Copy

To: <<First Name>> <<Last Name>>

For the best viewing experience, view this email in your browser.

Logo

Week Ending February 7th

Forrester Research found that 19% of Spotify users have cancelled, or plan to cancel, their subscription in the wake of the Joe Rogan backlash. Last week, Crosby, Stills & Nash, India.Arie and Failure joined the growing list of musicians to remove their art from the platform.

Click here for playlist with the songs mentioned in this email.

BIGGEST Songs of the Week 📈

It’s been 16 years since the Red Hot Chili Peppers last released a song with guitarist John Frusciante — his departure from the band was so long ago that it was announced on MySpace.

At just 18-years old, Frusciante joined the Chili Peppers after the tragic death of their original guitarist Hillel Slovak. On the band’s 1991 record Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Frusciante brought a darker dynamic to the band’s party funk sound. With hits like Under the Bridge and Give It Away, the album sold more than 14 million copies and catapulted the group to superstar status. In the year following the album’s release, Frusciante, who had developed an addiction to heroin and became something of a recluse, grew tired of the band’s hedonism. During the group’s 1992 Saturday Night Live performance, Frusciante infamously tried sabotaging the show with misplaced chords and deafening howls. He quit the band shortly afterwards.

In 1998, after a divisive album with Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, the Chili Peppers asked Frusciante, now drug-free, to rejoin the band. With Frusciante back in the fold, the California rockers released their three most popular albums Californication, By The Way, and Stadium Arcadium. Sometime after headlining the Reading & Leeds festival in 2007, Frusciante left the band for the second time. Without Frusciante, the Chili Peppers became a shell of their former selves, failing to reach platinum status on either of their next two albums.

Now, on the band’s new single Black Summer, Frusciante finally returns. The song fittingly features a Hendrix-like solo, beautifully executed by Frusciante, a modern-day guitar hero. Black Summer is the lead single from the band’s upcoming album Unlimited Love, which will also feature the return of long-time collaborator and legendary producer Rick Rubin who hasn’t worked with the band since Frusciante’s second departure.

1. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Summer (Alternative Rock) 👍

2. Nicki Minaj, Lil Baby, Do We Have A Problem? (Trap) 🗑️

3. Juice WRLD, Cigarettes (Emo Rap) 👍

4. ROSALÍA, SAOKO (Neoperreo) 👍👍👍

5. YG, J. Cole, Moneybagg Yo, Scared Money (Hip Hop) 😐

6. King Von, 21 Savage, Don’t Play That (Trap) 👍

7. Machine Gun Kelly, WILLOW, emo girl (Pop Punk) 🗑️

8. Yo Gotti, 42 Dugg, EST Gee, Cold Gangsta (Trap) 🗑️

9. Oliver Tree, Freaks & Geeks (Indie Pop) 🗑️

10. Koffee, Pull Up (Dancehall) 👍

Noteworthy 📰

  • Legendary Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher released Everything’s Electric, co-written by and featuring drums from Dave Grohl.

  • Rappers $NOT and A$AP Rocky linked up on the track Doja, taken from $NOT’s sophomore album Ethereal, out next week.

  • Detroit natives Queen Naija and Big Sean connected on Hate Our Love, a slow jam which samples Bobby Glenn’s Sounds Like A Love Song.

  • BIG30 campaigns for fellow Memphis rapper Pooh Shiesty’s freedom on his new single Protest. Shiesty remains incarcerated after pleading guilty to federal conspiracy charges last month.

  • Australian DJ Flume recruited MAY-A for the future bass track Say Nothing, the lead single from his upcoming album Palaces, out May 20th.

  • Comedic rapper Yung Gravy and EDM producer Dillion Francis released their joint EP Cake and Cognac, which includes the bouncy track Hot Tub featuring T-Pain.

  • Madi Diaz enlisted Waxahatchee for an emotionally devastating version of her 2021 song Resentment.

  • Dr. Dre officially dropped the six tracks he made for Grand Theft Auto Online: The Contract on streaming platforms. The tracks feature the likes of Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Nipsey Hussle and Anderson .Paak.

  • WATCH: Doja Cat rescues her pet from intergalactic catnappers in the music video for Get Into It (Yuh), a song off her 2021 LP Planet Her.

  • WATCH: Netflix shared the official trailer for the three-part, decades-spanning Kanye West documentary jeen-yuhs, out February 16th.

BEST Songs of the Week 🔥

Kamasi Washington is easily the most famous jazz musician of his generation. The saxophonist and band leader rose to stardom in 2015 with his three-hour major-label debut The Epic and his work on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. The jazz great has supported some of the industry’s biggest names, including Herbie Hancock, Chaka Khan, Lauryn Hill and Nas. So it was surprising to find out that prior to last week, the jazz wizard had never performed on US television.

