Every week Vulture highlights the best new music. If the song is worthy of your ears and attention, you will find it here. Read our picks below, share yours in the comments, and subscribe to the Vulture Playlist for a comprehensive guide to the year’s best music.
Janelle Monáe ft. Zoë Kravitz, “Screwed”
“Screwed” makes me want to sew myself a Beychella costume and lead a parade down Canal St. Find me a rooftop, a patio, even a stoop — I’m stripping down to a bikini, and telling a waitress to keep the margaritas coming. Is it God’s plan that Janelle Monáe’s newest was perfectly timed to spring’s proper arrival? This is a warm-weather album, the kind meant to play loud and with friends. There are many worthy anthems — “Take a Byte” and “Crazy, Classic, Life” both qualify — but “Screwed” pops with an ebullient precision those songs don’t master. It’s a song quite literally about kissing and fucking this world back together again. Redownload Tinder, baby! Text that person back! Get in loser, we’re getting screwed! —Hunter Harris (@hunteryharris)
Oneohtrix Point Never, “Black Snow”
Since 2015, Dan Lopatin, as Oneohtrix Point Never, has been in a phase of his musical career that seems occupied by a tangled combination of pulsing immediacy (the entire Good Time soundtrack) and a faint nostalgia for the visceral rage of teenage life (a good portion of his last album, Garden of Delete). For awhile there, whatever form his music took felt confrontational, which is why “Black Snow” feels so shocking. It’s eerie and minimal, leans toward pop music and conventional song structures, and sounds like it’s staring down the end of world. —Sam Hockley-Smith (@shockleysmith)
Valee ft. Jeremih, “Womp Womp”
For those days when you don’t need for a song to be deep, there’s “Womp Womp,” an absolutely goofy collaboration between G.O.O.D. Music signee Valee and Jeremih that is not trying to be anything other than a very dumb song about very good sex. Sometimes it’s nice to just shut your brain off and not think about what you’re listening to — “Womp Womp” gets its purpose. I knew we would be friends when I hear Valee say, “Even though her weave undone, I fucked her twice, cum, cum.” Admit it, you chuckled. —Dee Lockett (@Dee_Lockett)
The Internet, “Roll (Burbank Funk)”
After releasing a series of solo projects, the Internet are back together on the aptly named new song “Roll (Burbank Funk).” Channeling ’80s funk, R&B, and disco, the song features Steve Lacy and Syd swapping vocals over an intricate bassline, and an uptempo digital rhythm section. The video, too, is a hoot, and includes appearances from Dev Hynes, Mac DeMarco, Tyler The Creator, Kamasi Washington, and Thundercat. All of this bodes very well for The Internet’s upcoming album, which will be their first since 2015’s Ego Death. —Corinna Burford (@coriburford)
Onyx Collective, “FDR Drive”
I’m not saying that music needs to be cool to be good, but there were a number of years there where jazz went from being a very cool and good genre, to being more the kind of thing that was enjoyed exclusively by “jazz guys” — a.k.a. guys who only enjoyed jazz and nothing else at all — but that has, thankfully, changed. Now everyone is free to enjoy good jazz (or bad jazz) alongside their other favorite genres. Onyx Collective, a New York jazz collective way cooler than I will ever be, have been an incredible live act for a while, but it’s with “FDR Drive,” from the upcoming Lower East Side Suite Part Three, that they’ve translated that energy to their recordings. You know when someone says they want to listen to music that sounds like New York City? They’re talking about this. —SHS
Mason Ramsey, “Famous”
Roll your eyes all you want, Yodeling Boy has arrived, and he’s here to stay. Mason Ramsey, the boy who yodeled that one time in Walmart and captured the nation, has a record deal. He is winning. To paraphrase a colleague, when this is all said and done, Mason Ramsey will have lived several lifetimes by that the time he hits puberty. Thing is, his debut single “Famous” assumes he’ll remain so for much longer than 15 minutes and, you know what, it’s not wrong. What the rampant memeification of Yodeling Boy downplays is that Mason Ramsey is a superstar in the making; he is so talented that you can be both amused and impressed by his Hank Williams cosplaying. But on “Famous” (which is not a Kanye cover, womp), he’s not being anyone but himself — which is to say he’s being the country version of Justin Bieber circa 2010, just pouring his little heart out to his sweetheart. As a general rule, I hate kids, but dammit if I don’t love Mason Ramsey. —DL
Beach House, “Black Car”
Misty and somber, the latest single from Beach House’s upcoming 7 album shows off a band whose best days are far from behind them. The partnership of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally has never sounded better: more than ambient and less than solid, synth sheets and a wistful keyboard melody couple with patient drums that wouldn’t sound out of place on a trap record. The overall effect is of an endless fall through space, an effect Legrand gracefully accentuates with her refrain: “I skipped a rock and it fell to the bottom.” Given that some the hip-hop elements are already in place and given the magic that happened when the duo’s “Silver Soul” got sampled for Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees,” we can only hope that rap producers are eying “Black Car” like wolves view steak. —Frank Guan (@frankophilia)
MIKE, “Time Ain’t Enough”
On one of the last hot days of 2017, I saw the noise jazz/whatever group Standing on the Corner (who produced “Time Ain’t Enough”) play in a humid apartment. At one point they sampled the tapping of a glass bottle. At another point, MIKE, who might be New York’s best young headphone rapper, did a set that somehow felt energetic and introspective at the same time. It was the best show I saw last year. “Time Ain’t Enough” unites SOTC with MIKE for a too-brief moment of anxiety and regret. This sounds like it was recorded in someone’s kitchen at like 4 p.m. on the first spring day of the year — thank god there’s more music coming. —SHS
Kanye West, “Lift Yourself”
Don’t worry, I don’t respect myself either. But the beat and Amnesty sample are undeniable and you can always cut if off before Kanye comes in rapping shit about shit, is all I’m saying. —DL
