Anyone who has ridden in my car can tell you that my music taste is quite diverse. When my phone is hooked up to the aux cord, at one moment you might hear some old Taylor Swift song, like “Love Story” or “Our Song”, only for the speakers to be blaring Nardo Wick a minute later. My playlists span vastly over multiple genres, and as such I consider myself able to have good recommendations about whether music is good or not (some of my friends may not agree with this statement). I often sort of flip-flop every week or so in terms of my mood about what I want to listen to, and in this blog post I am going to share with you all the music that I have been listening to recently.
About two weeks ago I had a phase where I was almost exclusively listening to the La La Land soundtrack when I would drive home from track practice after school. I think that this was inspired in part by a few of my friends telling me that they recently finished watching the movie in their Film as Literature class, and also in part by my sister who is involved in show choir at North. Anyways, there are some extremely catchy songs on th
is soundtrack that I found myself singing along to, like “Someone in the Crowd” and the iconic “Another Day of Sun”.
Speaking of sun, “Saturday Sun” by Vance Joy is another song that has been in my rotation as of late. He is one of my mom’s favorite artists, and I also like a few of his other songs like “Riptide”. The enthusiastic acoustic guitar on these songs is a nice departure from some of the other music that I listen to, and I enjoy playing some alternative every once in a while.
This month I also went back in time a bit and listened to some older music from one of my favorite artists, which is Drake. I revisited his surprise 2015 album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, and I got a nice nostalgia blast. “Energy”, “10 Bands”, and “Used To ft. Lil Wayne” are all throwback hype songs that I like, but my favorite track on the album is “Jungle”, which is definitely a top-five Drake song of all time, and firmly in contention for his best as far as I’m concerned. The slow, booming kick of the bass pairs beautifully with the sample taken from Brooklyn musician Gabriel Garzón-Montano, which goes “Rock me real slowly/Put a bib on me/I’m just like a baby drooling over you,” and Drake’s v
ocals complete this 5 minute 20 second masterpiece.
I listen to a lot of rap music, and there were a couple new hip hop albums that I listened to this month. Don Toliver dropped his album Love Sick just a couple of days ago, and I intended to listen to it all the way through, but when I saw that Justin Bieber was featured on one of the songs I had to play it immediately. The song in question, “Private Landing”, did not disappoint. Don provides a nice hook, and Future’s verse on the song is stellar also. But the Bieber feature, OH MY GOD THE BIEBER FEATURE. He absolutely slides, and his part feels like a transfer back to his R&B era that he was in years ago. Having that song in my ears when I’m walking through the hallways is a great feeling. There are a few other songs on the album that I like as well, like “Leave the Club ft. Lil Durk and GloRilla” and “Slow Motion ft. Wizkid”, but I never listened to the album fully and mainly only played the songs with features that I wanted to hear.
Another new release that I listened to was Young Nudy’s album Gumbo. I saw a review of it on TikTok, and considering that every song on the album is named after a different food, I did not have extremely high expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. The beats are fun and unique, and the whole album is pretty lighthearted. My favorite song is called “Pancake”, and the chorus of it begins “Splat, pull up in the ‘Cat (Nyoom), whole neighborhood see that I got racks (That I got racks)”. There are only two features on the album, but they are both very good and from high-profile artists. Nudy partners with longtime collaborator 21 Savage on “Peaches & Eggplants”, and then Memphis rapper Key Glock delivers a verse on “Pot Roast”.
Another Memphis rapper that is frequently booming out of my AirPods is Pooh Shiesty. His album Shiesty Season has been a staple in my playlist for a minute. “See Red” is the best from it in my opinion. That song is a masterpiece and I won’t let anyone tell me otherwise. “Guard Up” is a close second place. I also discovered an artist named Caleb Gordon, who makes exclusively clean Christian rap music. I like his songs “Rocky Road Pt.. 2” and “Quick”. The last artist I want to shout out that I’ve been listening to is Young Thug, specifically his songs “Check” and “Wyclef Jean”. If you have any song recommendations for me, drop them in the comments.