New Music
Elton John Announces Enormous Career-Spanning Box Set, Shares Previously Unreleased “Sing Me No Sad Songs”: Stream
Elton John has announced a massive, career-spanning box set titled Elton: Jewel Box. Due out November 13th, the eight-disc collection was curated by John himself and boasts all sorts of rarities, B-sides, and fan favorites. As a preview, he’s sharing a previously unreleased track from 1969 called “Sing Me No Sad Songs”. The 148-song (!) set is split into four main sections, “Deep Cuts”, “B-Sides”, “Rarities”, and And This Is Me… The first two discs aptly feature deep cuts that are supposedly personal favorites of John’s, while the next three discs comprise of rarities categorized chronologically: Rarities Part One 1965-1968, Rarities Part Two 1968, and Rarities Part Three 1968-1971. That’s where the sprightly “Sing Me No Sad Songs” is pulled from, which you can take a l...
Saba Unleashes New Songs “Mrs. Whoever” and “Something in the Water” Featuring Denzel Curry: Stream
Two years after the release of his excellent sophomore album Care for Me, Chicago rapper Saba has returned with a pair of new songs: “Mrs. Whoever” and “Something in the Water” featuring Denzel Curry. Our former Artist of the Month hasn’t been wholly idle since his last album; as the de facto leader of Pivot Gang, he was instrumental in the 2019 release You Can’t Sit with Us. But with apologies to his immensely talented collaborators, Saba has always stood out for his charisma and the intensity of his musical ideas. Somehow, his voice always sounds slightly different song to song, as he modulates his voice to better suit the beat. That instinct is on display in the contrasting new singles. Saba produced “Mrs. Whoever” himself, but the relaxed backing track is merel...
Sam Smith Announces New Album Love Goes, Shares “Diamonds”: Stream
Sam Smith has announced their new album. It’s called Love Goes and it’s due out October 30th via Capitol. To accompany the news, Smith has shared a dance-ready single called “Diamonds”, alongside an accompanying music video. Love Goes is Smith’s third studio album to date, following their 2014 debut In the Lonely Hour and 2017’s The Thrill of It All. They originally planned to call the new album To Die For, but scrapped the title and pushed back its release due to the pandemic. It seems in the time since then, Smith has tinkered with the album. Several of the previously released singles — including the Demi Lovato-aided “I’m Ready”, the Donnie Darko-sampling “To Die For”, and the Donna Summers cover “I Feel Love” — have been relegated to bonus track status. As such...
John Coltrane’s Giant Steps Receives 60th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition: Stream
John Coltrane’s classic 1960 album Giant Steps has been reissued in a new super deluxe edition. Stream it below via Apple Music and Spotify. Before his untimely death at the age of 40, Coltrane established a reputation as, if not the very best saxophone player in the world, then certainly the flashiest. His virtuosic collaborations with Miles Davis produced some of the most beloved jazz music of any era, including Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, Steamin’. and a strong contender for the most perfect piece of art ever created, Kind of Blue. Giant Steps came one year after Blue, and it established Trane as a ferocious solo artist in his own right. Giant Steps: 60th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is available as either a double-CD or double-vinyl package, a...
Van Morrison Announces Anti-Lockdown Song Series
The coronavirus death toll is currently 947,000, and Europe is in the midst of its second wave of the pandemic. And yet somehow there are still people like Van Morrison who believe it’s all a hoax and insist on putting more people’s lives in danger. In a statement last month, the Northern Irish songwriter dismissed socially distanced concerts as “pseudo-science”, and called on fellow musicians to join him in demanding a return to “full capacity audiences.” Now, to further drive his ill-informed point home, Van Morrison has announced a series of anti-lockdown protest songs. As the BBC reports, the “Brown Eyed Girl” musician plans to release three different singles in the near future. All of them bear cringe-worthy titles — the kind that Trump or one of those embarrassing Target Flash Mob an...
Busta Rhymes and Anderson .Paak Uncork New Song “YUUUU”: Stream
Busta Rhymes and Anderson .Paak will turn this car around on their banging new driving song “YUUUU”. It’s the latest single from Busta’s forthcoming album Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God. As an ode to U-Turns, “YUUUU” is much more metaphorical than literal, though the sparkling production would certainly lend flair to any high-speed swerving in your future. But in a broader sense, “YUUUU” is a stunt track framed as a willingness to change course, retrace, and take care of unfinished business. “Bitch I had to bust a Uuuu!” .Paak sings, his voice high but falling. He adds, “Know I had to finish what I started/ No, it ain’t too late to turn around, is it?” Busta Rhymes takes his high-octane verse in sixth gear, but he also slows down for a memorable bridge: “Now I’m gettin’ back li...
