It’s Friday again, our favourite day of the week. It’s not only the start of the weekend, but also THE day for new music. However, during lockdown all the days feel similar, almost like Groundhog Day. With the prime minister releasing the roadmap out of the lockdown on Monday, we are finally hoping for some good news, a set plan out of this everlasting lockdown. We have picked out some brand-new tunes that will help you get through this week no matter the outcome of Monday’s briefing, so sit back, relax and read on.
Editor: Megan Hofman
SG Lewis – Times (PMR Records)
‘Times’ is the debut album for Reading-born SG Lewis. From the get-go, this album oozes nostalgia and memories of a much better time. Lewis’s eagerly anticipated album has not disappointed and he has definitely established himself as a special solo artist in his own right after being the producer behind Dua Lipa’s ‘Hallucinate’ and G-Eazy’s ‘No Less’. The opening track ‘Time’ which features the vocals of Rhye immediately gives off late nineties’ early noughties club vibes along with a whole lot of funk which sets up the vibe of the rest of the album.
This album is smothered with incredible collaborations from disco royalty such as Nile Rogers on ‘One More’ with his signature funk guitar riffs and ‘Impact’ which features Robyn, whose voice is essential for a night of dancing, and the smooth vocals of Channel Tres. It’s impossible to sit still whilst listening to this record and the bass line on ‘Back to Earth’ is a perfect example of that – this track, in particular, transports you to a night of dancing with just one listen. There is a good balance of more mellow tracks like ‘Heartbreak On The Dancefloor’ with dreamy eighties pop synths and heart-rending lyrics of unrequited love.
Times definitely fits in with some of the recent stand-out records like Dua Lipa’s ‘Future Nostalgia’, The Weeknd’s ‘After Hours’ and Jessie Ware’s ‘What’s Your Pleasure?’. There is no lack of groove on this record, reminiscent of seventies disco, eighties bass lines, and nineties house tracks, it covers all bases, and the nostalgia is in abundance. Seeing as though we can’t be sweating and dancing the night away in a club (for now) this is the perfect record for a kitchen disco so grab the strobe lights, get your slippers on and dance the night away on your kitchen floor.
Words: Hollie Sackett
Rebecca Black, 3OH!3, Big Freedia, Dorian Electra. – Friday (Remix) (Rebecca Black)
Nearly a decade after the then 14-year-old made the entire internet simultaneously shudder, a reinvented Rebecca Black takes a daring step back to 2011 with her new remix of her unanimously hated debut single, ‘Friday’. Blacks’s grating, preadolescent vocals have been recontextualised and repurposed for the chorus of a borderline satirical hyper pop banger. Hyper pop is one of the few subgenres that could accommodate any of the original recordings of that putrid song, because the genre manipulates, autotunes and pitch-shifts vocals beyond recognition anyway. While the 2011 Patrice Wilson production was a dull, mind-rotting abomination of pop, the 2021 collaborated remix is a fun, colourful mess that is thankfully barely reminiscent of the original.
www.instagram.com/msrebeccablack
Words: Doug Phillips
LILHUDDY – The Eulogy of You and Me (Geffen Records)
LILHUDDY aka Chase Hudson released his second single ‘The Eulogy of You and Me’ produced by Travis Barker this week, just a month after his debut single ‘21st Century Vampire’. Like his prior release, it is a catchy rock song, with the heavy sound of drums and E-guitars. LILHUDDY screams the lyrics about burning bridges to a past relationship over the loud instrumentals, which fits the vibe perfectly. Obviously, we don’t know if he intended to scream at his ex-lover out of frustration, or to convince himself that it’s over but both meanings would make the song equally as relatable. The music video also continues the dark vampire and graveyard aesthetic he chose for his debut single, almost making it a continuous storyline. The overall sound of ‘The Eulogy of You and Me’ is not exactly new, reminding of early releases by the Australian boyband 5 Seconds Of Summer, but he definitely added his own twist to it, successfully differentiating himself from everything that has been done before.
Words: Victoria Madzak
Nipsey Hussle, JAY-Z – What It Feels Like (RCA Records)
A modern legend in mainstream hip-hop, Nipsey Hussle continues to be posthumously honoured and celebrated by his peers. Joining names like Nas, Rapsody and JID, the star-studded ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ movie inspired album is graced with a powerful, soulful hip-hop anthem. Nipsey’s flow and rhyming schemes accentuate the pushed, open hi-hats of the live beat which really highlights the attention to the instrumentals he took. Jay-Z’s approach to his feature is a more sporadic, almost careless flow of prophetic, hard-hitting bars. Jay-Z addresses the assassination of Fred Hampton (the subject of ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’), the storming of the US capitol and the murder of Pop Smoke and Nipsey Hussle in his relentless, action-packed verse.
www.instagram.com/nipseyhussle
Words: Doug Phillips
LDN Music Magazine 