5 new releases we love: Miley Cyrus is back, baby, and it's the '80s all over again
Music Features A-Sides
There’s a lot of music out there. To help you cut through all the noise, every week The A.V. Club is rounding up A-Sides, five recent releases we think are worth your time. You can listen to these and more on our Spotify playlist, and if you like what you hear, we encourage you to purchase featured artists’ music directly at the links provided below.
Aminé, Limbo
[Republic, August 7]
With his 2017 debut, Good For You, Aminé carved out his own carefree corner in the West Coast hip-hop scene, combining colorful, minimalist production, infectious melodies, and braggadocious rhymes to create a skillful—if a bit immature—showcase of his talents. Three years and a throwaway mixtape later, the Portland rapper returns with his moodier, more existential sophomore LP, Limbo. The happy-go-lucky attitude that colored Good For You has been replaced by vulnerability and honest introspection (“Beat so cold, it made Aminé wanna open up,” he raps on the laid-back opener “Burden.”) The album’s sole interlude, “Kobe,” finds him at a crossroads between youth and adulthood, grappling with his mortality after the death of the basketball icon (“It weirdly, like, fast-forwarded my maturity.”) All that sounds heavy, but Limbo rarely ever feels weighed down by that thematic heft. Aminé still raps with the same lightness and confidence that defined his previous work. [Baraka Kaseko]
Holly Humberstone
[Platoon, August 14]
The hushed vocals, the sense of low-level intensity, the evocative turns of phrase that take familiar sayings and twist them just a half-step to the left—Holly Humberstone’s debut EP may be the first real salvo of an emerging artist, but she’s already found a fertile and fully realized sound that that makes it seem as though she found her voice long ago. Like Lorde filtered through the style of early Julien Baker (with tiny flourishes of Billie Eilish’s softer side and Taylor Swift’s lyrical wit), Humberstone crafts powerfully affecting pop that positively hums with pent-up emotion. These six songs go by quickly (it clocks in at just 20 minutes), but they showcase an impressive breadth of artistry, from the haunting guitar-driven soul of “Deep End” to the pulsing piano rhythms of “Drop Dead” to the electro dance-floor groove of the title track, it all feels profoundly personal, like she’s right beside you, whispering confessions. If “Overkill” suffers from a, well, overkill of instrumentation, it segues smoothly into the closing blips and synths of driving anthem “Vanilla,” completing an excellent and largely unimpeachable display of songcraft. Not bad for someone whose very first song was released in January of this year. [Alex McLevy]
Remi Wolf, “Monte Carlo”
[Island Records, August 3]
“Think I’m gonna rent a Montecarlo/Drive around ya neighborhood like real slow.” Breezy and playful, Remi Wolf positively cruises in a buoyant jam that encapsulates the joys of reveling in success. Remi quite literally bounces between laid-back vocals, speed rap, and melodic, joyfully pure propositions towards a “tiny little boyfriend” with such ease and charisma. The summer bop gained an early following thanks to a Samsung event and the full release did not disappoint. It pairs very well with the confident virtuoso’s recently released EP I’m Allergic To Dogs!, which was a verifiably bright spot during a rather dark quarantine. Though she originally penned the track for fellow energetic rapper Cardi B, there’s no denying that “Monte Carlo” benefits entirely from a sprightly swagger that only Remi can bring. [Shannon Miller]
Orville Peck, Show Pony
[Columbia Records, August 14]
In 2019, a masked stranger rode into town with little more than some fringe and a guitar, but it wasn’t long until everyone knew his name (well, his pseudonym): Orville Peck. With an unmistakable warble and lyrics that brazenly queered cowboy iconography, Peck’s debut album Pony announced a unique voice in the country scene, a buckaroo ready to buck convention. Now, the delayed follow-up EP, Show Pony, arrives to cement his ascent: No one-trick pony, this new collection of songs charts his path to stardom. Where Pony was more melancholy, Show Pony does justice to its name with a flashier, more confident sound. Standout “Drive Me Crazy,” for example, is a piano-fueled torch song for the CB radio set, leaning into camp (“Breaker, breaker, break hearts,” Peck croons) without sacrificing its soulful longing. Elsewhere, Shania Twain joins Peck for the barnstorming duet “Legends Never Die,” and he closes out the EP with a fiery cover of “Fancy”—queer country canon thanks to Reba McEntire’s take on the classic. It’s in these tracks that Orville Peck’s vocal muscle really shines through, staking out a place of his own among the legends that inspired him. [Cameron Scheetz]
