Mais oui: Billie Eilish, “Lost Cause” – Mrs. Eyelash’s unbothered approach on a track about a shitty dude is exactly the level of emotional output any young person having this much fun with their homegirls should put into a shitty dude. The clip and its party vagaries almost feel like the song is an afterthought, a half-important internal monologue in which she is merely reconfirming her own impulse that she doesn’t need this mess. “You got no job” is a particularly salient line in that it feels hypothetical rather than actual, the kind of lob that would sting a narcissistic deadbeat. I’m with her on this one! –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Y: Liz Phair, “The Game” – In an interview that we ran this week with Liz Phair, the singer-songwriter explained that she’s largely focused on the in-between on her new album Soberish. People are made up of “little, tiny day-to-day decisions and actions, and I put a lot of weight on that,” she said. “The Game” exists in a liminal relationship as a result of relational inconsistency: “Every time I think we’re solid/You change the game,” she sings. The tone is decidedly dulcet and the listening here is easy, and yet it fits Phair well. It’s hard to say whether we’ve gotten used to her more adult contemporary leaning, or if she’s gotten more comfortable in doing so. Either way, this sounds as right as uncertainty can. —Rich Juzwiak
Y: Ell Murphy & DJ Crisps, “Freedom” – London singer/DJ Ell Murphy’s music sounds found. Her retro dance tunes fit somewhere between tracks and songs, as they sample and loop original vocals of her that are as eccentric as they are soulful. “Freedom,” produced with Rotterdam’s DJ Crisps, is about a chill as garage can get while still being propulsive. It sounds straight out of ‘99, which is precisely the point. —RJ Si: Bad Bunny, “Yonaguni” – Bad Bunny is spiritually a long way from Puerto Rico in this melancholy song pining over a girl and the Japanese island of Yonaguni. I love a good half-sad, half-happy bop so this is an easy yes for me, made even more enticing by the fact that this is BB’s “I’m a global superstar” song as he closes out the track rapping in Japanese. – Shannon Melero
Y: Liz Phair, “The Game” – In an interview that we ran this week with Liz Phair, the singer-songwriter explained that she’s largely focused on the in-between on her new album Soberish. People are made up of “little, tiny day-to-day decisions and actions, and I put a lot of weight on that,” she said. “The Game” exists in a liminal relationship as a result of relational inconsistency: “Every time I think we’re solid/You change the game,” she sings. The tone is decidedly dulcet and the listening here is easy, and yet it fits Phair well. It’s hard to say whether we’ve gotten used to her more adult contemporary leaning, or if she’s gotten more comfortable in doing so. Either way, this sounds as right as uncertainty can. —Rich Juzwiak
Y: Ell Murphy & DJ Crisps, “Freedom” – London singer/DJ Ell Murphy’s music sounds found. Her retro dance tunes fit somewhere between tracks and songs, as they sample and loop original vocals of her that are as eccentric as they are soulful. “Freedom,” produced with Rotterdam’s DJ Crisps, is about a chill as garage can get while still being propulsive. It sounds straight out of ‘99, which is precisely the point. —RJ Si: Bad Bunny, “Yonaguni” – Bad Bunny is spiritually a long way from Puerto Rico in this melancholy song pining over a girl and the Japanese island of Yonaguni. I love a good half-sad, half-happy bop so this is an easy yes for me, made even more enticing by the fact that this is BB’s “I’m a global superstar” song as he closes out the track rapping in Japanese. – Shannon Melero
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