One of the many ways to celebrate Black History Month during this time of the month is through music.
This playlist was enjoyable and challenging to curate because we wanted to pull together a diverse set of love songs from an array of talented black artists – both familiar to most people, and those who are less widely-known but nonetheless belong in the pool of black artists representing worldwide.
It’s impossible to create such a playlist that is a full, comprehensive (in the truest sense) collection of great love songs from black artists. So we put together as representative a collection as we could with a limit of 50 songs.
One of the factors we wanted to address with this playlist was to collect amazing love songs from as many genres as possible and that include all of the decades of recorded music going back to the 1950s.
The playlist covers a wide selection of high-caliber love songs from genres like hip-hop, rap, soul, R&B, jazz, rock, and Motown.
Artists range from Tupac, Marvin Gaye, Lauryn Hill, Bob Marley, Black Eyed Peas, Stevie Wonder, India-Arie, The Supremes, Whitney Houston, Fugees, Mos Def, John Legend, Chance The Rapper, Jay-Z and more.
Not to be forgotten of course are all of the tens of thousands of black producers, composers, songwriters, and musicians behind-the-scenes of so many of the greatest love songs ever made – regardless of who sang them, made them famous or is remembered for.
When twinkling synths usher the listener into Once Twice Melody—both the opening track and the album of the same name—it feels like you’re entering a fairytale, sprinkled with pixie dust.
But the mood quickly changes after the percussion and guitar come in and Beach House vocalist Victoria Legrand introduces a melancholic story about a woman attempting to process newfound loneliness while craving fantastical escapism.
With references to Peter Pan’s Neverland, Legrand outlines the woman’s life—it was once a fairytale, but has now “gone to hell,” as she later sings.
Beach House’s music has always had a cinematic quality, and that element is expanded on Once Twice Melody. The Baltimore-based duo of Legrand and Alex Scally divided the album into four chapters, each chronicling a relationship’s dissolution.
Beach House’s 2017 album, 7, featured some of the band’s darkest and most experimental tracks, and Once Twice Melody gets even more eclectic, delivering some of the most captivating work of band’s nearly two decade-long career.
Peter Doherty & Frederic Lo – “You Can’t Keep It From Me Forever” Kae Tempest – “More Pressure” w/Kevin Abstract Jeremy Ivey – “Orphan Child” Artsick – “Despise” The Faim – “The Hills”
A graying Peter Doherty re-emerges to the release calendar with francophone arrangements and deft lyrics thanks to Frederic Lo, a Paris-based composer and producer best known for his work with Daniel Darc, Pony Pony Run Run, Stephan Eicher among others.
The new music video/single, “You Can’t Keep It From Me Forever”, is something different, yet familiar, for Doherty.
The Fantasy Life of Poetry & Crime was recorded at Studio Water Music in Paris and Cateuil in Étretat (Normandy). Mixing was provided by François Delabrière at Studio Moderne in Paris.
In addition to composer and producer, Lo also wears singer/songwriter, musician and musical director to his roster. He is best known for his work with Daniel Darc, Pony Pony Run Run, Stephan Eicher, among others.
Doherty released three albums with The Libertines between 2002 and 2015; three albums with Babyshambles from 2005 through 2013 and more recently two solor albums, Hamburg Demonstrations (2017) and Peter Doherty & The Puta Madres (2019).
On her new single, “More Pressure”, Kae Tempest gets help from executive producer Rick Rubin and longtime collaborator Dan Carey
Fontaines DC’s Grian Chatten, Brockhampton’s Kevin Abstract, Confucius MC, and Lianne La Havas.
Her new album, The Line is a Curve, drops on April 8th.
His music eminds us of The Kinks and Kurt Vile, which was even surprising to us.
U.K. musician Jeremy Ivey dropped this new video for the song “Orphan Child,” a track that combines the best of classic and indie rock.
His new album, Invisible Pictures, will drop on March 11th via ANTI-Records.
The new Bay Area hardcore trio, Artsick, was formed from underground bands like Lunchbox, Burnt Palms, and Kids On a Crime Spree.
The interpid members show-off their breadth of music influences – that marriy nicely with the trio’s penchant for fusing jangle pop and sounds of bands like The Velvet Underground and Beat Happening.
Primal drums with reverb-heavy guitars and comforting melodies that harken back to more innocent times.
