AILSA CHANG, HOST:
All proper, all people, we made it. It’s Friday, which implies our buddies at NPR Music are again with their weekly roundup of recent music out right this moment. This week, we flip it over to Sheldon Pearce and Daoud Tyler-Ameen, who begin with a track referred to as “Floor” from Khalid’s new album “Honest.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GROUND”)
KHALID: (Singing) Cotton candy-colored skies even put a smile on my damaged muse. Somethin’ ’bout the sundown pleases me and brings out the perfect in you.
SHELDON PEARCE, BYLINE: I’ve at all times kind of been struck by Khalid’s voice. It is not one that you may run from, and it would not actually match into, like, the normal solid of pop characters.
DAOUD TYLER-AMEEN, BYLINE: No, he isn’t a crooner. He isn’t a rapper, both, however he kind of mumble raps the traces (ph).
PEARCE: (Laughter) I do not know what to kind of make of his sound. He says that he wrote this track particularly years in the past by moments of uncertainty when he wasn’t actually certain what his goal as an artist was. I feel quite a lot of his music is kind of centered on, like, uncertainty, naivete. When he was youthful, quite a lot of it was clearly wrapped up in being younger and dumb and never realizing which strategy to go. Now it looks like he is turned that sincerity inward and is taking a look at himself as a creator, as someone who makes music. What did you make of this track, Daoud?
TYLER-AMEEN: I imply, I saved fascinated with a chunk that you simply wrote earlier this 12 months in regards to the kind of state of the R&B showman tied to Usher’s efficiency on the Tremendous Bowl and the way Khalid is someone who’s possibly probably not in a spot to take up that mantle simply because he’s so inside. He isn’t about being a showman. He isn’t about kind of, like, you realize, flexing shirtless. Like, it is – all the pieces that he is saying is kind of, like, ricocheting off the partitions of his thoughts.
PEARCE: There’s nothing actually ahead about him.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: He’s continually kind of fascinated with not simply himself however his most quiet moments, the extra intimate moments that he shares with very small teams of individuals, the concept of, like, being grounded amid the highs of superstar.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GROUND”)
KHALID: (Singing) I will be proper right here on the bottom. My toes, toes do not fail me now. I will be proper right here on the bottom. My toes, toes do not fail me now.
TYLER-AMEEN: That’s the new album from Khalid, “Honest.” I will take us to a extra colourful place with the brand new album from Orville Peck titled “Stampede.”
(SOUNDBITE OF ORVILLE PECK & BECK SONG, “DEATH VALLEY HIGH”)
TYLER-AMEEN: Orville Peck’s bio form of feels to me like a popular culture Mad Lib (laughter).
PEARCE: Yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: He’s a South African nation musician raised in musical theater.
PEARCE: Yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: He turns into a queer icon, you realize, visitor decide on “Drag Race.” And, by the best way, he wears a masks and by no means exhibits his face in public.
PEARCE: Proper. There’s something very whimsical about his entire factor. It is these theater child roots.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: It is greater, bigger than life, in your face, which I feel you hear within the track from his new report “Demise Valley Excessive” with Beck.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DEATH VALLEY HIGH”)
ORVILLE PECK: (Singing) Sin Metropolis lights, spin the wheel round and roll the cube. Demise Valley excessive, gonna let it run just like the satan’s son tonight.
TYLER-AMEEN: So we should always say “Stampede” is his third album, and it’s an album of duets.
PEARCE: Duets.
TYLER-AMEEN: You have acquired Beck right here on “Demise Valley Excessive,” form of in his “Play That Funky Music White Boy” mode from the ’90s.
PEARCE: (Laughter) Yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: He even will get to rap once more. You have additionally acquired – Willie Nelson is right here, Kylie Minogue, Margo Worth. A duet album – I imply, he is in his mid-30s. That is normally a transfer that you simply pull…
PEARCE: Yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: …Once you’re, like, 50-plus, like, doing the kind of, like, profession reboot factor.
PEARCE: Proper.
TYLER-AMEEN: However I do not know. I imply, on the identical factor, it is like, how completely different is it from, like, a hip-hop album that is lined in options? Like, possibly it is a weirdly savvy transfer.
