Tag Archives: song-to-know

If you have spent any amount of time on TikTok this year, you have certainly encountered Cookiee Kawaii’s breakthrough hit “Vibe (If I Back It Up).” It’s a song accidentally tailor-made for TikTok fiends: a sharp earworm full of playful sounds (bed creaks and snare cracks) and a stop-start Jersey …

The most endearing thing about Christine and the Queens‘ new single, “People, I’ve Been Sad,” is the fact that frontwoman Chris feels the need to tell you that she’s been sad. She’s never really ever had to tell anyone she’s been sad before; it’s in the way she sings, the …

With its breakneck-paced galloping riffs and James Hetfield’s snarls about weaker people being “ripped and torn away,” Metallica‘s “Battery,” off their magnum opus Master of Puppets, is the apotheosis of thrash metal. The song starts with Spaghetti Western flamenco guitar, and that’s the most clearly defined thread that connects it …

The genius of Lil Baby’s new track lies in a simple ad-lib, “Woah.” For three minutes that single word punctuates bars and provides stabs of momentum, as if Baby is simultaneously acting as his own hypeman. “None of you guys get fly as me, woah,” he raps across the chorus. …

Yodeling meme baby Mason Ramsey has been on a wild ride ever since a video of him performing Hank Williams’ “Lovesick Blues” in a Walmart went viral last year. Now, at age 12, he has released his second EP Twang, and songs like “Puddle of Love” may finally be what …

At its outset, Deb Never’s “Ugly” is a straightforward sad song. The up-and-coming L.A. (via Washington) artist opens the track with somber pianos, and a simple sentiment: “You don’t want me, I don’t you.” Then the drums kick in. Produced by Dylan Brady, “Ugly” builds on itself, introducing a stuttering …

It’s kind of amazing how much history Cate Le Bon packs into her music. The Welsh indie-rock artist’s great 2016 album Crab Day evoked the incisively loopy post-punk of Pere Ubu and the Red Krayola, the clattering epiphanies of the Raincoats and Lilliput, the Velvet Underground and Seventies Kraut-rock, as …

Besides being a pop superstar with a larger-than-life voice,Sam Smith has long beena Harmonizer,heartbroken by Fifth Harmony’s hiatus. Specifically, Smith was an acolyte for the group’s hit “Work From Home,” even telling James Corden that he wants to “walk down the aisle to it in heels.” Naturally, that joy is …

Pop experimentalist Empress Of has her sophomore album on the way, and from the sounds of its first single, the effervescent “When I’m With Him,” it sounds like it will be her most straightforward effort to date. The song, which has the dusty, throwback appeal of a Dev Hynes production …

Louisiana-born crooner Luke James has appeared on a slew of great singles this year thanks to his star turn in the soapy Empire spinoff Star; he joined the cast in season two as comeback-trail-riding bad boy Noah Brooks, whose trip back to the top of R&B’s heap caused chaos even …