If you stopped paying attention to Willow Smith, daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, after the annoying single ‘Whip My Hair,’ released in 2010 when she was 10 years old, you might be surprised that she has turned into a fascinating young artist.
At 15, she released the arty pop song ‘Wait a Minute!,’ a real blast that picked up steam a few years later when it became a popular TikTok soundtrack. Four full-length albums followed.
A couple of weeks ago, I featured ‘MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name),’ the latest hit single by Lil Nas X. He has since released another track from his upcoming album that I hope enjoys as much success.
‘Sun Goes Down,’ framed as a conversation between Lil Nas X and his younger self, is a heartwarming (and heartbreaking) look at the pressures of teenage life, especially for a kid who is Black and gay.
I’m happy to see that new music is forthcoming from Josh Rouse, whose last album (Love in the Modern Age) came out in 2018. Rouse returns this summer with a side project called Isla, and a 9-track album titled The Mediterranean Gardener.
Isla is a solo effort, but different enough in sound and approach for Rouse to record it under a new name. He describes it as “improvised electronica” that he whipped together during his pandemic quarantine.
I was very excited last week to hear from John Mayer, in the form of both a new single and details about his next album, Sob Rock, due in July. Mayer’s last full-length album, The Search for Everything, dropped in early 2017, making this the longest draught between releases in his career.
Mayer did trickle out a few singles over the past four years, and it turns out all of them will be on this album. That’s a bit disappointing, as I’d prefer a whole batch of new songs. But I’ll take what I can get.
Happy birthday to frequent commenter Dana! And what better way to celebrate than with the new hit by global K-pop sensation BTS?
‘Butter,’ the band’s second English-language single, is rewriting the record books. It set world records for biggest YouTube music video debut and most streams for a music video in its first 24 hours (in both cases, the previous record holder was their previous English-language track, ‘Dynamite’).
Meet Me In Montauk 