Hear Hear: Music for your quarantine
+ new Haim, Vampire Weekend b-sides, Pitchfork's primer on Urbano
Follow the official Hear Hear playlist to stream all the songs and artists featured in this newsletter. (And stay safe + wash your hands, everybody!)
“The Steps,” Haim
I’ve appreciated Haim since their 2013 debut, but I never became a truly passionate fan… that is, until last summer, when I saw their electric performance at Pitchfork Music Festival. For their first-ever headlining show, the trio of sisters played like a band with something to prove — flexing the strength of their catalog and teasing great things to come. They went on to release 3 tracks last year, evolving their signature sound with bolder production (courtesy of Rostam) and a visual flair — each song has an accompanying video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, NBD. “The Steps” is their latest, a twangy bop that will be soundtracking BBQs all summer. All four singles are in the Hear Hear playlist.
If you like Haim’s music videos, you’ll like this piece from The New Yorker’s Margaret Talbot about what makes them so special.
“Houston Dubai,” Vampire Weekend
In Haim-adjacent news, there’s a simple-and-sweet new Vampire Weekend B-side from the Japanese version of their 2019 masterpiece Father of the Bride. (Danielle Haim is a featured vocalist throughout FOTB.)
Bonus Vampire Weekend content — listen to Ezra Koenig talk about “Harmony Hall” on the podcast Song Exploder. A great window into a great song.
Kyle Dion’s futuristic R&B
Dion is an emerging artist from LA with a sleek, sensual sound. With slinky, textured beats and a killer falsetto, he’s clearly a major talent. “Glass House” and “Brown” are the standouts from his strong debut album SUGA, and they’re both in the playlist for you to hear.
“Riding Solo,” Hinds
If the Haim and Vampire Weekend songs are too picture-perfect for your taste, you might like the messier fuzz of garage-pop heroes Hinds. “Riding Solo” mixes their shouting and talk-singing with a sugar-sweet chorus.
4 Playlists to Stream
An Introduction to Urbano (reggaeton, Latin trap, and more) in 50 songs. Pitchfork put together this playlist primer for música urbana, paired with a helpful guide to all 50 tracks. “Long before the ultra-polished Bad Bunny and Drake collaborations,” Isabelia Herrera writes, “these genres were defined by experimentation — by scrappy sampling techniques, by off-the-cuff freestyling, by the movement and displacement of Afro-diasporic sounds and their people.”
Background Music for Kissing from Del Water Gap, the solo project of BK-based singer-songwriter Holden Jaffe. Not only is Jaffe a fantastic songwriter (I dropped a few favorite tracks in the Hear Hear playlist) but he’s also a top-notch curator. The playlist is updated constantly, with tracks from all genres and eras: 070 Shake, Harry Styles, Bob Dylan and Ella Fitzgerald have all been added recently. Feel free to use for kissing or just normal listening, whichever u prefer.
Questlove's favorite albums. The iconic Roots drummer has a great collection of Spotify playlists — this one is perfect if you're WFH this week and looking to stream some albums front-to-back. It includes classics from Prince, Nina Simone, The Beatles, Radiohead and way more. (And a few surprises, like Danny Elfman’s score for Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, and Kali Uchis’ 2018 gem.)
good songs with the same name, from Alex Johl and submitted by Hear Hear reader Morgan Finegan! A fun playlist of, well, good songs with the same name. (Somehow it has 4 songs called “California” and still leaves out Phantom Planet!)