All Eyes On
King Hannah Isn’t Sorry
Naming your debut album I’m Not Sorry, I Was Just Being Me is a statement. It’s an embrace of unwavering selfhood in the face of detractors. Vocalist Hannah Merrick and guitarist Craig Whittle — better known as Liverpool indie-rock duo King Hannah — understand that it’s a lengthy title. But (as one might’ve guessed) they aren’t sorry about it. “We’re really happy with the title,” Merrick tells SPIN over Zoom. “It took a long time for us to choose, didn’t it? We really love long sentences. We knew from the start it was going to be a long title. It was just choosing the sentence that we thought had romance to it but also was a statement. ‘This is what we sound like. This is us. This is who we are, and we’re not sorry for that.’” In terms of the title’s origins, Whittle says that he and his b...
Roosevelt Gets Bodies Moving and Hearts Racing on Polydans
If you’re longing for the kind of in-person connection that can only be found dancing with abandon in a room full of friends and strangers alike, Roosevelt’s got your soundtrack. Roosevelt is the moniker of 31-year-old German artist Marius Laube, who just released the deluxe edition of his third album, Polydans, which is a note-perfect antidote to pandemic-era gloom and doom, nodding to everything from the Bee Gees, yacht rock, French house and sleek ‘80s pop over the course of 10 feel-good tracks. The ramped up version has eight additional alternate takes and the club bangers “About U” and “On My Mind.” “The theme of the record, and why I called it ‘Polydans,’ is showing these different perspectives on dance music,” Lauber tells SPIN over Zoom from the East Williamsburg apartment he’s bee...
O.N.E. The Duo Carve Their Own Path From Wu-Tang Roots to Country Music
O.N.E. The Duo could’ve taken the easy way into the music biz. The mother-daughter duo of Tekitha Washington and Prana Supreme Diggs was already hip-hop royalty — as in Prana’s father is RZA, while Washington (known professionally by only her first name) can be heard on a number of Wu-Tang Clan group and solo tracks across her 25-year career — and likely would’ve coasted into a secure space within the rap or R&B worlds pretty easily. Instead, O.N.E. (which stands for “Observant, Noetic, and Effervescent”) decided to delve into arguably the most difficult corner of the music realm they could enter: country. As the only Black mother-daughter combination in country — a genre which has often been challenging for women and minorities alike — the Nashville-based duo is carving their own way ...
Muni Long Is Finally Getting Her Flowers (And Flowers)
Muni Long is winning. Her name is finding a home on TikTok, and as of late, the Billboard Hot 100 as her breakout single “Hrs and Hrs” cracks the top 20 on its ascent up the charts. By now, the artist formerly known as Priscilla Renea’s new moniker might even be more inescapable than her pen game, which alone is responsible for a decade of transcendent pop hits. [embedded content][embedded content] Regardless of what you have or haven’t heard of Muni, listeners are scrambling to predict her next-big-thing status, with TikTok even placing her on “emerging artist” lists thanks to her inescapable smash. Muni, whose resume proves she’s just as much the past and present as she is the future, has no preference for what you call her. “I’m at a place where I just want to win,” she tells SPIN earli...
Yard Act Aren’t Who You Think They Are
Yard Act‘s James Smith has come a long way from the set of Peaky Blinders. The frontman – a former support worker, music teacher and sometimes-actor – appeared briefly in the famed BBC gangster drama’s third season, where he’s shoved unceremoniously by Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby in a crowded factory. Now, Smith is no longer just a face in the background. Yard Act’s debut album, The Overload (released in January on Island Records) has made sure of that. It’s an endlessly clever, devilishly sharp post-punk screed on British politics and class warfare. Fatefully, the Leeds-based four-piece now counts Murphy among its most famed supporters. “Yard Act and The Overload…came to me at a point in my life where I felt like I was stuck in place,” the 31-year-old Smith tells SPIN over Zoom from the...
Get Lost In DannyLux’s Corrido Rock
DannyLux is reinventing corridos through a Chicano rocker lens. The Mexican-American singer is breaking through thanks to his innovative blend of Mexican folk balladry with an indie-rock edge. He grew a fanbase on TikTok after his songs were shared thousands of times on the app. Through a new partnership with Warner Music Latina, the label is backing his album, Perdido En Ti, which was released on January 28. By plugging his guitar into his bicultural background, DannyLux is striking a chord with his cool corridos. “I just want people to be able to vibe to my music,” DannyLux tells SPIN on Zoom from his family’s home in Palm Springs. He’s sitting in his bedroom in a cushioned chair that looks fit for online gaming. His vibe is very laid back during the conversation. “My first language is S...