Last Wednesday, Washington made his TV debut on the Tonight Show with an abridged version of his new single The Garden Path. Supported by an ensemble of over a dozen musicians, including multiple backup singers, an expansive percussion section, horns, woodwinds, keyboards and a DJ, the saxophonist delivered a brilliant spectacle. A fusion between jazz, funk, soul and psychedelia, The Garden Path features killer chord changes, rushing percussions, gospel-like group vocals and an exploding trumpet.

1. Kamasi Washington, The Garden Path (Jazz Fusion) 👍👍👍👍

2. ROSALÍA, SAOKO (Neoperreo) 👍👍👍

3. Lucy Dacus, Kissing Lessons (Indie Rock) 👍👍👍

4. Ravyn Lenae, Steve Lacy, Skin Tight (Neo Soul) 👍👍👍

5. Rolling Blackouts Costal Fever, The Way It Shatters (Indie Rock) 👍👍👍

6. Luna Li, beabadoobee, Silver Into Rain (Dream Pop) 👍👍👍

7. illuminati hotties, sandwich sharer (Indie Rock) 👍👍👍

8. SASAMI, Call Me Home (Art Pop) 👍👍👍

9. Röyksopp, Alison Goldfrapp, Impossible (Ambient House) 👍👍

10. Conway the Machine, Benny the Butcher, Westside Gunn, John Woo Flick (Gangsta Rap) 👍👍

Honorable Mentions: Alfie Templeman, Broken (Dance Pop) 👍👍, Arlo Parks, Softly (Bedroom Pop) 👍👍

Albums Spotlight 💿

Early last week, Issac Wood, the elegiac frontman for British post-rock septet Black Country, New Road, announced his immediate departure from the group, inevitably changing the way we listen to their latest LP. Ants From Up There arrives exactly a year after the band’s momentous debut For the First Time. On the record, Black Country, New Road reestablish themselves by taking their sound into unrecognizable territory, shaking off any expectations that listeners may have had.

Less bombastic and brash than their previous record, Ants From Up There creates a more accessible sound by smoothing out For the First Time’s rough edges. Instead of using whirlwind eruptions which the band had become known for, Ants From Up There revels in patient, slow build-ups. This allows for a more contemplative, emotionally-wrecking epic. Lauded for the dry humor on their debut, Black Country, New Road is anything but funny on Ants From Up There.

On Concorde, Wood uses the failed supersonic airliner as a forewarning for his own health. When the track was released as a single last year, we had no idea that the line “the doctor said we are unfortunately running out of options to treat” would be a premonition of the band’s own future. Rarely do we find ourselves so aware that a chapter is coming to an end — fortunately, Ants From Up There is a brilliant opus on which to end Wood’s term with the band.

Black Country, New Road, Ants From Up There (Post Rock) 👍👍👍👍

  • Favorite Tracks: Concorde, Basketball Shoes, Snow Globes, The Place Where He Inserted The Blade

Cities Aviv, MAN PLAYS THE HORN (Experimental Hip Hop) 👍👍👍

  • Favorite Tracks: BLACK PLEASURE, THE SUN THE MOON THE SPA, TRAGEDY THEATRE, WAYS OF THE WORLD

Animal Collective, Time Skiffs (Neo Psychedelia) 👍👍👍

  • Favorite Tracks: Prester John, Royal and Desire, Strung with Everything, Dragon Slayer

Mitski, Laurel Hell (Art Pop) 👍👍

  • Favorite Tracks: Working for the Knife, The Only Heartbreaker, Heat Lightning, Love Me More

Saba, Few Good Things (Conscious Hip Hop) 👍👍

  • Favorite Tracks: Soldier, 2012, Survivor’s Guilt, Few Good Things

Other Notable Projects: A Place to Bury Strangers See Through You, Bastille Give Me The Future, Cate Le Bon Pompeii, Hippo Campus LP3, Korn Requiem, Los Bitchos Let the Festivities Begin!, Rolo Tomassi Where Myth Becomes Memory, Yeule Glitch Princess, Yung Kayo Down For Tha Kount, 2 Chainz Dope Don’t Sell Itself

WORST Song of the Week 🗑️

E-40, Sada Baby, It’s Hard Not To (West Coast Hip Hop)

Next week: New projects from Big Thief, Spoon and $NOT.

Music is meant to be shared. Support us by sending this newsletter to a friend.

Have any comments or suggestions? Contact us here.