Miley Cyrus, “Midnight Sky”
[RCA, August 14]
Surely, it was only a matter of time before Miley Cyrus went full-on ’80s glam. Scatterings of icy electronic throwbacks to that era are present on Bangerz, but whereas that album leaned into its modern R&B sound, with new single “Midnight Sky,” Cyrus has embraced the dancehall style of the Me Decade, with a track that wouldn’t sound out of place on a mixtape from 1985. Eurythmics, Culture Club, Pet Benatar—she’s tossed it all in a blender and come out with an addicting song that wears its retro style proudly. A paean to luxuriating in being single and ready to party, the message is vintage Cyrus, even as it finds her trying on a different style than she’s known for—and it suits her. The accompanying video (which Cyrus also directed) may be a reminder that her penchant for playacting vainglorious stage coquettes hasn’t dimmed, but as a part of this latest persona, it feels apt: Miley Cyrus is having fun again. [Alex McLevy]
28 Comments
“she’s tossed it all in a blender and come out with an addicting song that wears its retro style proudly”I always find it amusing how pop culture sites write as if these pop stars – be it miley or beyonce, or whoever – are fully in control of writing and producing the music they put out. A quick Google search tells me this song was written with at least 5 other people and Cyrus is not listed as a producer. I know you only have so much space for the blurb but I just think it’s funny the way it’s so often implied that they are the creative genius behind the sound when more often they’re just singing the song.Anyway, this song is alright. Carry on.
There is a distinction between performer and writer that is wholly ignored by the general population.
Reason #8,223,409 why I hate top 40 music in general. I like some hip-hop, but most modern rappers are trash. There’s a decades old reference that’s gone around the internet comparing Freddie Mercury to and how they’ll have a team of anywhere from 5-20 people write their music, lyrics, etc. whereas Freddie Mercury wrote Bohemian Rhapsody alone.I’m not a Queen fan myself, but credit where credit is due. I also hate the Beatles but without them we would not have probably 50-60% of the music we have today in a multitude of genres. So again I say, credit where credit is due.
You are allowed to like music that wasn’t written or produced by the performer. I like the Beastie Boys but I wouldn’t expect Ad-Rock to man the turntables.
That’s fair, but a majority of the Beastie Boys catalog was produced by them. What I was more getting at is a lot of the Top 40 music that’s so popular (note that I did not say ALL) is basically generated by algorithms in computers, compiled by “producers” and given/sold to whichever pop-star to perform that’s popular that week.For the record, Beastie Boys are the GOAT of “white-boy rap”, change my mind.
Just for reference, here’s a good article explaining it from a couple of years ago: https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-working-its-way-music-charts
But you would expect Adrock to do more than read the rhymes someone wrote for him to beats someone the record company hired to make.
Just curious, why do you hate the Beatles?
They’re just not my cup of tea specifically, as I said, credit where credit is due. However, you can’t go a full day without accidentally listening to the Beatles in some format (TV, Radio, Movies), maybe it’s due to over-exposure but I just don’t enjoy their music.
Gotcha. One person’s over-exposure is another one’s daily dose. Heh.
Exactly! And the craziest part about these pop singers is how they can have so many people writing their music and lyrics for them and it all sounds the exact fucking same! Even with rappers: that Amine track in the beginning of the post sounds like 20 other rappers you hear these days. Back in the 90’s, rappers were very distinct. No one sounded like Busta. No one sounded with Wu-Tang. No one sounded like Nas. No one sounded like Tribe.Every genre now all sounds the same. Rap, R&B, Alternative, Rock, Pop, they are all over-produced with the exact same feel. It’s like the record companies just want all music to be the background music to the world now. The only people that standout do so with gimmicks, aesthetics, and cultural specifics but they put very little effort into making their music stand out.I miss the early 90’s when every genre was firing on all cylinders. Record companies were rushing to catch up to what was going on, rather than driving it. Those were good times, musically.
