DANG, THESE SONGS IS DOPE!
Week 1 was all hip-hop. Week 2 of DANG, THESE SONGS IS DOPE! isn't.
If you aren't familiar, DTSID is a weekly series where I highlight 5 songs I've been bumpin' and try to convince you to listen to them.
"Strange Things" — B. Lewis
3-tenths of a second. That's how long it took me to fall in love with this song. Written, performed and produced all by B. Lewis, Strange Things is a funky mix of soul grooves, doo-wop textures and perfect harmonies that'll stick in your head for hours. Strange Things is more or less a song about hopeless romance, but with lines like, "You need to meet somebody / A little more like you / A little more confused / Cause I know I tried everything" Lewis shows a knack for subtle, insightful songwriting that reveals truths a little deeper than you're used to hearing.
"Quarrel" — Moses Sumney
Moses Sumney is not of this world. Listen to that voice and tell me I'm wrong. You can't. Quarrel, off of Sumney;s 2017 album Aromanticism, is a break-up song, but really it's a protest song. With lyrics like "With you, half the battleIs proving that we're at war / I would give my life just for the privilege to ignore" Quarrel is a weary observation about societal inequality that begs just to be noticed. The song immediately brings to mind the #AllLivesMatter movement—and the thousand other ways that people with power gaslight those without. And it sounds BEAUTIFUL.
"Ain't Gotta Worry Child" — Charley Crockett
First things first, Charley spells his name wrong. Now that that's out of the way: Ain't Gottta Worry is what it sounds like when a modern-day cowboy sings the blues. Equal parts Bill Withers, John Mayer and Hank Williams, Crockett has penned a beautiful song about friendship, determination and love. It's catchy, it's fun and it feels like running into an old friend who you haven't seen in years and giving them a big, giant bear hug.
"Ketchum, ID" — boygenius
boygenius is the super-duper group of Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridges and Julien Baker—who makes me cry 100% of the time. They're EP, boygenius, is an immaculate feat of beauty and simplicity that I can't stop crying to. Ketchum, ID is a song about loneliness, and fragility, and honesty and a longing for a home that doesn't exist anymore. I would copy-paste some lyrics in, but I can't choose any one stanza. boygenius did not have to go this hard.
"Pyramid of Bones" — The Voidz
"Shallow things / That distract you through the day / In the end / Don’t you ever listen to the white man's lies." Tru, Julian Casablancas, tru. Pyramid of Bones is hard to describe, but I'm going to anyways. It's 4 minutes and 28 seconds of heavy distortion that merges the pop structures and grooves of The Strokes with pitch-perfect screams and timbres that bring to mind Marilyn Manson, or maybe even early Metallica, if you squint hard enough. That is, it's an anti-capitalistic BANGER made my 6 middle-aged rich, white men. It's weird. It doesn't make sense. It fuckin' works and I love it.
