The Music Dispatch: June 21st, 2022
Inside: Beyoncé and non-Beyoncés (Drake, The Boyz, Perfume Genius, Yaya Bey, Tove Lo, Nova Twins). Plus my favorite six non-Beyoncé albums so far!
Welcome to The Music Dispatch! This is a weekly part of this Substack where I shortly review every new(-ish) release I listened to. Out every Tuesday. All mentioned songs are available on your streaming platform of choice unless stated otherwise. Is there an album you want to recommend me? @ me on Twitter or head on over to the Retrospring!
Doesn’t seem right to call this the week of June 21, 2022. It’s almost mundane compared to what we got today. Ahem… This is the twenty-first hour in Central European Summer Time of Summer Solstice 2022, the longest day of the year, and the opening of Cancer season. Beyoncé released her lead single to her seventh album Renaissance, Break My Soul. Hello to Beyoncé and non-Beyoncés to the Music Dispatch, which is a weekly song roundup containing Beyoncé and various other non-Beyoncé.
Beyoncé — Break My Soul
Bey is back and I’m sleeping real good tonight. First of all: we made it, we waited for years, Renaissance is real, it’s real, it’s coming, this is a lead single, this is a lead single, we have a release date, she is communicating these to us (Instagram bios are also communication!!!). Beyoncé sounds beautiful, beautiful, and Big Freedia is in her element too. The lyrics speak to me; Beyoncé is a master of creating characters for her songs! It’s just… the sample, Show Me Love by Robin S, is the Achilles heel of this song. We’ve heard it earlier this year on Charli XCX’s Used To Know Me, and it sounded worse there because Charli plays the sample completely straight and her vocals are quite high. For Beyoncé — as is expected of her — the vocal melody and production are both robust. There’s flourishes in there and the outro makes the song far more satisfying than Charli’s song. It’s safe in a way we haven’t heard of her in a while before — but I don’t think this is a bad thing? This is a lead single for the radios. Europe is going to play Beyoncé up and down for the first time in over a decade. And I fully believe better will await us in the album. The chorus doesn’t sound massive, but what we got is still catchy and celebrating and Beyoncé is still the best to ever do it.
Non-Beyoncé EPs and Albums
Drake — Honestly, Nevermind This Beyoncé collaborator (unserious verse in Mine) and non-Beyoncé artist heard the news of Beyoncé going to the club and scrambled together a couple of house beats. This is the first project I’ve heard of him in full in years. Your pussy is calling my naaaaaaaaaaaaaame is quite enough on a 40 minute project anyway and the lyrics are complete autopilot Drake garbage. It’s his best album in years. Highlights are Sticky, Massive, Texts Go Green and the closer only because of 21 Savage (not limited to, but also because of him saying stickaaaa like he heard NCT 127 doing adlibs like him, which also is only a thing because a NCT fan made a joke of it).
Perfume Genius — Ugly Season Non-Beyoncé gay legend Perfume Genius would have made a good contender for a personal recommendation this week. The album’s quite experimental in its pop ways and quite pop in its experimental ways; my personal reference point here was the excellent Oil Of Every Person’s Un-Insides, though it’s far, far softer than Sophie’s album was. As Mike Hadreas’ vocals take a step back for the melodies and production, you’re treated to an almost liberatory audio experience. It is wide, expansive, and highly engaging.
Yaya Bey — Remember Your North Star Bey (not Beyoncé)’s newest album contains eighteen songs which run half an hour. The songs pull from a variety of different genres and moods and styles — classic rnb, afrobeats, contemporary rnb, pop — and never bores. This week — more like last Friday — was so good with music releases, I feel half-tempted to say to every release that this is something you should be listening to it. But you should definitely listen to this one.
Nova Twins — Supernova The twin duo Nova Twins’s newest release is also thirty minutes short but extremely fun and metallic and harsh in sound. It feels much more consistent and high-tension than their debut and is a massive step-up overall. This is a must for all you electric guitar lovers, of course, after you’re done listening to I Care from Homecoming or any other concert DVD of hers; the one that features electric guitar.
Non-Beyoncé singles
The Boyz — Sweet On a non-Beyoncé week, my chosen Korean pop boyband The Boyz would have bagged that cover. This is their second song for paid app Universe and, unlike Drink It last year, honestly sounds like it. It’s a bright pop song with a sung sticky chorus with a shouty section at the end that recalls Seventeen, plus a rap verse at the second verse rather than the first. The verses are uncharacteristically uninteresting but the pre-chorus and chorus do make up for it. It’s much, much better than She’s The Boss but lacks the bombast and commanding vibe of Maverick, and even Echo. This song and its reception is highly, highly reminiscent of Summer 2019, in which people pretended Red Velvet’s Sunny Side Up should have been released instead of Zimzalabim. Now, you might think I secretly think Sweet is better than it really is or think Maverick/She’s The Boss are as bad as Zimzalabim sounds to me in 2022, but that’s not my point. Zimzalabim is in your face. Each part of it is designed to get a reaction out of you, good or bad. Sunny Side Up is the kind of pleasant you put back into the playlist or enjoy as a fan. Maverick is the former, Sweet is the latter, and She’s The Boss belongs back to the drawing board.
Tove Lo — True Romance Resident messy girl and non-Beyoncé Tove Lo is pronounced To-veh Loo? Wow. This third single for Tove Lo’s upcoming album Dirt Femme (just look at this cover, by the way) sounds cinematic, big, and Lo sounds so assured on it that I’m surprised this song isn’t opening the album, nor that this was the lead single of the album. It’s unlike anything we’ve heard of her before.
Chloe — Surprise Treat Me is bad and I forgot to cover it; this is better than Treat Me, but not as amazing as Have Mercy was.
This Friday I’m looking forward to listening to Beyoncé’s Break My Soul. As for non-Beyoncés, we have MUNA and Soccer Mommy.
We are also halfway through the year. Here are the non-Beyoncé projects I’ve enjoyed the most so far:
fka twigs — CAPRISONGS: This caleidoscopic celebration of community and finding yourself and having fun is the non-Beyoncé album to beat this year.
(G)I-DLE — I NEVER DIE: The K-Pop album that commits to its concept and title track all the way through, with grit and soft moments both. A massive step up from last year’s I Burn.
The Weeknd — Dawn FM: A project that grew on me not just in its concept but also in its razor-tight production and songwriting.
Nilüfer Yanya — PAINLESS: The moody, introspective record offers no answers to its fragmental songwriting and distant melodies. The perfect album for girls in big cities that lives in their heads.
Beach House — Once Twice Melody: I wrote about the album at length!
Mor ve Ötesi — Sirenler: The rock elders of Turkey comment on the state of the world and once again give voice and clarity to an oppressive feeling.