Artsick’s debut album, Fingers Crossed, dropped January 21st via Slumberland Records.
The new music video for the song “The Hills” follows Australian pop-rock band The Faim‘s popular single last November, “Ease My Mind”.
“The Hills’ is a song which touches on anxiety and the desire to go back to that place where you can reconnect with yourself and take a breath,” says guitarist/songwriter Sam Tye.
“For Josh [Raven] and I, the Perth Hills is one of these places and after two years of being on the road, coming home gave us a moment to reflect on the sometimes-overwhelming experiences you have whilst touring. I hope this song helps people find that place for themselves.”
“The Hills’ music video involves a stylistic representation of life inside the band,” continues Tye, who created the concept for the video.
“The driving connects to life on the road and experiencing the world through a moving window as they travel to their next destination.”
The band’s debut album, State of Mind, spawned underground/streaming hits like “Summer Is A Curse” and “Humans.” The band is now one of the hottest new indie pop/rock bands Down Under and making in-roads to the U.S. and Europe.
In fact, for a number of reasons, and a general dissatisfaction forever in how Spotify deliberately dilutes musicians’ royalities, we’re going to be sharing more playlists from non-Spotify platforms.
For this Valentines we put together a playlist featuring some terrific and inspirational love songs we’ve been listening to in the cafe lately – from a variety of genres and artists around the world. Surely hope you enjoy it and share/like/follow if you do. Peace.
They may sound like one of those shit southern dad rock bands, but don’t let the name Black Country, New Road put you off as this young English chamber rock ensemble are changing the landscape of contemporary rock and alternative music.
Equal parts King Crimson, Godspeed, Arcade Fire, Black Midi and something else entirely, BC, NR seemingly came out of nowhere on the promise of a couple of wild and lengthy singles at the start of this decade.
Signing to legendary electronic-leaning UK label Ninja Tune, their 2021 debut album For The First Time was a surprise storm; an unhinged whirlwind of chaos, noise, post-rock, math rock, seething violins, dreamlike woodwind, manic brass and the bizarre stream-of-consciousness ranting and raving of vocalist and lyricist Isaac Wood taking the centre stage.
In just forty short minutes, BC, NR’s debut album blew me apart listen after listen and left me wanting so much more each time. Ants From Up There leaves me feeling full and then some, running at just shy of an hour. The septet have knuckled down and expanded their vision so perfectly, using that extra running time to expand the sonic space, their dynamic structures and control their chaos, resulting in a record that is brighter, bolder and more complete.
Listening back to their debut after many listens of this follow up, I can see clearer now that some of the tracks on that album were more sporadic and loosely tied together. Though not a bad thing, the three act nine minute anthem ‘Sunglasses’ traversed through more clever ideas than one song could handle, and there isn’t really a song quite as loose and free-form as this here, as exhilarating as that song is.
If For The First Time was a suffering artist blurting out to their therapist their most dangerous thoughts and darkest secrets, then Ants From Up There is a calm; an acceptance; the sound of a troubled soul working through their hardships. This sentiment could apply to the septet as a whole, or even the idiosyncratic, enigmatic voice that is Isaac Wood.
New indie rock music videos are dropping left and right in past weeks, so we’re doing our best to keep up with reviewing and posting the best indie music videos of 2022 – one volume of 5 each at a time. Please share, like or follow to tell us you dig this series so we are inspired.
Just for clarification: ‘best indie music videos’ refers more to our feeling about the song itself and not the video by itself. The use of ‘video’, and the YouTube embed, helps separate posts with just audio, and those with audio AND video.
In this case, brothers and sisters, the video can be animation, lyric, or a real ‘real’ music video (if that makes sense?).
We do not post YouTube video singles that include mash-ups of stock footage and public domain media.
(YouTube/Google has a pretty strong hold on the music videos marketplace. The only viable competition – Vemo – is now owned by guess who? Google. Does this space allow fair competition? Doesn’t look like it – does it? Every time Google stock-owners go to the bank they say “GOO_GOO_GA_GA” when they see how much money – on paper – they are making. Remember – money either enhances or corrupts.)
