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PRINCESS POP THAT
If you ever wanted to live a day in the life of an Atlanta cool girl just listen to an Anycia song. That’s been the appeal since last summer when the grainy snippet for “So What” lifted her from a life of partying and working odd jobs (bottle service, babysitter, hair stylist) to a life of partying and rapping. Produced by ATL underground gatekeeper Popstar Benny, the addictive “So What” features Anycia’s raspy-voiced, flirty-with-an-attitude raps over a beat that tosses Ciara’s hook on Field Mob’s hit of the same name into the pluggnb blender. The short visual added to the dreamy seductiveness, as Anycia and her clique—including fellow overnight sensation Karrahbooo—get drunk and turn up poolside; the handheld feel of a GoPro making it seem as if you just stumbled into a random Tuesday night of hers.
Dennis
On March 12, 1951, Hank Ketcham debuted Dennis the Menace in the Post-Hall Syndicate, which supplied content to newspapers across America. In the UK, on the same day, David Law published a comic strip of the same name in The Beano, a children’s magazine. The odd anecdote inspired the title of Sega Bodega’s third and latest album, Dennis. For Sega, aka Salvador Navarrete, the coincidence is a precursor to what today we might call the internet hive mind. “I have this theory that all of our brains are connected to a machine that is pumping out information to all of us all at the same time,” Navarrete told Interview. His statement might bring smartphones to mind, but the Irish-Chilean producer means something more enigmatic, predating Google and social media—closer to divine fate than a viral meme.
“euphoria”
When Pusha T eviscerated Drake on 2018’s “The Story of Adidon,” he set the bar for all future Drake teardowns. The blackface cover art. Pusha’s methodical and theatrical delivery, building flawlessly to the Adonis reveal and the mocking “tick, tick, tick.” A concise three minutes that permanently cracked the image Drake had been meticulously crafting all his adult life, and which he has been desperately trying to Gorilla Glue back together for the last five years. Kendrick Lamar’s “euphoria” is not that—it’s six minutes of rambling over two of the worst beat switch-ups you will ever hear. But it is funny enough to earn Kendrick a nomination for hater of the year.
Joni Mitchell Announces New Vinyl Box Set With Liner Notes by Meryl Streep
Joni Mitchell’s 1976-80 era has been remastered for a new box set, in vinyl, CD, and digital editions. The Asylum Albums (1976-1980) compiles Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, Mingus, and the live album Shadows and Light, and comes with liner notes from none other than Meryl Streep, who paid tribute to the singer-songwriter as part of MusiCares’ Person of the Year tribute in 2022. Below, listen to “Coyote (2024 Remaster),” from the Hejira redux and check out the box set’s cover art, excerpted from one of Mitchell’s paintings. The Asylum Albums is out June 21 via Rhino.
Kendrick Lamar Responds to Drake Disses With New Song “Euphoria”: Listen
Kendrick Lamar has responded to Drake’s latest diss tracks with the new song “Euphoria.” Listen to the new song below. Lamar re-escalated a long-simmering beef with Drake with some pointed lyrics on “Like That.” (The track also had some words for J. Cole, who responded with his own “7 Minute Drill,” but the North Carolina musician has since apologized for his diss song and pulled it from digital streaming platforms.) Drake went back at Lamar on “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle.” The latter track used artificial intelligence to emulate vocals from 2Pac, which prompted a threatening response from the late rapper’s estate. As a result, Drake removed the song from his social media pages.
Sufjan Stevens Musical Illinoise Nominated for Best Musical at 2024 Tony Awards
The nominations for the 2024 Tony Awards have been announced. The nominees for this year’s ceremony, which takes place June 16, include Illinoise, the dance-musical by Justin Peck based on Sufjan Stevens’ 2005 album, Illinois, which is up for Best Musical, as well as Best Lighting Design, Best Choreography, and Best Orchestrations. Despite heavily featuring his music, Illinoise’s nominations do not extend to Stevens himself.
Slipknot Announce Knotfest 2024 and 25th Anniversary Tour
Slipknot have announced a 2024 North American tour that takes place this summer. The nu metal band is also returning to its hometown music festival Knotfest Iowa. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Slipknot’s self-titled album, and their festival set is billed as “a unique set drawing heavily from their 1999 debut.” See Slipknot’s full list of tour dates below.
Jon Hopkins Announces New Album Ritual, Shares Video for New Song: Watch
Jon Hopkins will release a new album, Ritual, on August 30, via Domino. The record is a 41-minute “ceremonial epic,” according to a press release, and an excerpt of it soundtracks the video for “Ritual (Evocation).” Hopkins worked on the video with director Dave Bullivant and its star, the aerial rope performer Bryony Louise Fowler. Check it out below, along with the artwork and tracklist.
Listen to Mdou Moctar’s New Song “Oh France”
Mdou Moctar have shared one more single from their forthcoming album, Funeral for Justice, before its release this Friday, May 3. “Oh France” is a critique of the country’s colonialist history, with lead singer and guitarist Mdou Moctar calling out France’s “turbulent relation” and “lethal games” over the years. Check it out below.
The Mountain Goats Announce The Coroner’s Gambit Reissue
The Mountain Goats have announced they’re reissuing The Coroner’s Gambit, their long out-of-print 2000 album. The classic LP will be released on “kandy korn” colored vinyl, CD, and—for the first time ever—cassette. All versions will be released on June 28 via Merge and feature new liner notes written by singer-guitarist John Darnielle. On the Mountain Goats’ Bandcamp and in the Merge store, a limited number of copies of The Coroner’s Gambit will be “housed in a paper bag featuring the printed liner notes” in a nod to the original release.
