In contrast to the past several weeks, listeners will notice how Spotify’s selection for its “New Music Friday” playlist offered quite a scarce variety when it comes to the different musical styles readers were provided. While the Oct. 25 edition has slightly improved from last week’s, it is still far from what listeners expect.
While this week does offer another 98 new musical releases in the form of latin-pop by way of Lunay (“Aventura”), country thanks to Luke Bryan (“What She Wants Tonight”) or electronic music in the shape of R3HAB (“All Comes Back To You”), it is lacking emerging genres such as K-Pop, which readers might have perceived in last week’s edition in the form of BTS (“Make It Right”). After thoroughly analyzing this week’s batch, here are the tunes readers should stick to for these next seven days.
American rapper, singer, songwriter and producer Kanye West (“Heartless”) released his ninth studio album, “Jesus is King,” on Oct. 25. Its lead single, “Follow God,” received many positive critiques almost immediately after its release. The album, in its entirety, discusses and alludes to the divine figure of God or Jesus Christ. In a society where religion has come to help many through the struggles that families face nowadays, many listeners find the lyrics of the various tracks relatable to their personal lives. While religion, like gun violence, are hot topics when it comes to new musical releases, producers and discographic companies should think twice about what songs are appropriate and which are not in a society where these taboo topics can be taken to an extreme.
While many may associate Jamaican-American trio Major Lazer (“Lean On”) with electronic and dance music, their newest release, “Trigger,” is far from those two genres. The song, featuring Khalid (“Talk”), discusses yet another delicate topic, as interpreted at first sight by its title. Its chorus, “shoot me down, shoot me down / I don’t want to remember you,” clearly points to the issue of gun violence. The song also pertains to the official soundtrack for the upcoming video game “DEATH STRANDING.” Major Lazer’s is the fourth song associated to the video game extracted for Spotify’s “New Music Friday,” after Au/Ra (“Ghost”), CHVRCHES (“Death Stranding”), and The Neighbourhood (“Yellow Box”), which were analyzed in past weeks. While Major Lazer’s song’s topic may seem aggressive at first glance, its melody and rhythm will match a wide range of likes in musical taste, from hip-hop or rap, to pop music.
Rather, if what listeners are seeking is just some relaxing music in order to make it through the week, their best choice this week is Coldplay’s new single, “Orphans.” The single is part of their upcoming eighth studio album, “Everyday Life,” ending their four-year long hiatus. The album is broken into two different EP’s: sunrise and sunset. The two fictional characters mentioned in the lead single’s lyrics, Rosaleem and Baba, resided in the Syrican capital, Damascus. Toward the end, the tune describes how they pass away during a bombing in the city.
Despite the lack of variety in the different musical styles, this week’s mix slightly improves that of last week, therefore this week earns four stars out of five.