In This Installment:
Beach House – “Sunset” from Once Twice Melody (Feb. 18th) PUP – “Robot Writes a Love Song” from The Unraveling of Pup, The Band (April 1st) MJ Lenderman – “The Hangover Game” from Boat Songs (April 29th) Baby Strange – “Under The Surface” from Land of Nothing (April 20th) Hater – “Something New” from Sincere (May 5th)
It’s no secret to our readers/followers that we have been big Beach House supporters from the get-go (more than 15 years by now – wow) after listening to the duo’s 2006 self-title debut album, featuring still-amazing tracks like the mega-loved “Master of None” to “Saltwater”, and others like the spooky “Tokyo Witch”, over and over again.
Now we are fortunate to have a track and video from the duo’s upcoming new release Once Twice Melody set to drop February 18th via Sub Pop Records.
Victoria Legrand‘s soothy, mysterious vocals and Alex Scally‘s dreamy, moody instrumentations on “Sunset” and many other tracks have never run dry or become ho-hum over the years.
Being overly analytical in cases like this can be a big fault: so, at the end of the day, all we can say about Beach House is they’re on our forever favorite indie duos of all time list.
Toronto punk quartet PUP are set to drop their foruth album, The Unraveling of Pup, The Band on April 1st via Little Dipper/Rise Records.
The video/audio track “Robot Writes A Love Song” shifts from melodic guitar-rock into an anthemic synth and drum machine-driven groove.
The band’s statement hints at something different coming up: “[It is] not just the next PUP record, but the most PUP record.”
PUP members recorded and mixed the tracks last summer at Grammy-winning producer Peter Katis’ (Interpol, Kurt Vile, The National) Connecticut mansion.
New instruments like piano, synths and horns are used for the first time on a PUP album and includes contributions remotely from the following artists: Sarah Tudzin (Illuminati Hotties), Kathryn McCauhey (NOBRO), Mel St-Pierre (Casper Skulls) and Erik Paulson (Remo Drive).
Asheville, North Carolina ndie rocker and former Wednesday band member Jake Lenderman, who records as MJ Lenderman, returns with a new track about Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals. The song, “Hangover Game,” is off of his forthcoming album Boat Songs.
With combating guitars and a remarkable cresecendo, the track unravels a story that Michael Jordan’s infamous 1997 illness was not food poisoning, but instead a ‘bad hangover.’
Lenderman turns the song into a silly two minutes of poetic alt-country bliss. Boat Songs drops official April 29th via Dear Life Records.
Scottish rockers Baby Strange released their new video single “Under The Surface”.
The video is wonderfully creative and memorable – an accomplishment these days, especially on what we assume was a limited budget. Overall it’s a clever artistic concept that doesn’t need to be flashy or elaborate to be effective. Of course it helps that the song itself is a kick-ass rocker.
Another single, “Midnight,” released on New Years Eve – was the first teaser from the band’s upcoming second album, Land of Nothing, due April 20th via Icons Creating Evil Art.
It’s a powerful song for me, writing it was a total release”
Vocalist and guitarist Johnny Madden explains: “’Under The Surface’ is a song about feeling trapped and wanting to find a way out of whatever is holding you back. It’s about paranoia, dark thoughts and the need to get over them. It’s a powerful song for me, writing it was a total release and when we finished it in the studio I felt a weight was lifted from my shoulders.”
Frontview Magazine : “There is an underlying rawness to the energy sewn deep into the fabric of Glasgow that Baby Strange have harnessed with an unrelenting force.”
Swedish band Hater has dropped the first single, “Something” from their new album Sincere.
It’s the indie quartet’s follow-up to 2018’s Siesta, “Something” is a hypnotizing mix of shoegaze guitars, Caroline Landahl‘s wonderfully diverse vocals and soft, offset drum beats.
This newest peek-view at the upcoming release of Sincere on May 6th via Fire Records.
It’s funny – and alarming – how quickly trends are changing in music these days. The jaunty indie pop of Minnesota’s Hippo Campus isn’t old-fashioned now, more just out-of-season: much of their new album recalls Vampire Weekend’s work on ‘Modern Vampires of the City’ (2013) in its vibrantly preppy presentation.
Perhaps that’s why the band decided to name their third album simply as ‘LP3’: it’s a statement of intent, a sign that they mean business. It’s been four long years since their sophomore album – albeit with a brief EP (‘Good Dog, Bad Dream’) released last year – and ‘LP3’ is the sound of Hippo Campus reconvening. Most of the band recently took time out to pursue side projects: frontman Jake Luppen became Lupin, Nathan Stocker became Brotherkenzie, and the pair worked with producer Caleb Hinz (also the producer of ‘LP3’) to make their debut record as Baby Boys.
