New Music to Give You Life During Quarantine

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The air is getting warmer, and as we roll into May summer feels closer than ever. For a lot of us, the first inklings of warm weather usually means festival season is upon us. It is the time to be gathering together the supplies and the crew, acquiring those last minute tickets, and getting ready for an epic summer 2020 to begin. However, as we all know, recent circumstances have put all that to a grinding halt. Luckily, there’s been no shortage of amazing album releases in the past few months to get us pumped for whenever it is we will be able to dance to our favorite songs live again. Here’s a few to get you through the next week.

Childish Gambino, 3.15.20

At the same time that millions in Europe were entering government mandated lockdowns in response to coronavirus, Childish Gambino put out his first full length album since his 2016 release “Awaken, My love.” The ambiguously titled “3.15.20”, named after the date of the album’s online stream, is just as breathtaking.

While there was no way for Gambino to anticipate the crisis that would occur in the month of the album’s release, his anguishing vocals and at times painstaking lyrics that color the album’s distinct tracklist feel errierly relevant to the uncertainty, fear, and frustration that many are facing in the midst of this crisis.

There are shadows of Gambino’s previous projects in this album. The aggression in Gambino’s culminating track “53.49” are reminiscent of the punchy verses he spit out on last year’s  “This is America.”  There’s plenty of melodic breakdowns and experimental elements that we’ve come to expect from a Gambino release, but it doesn’t feel any less excellent.
Gambino continues to smash genre distinctions with this release, powering through 12 tracks that all maintain their own distinctive style.The track “42.26” is familiar, being a reworked edition of Gambino’s 2018 single “Feels Like Summer.” This project snakes through serious emotion and tangled feelings, with plenty of dance-worthy beats to get you jumping.
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The Strokes, The New Abnormal

What could be a more appropriate title for a release at this moment? The first full length release from the Strokes in over seven years, “The New Abnormal” is a solid reminder of just what The Strokes do best. Sharp melodies, velvety vocals, and a lyrical pace that makes you want to get up and move, The New Abnormal is the perfect album to dance to in the morning.
While the glossy and bubbly melodies make much of this album feel light hearted, the lyrics tend to engage in a more serious story. According to an interview the band’s frontrunner Julian Casablancas gave to The New York Post, the album’s title comes from experiencing first hand the wildfires that wrecked southern California in 2019.

“‘There were these huge fires in Los Angeles,’ Julian recalls. ‘A lot of houses burned down but Shangri-La [producer Rick Rubin’s LA studio] survived, by some miracle. That’s where the name of the album comes from, the extreme weather, the violence…’” The New York Post wrote.
The Strokes don’t shy away from exploring these kinds of darker elements over some otherwise frictionless melodies. On “Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus'', a synthy melody is overlayed by Casablanca’s breathy voice,
“The deeper I get, the less that I know
That's the way that it go
​The less that I know, the deeper I go
Juliet, I adore
The deeper I get, the less that I know
Diminishing returns, oh.”

Bad Bunny,  YHLQMDLG​

If there is one song off Bad Bunny’s newest album you should listen to right now, it’s “Yo Perreo Sola.” The Puerto Rican rapper’s dance hit has been topping Latin song charts.  Translated roughly to “I twerk alone”,  it’s the kind of song that  gives the feeling that you want to dance like you're in a club,  even if we may be finding ourselves isolated at home.

​“YHLQMDLG,” (an acronym translating to “I do whatever I want”) will keep you sweating through your next workout or dance session. For a taste of some great Puerto Rican dance beats, Bad Bunny’s party record is a fantastic and fun album that pays homage to the history and future of reggaetón music.

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