Welcome to a brand new recurring hashtag Friday franchise: #StillWorthListeningToOnMonday, a collection of the week’s best releases and #NewMusicFriday standouts you’ll actually care about once the weekend ends. Don’t waste your valuable stream worth a fraction of a cent.
Listen to all of these and more on the MuuTunes playlist, available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Eden Prince, “Obvious (feat. Cassie)”
I beg your pardon? New Cassie — sorry, New Cassie dance song, no less — and the world’s somehow still going on about their business? How very dare you all? The Cassie comeback is already coming along nicely, and this unexpected debut delight from London producer Eden Prince is further evidence that the “Me & U” icy-R&B princess stays serving us nothing less than top quality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISS1Y5n77gI
Mollie King, “Hair Down”
I’ve said enough about this messy-fun burst of Xenomania nostalgia, and have decided that 1:05-1:22 is the best part.
Frida Sundemo, “Gold”
Frida Sundemo is one of the many Swedes you should welcome into your discography. Her upcoming album, Flashbacks & Futures, is full of expansive, gorgeously crafted pop that sounds like a beautiful transmission from space. “Gold” is the latest — it’s tender and hopeful and full of cinematic strings. For best use, set this as the soundtrack to any of your major life decisions in the near future.
Rebecca Black, “Heart Full of Scars”
Rebecca Black, She of “Friday” Fame, makes legitimately good, Top 40-friendly pop music these days, in case you weren’t following her trajectory. She also says “fuck it” and “life’s a bitch” in the same breath on her latest, which is how you know she means business. It also sounds like something Lea Michele probably could have done with her pop career.
Jessie Ware, “Selfish Love”
Ware, oh Ware, has Jessie Ware been? Making more delicate and sublime Sade-esque pop, evidently. “Selfish Love” evokes a bit of Bitter:Sweet with Jessie’s signature breathy vocals, as she indulges in some self-destructive mind games atop a bossa nova swagger. “I only give love when I want to make it.” A small army seemingly worked on this — Benny Blanco, Happy Perez, Cashmere Cat, Ryan Tedder, among other names — but it still feels like a thoroughly intimate affair.
HyunA, “BABE”
After a decade in the industry, former 4minute member-turned-solo K-pop princess HyunA proves age ain’t nothing but a number. (The whole mini-album is great, for that matter.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqpQahFD-go
Perfume, “Everyday”
Blippy-pop Japanese trio Perfume are back with their 24th (!) single since their 2005 major label debut, “If You Wanna.” The glitchy, glossy computerized cut is…a bit grating, to be honest. Vastly better is the B-side (remember B-sides?): “Everyday,” a tie-in with a Panasonic laundry machine advertisement campaign. And if the song doesn’t make you immediately invest in a washer and dryer set you never knew you needed, the choreography surely will.
Listen to all of these and more on the MuuTunes playlist, available on Spotify and Apple Music.