Lykke Li Covers Gloria Gaynor Classic “I Will Survive”: Stream
It’s been well over a year since we’ve heard anything new from Lykke Li. That changes today, however, with the release of a fresh cover song. Fitting considering these unprecedented times, she has tackled the Gloria Gaynor anthem “I Will Survive”. In 2018, the Swedish songwriter effortlessly turned mournful brooding into something hot and heavy on her bluntly titled but very good so sad so sexy. It should come as no surprise, then, that her rendition of a disco classic sounds far and away from Gaynor’s original 1979 vision. That’s not to say the cover isn’t worth a spin or two, especially if you’re a fan of the way Li can evoke a very specific fragile ambiance. Hear it for yourself below, and then revisit Gaynor’s recent interview on This Must Be the Gig. Lately, Li has been surviving...
Tyler Childers Drops Surprise New Album Long Violent History: Stream
Country artist Tyler Childers has dropped a surprise new album titled Long Violent History. Stream it below through Apple Music and Spotify. Childers announced the follow-up to 2019’s Country Squire in a six-minute video essay on YouTube. The first eight tracks are traditional fiddle instrumentals “intended to create a sonic soundscape for the listener, to set the tone to reflect on the last track, which is my own observational piece on the times we are in.” That final statement, “Long Violent History”, is an explicit appeal to rural white voters on behalf of the Black Lives Matter movement. Childers asks his listeners how they would behave if their friends and families were treated the way that Black Americans have been treated. He sings, “How many boys could they haul off this mount...
Jamila Woods Shares New Version of “SULA (Hardcover)”: Stream
Last month saw Jamila Woods return with “SULA (Paperback)”, her first new music since releasing one of 2019’s best albums, LEGACY! LEGACY!. Now, she’s shared a different version of the track, appropriately called “SULA (Hardcover)”. Inspired by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s 1973 novel of the same name, “SULA” finds Woods rejecting conventional ideas of identity in order to “embrace my tenderness, my sensitivities, my ways of being in my body.” Whereas the “Paperback” version did this as a peaceful mantra, the “Hardcover” take features a more sensual grove. With a silky beat from Slot-A, “SULA (Hardcover)” fully embodies the sexuality at the song’s core. As does the accompanying music video. The clip would be labeled slightly NSFW in normal days, but let’s be real, this is a pa...
Chris Cornell’s Estate Shares Previously Unreleased Version of “Only These Words”: Stream
Chris Cornell’s daughter, Toni, is celebrating her 16th birthday today. To mark the occasion, the rock legend’s estate has revealed a very special gift: a previously unreleased version of “Only These Words”. “Only These Words” officially appeared as part of Cornell’s 2015 solo album Higher Truth. A sweet, lullaby-like ode to his daughters, it saw the Soundgarden frontman repeatedly croon the words, “I love you.” According to an Instagram post from his family, today’s unearthed version is the true “original” one, even more tender and sparse than what was later included on Higher Truth. “Your dad would be so proud of the smart, strong, beautiful, and confident woman you are growing up to be,” reads the Instagram caption dedicated to Toni. Editors’ Picks “You are so very loved, and you ...
Baby Keem Drops New Songs “hooligan” and “sons & critics freestyle”: Stream
19-year-old rapper/producer Baby Keem has dropped a pair of songs, “hooligan” and “sons & critics freestyle”. Both are expected to appear on an upcoming album, which will be released by pgLang, the new media company created this year by Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free. Born Hykeem Carter, this California wunderkind had an almost inexplicably quick rise. The official story, as he explained to Complex in 2018, is that he “sent a pack of beats to the TDE email,” and one of them unexpectedly ended up on Black Panther: The Album. He followed that up with a Beyoncé credit, writing and producing “Nile” with Kendrick Lamar on The Lion King: The Gift. For many people, his mysterious ascension was explained when Lamar’s sister tweeted — and almost immediately deleted — a message to Keem c...
Pallbearer Share New Song “The Quicksand of Existing”: Stream
With Pallbearer gearing up to release their fourth album, Forgotten Days, the band has today offered up the LP’s third single, “The Quicksand of Existing”. The track continues a string of strong singles for the album, including “Rite of Passage” and the title track. Again, it’s Pallbearer in full doom mode. Chugging riffs make way for Brett Campbell’s vocals, delivered in a theatrical style that invokes the genre’s great singers like Ozzy Osbourne and Scott Weinrich. Director Ben Meredith’s narrative video for the song parallels the band’s own concept — the song being a “reflection on family and loss,” according to the band. “As we strive to be, the forces of entropy perpetually pull us down into a state of being unmade,” bassist/songwriter Joseph D. Rowland said in a press release. “The b...
