As summer winds down, a good playlist is a necessity. So far, 2024 has been stocked with good music. From ScHoolboyQ’s “Blue Lips” to Faye Webster’s “Undressed at the Symphony,” the sonic and emotional range of the music that’s been released this year is more than enough to carry us through the rest of the year.
You can’t start off solemnly. A surge of dopamine should ensue, and the EP to match this energy is Atlanta native Hardrock’s “My Gift To You.” Released on April 26, Hardrock was preparing, ushering in the warmth and freedom of summer via music. The EP starts with “BOBA.” The bubbly Taiwanese beverage tends to work perfectly in tandem with the energy that the summer season has brought. Hardrock embodies that bubbly essence with heavy bass and playful synths. Hidden in the beat made by Toom and Vendr is a synth lead that is almost consistent throughout the entire song. Reminiscent of “Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time,” or “Skyward Sword,” the lead peacefully slides up and down in juxtaposition to the energetic drums and Hardrock’s gritty and risqué lyrics. The lyrics and flow are the perfect amount of blissful fun along with the boisterous and hard reality of what many rappers have lived through. To start his EP like this, Hardrock sets a high bar and only continues to improve on it with each succeeding song. My personal favorite is “ST PATRICK’S DAY,” where Hardrock very clearly does not care about others who are not in his lane, supporting him, or working to achieve something.
The hi-hats and snares jump excitedly, introducing the beat before the Playboi Carti adjacent rapper states very bluntly: “I get green like St. Patrick’s Day.” I listen and imagine myself in a dimly lit space, smoke in the air, and a sea of black and brown bodies in their best outfits. The night is young, only 11 p.m., and energy is as high as the people in the room. Producer Saint’s tag, “Vanguard shit” plays. Heads are bobbing, and finally, Hardrock hops on the beat and flexes. The second verse enters equally as hard, as Hardrock dismisses people who oppose him. “They tryna figure me out. We got some beef? Work it out. You see the drip, check it out.” Hardrock brings a new age rage-esque energy to the standardly bouncy and punchy club energy that Atlanta trap is loved for. Consistently through the project, Hardrock shows his musical prowess and his understanding of wordplay, voice inflection, lyrics, and overall flows. His beat and producer selection only complement his ability as a rapper, making it a great project to explore.
Though sometimes you need something fun and jubilant, downtime might be even better than the high-energy moments. Like the times when bugs buzz loudly as the sun finally decides it’s time to stop beaming down on us. Or, when you, in the backseat possibly inebriated, are driven home with the windows down, letting the perfect-temperature summer wind into the car helping you sober back up. Your designated driver connects their phone to the Bluetooth and all you hear is five electronic doots: “One, two, three, one, two,” they count, and are then cut off by a bleep. “La la la, la la la la la la la la la.” Simple vocalizing lifts you from your seat while the airy peacefulness of Childish Major’s production assists you through Q’s painful recollection of gang life to celebrity life, and the vices that come with it. Q’s reality is difficult in this first verse. His delivery is objective and almost monotonous, telling us how he “dropped out of school and balled all year.” He continues from his childhood and reflects on his career: “I done fell off and got it all back. Blood, sweat, and tears, it came with all that.” “Blue Lips” as an entire project is perfectly cohesive. There’s a mix of the lively gang star life on songs like “Movie,” featuring LA’s Az Chike, and the rap veteran-turned-father and “unc status” on tracks like “oHio,” featuring Freddie Gibbs. The West Coast bounce is alive and well in many of these songs, providing perfect dance tracks. On the other half is a calmness only California weed must be able to harness. “oHio” has both, a beat switch that represents both. A perfect goodbye to Q’s rowdy and dangerous past into an acceptance of the life ScHoolboy Q is now privileged to live.
The range of emotions we’ll feel as summer winds down is limitless. For the days when life is not what we all want it to be, Built to Spill, the Boise-born band, has two perfect albums that sonically encapsulate emotional complexity in its purest form, despite how oxymoronic that idea is. It is not new music, but it is timeless. Built to Spill’s 1994 album, “There’s Nothing Wrong With Love,” seems to be telling a story of one specific lover, or maybe multiple, over the course of the band’s collective lives. “Twin Falls” has lead singer Doug Martsch telling a tale of a girl from Twin Falls, Idaho, and their relationship through school, and how he has not seen her since she had kids. Though the specifics may be unique to Martsch, the sentiment is there. As Doug sings his last line in “Twin Falls,” a guitar riff is played and the final note sustains for a moment before the abrupt and gritty electric guitar and slow drums of “Some” come in. “Some people take her for granted,” Doug cries, and aggressively returns, “SOME PEOPLE WANT TO STEAL HER HEART.” Whether this is the same girl from “Twin Falls” or another story, the words Doug delivers come from a place so genuine, that all can’t help but resonate to some capacity. In 1999, the band released “Keep It Like a Secret.” This album contains their most popular song, “Carry the Zero,” a quintessential song to belt out the lyrics of while pushing 100 miles per hour on a highway at night. While these albums aren’t the happiest, their instrumentation always makes you want to sit on a dock and watch dragonflies race, or go to a house show and hit it off with some beautifully enigmatic stranger in the back. There is real pain in their music, but it’s a wonderful combination. The freedom and warmth collaborate greatly with the band’s introspective lyrics and gut-wrenching guitar skills.
Ravyn Lenae, a goddess amongst people, graced us with a two-pack on May 3 in preparation for her sophomore album “Bird’s Eye” that released on August 9. “Love Me Not” and “Love Is Blind” are the two perfect songs for those who will undoubtedly end up in a fling. Ravyn’s love in “Love Me Not” is unrequited and that exacerbates her pain. Though the instrumentation seems joyous, she longs for her partner to return. The groovy bass line makes lines such as “Once I leave you I’m strung out, if I get you, I’m slowly breakin’ down” less brutal. Where the song peaks is the bridge into the final chorus. She chants “He loves me. He loves me not. He holds me tight, then lets me go,” while I imagine Alfalfa picking his flower. The rest of her album contains duality, vocal and lyrical weight, mixed with standard summer joy and groove. It was the perfect album to usher in the dog days of summer.
There’s an infinite amount of music to recommend and I couldn’t possibly include all there is, especially not all there is to make a great playlist. But these artists, their albums, and their songs are a wonderful start to building a playlist fit for the end of summer.
