Fresh New Music – Week of January 15th

There’s been nothing as consistent in new music as seeing The Chainsmokers roll up in Spotify’s New Music Friday these last couple of years. That’s why we’re not surprised that their latest, Paris, racked up nearly 10 million plays by the end of the weekend. It’s just what they do. Halsey was also in the house with a track off of the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack, Not Afraid Anymore, and Felix Snow keeps you motivated this time of year with a Winter Workout Plan, created alongside none other than Wintertime.

Spotify super-sized their Fresh New Music again this week with 65 new tracks, so we included a bonus entry so we’re not skimping on the freshness. Catalogued for your pleasure is Busted Wallet’s New Music Friday All Stars, with the best in music of the last six months.

11. Dance by POWERS

“I think it’s very important no matter who we are is to enjoy life and dance” in spoken word is how this powerhouse track starts out, and we couldn’t agree more. POWERS power duo knows how to get the party started, and with its Millennial whoops (if we’re still calling it that) and driving beats we can easily see the track on an Apple commercial or playing during a big game at a stadium near you.

10. Feeling Alive by Earl St. Clair

Whether he’s looking for a “Good Time” or musing about a little too “Perfect” of a specimen with Bibi Bourelly, Earl St. Clair knows how to stir emotion and get you feeling a certain kind of something. So on “Feeling Alive” he says “YES!” to the power of saying yes and has got us feeling like the first day of summer in the dead of winter. A great track for the very first minutes of your weekend.

9. Saved by Khalid

When Khalid first released his soulful smash “Location” last spring, fans and critics both agreed that he had his finger on the pulse of modern love affairs, or attempts thereof. Keep that in mind as you get to know the track “Saved” ….not saved as a come to Jesus moment, but saved in that “I’ll keep your number saved, cos I hope one day I’ll get the pride to call you.” In a postmodern and post-fact world it’s also a post-relationship world that Khalid sings of here, working up the courage to tell you off rather than to get to know you.

8. The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home by Declan McKenna

Officially not a kid any more, just having turned 18 on Christmas Eve, here Declan McKenna again gives adults something to mule over regarding younger generations. As he told BBC Radio 1, Declan penned the track following the Paris attacks in 2015, when feelings he had about his generation became very real to him, prompting a feeling of longing to change despite the fear and frustration. We’re always blown away by Declan’s wisdom beyond his years, and he doesn’t fall short here.

7. Black Francis by The Orwells

Giving us surf rock with an edge while giving it up for their role models, The Orwells put the whole world in our hands on this one. Saying that it’s long overdue after riffing on The Pixie’s Frank Black, attempting to chip away at their “massive debt” to the rock star, as the band shared in a press release. Also on their thank you list was Spike Lee, with the band’s corresponding music video, drawing inspiration from Lee’s 1989 drama Do The Right Thing.

Another act concerned about the kids on this week’s countdown, and if Declan might have been an eighteen year old with a hope for the future, Grace Mitchell is a nineteen year old feeling like everything sucks. Putting it all out there without pinpointing exactly what she means. Grace Mitchell fuses ambiguous lines like “Now we pray for our mistakes/Thrown right in our face, is no one sorry” with loud noise-rock Sleigh Bells type riffs.

5. Jump (feat. Gizzle) by Lupe Fiasco

If there was one lament from hip hop in 2016 it’s that Lupe’s highly anticipated album would not be ready by the end of year, as the trapper to a rapper apologized to fans in October that Drogas would not be out until 2017. Good things are worth the wait, and fans can rejoice on February 17th with their first full album listen. In the meantime there’s Jump, coming to you live from outer space, that breaks it down several time over the course of the song, the first coming as soon as the 28 second mark.

4. (No One Knows Me) Like The Piano by Sampha

There’s few things that can provoke such emotion as the instrument an artist grew up learning and making music on. That’s why Sampha’s latest in drenched in emotion, creating an ode to the piano in his mother’s home and his mother herself, saying in a tweet about her “the more time that passes, the more I see the extent of her love for me.” The keys tell the story, coming from a piano that sounds well used and lived in, not a powerful concert hall great piano, but nevertheless full of love and passion.

3. Wild Fire by Laura Marling

Artists who keep a timely schedule and release an album like clockwork may not have the best work/life balance, but they sure do make fans happy. Fans of sweet indie melodies and striking lyrics will rejoice with Semper Femina, Laura Marling’s soon to be released fourth album in 6 years. On Wild Fire she takes on a Velvet Underground sound and disposition, forthright with detailed lyrics that shed light on how complicated it can be to relate to other people.

2. T-Shirt by Migos

Call it the power of suggestion, but ever since Donald Glover accepted his Golden Globe last weekend for Atlanta and thanked Migos for putting the track Bad and Boujee out in the Universe, we can’t get enough of Migos. Extra treat for us then that the Georgia rapper came out with two singles this week, Call Casting and T-Shirt. T-Shirt is the more hypnotizing of the two, taking us under his spell with that signature trap staccato.

1. No Plan by David Bowie

Hard to believe that one year ago Bowie fans were shocked and saddened to hear of Bowie’s death, just days after his 69th birthday. Having left fans with his fond farewell Lazarus from the musical of the same name, this week we received three extra tracks from the musical on an LP. No Plan has that same eery brilliance that Lazarus does, and just so you know how meta things have become, it bears repeating that Lazarus was based off the film, The Man Who Fell To Earth, a 1976 film starring David Bowie.