You feel that Hinz has much to do with the quality of production on this album. Not a widely known name but simply another school friend of the band’s from Minnesota, he has risen to the challenge superbly with bright and bubbly production, with the caveat that a debt of gratitude to Rostam Batmanglij’s work on ‘Modern Vampires Of The City’ appears to be a clear influence.
IRC’s first Top 10 Indie Songs (January 2022) for the new year presents the best new indie rock tracks we’ve heard so far this year.
New singles are dropping left and right – we’ll keep doing our best to bring you the best music you know and don’t know about.
This installment includes amazing songs from a mixed subgenre bag from rock to pop and folk to punk featuring Band of Horses; Yard Act; Black Country, New Road; Animal Collective; Beach House; Beirut; The Wombats; Metronomy; Broken Social Scene and Local Weatherman.
Enjoy and plz share and follow so we know you want more of these.
With the new year off to a roaring start in the way of popular new indie rock releases, songs and Already this year, there’s been a steady and growing flow of new music video single releases from indie rock artists and bands.
In This Installment(Vol. II and III in next few days):
The Kooks – “Connection” from 10 Tracks To Echo in the Dark (July 22nd) Band of Horses – “Crutch” from Things Are Great (March 4th?) The Smile – “The Smoke” (single) Big Thief – “Simulation Swarm” from Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (Feb. 7th) Animal Collective – “Strung with Everything.” from Time Skiffs (Feb. 1st)
British indie-pop trailblazers The Kooks released the first of three EPs this week to accompany the announcement of the band’s sixth studio ablum – 10 Tracks To Echo in the Dark, set to drop July 22nd in its entirety via Lonely Cat/AWAL Recordings.
Following a trend lately in how new albums are released, the first two parts of The Kooks’ new material each consist of a three-track EP, while the final EP will unveil another four tracks from the LP.
The first EP, titled Connection: Echo in the Dark, Part One, offers the following new tracks: “Connection”, “Jesse James” and “Modern Days”. The video for “Connection” is the first music video to promote the new album. It will be the band’s first album since 2018’s widely-praised Let’s Go Sunshine.
Nearly a decade since the height of their success, Band of Horses has returned with a hit song, “Crutch,” marking the band’s first entry ever into the Billboard Adult Alternative Chart.
The accompanying music video is a bit freaky but it’s great if you love cats. If you don’t love cats, and freaky combined, probably best to let your eyes do the reviewing here.
The release date for the band’s first album in a decade – Things Are Great – was moved by BMG from January 28
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, and Sons Of Kemet’s Tom Skinner have returned with another single as The Smile.
The new ghostly, reverb-soaked single, “The Smoke,” is accompanied by the lyric video above and directed by BAFTA-winning writer/director Mark Jenkin.
This marks the supergroup’s second official single. In January, The Smile dropped their debut track, “You Will Never Work In Television Again,” praised by critics and fans alike.
The marathon of advanced singles from Big Thief‘s new double-album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. So far, the band has dropped seven singles and today, “Simulation Swarm” becomes No. 8.
The eighth single from Big Thief’s would seem like overkill if it wasn’t so transfixing. The song has long been a favorite at live shows but was never officially released as a single until now.
The track is a “positively hypnotic tangle of acoustic guitar and bass, with James Krivchenia’s percussion doing just enough to reinforce its insistent groove,” writes Paste contributor Scott Russell.
A verse-heavy arrangement gives Adrianne Lenker plenty of room to unspool evocative lyrics like, “Once again, we must bleed new / Even as the hours shake / Crystal blood like a dream true / A ripple in the wound and wake.”
Friday marks the release of the first new Animal Collective album in a decade. The album, Time Skiffs, features 11 new tracks, including the nearly seven-minute track, “Strung with Everything.”
The colorful, artistic video that accompanies the song was directed by Abby Portner, sister of David Portner (aka Avey Tare) using a cut-out animatation technique with a raindrop-speckled pond and for contrast in different sequences – a wizard battling a dragon.
Its abundant flow of colors and symbols is interrupted only by the occasional lyric throughout the track’s melodic sprawl: “Let’s say tonight you and me / We’ll watch the sky fall into pieces […] And even though all hearts are strange / We’re all Strung with Everything.”
