Sound Off: 10 Songs You Need to Hear Now
By Shaad D'Souza
Mar 08, 2024
It's impossible to be across all the new music out each Friday. Luckily, PAPER is here to help you out: each week, we round up 10 of our favorite new songs from artists — emerging and established — to soundtrack your life. From the surreal to the sublime, these songs cover every corner of the music world. The only criteria: they all have to absolutely rip.
Subscribe to our Sound Off Spotify playlist here and check out this week's tracks below.
Ariana Grande - "we can't be friends (wait for your love)"
Ariana Grande channels Robyn’s classic breakup anthems on “we can’t be friends,” an earnest and bittersweet electropop track about letting someone go because you love them.
Flo - "Walk Like This"
Flo are a big industry concern over in the UK, but so far they haven’t quite had a hit that proves they’re worth the hype. “Walk Like This” which takes me back to the halcyon days of Fifth Harmony’s “Work From Home” could be the one.
Kim Gordon - "The Candy House"
This song, inspired by Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House, is a deeply haunted kind of trap song, but it’s also pretty funny, building to a clattering finale where Gordon growls like a goblin. Deeply wild stuff!
Maggie Lindemann, Jasiah - "taking over me"
Maggie Lindemann nods to nu-metal icons like Evanescence on this early-2000s throwback, which comes complete with a video that pays homage to the classic indie film thirteen.
fantasy of a broken heart - "AFV"
Spring is kind of peeking through the winter gloom—the light fades later, there are a few flowers in the park near my house—which means this lush, effusive dreampop song arrived right on time. Although it begins sparkily, things really ramp up when strings get introduced. A true treat!
Amen Dunes - "Boys"
Death Jokes, the new album by Amen Dunes, plays a lot with genre, subverting expectations at every point. The lucent, shapeshifting “Boys” is no exception—it’s ostensibly a post-punk track, but elements of dub and electronic music are swirled into the mix too, keeping you guessing.
Moor Mother - "DEATH BY LONGITUDE"
Moor Mother’s new album is a blistering and unnerving exploration of the effects of British colonialism; “DEATH BY LONGITUDE” is its beating heart, a destabilising survey of history and future anchored by Camae Ayewa’s commanding spoken word.
Iron & Wine, Fiona Apple - "All in Good Time"
This rousing, loosely-spooled piano bar ballad splits the difference between Billy Joel and classic country duets to great effect—Fiona Apple’s voice sounds great intermingled with Sam Beam’s.
Matt Champion, JENNIE - "Slow Motion"
The piano on “Slow Motion” reminds me a lot of anime scores, which is fitting given that it feels like the kind of surging, heart-on-sleeve track that should soundtrack a teen drama.
Clavish, Fredo - "Uh Uh"
Brutally minimal work from Clavish, who turns a whistle and a single repeating piano line into a bracing, addictive drill track.
Photography: Samantha Simmons
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