With the superb ending of the superb owl, (I love a good fight) football season is officially over for a few months. How is this related to anything? Who knows! Lets just listen to my #hottakes for the week.
"IDFWU" was one of my favorite tracks from the second half of last year and although Big Sean's latest release isn't quite as provocative, "Blessings," which comes off of his upcoming album Dark Sky Paradise, coming out on Feb. 24. The track features verses from Drake and Kanye, creating some kind of 2015 rap trifecta. Drake's verse is pretty good, but Kanye's falls flat. Will be be abdicating his throne this spring? There's only one way to find out.
Milky Chance is low key taking over the indie circuit, headlining their first U.S. tour this spring and "Stolen Chance and "Flashed Junk Mind" have both made their way from the periphery airwaves to Top 40 stations. This excellent remix was done by a 17-year-old Austrian producer and it does a really great job of not overpowering the German duos vocals and just adding another synthy layer to the already super catchy song.
Flo is coming back with new music soon and she's headlining Coachella and hopefully will show up in the lineups for other great festivals this summer (lolla plz lollz plz lolla plz). Anyway, this cover of Robert Palmer's 80's song is featured on the b-sides of Lungs and it will remind you why we all fell in love with Florence in the first place, and get you super excited for some new music.
Bob Dylan went electric, The Beach Boys took some LSD and Rihanna discovered an acoustic guitar. The status quo is constantly changing and this track, with credit given to Rihanna, Kanye and Sir Paul McCartney, takes Rihanna's R&B/rap/pop/dance-influenced music and literally spins it in a Cusinart for 30 seconds and then flips it all upside down. Kanye's verse is a giant dud, there's a reason why he relies on autotune, but that's not the point. Music is constantly evolving, there's no reason why Rihanna, arguably one of the biggest stars of the day, can't put out music that is different. She has a solid fan base that will eat up whatever she puts out and she has the name recognition that few, besides McCartney and Kanye, can boast. Lyrically, the song can be put to a dance beat and sound like a radio hit, but by singing against a single acoustic guitar and an occasional simple beat, "Fourfiveseconds" bend the lines of what a rap song can sound like.
#pray4thelumineerstoreleaseanewalbumsoon
