(via Shutterstock)
The week’s end ushers in a host of tracks, well, five to be precise, and they’re a great way to take a weight off all the accumulated stress the working week has visited upon us.
There’s something liberating, even when your nerves are on edge and your body seems to be vibrating with the pressure of a billion urgent things to do, about music’s ability to channel all those emotions and release a thousand different feelings.
It may not reshape reality or fix anything palpable but it makes you feel better and that can sometimes be enough …
“Crash!” by Cherry Bomb
(courtesy official Cherry Bomb Instagram)
Now known as Cherry Bomb, American musician Mandy Lee has left all that group stuff behind her for a moment – she’s the vocalist for American indie band MisterWives who she assures us are very much still a thing – to go solo and aren’t lucky she’s decided to give it a shot.
Her latest song “Crash” is a rip-roaring, high intensity slice of energetic pop that comes armed with emotionally resonant, loud and gorgeous vocals and a striding sense of presence that will not be denied.
It comes complete with a bubblegum technicolour clip set in a laundromat and the singer has this to say about this arrestingly listenable song:
‘Crash!’ sparked the sonic world and sentiment. I hope she’s a reminder to anyone who listens that you don’t have to keep craning your neck looking back at a past you once had to shrink to fit into. (courtesy The Needle Drop)
It’s the latest release to herald Cherry Bomb’s debut album The Pursuit of Pleasure which drops 13 November.
“Blink Twice” by Rose Gray
(courtesy official Rose Gray Instagram)
This is the second release from one of my musical rabbit hole discoveries – you may be many things, YouTube, not all of them good, but good lord you find some amazing songs and thus artists when the algorithm is pumping – and I am loving Rose Gray’s gift for crafting creatively fun pop that makes an impact.
The English singer-songwriter’s song “Blink Twice” is a joyously upbeat danceable heavenly song which has musical hooks aplenty and lyrics which encourage you to carpe diem the life out of every single damn moment.
Life comes with all kinds of Sliding Doors moments and while it’s easy to miss them when we’re rushing for the train or trying to meet an urgent deadline (aren’t they all? Groan), but Gray is having none of that.
Call your best friend
Tell them you love them
Take the next train
To a city that doesn’t know your name
Jump in a swimming pool
Where everyone’s watching but afraid to join you
Call your best friend
And tell them (Tell them, tell them)Blink twice and you might miss it
Three times, you’re in the kitchen
Blink twice and you might miss it
And you might miss it
And you might miss it
Riding a couple of years with all kinds of stellar career achievements to her credit, including stints opening for the likes of Kesha and Scissor Sisters and festivals all across Europe, Gray is one of those artists garnering success for the reason that matters most of all – songs that make you feel alive and thoughtful and glad to be around music that makes you feel something.
“Our Year” (feat. Lights, Felix Cartal) by Tegan and Sara
(courtesy official Tegan and Sara site)
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for a good few decades, and if you have them equal parts congratulations and WTF?! are yours to hold and to treasure, you will, be familiar of identical twin sisters Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin who, not surprisingly went for less of a mouthful when it came to their professional moniker and settled on good old Tegan and Sara.
While they have been making and releasing music for quite a few years since they began their career back in 1998 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, they have decided that 2026 is going to be “Our Year”
To drive the point home on this lo-fi-dreamily lovely track which come with all kinds of “big dreams” they have collaborated with Canadian singer-songwriter Lights and Canadian DJ Felix Cartal and the the result of a supremely wonderfully catchy track which envelops and embraces you.
It’s their first track since 2022, says their blog post, which has a lot of thoughtfully meaningful things going on.
The four of us are all West Coast-based, and the inspiration for the song came from our messy relationship with this beautiful city we call home, this beautiful part of the world we choose to live in, and this complicated, sometimes deeply frustrating job we all have.
But more broadly, “Our Year” is about the exasperation of watching another year get away from you, mixed with the slightly delusional but very real hope that maybe this year really might be your year.
“Cleveland!” by Taylor Swift
(courtesy official Taylor Swift Twitter/X account)
I’ll be honest, while I quite like Taylor Swift as an artist, I haven’t streamed huge numbers of songs.
No particular reason since the ones I have listened to have been a delight including “Cleveland!”, newly released as part of the deluxe extension to the artist’s 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl, which now comes badged as The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore.
Now happily married to football player Travis Kelce, “Cleveland!” is a love song to this new loved-up part of her life, exulting in the fact, perhaps a little self deprecatingly, that she’s found the “one person in this entire world who doesn’t find you completely insufferable.”
It’s a song about everyone having a person and how wonderful it is to find them and honestly the clip that comes with it is all kinds of goofy happy and who doesn’t love that in a piece of music?
“Bandiera” by Giulia Mei
(courtesy official Guilia Mei Instagram)
I am a man of greatly eclectic pop culture interests and when I am not listening to sensationally good music, you can find me either reading, streaming TV, or more pertinently for this post, watching some great movies, often in the cinema.
One film I saw recently at the Italian Film Festival was Separate Beds (2 cuori e 2 capanne), a brilliantly clever and inventive which featured a captivatingly good soundtrack, including an absolute belter of a track from Italian artist, Guilia Mei.
A singer-songwriter and pianist from Palermo, Mei’s official site bio says her music combines “classical pianism, French and Genoese songwriting, electronic and indie pop, giving life to an incisive and contemporary pop”, a fantastically diverse mix of influences which gives her music a wonderfully original sound.
Example A is “Bandiera”, from the film’s soundtrack which is punchy, electrically alive and which echoes the themes of the movie about a woman’s right and need to be her own person and to live life and to love someone, if she chooses, on her own terms.
It’s got power and passion and a delicious pop energy which makes it the kind of song you’ll be playing on repeat, long after the movie’s credits have run.
SONGS, SONGS AND MORE SONGS 145 EXTRA!!
One of the biggest sporting events on the Australian calendar is the AFL Grand Final each year and in 2026 the musical guest of honour was Melbourne’s own Kylie Minogue, returning to her hometown to perform 11 of her amazing tracks. Enjoy!