These songs deliver astounding cinematic atmosphere.
Ready to Pop is soundtracking cinema with a batch of new tunes that are destined to follow you wherever you so wander. Some will beat your eardrums relentlessly, others will take their sweet time burning your skin, up the backbone, around the side of the neck and char the earlobes. The moving pictures have a long history of haunting us and conjure up the wildest of dreams. Now, we've got some must-hear tunes, too. Below, check out our latest obsessions, rated on a (slay) scale of "Super Chill" to "Shook" to "Wig Snatched."
XPLOR - "Penny"
Alternative pop tunesmith XPLOR unravels a true American love story with "Penny." Printed and pressed with heaving acoustic guitar, alongside the twinkle of synths, he offers a musical accompaniment to the 2000 dramedy Almost Famous, starring Kate Hudson (as Penny) and Patrick Fugit (William). "It's about the complicated love, friendship and understanding between William and Penny. It's written from the perspective of both characters and their desire to find who they are," he says. His performance is suitably tender and romantic, vigorously succulent, and appealing.
Slay Scale: Super Chill
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Meg Myers - "Tear Me to Pieces"
Meg Myers is a wicked (musical) temptress on her second solo record, Take Me to the Disco (out now). Essential deep cut "Tear Me to Pieces" is one of those chest-compressing compositions that fixate on the macabre of the brain. "Hush, hush, ashes and dust / Trouble's not worth the pleasure but I feel alive," she gnashes her teeth to some unheard chant rising out of her scarred vocal chords. "Lust, lust, never enough / Indelible human nature keeps me up at night," she sings. It's a stunning cerebral moment and could easily soundtrack 2000's Requiem for a Dream or some other gruesome and disastrous narrative.
Slay Scale: Wig Snatched
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ZOLA - "Too Fast Too Soon"
Young love has never sounded so twangy sweet as it does on ZOLA's debut single "Too Fast Too Soon," piano-based and breathlessly enticing. "I think you've given me a case of insomnia," she sings, the bounce of ivory soundtracking what would be a montage of her head spinning in space and time. She then lingers on some crucial questions to herself, "Am I giving myself the wrong idea? Does your heart beat in your whole body? Do you wanna focus on yourself or try this with me?" It's the kind of gentle entanglement that is ripe for some hipster love story set in the wild jungle of New York City.
Slay Scale: Super Chill
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Heart Tide - "Few Things"
"Are you scared of being alone?" hisses Samu Hietainen, whose vocal is downright chilling. Imagine the backdrop of a Saw movie or perhaps V/H/S, a found-footage film that pieces together the most animalistic ravages and bloodlust of mankind. "Few Things" is dark and twisted and might give you nightmares. But that's its charm, and we can't get enough of it.
Slay Scale: Shook
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Mickey Blue - "Right Away"
Mickey Blue is hopeless and romantic on "Right Away," a smoldering and airy escape to some little French bistro in the twilight hours. It drops with thick hip-hop swerves, but the undercurrent never wavers. The reedy instrument (perhaps a clarinet or oboe) trembles in the background, and as Blue leads us down a cobblestone street with the silver moon hanging overhead, we're utterly enamored.
Slay Scale: Super Chill
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Jason Scott is a freelance music journalist with bylines in B-Sides & Badlands, Billboard, PopCrush, Ladygunn, Greatist, AXS, Uproxx, Paste and many others. Follow him on Twitter.
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