10 songs you need in your life this week

Tracks we love, in no particular order.

March 25, 2021
10 songs you need in your life this week

Each week, The FADER staff rounds up the songs we can't get enough of. Here they are, in no particular order.

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"Street Runner" — Rod Wave

Star-crossed lovers everywhere have an anthem in "Street Runner," the latest song from Rod Wave's upcoming album SoulFly, out tomorrow. Wave layers soulful harmonies like fine silk sheets on a bed you want to collapse in with the right person after a hard day's work, but as he outlines in the song, sometimes ambition can get in the way of a heart's desire.

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"Dark But Just A Game" — Lana Del Rey

Lana makes trip-hop her own in this Portishead-indebted standout from her just-released album Chemtrails Over The Country Club. A treatise on the trappings of fame, "Dark" stops short of becoming a cautionary tale thanks to Del Rey's trademark abandon that simmers below the surface. "I was a pretty little thing and God, I loved to sing / But nothing came from either one but pain (But fuck it)"

“Hit Like A Girl” — Meet Me @ The Altar

More technical than pop-punk and less angsty than post-hardcore, Meet Me @ The Altar is serving up catchy, kick-ass rock music. "Hit Like A Girl" stands out in a cultural ecosystem full of platitudes and weak tea around empowerment — the white-knuckled sincerity makes the message feel real.

"Tha Divide" — Pink Siifu & Fly Anakin feat. ZelooperZ, MAVI, and Koncept Jack$on

Listening to "Tha Divide" feels like sinking deep into a puffy couch in a room full of strong weed smoke as five rappers, each talented but with a skill set all their own, trade verses. The jazzy beat helps give this cypher a special kind of camaraderie.

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"My Blue Suit" — Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney

The latest song from the duo behind Superwolves, the much-anticipated follow-up to their 2005 album, is tender folk music spun from magic hour light and silly inside jokes between people in love.

"John L" — black midi

Too infrequently will a song make you go "What the hell is happening?" while demanding multiple relistens. The return of London trio black midi is a triumph of free jazz, post-punk, and ominous, apocalyptic sprechgesang.

"Control" — Mannequin Pussy

M.P.'s first new song in two years blends despondency with defiance. This texture enriches the heaviness of the song's charging garage-punk, and lends some ecstatic feeling to the bellowed climax of "Something's in your eyes."

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"The beginning" — Andy Stott feat. Allison Skidmore

Some of Stott's most recognizable songs are siblings of a sort: ethereal vocals over shuddering, blistering electronics forged from disparate corners across musical history. On "The beginning," Stott reasserts what only he can do, while introducing some new surprises — I can't be the only one who thinks that drum line would fit perfectly in a golden age Lionel Ritchie song?

"Losing Something" — Lost Girls

This fantastic collaboration from Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden combines portentous spoken word with a frosty and cinematic atmosphere reminiscent of a chilled-out Suicide trapped in a lucid dream.

"Pieces of 8" — Overmono

Keyed-up garage meets ambient techno bliss on this majestic A-side from the U.K. electro duo. Close your eyes and you can imagine the razor-sharp vibes slicing through the fog of a sweaty rave.

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10 songs you need in your life this week