Listen to Jessica Pratt’s New Song “The Last Year”
Jessica Pratt has shared another new song from Here in the Pitch, her upcoming album that’s due out this Friday, May 3. In “The Last Year,” the record’s closing track, Pratt sings about having faith after a particularly heavy time. It follows her previously released singles “World on a String” and “Life Is.” Check out “The Last Year” below.
Cold Visions
“Not many brain cells left, but I’m ready for—” Bladee begins his new album, before he’s cut off by Vincent Price’s famous laugh from “Thriller.” So fried he can’t finish a sentence, this madman’s at the brink of collapse. Seized by panic attacks, he threatens to “kill kill kill” and calls himself “a stupid bitch” while ambulance sirens wail and screams lacerate the night. Ten years in, the Swedish rapper is the most famous he’s ever been and still crippled by anguish. “The only thing that’s left is paranoia,” he cries.
H.R. Giger’s Studiolo Vol. 1 & Vol. 2
“World-building” is too pat a phrase to describe what Spencer Clark does. Ever since the mulched hypnagogia of his duo the Skaters, with James Ferraro, the California native has been tearing open rifts to the kind of dimensions you usually only read about in pamphlets about lizard people, or find tucked away in the occult section of old VHS stores. Unlike the new-age music Clark’s albums sometimes invoke, his vision of utopia has more to do with Jon Hassell’s extraterrestrial landscapes than with crystals or incense. Like his old bandmate, Clark is entrenched in the psychedelia of plastic pop culture, but where Ferraro spent the ’10s diving deep into the emptiness of smartphone sterility, Clark took a more colorful path. Stitching together childhood memories of dozing off at the San Diego Zoo with half-remembered dreams of ’80s curio kitsch, Clark creates Frankenstein monsters of collagist, tropical synesthesia unlike anything else in noise music.
Heads I Win, Tails You Lose
Gangrene are here to crack brains like they were blown speakers. So says Oh No near the top of his fourth collaborative album with The Alchemist, Heads I Win, Tails You Lose. The Oh No-produced highlight “Oxnard Water Torture” slides in on a bed of drums, cymbals, and haunted-house organs, a hazy backdrop he runs into the gutter. “This ain’t your Moët, this Olde English,” he says with a Joker-like snarl, his verse all harsh dissonance and razor edges. Alchemist follows up with more nimble flows and surreal writing: He’s the android with a sniper scope, hopping out the reclining Recaro seat at pinball velocity. Back together for the first time since 2015’s You Disgust Me, this dueling-stoner-dragons approach is a perfect distillation of the mud-caked shit talk the duo inaugurated with 2009’s “Acts of Violence.” Heads I Win oozes with menace when it taps into this frequency, but nearly as often, it loses some of that grime, coming off a touch too clean for its own good.
Sabrina Carpenter
I know this came out almost three weeks ago, but it’s going to be 82 degrees in New York today and it’s fair to say that Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” is currently in pole position to be this year’s song of the summer. The luxury nu-disco tune’s got its hooks in me, and if you have a peripheral awareness of the phrases “That’s that me espresso” or “I’m working late/’Cause I’m a singer,” you’ll realize it has also wormed into the brains of thousands of others.
Mabe Fratti Announces New Album Sentir Que No Sabes, Shares Songs: Listen
Mabe Fratti has announced a new album. The follow-up to 2022’s Se Ve Desde Aquí is titled Sentir Que No Sabes; it arrives June 28 via Unheard of Hope. She’s sharing two songs from it in advance, “Kravitz” and “Pantalla azul,” the latter of which comes with a video directed by Emanuel Juárez. Check those out below.
Nilüfer Yanya, Tems, Porter Robinson, Sabrina Carpenter, and More: This Week’s Pitchfork Selects Playlist
The staff of Pitchfork listens to a lot of new music. A lot of it. On any given day our writers, editors, and contributors go through an imposing number of new releases, giving recommendations to each other and discovering new favorites along the way. Each Monday, with our Pitchfork Selects playlist, we’re sharing what our writers are playing obsessively and highlighting some of the Pitchfork staff’s favorite new music. The playlist is a grab-bag of tracks: Its only guiding principle is that these are the songs you’d gladly send to a friend.
Billie Eilish Announces Massive Tour for New Album
Billie Eilish has announced a huge tour in support of her forthcoming new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. The pop singer-songwriter’s tour begins in begins in North America in September. She’ll continue with shows in the United States and Canada through to the middle of December. Eilish restarts her tour in Australia in February 2025. Eventually, she has shows in Europe and the United Kingdom in spring and summer 2025. See all of Eilish’s tour dates below.
Hovvdy
Countless playlists and anthologies have collected the greatest songs about a first kiss and a last goodbye; mourning a parent and becoming one yourself; best friends and mortal enemies. As for the cultivation of these relationships, there’s a 256-page book trying to reteach people how to hang out, but pop music isn’t going to be much help. Hovvdy isn’t going to tell you how to navigate these things either. On one song, they’re letting loved ones know that their time together mattered, and on the next they’re setting boundaries. They might reach out to a friend in quiet agony or chastise themselves for not doing so earlier. They’re figuring it all out as it comes, just like the rest of us, and the endlessly generous Hovvdy doesn’t attempt to be a manual for living, but a scrapbook of moments of love and loss from a life well-lived.
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