Every Friday, we are adding three tracks to our Feel-Good Friday Spotify playlist. The aim? To create a definitive playlist featuring the best uplifting, feel-good tracks in the world!
Check here every Friday to check any additions!
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Here’s February’s mixtape!
Soulful R&B track featuring fluttering synthesisers, jittering guitars, broken samples and funky bass lines.
Energetic guitar-driven indie track from four-pieced band Beachbaby. It’s a moody but powerful track, integrating other genres such as shoegazing, Pop and post-punk.
Low-key indie rock track from Sunderland band Field Music.
Energetic, catchy Pop-py track from US pop-rock band Walk The Moon. Indie-guitar riffs, synthpop synths and a driving beat makes it particularly reminiscent of the ’80’s and it works beautifully.
Dirty house track featuring little more than club beats, a funky bass lines and Mills’ rap. Incessantly catchy.
Craig David returns to his roots with this huge Garage track, aided by grime artist Big Nastie. It’s reminiscent of his 1999 début ‘Re-Rewind’ and is a welcome return for David after six years away from the music industry.
Saucy, steamy and sultry dance-pop track, reportedly inspired by Prince’s signature sound. Gomez whispers over minimalistic instrumentation comprised of little more than bouncy percussion, hand clips and tribal-pop elements.
Sweet piano-led Country ballad by American country music singer Reba McEntire from her twenty seventh album ‘Love Somebody’.
Gentle waltz-like ballad by Fun. frontman Nate Reuss. Dreamy, reserved with a delicate sprinkle of Reuss’ quirky, idiosyncratic vocals.
Uplifting, inspiring and catchy Pop track from Canadian rock band Walk off the Earth. Ascending bass lines, clinking percussion and gorgeous layered harmonies result in an epic arena anthem.
Every Friday, we are adding three tracks to our Feel-Good Friday Spotify playlist. The aim? To create a definitive playlist featuring the best uplifting, feel-good tracks in the world!
Check here every Friday to check any additions!
FOLLOW the Music Box to never miss an update again.
Australian songstress/hit songwriter Sia delivers a hot new Pop track co-written with none other but Mr Kanye West. Relatively jovial and laid back compared to Sia’s other works, this is a catchy chilled-out track with bizzarely, hospital-like beeping, rich harmonies and a seriously funky bass line.
Raleigh Ritchie delivers another hit, this time aided with a rap from Stormzy. Warm synthesisers, Ritchie’s rich vocals and catchy dance beats carry this utterly brilliant R&B track.
Cool, chilled-out synthpop track from American duo Chairlift. The care-free, minimalistic production and Caroline Polachek’s syrupy sweet vocals are perfect.
‘Keeping Your Head Up’ marks a significant musical departure for Birdy, best known for her haunting, heartfelt piano ballads. Channelling Foxes, ‘Keeping Your Head Up’ is a catchy dance-pop track full of hand claps, catchy piano riffs and an irresistibly catchy hook.
Co-written with Howard from Disclosure, this chilled-out house track mirrors 70’s Pop with lushly layered harmonies, rich gospel-like vocals and squeaky synthesisers. It’s a different side to Frances but one which works beautifully.
Hot, idiosyncratic club record featuring a reggae-like bounce, clinking synths and a devilishly catchy chorus.
The King of Cool, Prince released ‘HitNRun Phase 2’ in December. This is its funky opening track featuring polished brass elements, raw acoustic guitar strums and a dirty rhythm, it’s Prince at his best.
Chic legend Nile Rodgers lends his production to funky jazz/R&B fusion. Mvula’s pure, soulful vocals are perfect as always and lushly layered into a glorious wall of sound over Rodgers’ funky guitar riffs.
The second single from The 1975’s upcoming second album ‘I Like it When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It’, ‘The Sound’ is a huge tropical-house influenced Pop track. Incessantly catchy with a brilliantly buoyant Chorus, it’s one of the funkiest and catchiest Pop tracks in a long time.
Sultry electropop track with an insanely huge Chorus. Clearly influenced by 80’s Pop, it’s cool, brilliantly layered and an overall huge song.
Every so often, an album springs from nowhere to challenge the public’s preconceptions of Pop music. Back in 2014, Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ obliterated existing Pop music and marked the arrival of 80’s influenced electropop with Carly Rae Jepsen successfully following a similar formula a year later. Troye Sivan’s ‘Blue Neighbourhood’ is the latest album to do just that.
Whilst still unfamiliar to many, to those he is known by, Troye Sivan is adored. He is certainly a man of many talents. As an actor, he played young James Howlett in X-Men Origins: Wolverine in addition to starring in the Spud film trilogy. He is also a popular YouTuber with over 3.6 million subscribers. He has now turned his attention to singing and songwriting to become the latest music sensation.
‘Blue Neighbourhood’ is a fierce album abundant with squeaky synthesisers, delicate piano chords, intoxicating drops and spectral electro samples. Lyrically, it’s an album of adolescence, heartbreak and affirmation with an emphasis on sexuality.
