Pages

Friday, 9 February 2024

BEST AND WORST NEW TRACKS OF THE WEEK 09/02/2024: Justice, Nicki Minaj, Pissed Jeans and more…

They forgot to invite me to the Grammys yet again. I’ve spent the last week moping about it. While I was moping, I listened to these tracks. Artists featured this week include Justice, Ghost Funk Orchestra, Pissed Jeans, Heems, Dolium and Nicki Minaj.

THE BEST:

‘One Night/All Night’ – Justice ft. Tame Impala

Why did no-one tell me Justice had new music out??? This track has been out of for two weeks and I only discovered it because I heard it on the radio. THE FUCKING RADIO. That’s how boomers discover their music. I may as well end the blog now, because I am so out of touch. Anyhow - this track is a banger.

‘Again’ – Ghost Funk Orchestra

This song blindsided me by just how good it is. Ghost Funk Orchestra is the New York brainchild of composer/multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum and their latest single ‘Again’ is ghostly, funky and orchestral in that order. It opens with ethereal reverb-soaked singing over delicate arpeggiated guitar, teases you with some groovy bass and vibraphone, and then ambushes you with some James Bond horns and intense powerhouse vocals. At this point in time, it only has 3.8k views, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the track blew up. An upcoming album A Trip To The Moon on the 23rd February.

‘Sixty Two Thousand Dollars In Debt’ – Pissed Jeans

Pissed Jeans, eh? Sounds like something Nordstrom would come out with. Unsurprisingly, they’re a punk band. And their new single ‘Sixty Two Thousand Dollars In Debt’ is all about being sixty two thousand dollars in debt. Their guitar tone is fittingly filthy and there’s a nice fucked-up guitar solo in the middle. And the song’s lyrics about escaping the spiral of debt are hilariously bleak, ending with the protagonist jubilantly declaring ‘I’ll pay it down every day! I’ll pay it down! So someday I’ll be $61,000 dollars in debt! That’ll be the day I’ll never forget!’.

‘Sri Lanka’ – Heems ft. Your Old Droog

Das Racist member Heems and Brooklyn rapper Your Old Droog team up to deliver some seriously playful rhymes like ‘Shorty think she could do better than me? She on dust/ I turn that bird to an ex like Elon Musk’ and ‘I’m like Hugh Jackman/ I’m huge jacked man’ all in the first minute. Droog’s flow is ridiculous, while Heems’ lexical density is unmatched.

‘Bald Doll’ – Dolium

To mark the 20th anniversary of Sister 9 Recordings, lo-fi scuzz-rock band Dolium have released two singles ‘Bald Doll’ and ‘Veronica Ann’. With it’s blown-out guitar and spidery bassline, this track is my personal favourite of the two. But ‘Veronica Ann’ is equally nuts and worth a gander.

THE WORST:

‘Big Foot’ – Nicki Minaj

This diss track aimed at Megan Thee Stallion may well be the most bizarre diss track I’ve ever heard. Opening with ‘Your flow is such a bore’, she then proceeds to deliver the entire track in the most clownishly wacky delivery possible. The sound quality is awful and she spends half of it whispering. It sounds like she recorded it on her phone with her kid asleep in the next room. Never has a diss track tried to do too much and too little at the same time.