Leeds bunch Yard Act felt like one to watch the second they burst through in 2020 with “The Trapper’s Pelts”’, four minutes of sandpaper post-punk, lyrical crosshairs trained on figure-fiddling uber-rich types. Their subsequent Dark Days EP fuelled the flame, all chunky beats and wiry guitars with the pithy words from James Smith’s sharp tongue the icing on the cake.
The Overload lives up to its hype with flying colours. Brilliantly constructed to unfurl like some sordid soap opera of Brexit Britain, it brims with vignettes populated by instantly-recognisable caricatures of the now. There’s “the landlord, Fat Andy” on the title track, a misdemeaning man in a suit narrates ‘The Incident’, while our old friend Graham, the new money slab of gammon from ‘Fixer Upper’, cameos too.
Yard Act wear their affiliations on their sleeves, as James satirises the day’s big-ticket topics – consumerism, gentrification, cancel culture, class identity – with a perfect balance of wit and genuine insight.
His lyrics are dense, revealing more word play with repeat listens, his slick delivery and heavy accent an amalgamation of John Cooper Clarke, Stewa
There’s a unique flair to the way he embodies the characters too. On ‘Land of the Blind’ you hear the saliva wet round his mouth as he points fun at English imperialism: “We cram clammy hands into empty pockets… So we can all fuck about half naked on the beaches of some far off foreign land”.
Bright Eyes has recorded a kick-ass new cover of Thin Lizzy‘s original 1976 hit song, “Running Back.” What a wonderful pairing.
Visit our Cover Songs page for even more of the best covers anywhere, including PLs, news, articles, features and cover song blogs.
The recording is part of the Secretly Canadian record label’s SC25 series which has been unveiled to celebrate the label’s longevity while simultaneously striving to raise $250,000 for community housing in Bloomington, Indiana.
The campaign was established in cooperation with New Hope For Families, an organization that provides housing and other services to families experiencing homelessness in Bloomington and Monroe County.
The SC25 series will feature reissues of some of the label’s biggest albums in addition to the exciting new singles collection, as well as limited merchandise, creative partnerships, and other surprises, connecting the label’s “past and present to its future, linking what’s known and loved to what’s newly imagined – for us, our artists, and our home,” the label’s statement read.
Following on from their sophomore album Fantasies Of A Stay At Home Psychopath, Manchester rockers The Blinders release the first part of their two-part EP, Electric Kool-Aid. The EP is the band’s first release since becoming a quintet, broadening their instrumentation with the addition of second guitarist Eoghan Clifford, Johnny James on keys and Thomas Castrey on drums.
Title trackElectric Kool-Aid, opens the EP, standing at just over a minute long. Short yet sweet, the opener reintroduces listeners to the iconic tones of vocalist Thomas Haywood’s guitar that work in harmony with Charlie McGough’s bass before ambient vocals kick in to repeat the EP’s title.
Barefoot Across Your Water follows, spotlighting Johnny James’ skills on keys. A romantic, sincere number, the track sees five piece brings something new to the table – showcasing each member’s talents and how they work blissfully with Thomas Haywood’s vocals that propel the track forward.
Next follows the EP’s lead single, City We Call Love. Now a key part of the band’s live shows, since being debuted on tour last August, this track holds stunning metaphors about the links between a city and the feeling of love, whilst pairing them with strong, menacing instrumentation to build what remains to be a stand out number on Electric Kool-Aid (Part I).
The Writer follows quickly after, a track that will be well known to fans as it has played a key role in The Blinders’ sets since 2019 – yet was left off of the band’s second album, Fantasies Of A Stay At Home Psychopath. Now given its time to shine, The Writer is given a new lease of life within Electric Kool-Aid (Part I), filled with intensity and political frustration, before calming slightly for its middle and bursting into life once again.
Last not least, I Hate To See You Tortured, sees the band wear their hearts on their sleeves. Showing immense control and passion with an anthemic chorus, with this track The Blinders prove that sometimes change can be for the better. Featuring what could be some of Thomas Haywood’s strongest lyrics to date – I Hate To See You Tortured closes the EP perfectly.
Throughout Electric Kool-Aid (Part I), The Blinders prove that they are a band that doesn’t just fit into just one genre – with each track bringing something new to the table. Becoming a quintet is something that has certainly paid off for the band, and Part I of Electric Kool-Aid is certain to leave listeners eagerly waiting for Part II.
