1. St. Vincent - Pay Your Way in Pain

In one of St. Vincent’s most enthralling tracks yet, a spaghetti-western style piano riff leads off what quickly becomes an eclectic blend of 70’s funk and Bowie-esque glam. On this lead single to her upcoming record Daddy’s Home, Vincent (real name: Annie Clark) revisits much of the quirky electropop influence heard on her most recent record Masseduction; here mixing it with classic retro funk instrumentation and plenty of Prince-isms to boot. While Clark very much owns this track, delivering a powerful and layered vocal performance throughout, it is also a major standout for producer to the stars Jack Antonoff. Here Antonoff puts together one of his busiest, most complex,  and fully realized efforts yet. Proudly wearing her influences on her sleeve, on “Pay Your Way in Pain,” St. Vincent looks into rocks past to continue carving out it’s future. 

“The dual substance of Christ—the yearning, so human, so superhuman, of man to attain God... has always been a deep inscrutable mystery to me. My principle anguish and source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh... and my soul is the arena where these two armies have clashed and met.” - Nikos Kazantzakis. 

Christianity is a difficult trudge through the bog of tribulations, sin, temptation, hope, love, faith. It’s a personal imposition that is placed at either the hands of one self or at the hands of others. The mental and spiritual mechanisms are in constant motion, demanding attention, requiring a constant state of upkeep. Whenever one falters in its task, the path alters. However, this is true of living a life, regardless of whether or not one is religious, in this case a Christian, or not. 

1. Noname - Rainforest

Noname returns with her uniquely conscious, contemplative, and groovy rap styling on this boundary breaking new track. Though her music has always maintained a heady vibe, this is her first song that one could justifiably call revolutionary, a staunch but warm diatribe against the systemic injustices of capitalism. Her familiarly understated performance gives you everything you need; there’s a righteous anger here that can be felt, but she doesn’t succumb to the follies of rage. Vocally she maintains the even-temper of an educator, blending the political with the personal against the lusciously soulful instrumentation. She only really changes intonation once, during the last verse's final line, in which you can hear her smiling as she says “f**k a billionaire." Equal parts insightful and danceable, “Rainforest” is a perfect example of the all-to-rare joyful revolution song. 

I remember stumbling upon Jon Bois’ work back in the early 2010's with his "Pretty Good" series on YouTube and being in such awe of his fascinating story telling ability through the use of Google earth, charts, graphs, jpeg images, and other nonsensical miscellaneous items that he got his hands on. 

Yet, with how insignificant each part seemed to be on its lonesome, together they contributed to this mystical awe-inspiring charm that is unmatched in the realm of YouTube content. See, Jon Bois as a sportswriter, as a storyteller, and ultimately as a documentarian has been unparalleled this past decade. However, it is within The History of the Seattle Mariners where Bois creates his titular moment to transcend beyond the nominal title of a “content creator” to a trailblazing artist. 

1. Cassandra Jenkins - Hard Drive

The lead single from Cassandra Jenkins stunning new album ‘An Overview on Phenomenal Nature’ begins with what sounds like a phone recording of an unnamed narrator telling us that the following are “real things that happened.” What follows are a series of kaleidoscopic vignettes that are just as lyrically and sonically intimate as that introduction suggests. The writing here doesn’t feel like verse, but rather private voice memos Jenkins is leaving herself that happen to coincide with a theme. She lilts into a melodic sigh toward the chorus but otherwise relays the lyrics in a droll almost sardonic voice. This performance only lends to the vulnerability of the words being relayed. Throughout the track Jenkins let’s us in on a series of conversations; the characters that speak to her are vast and complex, all lending different ideas and points of view to the singer as she attempts to ease her mind and accept the beauty around her even in such dour times. The final words of the track are a repeated mantra she learns from a psychic who had attempted to “put [her] heart back together.” As the lush sophisti-pop instrumental builds to a beautiful and jaw dropping climax, you get the feeling that the mantra may have worked after all.

How can one begin to tackle the condition of living a life? What binds us together? Which observations do we make that affect our future? How could we live without sorrow? There are too many questions that can be asked about life and the purpose we should fulfill before our eventual end. Edward Yang, director, writer, and pioneer during the Taiwanese New Wave, poses these questions with such authentic grace and subtle care that they slip by our minds only to hit like a truck when we’re knocking on death's door. 

Yi Yi establishes itself as a humble family drama, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Brushing its characters like a Jackson Pollock painting; weaving in and out of events, both significant and insignificant, driven by an unseeable motive. And with the grandest canvas Yang crafts an intimate portrait of life with five characters. A keenly curious child, a teen seeking for a stable foundation, a middle-aged man caught in the energy-draining tedium of work, a middle-aged woman in search of happiness and purpose, and an old woman in a coma acting as a somber reminder of life’s end for our family. 

1. Rebecca Black - Friday (REMIX) [feat. 3OH!3, Big Freedia, & Dorian Electra]
10 years after the original song took the Internet by storm, Rebecca Black returns with a remix of her iconic track “Friday.” 10 years on, Black has matured as an artist, and the pop scene has shifted along with her; everything that made the original video so maligned by certain sects of the net has now been co-opted by the recent hyperpop wave, the blaring synths, the gauche delivery, and the uber auto tuned vocals. All that returns without irony or shame. Dylan Brady (100 Gecs) lends his familiar hyperkinetic and plasticky production through the multiphase redux to create an instrumental that is in one moment a faithful reinterpretation of the original and in the next a SOPHIE-esque deconstructed club banger. The features here all wow, though the standout of the entire track is, perhaps predictably, Big Freedia who introduces the track and supplies the final verse, sounding larger than life as she delivers dance hymns to the weekend. Black’s return to her teenage pop years is an unabashed ode to the simple fun and indulgence of youth. 

Dan Stratford Exclusive Interview

Hired last January, Dan Stratford expects to finally get a chance to see WVU's men's soccer program in live action after a long lay-off due to delays related to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

1. Freddie Gibbs - Gang Signs (feat. ScHoolboy Q)