(via Shutterstock)
You need to groove a little more!
Yes you do, and so do I; there’s something about just the right mid-fi pop song coming on with all the right beats and a just-so sense of atmosphere and style to make all the stress fall away.
All that matters then is a languorous sense of joie de vivre, a chilled vibe that demands nothing more than losing yourself in some songs and honestly what better for the soul than that?
“Guy I Used To Be” by Lawrence
(courtesy official Facebook page)
Good love but isn’t there a joyous power in being head over heels in love?
It’s a consuming, wonderful thing and it bursts out of every word passionately sung by Lawrence’s Clyde Lawrence, one half of the band’s founding New York City-based sibling duo which also includes his sister Gracie (the band now includes a total of eight people).
The lyrics are infectiously exuberant …
Good, good, good, goodbye / To the guy I used to be / To the life I used to lead / Because now I see / You’re the only thing that matters to me / And the man I was before / He don’t matter anymore Because now I see / You’re thе only thing that matters to me
And so is the empathetically upbeat music and Clyde’s delivery which all come together in one gregariously happy slice of almost four-minute pop bliss that will leave you a thousand danceable shades of bliss better off than you were at this joyous song’s start.
“how well do you know your feelings?” by Alice Merton
(courtesy official Facebook page)
One of the things that makes this reviewer’s musical world go round is huge amounts of emotion in a song.
If it feels like the singer is LIVING each and every last note and lyric, then I’m totally there which is why one listen to “How Well Do You Know Your Feelings?” by British-based German-Irish-Canadian singer-songwriter (thank you Wikipedia) really found a place in my heart near instantaneously.
Sung with amazing passion by Merton, who only released her debut album Mint in 2019, “How Well Do You Know Your Feelings?” is accompanied by London Contemporary Voices and percolating ane highly emotive synth beats underpinning it all, and it just seizes your heart, soul and any other part of you capable of feeling anything.
It is resoundingly strikingly beautiful with insightful lyrucs that match the emotiveness of the music to a highly affecting tee.
This is one for the ages, my friends.
(courtesy YouTube)
“So Good” is another that the god of YouTube rabbit holing saw fit to serve up me on my algorithmic wanderings one day.
What started out as a way for me to clear my mind before I dived into writing another involved article for work became a joyous discovery of a track by Newark, New Jersey artist BYHAZE in gloriously good collaboration with NYC artist Safa which manages to be both an exasperated of the dynamics of an on-again, off-again relationship and reaffirmation that frustrations aside, here is a person who makes them feel good and is worth sticking with.
Paired with a gently bubbling R & B beat that’s playful and emotionally meaningful all at once, “So Good” is the kind of delightfully light track that makes you feel like, yes, there is discontent and frustration in the actions of a sometimes thoughtless lover, but there’s also an overwhelming hope and deep love that persists and sustains beyond these momentary issues.
Accompanied by a video that is playful and a lot of fun to watch, “So Good” is one of those unexpected discoveries that lies the weight of life and makes you smile because even though it’s lyrically real at times, it is overall testament to how love can carry through those rough patches.
“Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter
(courtesy YouTube)
There’s something about just the right kind of pop song that makes you want to play it again and again.
“Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter is one of those tracks which, listened to once, almost impels you to hit the repeat button over and over with The Guardian describing the most streamed song of the first week of May as a song that’s “shaping up to be the critics’ pick for the song you won’t be able to escape this summer”.
A delicious slice of nu-disco with what is arguably “one of the most brilliantly nonsensical chorus lines in pop history – ‘That’s that me, espresso'” (The Guardian again)- it’s bright, light, happy and exuberantly lovely, delivered with playful relaxed vocals that match the music and lyrics perfectly.
So why is “Espresso” so damn addictive?
The Guardian points to a spot-on assessment by podcast Switched on Pop‘s Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding who note that “Espresso plays with language in a way that takes your brain a moment to process … ‘Walked in and dream-came-true’d it for ya’ – that’s not proper English … it keeps listeners on their toes.”
Couple that with “vintage funk and disco … with [a] digital produciton sheen”, and you have a song that’s all kinds of pop delightful and guaranteed to be happily filling up your streaming playlists and radio for a good amount of time to come.
“Obsessed” (feat. MAX) by Ayumu Imazu
(courtesy official Instagram account)
Here’s another fun-filled track about falling hopelessly in love but this time from the perspective of someone who falls in love far too quickly and has trouble working if they’ve met the love of their life or not.
Released by 23-year-old Japanese singer-songwriter Ayumu Imazu, “Obsessed” is one of those light and breezy songs that actually a little of lyrical weight on its pleasingly gentle musical shoulders.
Imazu has teamed up with American singer-actor MAX aka Maxwell Schneider to invest “Obsessed” with a playfulness that belies the fact that much of the song is about Imazu ruing the fact that he can’t quite get love right (“I can’t keep meeting the love of my life like this”).
Yeah, there’s a lot of regret but there’s also an acceptance that this is how love goes for him with right now, you suspect, a hope that all this self-examination will lead him to figuring what makes him fall “too easily” and make sure he doesn’t keep repeating the same pattern.
SONGS, SONGS AND MORE SONGS #106 EXTRA!
On April 6th, Europe came together and celebrated the 50th anniversary since ABBA won Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. During the celebration, pianos that were placed at different locations played a special piece of Waterloo – recorded by Benny himself. (courtesy and (c) official ABBA YouTube channel)