve got new tunes from Bad Bunny featuring Luar La L, a posthumous tune from DMX featuring JAY-Z and NAS, indie rock supergroup superduo Bachelor, and more!
If you weren’t here last week for my first edition of New Music Friday, here’s the premise: Reaction videos of young people digging old music are HUGE right now. But I’m not young, I’m old. So… I decided to listen to brand-new music, mostly geared to people younger than me, and do a Twitch stream where I react to these songs live.
So far, I’ve been doing the streams at twitch.tv/duckthepianowire at noon PT / 3pm ET on Fridays. But, since everyone can’t tune in, I have also made Youtube videos of highlights from the streams so far. Here’s the one for today:
Below are the tunes I gave a blind listen to (a “deaf listen” to?) today. After each listen, I gave a kneejerk review based on this scale: SKIP!!, Add to Playlist, Play the Whole Album, BUY THE VINYL!! Skip!! is the worst designation and BUY THE VINYL!! is the absolute best. Makes sense, right?
Song 1: “100 Millones” by Bad Bunny ft. Luar La L
Final thoughts: Hard to judge their lyrical skill since I don’t speak Spanish. I like Bad Bunny’s attitude, and the beat has a fun lo-fi grime to it. I don’t dig Luar La L’s voice or flow on this track. Add to Playlist.
Song 2: “Back of My Hand” by Bachelor
Final thoughts: Jay Som and Palehound are both artists I have heard of before, but I’ve never heard their work. This combined effort from the duo has intense ’90s alt-rock vibes in a great way. Love the smooth vocals and the distorted drum sound. Play the Whole Album.
Song 3: “how to live” by yaeow, Powfu, Sarcastic Sounds
Final thoughts: Mopey boys making mopey pop. UGGGGGGGGGGGGH. SKIP!!
Song 4: “Bath Salts” by DMX ft. JAY-Z & NAS
Final thoughts: The late DMX bats clean-up after JAY-Z and NAS set him up with one great verse each. Who needs hooks when you’ve got rhymes this nice? Play the Whole Album.
Song 5: “All Over the Road” by Blackberry Smoke
Final thoughts: Owes a heavy debt to the Allmans and Rolling Stones, but if you like that stuff… no reason not to like this. Add to Playlist.
Song 6: “Stand for Myself” by Yola
Final thoughts: An intriguing blend of blues, soul, gospel, and rock. The song builds to a fiery climax, but maybe spends a little too much time simmering. Interested to hear more from Yola, though. Add to Playlist.
Song 7: “Nada Es Verdad” by Natalia Lafourcade & Los Cojolites
Final thoughts: An traditional-style ballad that gradually builds into a swirling, shouting carnival. The arrangement — with a string section and backing choir — is gorgeous and strange. The best tune in this batch. BUY THE VINYL!!
The next New Music Friday livestream will be at noon PT / 3pm ET on June 4 at twitch.tv/duckthepianowire. See you there?
Justin Remer makes movies, directs music videos, and plays in the bands Duck the Piano Wire and Elastic No-No Band when he is not writing movie reviews. His folk-rock documentary MAKING LOVERS & DOLLARS is currently streaming on Amazon.