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 latest music out at this time. This week, we flip it over to Sheldon Pearce and Daoud Tyler-Ameen, who begin with a music 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 most effective in you.
SHELDON PEARCE, BYLINE: I’ve all the time type of been struck by Khalid’s voice. It is not one you can run from, and it would not actually match into, like, the normal forged of pop characters.
DAOUD TYLER-AMEEN, BYLINE: No, he is not a crooner. He is not a rapper, both, however he type of mumble raps the traces (ph).
PEARCE: (Laughter) I do not know what to type of make of his sound. He says that he wrote this music specifically years in the past via moments of uncertainty when he wasn’t actually certain what his goal as an artist was. I feel a number of his music is type of targeted on, like, uncertainty, naivete. When he was youthful, a number of it was clearly wrapped up in being younger and dumb and never figuring out which method to go. Now it looks as if 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 music, Daoud?
TYLER-AMEEN: I imply, I saved fascinated by a bit that you just wrote earlier this yr in regards to the type 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 not likely in a spot to take up that mantle simply because he’s so inside. He is not about being a showman. He is not about type of, like, you realize, flexing shirtless. Like, it is – every part that he is saying is type of, like, ricocheting off the partitions of his thoughts.
PEARCE: There’s nothing actually ahead about him.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: He’s continually type of fascinated by 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 movie star.
(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 sort 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 way in which, he wears a masks and by no means exhibits his face in public.
PEARCE: Proper. There’s something very whimsical about his complete 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 music from his new file “Dying Valley Excessive” with Beck.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DEATH VALLEY HIGH”)
ORVILLE PECK: (Singing) Sin Metropolis lights, spin the wheel round and roll the cube. Dying 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 bought Beck right here on “Dying Valley Excessive,” sort 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 bought – Willie Nelson is right here, Kylie Minogue, Margo Value. A duet album – I imply, he is in his mid-30s. That is often a transfer that you just pull…
PEARCE: Yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: …If you’re, like, 50-plus, like, doing the type of, like, profession reboot factor.
PEARCE: Proper.
TYLER-AMEEN: However I do not know. I imply, on the similar factor, it is like, how completely different is it from, like, a hip-hop album that is coated in options? Like, possibly it is a weirdly savvy transfer.
PEARCE: I – there’s something that appears to particularly work for him. You possibly can hear it on this Beck music. It’s such a very good time. And it is bought this type of, like, rip-roaring down the Vegas Strip power. They sound like two bachelors simply, like, on a shedding streak, however they do not care as a result of they’re having such a very good time. And it is infectious. Like…
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: …It actually simply type 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 music, “I Hope I By no means Fall In Love,” looks like a tone-setter for this undertaking. I do not need to put phrases in her mouth, however she bought divorced not too long ago.
PEARCE: Yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: Looks like 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 music the place it looks as if the artist is attempting to persuade themselves of one thing and never the viewers.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: And it looks like on this music, we’re type 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 executed that. And the language is so definitive – you’ll be able to 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 via every part that she’s skilled and attempting to return out on the opposite facet complete – as a result of, I imply, the way in which that the music 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, bought…
PEARCE: Yeah (laughter).
TYLER-AMEEN: …They bought swung on slightly laborious within the final spherical, they usually’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 at this time in short, Smashing Pumpkins have a brand new file referred to as “Aghori Mhori Mei.” David Lynch – sure, that David Lynch – is again within the studio, as he typically is. He has a brand new undertaking with the singer/songwriter Chrystabell referred to as “Cellophane Recollections.” And at last, Killer Mike with a file referred to as “Songs For Sinners & Saints” – Sheldon, you have written lots these days about how rappers confront center age. Killer Mike has been operating 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 type of appeared to vary the notion round his music…
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: …Which is attention-grabbing. That does not typically occur for rappers in center age.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: “Songs For Sinners & Saints” is billed as an epilogue to “Michael.” It looks as if in all of the constructive success that he is seen from this file, he’s not fairly able to let it go. And I feel there may be nonetheless concepts to thoughts in that file.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
PEARCE: And I feel folks ought to look ahead to 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, bought 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’ll 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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