Since my first task at MTV as a song programmer, I have not stopped trying to suit human beings with music they might like. So, I wrote an ebook called Record Collecting for Girls and interviewed musicians. The Music Concierge is a column where I percentage track what you may enjoy, with a little context. Get everything I’ve advocated this year on Spotify, comply with me on Twitter or Facebook, and leave a remark telling me what you are paying attention to this week.
If you have been looking for a running-elegance hero positioned down the Bruce Springsteen cassette tapes, let’s communicate about Brittany Howard. The Alabama Shakes frontwoman is losing a solo album in September; her “Stay High” video is about her father, who did shift paintings in a manufacturing facility, and the tiny moments Howard recollects of him. Terry Crews performs her dad in the video shot in her place of birth in Athens, AL, and the cameos of her family and buddies. Please make no mistake: Howard is making Americana. However, it’s also rock track, soul track, and indie. Howard is one of those once-in-a-era artists who bend song to her will; she can’t be quantified as one factor or another. This sense-appropriate gem gets you through hard times and slaps a smile back on your face.
This isn’t always a song. This is not a supergroup. It’s a motherfucking movement. Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby are the Highwomen (with some assistance from producer Dave Cobb and Jason Isbell co-writing a few tracks). And they’re right here to burn down the concept that girls stick out/are not healthy on the United States of America radio. The music reminds me of blistering ’90s United States of America hits like Mindy McCready’s “Guys Do It All the Time,” Deana Carter’s “Did I Shave My Legs For This?” and Shania Twain’s “Any Man of Mine.” The one difference is that the High women (a takeoff on the ’70s country supergroup the Highway Men) are overtly feminist, inclusionist, and approximately equal. There’s no struggle of the sexes here. It’s about letting ladies proportionately their factors of view and giving girls a voice in a format that continues to shut them down.
Ahhhhh, Hayley Kiyoko is the lower back, and her new video has a sturdy The Craft vibe. Do I have to tell you more than that to make you watch it? If so, it’s about a love that’s now not being again in quite the wrong manner, and that “I desire, I wish, I want” that continues repeating is putting it on the right track to be the tune you can’t stop listening to for the rest of the summertime. In combat along with your S.O.? Just finding it hard to match with someone who is not an asshole on Bumble? Yeah, you want this music.
Look, going through a breakup is tough. Going through lifestyle changes is so often difficult. Sarah Jaffe, who dropped two new E.P.s, nails the sensation with this pep communication masquerading as a tune. The Dallas local has created an anthem for everyone who does now not have our shit collectively, which is me, ways more often than I care to confess.