PEARCE: I – there’s something that appears to particularly work for him. You’ll be able to hear it on this Beck track. It’s such a great time. And it is acquired this kind of, like, rip-roaring down the Vegas Strip power. They sound like two bachelors simply, like, on a dropping streak, however they do not care as a result of they’re having such a great time. And it is infectious. Like…
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: …It actually simply kind of washes over you.
(SOUNDBITE OF ORVILLE PECK & BECK SONG, “DEATH VALLEY HIGH”)
TYLER-AMEEN: OK, up subsequent, Maren Morris – her new EP is named “Intermission.” This track, “I Hope I By no means Fall In Love,” looks like a tone-setter for this undertaking. I do not wish to put phrases in her mouth, however she acquired divorced just lately.
PEARCE: Yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: Looks as if she’s in an intense transitional spot.
PEARCE: Sure.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “I HOPE I NEVER FALL IN LOVE”)
MAREN MORRIS: (Singing) I hope I by no means fall in love, I hope I by no means fall in love once more. And I am not taking it again.
PEARCE: I am a little bit of a sucker for a track the place it looks like the artist is making an attempt to persuade themselves of one thing and never the viewers.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: And it looks like on this track, we’re kind of swept up in an inside monologue.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: Like, she has determined for herself romance is out. Like (laughter), I have been there. I’ve carried out that. And the language is so definitive – you possibly can maintain me to that. I am not taking it again. I am a girl of my phrase. God as my witness, that was the final time.
TYLER-AMEEN: (Laughter) Yeah.
PEARCE: It looks like she’s, like, giving herself a pep speak.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: Like, she’s pushing herself by all the pieces that she’s skilled and making an attempt to return out on the opposite aspect entire – as a result of, I imply, the best way that the track is structured, to me, it would not really feel like an actual acknowledgment that there’ll by no means be love in her life once more, proper?
TYLER-AMEEN: No.
PEARCE: It feels extra in regards to the previous than in regards to the future.
TYLER-AMEEN: Completely, yeah. I imply, even the title of the undertaking, “Intermission,” actually looks like a boxer who’s simply – who, like, acquired…
PEARCE: Yeah (laughter).
TYLER-AMEEN: …They acquired swung on just a little arduous within the final spherical, and so they’re being, like, simply give me a second.
PEARCE: They took an eight depend.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: They took a standing eight depend, and now it is time to regroup.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “I HOPE I NEVER FALL IN LOVE”)
MORRIS: (Singing) God as my witness, that was the final time.
TYLER-AMEEN: Only a couple extra data popping out right this moment in short, Smashing Pumpkins have a brand new report referred to as “Aghori Mhori Mei.” David Lynch – sure, that David Lynch – is again within the studio, as he generally is. He has a brand new undertaking with the singer/songwriter Chrystabell referred to as “Cellophane Reminiscences.” And eventually, Killer Mike with a report referred to as “Songs For Sinners & Saints” – Sheldon, you have written lots recently about how rappers confront center age. Killer Mike has been working at that process with abandon, I might say.
PEARCE: Yeah, you realize, Killer Mike is coming off a Grammy sweep for his 2023 album, “Michael,” which actually kind of appeared to vary the notion round his music…
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: …Which is attention-grabbing. That does not usually occur for rappers in center age.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: “Songs For Sinners & Saints” is billed as an epilogue to “Michael.” It looks like in all of the constructive success that he is seen from this report, he isn’t fairly able to let it go. And I feel there’s nonetheless concepts to thoughts in that report.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: And I feel individuals ought to sit up for it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HUMBLE ME”)
KILLER MIKE: (Rapping) I gained on the Grammys for spitting my grammar – did that for Atlanta, did that for Atlanta, bruh. Swept up like a janitor, acquired despatched to the slammer, bruh. Deal with me like an animal…
CHANG: That was Sheldon Pearce and Daoud Tyler-Ameen from NPR Music, and you may hear full episodes of New Music Friday wherever you get your podcasts.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HUMBLE ME”)
KILLER MIKE: (Rapping) …With my head up in handcuffs with satisfaction ‘trigger all of my heroes wore handcuffs. The FBI shot…
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