There’s always a diamond in the rough though, I love Hopsin and MGK (call them guilty pleasures I guess) but Hopsin’s whole thing is just ripping apart the music industry and the current popular rappers and calling them out on their bullshit. MGK is just a beast, I don’t care if this is the hill I die on and he’s shifting to a more pop-punk sound with his new album which admittedly I’ve been digging his new releases pretty hard.Apart from that though, give me some Ice Cube, Wu Tang, Body Count (cross-genre) and I’m gonna blast that shit through the roof.If my avatar wasn’t apparent, I’m into Punk mostly and old Hip-Hop was 100% Punk set to a beat. They stood for something and vocalized it. Now like 90% is “Im’ma fuck bitches all night, get drunk, make money, and make it sound cool to abuse opiods!” with a shit looped beat and don’t even get me started on Mumble Rap. Those dipshits should all go play in fucking traffic and save us all a headache.
You…I like you.
Not sure anything with this much auto-tune can be called an ‘80s throwback…
Yeah, I’m having a hard time hearing Eurythmics or Culture Club in this single. Maybe Pat Benetar, but I’m not sure where the other supposed references are coming in.
All music today is written and produced by either Jay-Z or Taylor Swift. It’s a fact, so don’t bother checking.
Part of it is because the writers and producers don’t necessarily want to be public figures. They’ll get paid while Miley does something stupid in public. Pop music is in a weird place right now. It’s singles-based in a way that’s almost a throwback to the 60s.
I understand this feeling, but I also understand that the desire for the singer to also be the songwriter is a relatively recent (meaning around the 1960s) phenomenon. It never would have occurred to anyone to give a fuck if Sinatra wrote the song he was singing.
I really don’t care whether the singer has written the song, I just think it’s silly that pop culture writers act as if they have when it’s clear that’s not true. Also, with pre 60’s music, it is generally assumed the writer and singer aren’t one in the same, pretty much until the Beatles came around, but the example you of Sinatra you picked is an interesting choice because the band/composer/arranger is often clearly billed on the physical pressings of his music. You’ll rarely see that kind of recognition today
I think contemporary music is a little more complicated than that, especially as mainstream pop has borrowed more and more heavily from hip-hop and its tradition of sampling and synthesizing lots of moving parts from different sources.Kanye West, when he was good, was a master at arranging production. So you look at “Power” from MBDTF, and there are 14 writers and five producers on that track! But it’s unmistakably Kanye’s work. His artistry isn’t diminished by the number of writers, but actually strengthened.I don’t think Miley Cyrus is anywhere near the musician that Kanye (still) is (even if his quality has noticeably gone downhill). And I don’t know how big a part she played in actually composing her tracks. So this is not a “defend Miley Cyrus” reply! Just a “the number of people who worked together on a track doesn’t always correlate to its artistic integrity”.
can lord fred33 get some love? folklorde is one of my favorite new releases from the year, listened to it at least 8 times so far today. https://open.spotify.com/album/4GsVYg5JnouD2IY1MOPhz0?si=hhQrPCKHRGqO9PkUuj90Ew
Hell yeah new Orville Peck
Are you enjoying it? I’ve been streaming it off and on all weekend, and it’s … perfectly pleasant.
That’s my reaction. It’s fine, but it’s not blowing me away like Pony did.
Although judging by the banner photo, he misunderstood the term ‘spaghetti Western.’
Does Miley still sound like a croaking frog? Don’t get me wrong, she seems like a good person and I’m not a true hater, there’s just nothing about her voice that resonates with me.
Yes? That’s what I like about her voice, but I also like Stevie Nicks, Lucinda Williams, Marianne Faithfull (and so on), so mileage varies, I guess.
The amount of vocal fry she uses has always been the main reason I don’t listen to her music. I’ve found with other singers like CathleenBurner mentioned it sounds like an intrinsic vocal quality rather than an affectation.