Every Good Thing Comes My Way

Sault “R.L.”

If you’re only paying attention to the chorus of “R.L.” – and it’s plausible that you would, given how much it’s repeated through the song – you’d definitely get the impression that it’s an unambiguous love song: “Nothing beats your love / no, nothing can come close to you / real love, real love, real love.” It’s sung very sweetly, and the track is so smooth and funky. It sounds like real love, real love, real love. But go a little deeper into the song and it’s more complicated. The lyrics in the verses seem more like a negotiation, like she’s talking this other person into letting their guard down and accepting this real love. And the grooviness of the music is offset by a tightness in the arrangement, where the minimalism of the track comes across like holding back bigger, warmer feelings.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Addison Rae “Headphones On”

It’s funny how it now feels more transgressive for Addison Rae to sing “I need a cigarette to make me feel better” than to hear Charli XCX sing about cocaine or any number of rappers mumbling about gobbling pills. Rae is basic, but in a high concept way. She’s not necessarily an ordinary girl now, but she would’ve been when I was in my late teens/early 20s and skinny diet soda-sipping, chain smoking white girls were arguably at a cultural apex. “Headphones On” sounds like that Y2K era too – the more introspective end of TRL pop, but with a touch of St Etienne/Pizzicato 5 sophistication spilling over from the mid 90s. I suppose I could have some vain anxiety about my actual youth being a far away romanticized era for young people now, but I mostly just feel happy to have certain sounds come back in style. This is simply an ideal palette for a song about trying to stifle sadness and wishing your parents were (still? ever?) in love.

Buy it from Amazon.