Blu DeTiger Wants the Funk
Listen to Blu DeTiger for 30 seconds and you’ll know exactly what defines the young artist’s music. It’s the bass. Not those thumping samples found on any modern pop track, but slinking lines plucked and slapped from a real bass guitar — sounds of a bygone, much funkier era. For 22-year-old DeTiger (her real name), the bass has been an obsession since she was 7 years old. “I remember thinking ‘So many girls play guitar and sing,’” DeTiger tells SPIN, taking a break from working on new music to call in from Los Angeles. “I was like, ‘I want to be different. I want to do something unique.’ And I’ve never looked back.” DeTiger’s commitment to the bass as the centerpiece in her songwriting has launched the Manhattan native as one of the most exciting — and genuinely singular — new artists to a...
Jenevieve’s Sparkly R&B Is Hiding in Plain Sight
Hidden gems can often find listeners at the strangest times. That includes when they’re out walking their dog, like Jenevieve was in a Los Angeles-area park back in July, before the 24-year-old vocalist stumbled on an abandoned box full of albums. “There’s some CDs. I wasn’t gonna touch it because it was on the ground,” she says. “And then I just looked through, and I saw an Aaliyah CD. And I kind of got chills. I was like, ‘Why would anybody do this?’” It’s a fair question. There’s no logical conclusion to make as to why any somewhat-reasonable person would leave a copy of Aaliyah’s One in a Million–a CD that was out-of-production at that point for over two decades–in a box in the park. But nevertheless, Jenevieve found something precious when she was least expecting it, which is exactly ...
How a TikTok Hit About Harry Styles Changed Charlotte Sands’ Life
When Charlotte Sands posted a TikTok at the beginning of COVID asking Yungblud to let her open for him on tour, she didn’t know that it would actually happen. The idea was something the blue-haired singer-songwriter had been putting into the universe for a while, and it finally seemed like her unrelenting hope was paying off. “I genuinely have been manifesting opening for [Yungblud on tour] for about two years now,” Sands laughs over the phone between hours of tour rehearsals in Nashville. “I’ve always been a fan of his message and everything he represents as an artist and as a person. He has always been a really big idol for me.” Born in Massachusetts to a musician father and actress mother, Sands was always surrounded by music. As a kid, she found herself inspired by storytelling songwri...
The Lazy Eyes Do It All Themselves—No Matter How Long It Takes
The Lazy Eyes may be fresh in their 20s, but all four members are already feeling the pangs of nostalgia. Roughly seven years after forming, the Sydney-based band is finally ready to drop their self-produced, self-recorded debut album, SongBook, in March. The collection is an escapist, idealistic, time-traveling journey that frolics in Beatles-flavored strawberry fields, trudges through heavy stoner sludge, and plays with the sort of effortless, heady sounds of artists like Tame Impala and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard who have made Australia this century’s hotbed for psych-rock. The band refers to their long-awaited debut as a trip down memory lane. Some songs were written nearly half a decade ago, after all—a lifetime in teenage years. As students at Sydney’s Newtown High School o...
Anxious Bring Classic Emo Singalongs to Gen Z on Little Green House
There are a lot of things you can say about Little Green House, the debut full-length from the Connecticut-based Anxious. For one, the album doesn’t sound like the first big release from a quintet of Zoomers. It could’ve just as easily been released by a band like Texas Is the Reason that broke up long before Anxious vocalist Grady Allen (or anyone else in the band) was born. But perhaps the thing that most stands out about today’s release is that someone in Run for Cover Records’ A&R department is probably underpaid for doing the emo/punk/hardcore/post-hardcore Lord’s work. Seriously, with a roster that includes names like Citizen, Fiddlehead and Turnover, Run for Cover really could’ve just coasted in that sector of the music world while looking to sign whoever the newest Blink-182-ad...
After Overnight Internet Success, FUR Are Done Coming of Age
Success is where you find it in the constrictive new COVID age. At least that’s how William Murray, the frontman for one of 2021’s most delightful new bands, the ‘60s-jangly FUR, says. Since it isn’t necessarily happening in the old chart-climbing hit-single way that it used to, artists are turning to online platforms, often with surprising results. For instance, his quirky quartet from Brighton, UK had no expectations when it quietly posted to YouTube its video for the 2017 single “If You Know That I’m Lonely,” a sweet, shimmering confection awash in the singer’s Byrdsian chiming guitar chords and inimitable chipmunk-chipper warble. After years of serious songwriting struggles while studying the music business in college, Murray had finally assembled the perfect group to realize his visio...
