Monday playlists actually getting posted on a Monday? What is this world coming to? As always here are 10 new songs I like, presented in the hopes that you'll like 'em too.
Local Picks
Humbird, “Help Me Willie Nelson!”
Siri Undlin diverges from her typically elliptical chamber folk to write and sing a straightforward country song, yearning to honky-tonk with a drawled directness that's matched by the melody and the arrangement. Maybe Willie did help.
He rhymes "make out on the couch?" and "sharing secrets with our mouths," his vocals are seductively slurred and artfully filtered, he's got an EP on the way, and I could tell you even more about him if Google would quite asking me if I want to look up "kung fu" instead.
All the kids love shoegaze again—or "moss rock," as this quartet calls the big and dreamy sound of their new EP, Wisteria. What I like about them is how Zofia Smith's voice holds equal space with the guitars of Liam Armstrong and Raines Lucas rather than being fuzzed beneath the surface.
Smellkin Ernesto muses smoothly in Spanish about his Colombian heritage and "his land" over prominent wah-wah, and a pertly pitch-bent keyboard solo almost steals the show.
Leslie Vincent, “Psychedelics With You”
A few years back, Vincent debuted with a fine album of standards, but on her new album, How I Loved You on Mars, her bold, vibrant voice tackles some contemporary material as well, such as this light, swinging number with burly brass and a a lysergic kick to its drumming.
Non-Local Picks
Anonhi and the Johnsons – “Why Am I Alive Now?”
I don't know how art is supposed to respond to climate change and neither do you, but Anonhi’s latest album, My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross, a self-described "blue-eyed soul" excursion, is at least asking the right questions—including the one expressed in this song title, without bogging down in self-pity, which is surely the wrong way.
FendiDa Rappa & Cardi B, “Point Me 2”
While I get the business necessity of A-list rappers hopping on a hot underground track for a highly publicized “remix,” that doesn't mean I always like it. But though I prefer the original title, "Point Me to the Slut's" (apostrophe and all) Cardi earns her feature spot. Now let's see if this blows up as planned.
Erin Enderlin feat. Terri Clark, “If There Weren't So Many Damn Songs”
One great thing about country music is how its songs often acknowledge that they live in a world of other country music songs. Here songwriter-first Enderlin duets with one of the many stars she's written for about how she's trapped in a world she helped create. P.S.: I learned about this via Marissa Moss and Natalie Weiner's Don’t Rock the Inbox, a newsletter which, if you’ve the slightest interest in country music broadly defined, is definitely worth the subscription.
Roberts became an unlikely success when ESPN picked up her “Stompin’ Grounds” for Monday Night Football. But with its fiddle and slide guitar competing to state the hook, this joyously trashy, class-conscious night out would be this non-jock's jam even if I wasn't rooting for more Black women in country music to thrive.
As Our Lady of Teen Sorrows returns, I can't shake Andrew Unterberger's “different parts of it remind me of the best of every major pop singer-songwriter of the last decade,” and I can’t unhear Maura Johnston’s My Chemical Romance comparison either. Her foe may be a vampire, but her track is a fantastically reanimated Frankenstein’s pop monster.
Wanna get a local song considered for the playlist? To make things easy on both of us, email keith@racketmn.com with MONDAY PLAYLIST in the subject header. (Don’t, as in do NOT, DM or text: If I’m in a good mood, I’ll just ask you to send an email; if I’m in a bad mood I’ll just ignore it.)
