Top Song of the Week
Song of the Week: beabadoobee’s “Care” Reminds Us That It’s Actually Summer
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. Let’s play some catchup. 2020 began with all the musical anticipation of a new year and fresh decade. Then, when COVID-19 initially struck the States, music became an afterthought as we watched major albums delayed and highly anticipated tours postponed into oblivion. Then music became a lifeline as we huddled indoors and waited for the world to end. We listened to “quarantine albums,” found comfort in online fireside or bathtub sessions, and began marking Instagram shows on our calendars as if they were actual concerts. Then, the George Floyd murder shook the world, and we needed music to cry to, to scream to, and, most importantl...
Song of the Week: Kid Cudi and Eminem Get Real on “The Adventures of Moon Man & Slim Shady”
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. Music hasn’t pussyfooted around in 2020. Nor has it turned a blind eye to what’s going on in the world. More and more, artists are tackling the topics we see in our daily media feeds and on our nightly news programs, and they’re getting music into the hands — or at least ears — of listeners faster than ever. And that trend makes sense. In a time where artists reveal more about themselves than ever via social media platforms and the world never sits still for longer than a news cycle, listeners are not only demanding that songs address their needs — something to march to, dance to, or lean on — but that they do so in as close to rea...
Song of the Week: BLACKPINK’s “How You Like That” Illuminates the Darkest Places
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. A year ago, we were admittedly still trying to make sense of K-pop. We wondered how artists we had never heard of — or only recently came to know — were selling out arenas in record time. We tried to figure out what the deal was with those guys (BTS, btw) teaming with Lil Nas X at the Grammys. Finally, our own Alexis Hodoyan-Gastelum, a longtime K-pop fan and writer, broke it down for us: “K-pop is not a genre. A type of music? Sure. An industry? Yes. A musical scene? Definitely. But not a specific genre. Boom, now we can move forward.” Whether it was the bands, the fans, or the scope of the music itself, we were trying to fit some...
Songs of the Week: Public Enemy and Beyoncé Raise Voices in Different Ways
Public Enemy (photo by Paul R. Giunta) and Beyoncé 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. America clearly wants music that helps them raise their voices. Don’t believe it? Amid protests, streams of Rage Against the Machine music have increased 62%, enough to send “Killing in the Name”, a 29-year-old song, to top five in the digital streaming charts. Socially conscious outfit Run the Jewels have seen their fourth installment find the Billboard 200 top 10 and are all over mid-year lists. The music we love has its roots in rebellion and hard times, so it’s not surprising that something innate in us turns to our earbuds and streaming devices when the world seems to be circl...
Song of the Week: John Prine’s “I Remember Everything” Offers One Last Goodbye
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. Artists and fans have been searching for the right way to say goodbye to John Prine and gain closure ever since the beloved songwriter passed away in April due to COVID-19. There has since been an outpouring of heartfelt messages, wishes, and tributes from around the world. Here at Consequence of Sound, we put on our own Instagram festival for Prine, which featured artists like John Darnielle, Colin Meloy, and Norah Jones and benefitted several charities handpicked by Prine’s family. As recently as Thursday night, celebrities like Bill Murray and Stephen Colbert joined artists such as Kacey Musgraves and Sturgill Simpson in a lives...
Song of the Week: Run the Jewels’ “walking in the snow” Proves Tragically Prophetic
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. After months of being cooped up inside and watching a so-called “invisible” enemy take the lives of thousands of our fellow Americans (and many more of our global brothers and sisters), the idea of returning to normalcy has been on many of our minds. Sadly, for some, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a deadly reminder that some things haven’t changed much. Poor communities, of course, are being hit hardest by the virus, challenging living conditions and less access to proper health care leading to a disproportionate number of deaths in many Black neighborhoods and other minority communities. And despite our country being devastated by...
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...
Song of the Week: Neil Young’s “Try” Hints at a Painful Portrait of a Broken Heart
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. This quarantine has definitely thrown the music industry for a crazy loop. Several major album releases have been pushed back to oblivion, and an even larger handful of tours (and fests) we were dying to see have been either cancelled or postponed to God knows when (probably not this calendar year). Still, as an industry has struggled, artists have fought back with living-room concerts, charitable efforts, and, yes, year-affirming new albums and songs. Just this week Perfume Genius and Moses Sumney graced us with must-hear new listens, and Charli XCX and Bad Bunny treated us to surprises created in direct response to these strange ...
Song of the Week: Puscifer’s “Apocalyptical” Dances Towards Doomsday
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. If you don’t think the last few months of isolation have changed anything, think again. In a normal time, Maynard James Keenan fans — fresh off the first Tool album in more than a decade — would’ve been satisfied with the first Puscifer single in five years. But a song only goes so far when it feels like you have all the time in the world, and Keenan seems to have tapped into that need. Not only does “Apocalyptical” come as a ready-made anthem for these troubled times, but Puscifer also decided to bestow upon fans the blueprint for an alternative dance craze and a memeable answer to whether or not bright, red lipstick is the shadow...
