Dance/EDM
Calvin Harris Details Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2, Shares 21 Savage Collab “New Money”: Stream
Calvin Harris has announced the release date and features for his upcoming album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 and dropped its second single “New Money” featuring 21 Savage. A sequel to 2017’s Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, the new studio set will arrive on August 5th via Columbia Records. One day before sharing the news, the DJ teased the release by posting a trailer on his social media accounts revealing the names of the nearly two dozen collaborators on the album, including Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake, Halsey, Pusha T, Charlie Puth, Tinashe, Chlöe, Normani, Offset, Busta Rhymes, Latto, and more. The album can be pre-saved here. Meanwhile, on “New Money,” Harris builds a mid-tempo groove for 21 Savage to celebrate the nouveau riche life by name-dropping an endless parade of designer brands as...
Caribou’s Dan Snaith Announces New Daphni Album Cherry, Shares “Cloudy”: Stream
Caribou mastermind Dan Snaith has announced a new studio set under his Daphni moniker. Titled Cherry, the album will be released on October 7th via Snaith’s own Jiaolong label. To celebrate the announcement, the Canadian producer also unveiled his new single “Cloudy.” “The essence of this one is keeping it aloft — like occasionally nudging a balloon that’s only just heavier than air to keep it afloat,” Snaith said about the track in a statement. “For something so buoyant, I’m surprised how much it bangs in a club.” Cherry will be available on vinyl, CD, and on streaming platforms. Pre-orders are ongoing. Stream “Cloudy” and check out the artwork and full tracklist for Cherry after the jump. Advertisement Related Video “Cloudy” follows the album’s title track, which Snaith dropped...
The Delicate, Dirty and Diverse World of UK Garage
An upbeat two-step rhythm, a touch of R&B soul, and a groovy house vibe. That’s what it takes to conjure the sound of the people — or as those people call it, UK garage. You may know it from Daniel Bedingfield’s 2001 UK No. 1 “Gotta Get Thru This” or T2’s 2007 single “Heartbroken” with Jodie Aysha. Maybe you heard the recent streaming hit “Pain” by breakout star PinkPantheress, and wondered to yourself where you could find more. From the London streets in the mid ’90s to the modern stages of now, the upbeat rhythms and flirtatious vocals of UK garage is a sound that stays fresh after 30 years due mostly in part to its inherent diversity: diversity of sounds, of influencers, and of creators and fans alike. Advertisement While garage is a definitely UK kinda vibe, the genre has its roots...
Why Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Album Is Still as Critical as Ever a Decade Later
“My mama told me when I was young/ We are all born superstars.” The familiar opening line of “Born This Way,” the title track from a certain seminal album, carries just a little weight for Lady Gaga, who was born Stefani Germanotta, and who by her own volition became a classically-trained, boundary-pushing social provocateur with a vital presence in the pop zeitgeist. It takes a certain caliber of artist to become mononymous: Prince. Madonna. Gaga. Lady Gaga and pop culture both looked quite different in 2011 during Born This Way’s initial release, and reviewing Gaga’s boldness from that time — both in her melodramatic public persona and innovative production choices — serves as a reminder for how much has changed in the decade that has passed since. Gay marriage had not yet been legalized...
10 Times Daft Punk Blew Our Minds
After nearly 30 years of groundbreaking music, Parisian duo Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, famously known as Daft Punk, amicably ended their partnership. The band were among the most influential and renowned acts of their time, crafting a unique sound that merged electronic, Euro music with funk elements — a unique blend that made them icons in the music world. After hearing the news, fans and fellow artists alike gushed forth with tributes denoting the massive reach of the dynamic duo’s one-of-a-kind artistry. Without question, Daft Punk’s artistic ingenuity and anonymity have left an indelible mark on the music industry and beyond. We don’t know for sure if there’s a future for Daft Punk. However, we can surely pause a day later to look back and celebrate the lega...
The Avalanches Transport the Listener on We Will Always Love You: Review
The Lowdown: In a recent interview with the BBC, founding member of The Avalanches, Robbie Chater, said of We Will Always Love You, “We were thinking a lot about signal transmission and how every radio broadcast from the last hundred years is still floating out there in space … It’s a beautiful thought to me that all these broadcasts are still out there, surrounding us.” It’s easy to feel this focus in the album, an expansive cosmic compendium that finds its tracks crackling and churning into one another. The context of the album’s production — how the band was inspired by the idea that sampling old records is like summoning old spirits and by the recording of Ann Druyan’s heartbeat for the Golden Record just after Carl Sagan proposed to her — helps, but it isn’t strictly necessary. This a...
Lady Gaga’s Chromatica Dances Through the Pain and Trauma: Review
The Lowdown: It feels strange listening to dance music at a time when dance clubs themselves, nights out with friends, and, for many, friends in general are impossible to access in person. Like so many of the joys people have managed to find in quarantine, kitchen-floor dance parties and celebrations shared via Zoom and FaceTime — while necessary reliefs and real, genuine joys — can also sometimes feel tinged with a hint of delirium. But Chromatica feels like an appropriate answer to the vacancy created by this dissonance — as a lot of Lady Gaga’s work has done in the past, it offers up some honest-to-God bangers side by side with some honest-to-oneself reckonings with trauma, pain, addiction, and the very idea of what it means to be flawed and how this idea shifts depending on who’s defin...
Song of the Week: Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande Welcome the Storm on “Rain on Me”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify New Sounds playlist. Just like local governments and health officials across the country have spoken of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of phases, it seems like artists are also slowly venturing back to normalcy in phases. If this week taught us anything, it’s that strumming a guitar from your living room on Instagram is totally last phase. This week instead saw notable names like Carly Rae Jepson, Owen Pallett, Jeff Rosenstock, and Dave Harrington (of Darkside) release surprise albums. Another trend finds many of our favorite artists pairing up for surprise singles. Just this week collaborations included Soccer Mommy and Jay Som, Local Natives and Sylv...
Center Stage Gave Us Zoe Saldana, Mandy Moore, and the Dance Film of a Generation
On May 12, 2000 many lives were changed forever. But most of us didn’t know it, because we were too young to get ourselves to a movie theater without a ride from our parents. On May 12, 2000, the motion picture Center Stage came to theaters. The teen movie focuses on Jody Sawyer and her fellow students at the American Ballet Academy (ABA). Only the best of the best get in, and every student is fighting for a spot in the company. Unfortunately Jody has bad feet, but is reluctantly accepted into the school because of her stage presence. Along the way, Jody discovers jazz, and has a romantic relationship with Cooper Nielsen, the male star of the company and teacher. In that a man helps a woman discover jazz, it’s sort of like La La Land, but more deserving of accidentally being announced as t...