Lead single ‘Wild’ is a bold album opener with an irresistibly catchy hook performed by a children’s choir. It’s a dramatic dream-pop influenced track which documents infatuation perfectly. The rest of the album follows in similar fashion: eerie vocal clips reverberating infinitely, Sivan’s vulnerable vocals and jittery percussion all forming a perfect electronic sound-scape well-balanced in both heartache and fun.
It’s often an album of contradictions: the solemn lyrical content the antithesis of the fuzzy electro tracks, Sivan’s pensive lyrics at odds with his age and lyrics such as ‘I’m just a lost boy, not ready to be found’ on ‘Lost Boy’. This forms part of the album’s success, however. It’s compelling from start to finish, with the right levels of rise and fall.
Many of its tracks are deceptive in nature, opening as tender piano ballads before evolving into jittery synthpop tracks. ‘Fools’ is a prime example, on which Sivan’s bruised vocals smother gentle piano chords before an electronic hook launches in. ‘Talk Me Down’ also begins softly before transforming into a reverberating and eerie ballad on which the lyrics address homophobia.
‘DKLA’ (Don’t Keep Love Around) opens with stunning eerie strings but evolves into a dark R&B/Trap-influenced track on which Sivan pines that he no longer ‘keeps love around’. It’s far more mature than the rest of the album and one of the highlights on ‘Blue Neighbourbood’.
‘For Him.’ is a more care-free, light-hearted addition to the album featuring staccato piano chords, kicking drum machines and funky guitar riffs. It breaks up the album nicely. Likewise, ‘Cool’ is a buoyant affair with dreamy 80’s-influenced synths, and a catchy, chilled-out Chorus.
One of the album’s stand out moments is ‘Youth’, a bouncy track, which at times is reminiscent of Lorde, with an electrifying hook formed of broken pitch-increased vocal samples. “My youth is yours”, Sivan offers, once again conforming to the naivety present in the rest of the album.
‘Suburbia’ is a fitting finale to the album, a symphonic and fluttery conclusion which, similarly to the album title, addresses compact neighbourhoods and adolescence.
Never has an album captured contemporary Pop so perfectly. It’s emotive and enthralling throughout; a perfect pop album.
‘Blue Neighbourhood’ is available now on EMI/Capitol records.
Busted perform a beautiful rendition of fan-favourite ‘Meet You There’, a track originally from their ‘A Present for Everyone’ album. Strong vocals and perfect harmonies blend perfectly with minimal instrumentation provided solely by an acoustic guitar and piano.
Dramatic and emotive alternative R&B track from up-and-coming artist Raleigh Ritchie. Ritchie’s deep vocals soar over sweeping strings as he contemplates the many trials of love.
Blues and Soul music are both at the core of this catchy indie rock track by James Bay. Rich harmonies, funky piano riffs and Bay’s powerful vocals all result in a perfect love song.
Drawing upon 80’s pop & smooth 90’s R&B, ‘Back To Sleep’ is the third single from Brown’s latest album ‘Royalty’. Sleek and sexy.
One of Brown’s biggest successes in his music has always been his ability to mimic 90’s R&B slow jams. This is no exception; a gentle and chilled-out love song and a long-awaited return to R&B by Chris Brown.
Made all the more poignant by the unexpected and hugely saddening news of David Bowie’s passing, it’s likely this gentle jazz-influenced track will become Bowie’s epitaph.
Gorgeous piano-led ballad from Coldplay’s latest album ‘A Head Full of Dreams’. Wailing guitars and pretty piano arpeggios form the songs primary instrumentation is a similar vein to previous song ‘Us Against The World’ but also sounding bizarrely similar to Grease’s ‘Beauty School Drop-Out’ in places. It’s Coldplay at their best, however, full of power and emotion.
Aided by Noel Gallagher on guitar, this epic feel-good rock anthem is the perfect conclusion to the band’s ‘A Head Full of Dreams’ album.
Troye Sivan encapsulates both the naivety and fun of teen love in this jittery R&B track. Broken pitch-moderated vocal samples are the basis of one of the catchiest hooks in Pop music ever.
Perfect dark R&B-inspired track from Troye’s incredible début album ‘Blue Neighbourhood’. Squeaky synths, trap-influenced beats and clinking keys provide the instrumentation whilst Sivan declares “I don’t keep love around”. It’s the perfect anti-love song.
Every Friday, we are adding three tracks to our Feel-Good Friday Spotify playlist. The aim? To create a definitive playlist featuring the best uplifting, feel-good tracks in the world!
Check here every Friday to check any additions!
FOLLOW the Music Box to never miss an update again.
Music Monday is our weekly feature which showcases the hottest tracks in the world right now.
Wretch 32’s commercial crossover is a triumph. Anne-Marie showcases her powerful vocals on an impossibly catchy hook whilst Wretch 32’s rap is refreshingly clear.
Whilst Babyface is an artist in his own right, he is also the songwriter behind many huge hits by the likes of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown and Beyonce. ‘We’ve Got Love’ is his latest single, a catchy & uplifting R&B track with elements of new-jack swing. It’s a song which is bound to fall beyond the radar commercially but it’s one of the best R&B tracks in years.
Slick and soulful vocals coat an eerie electro track with reverberating vocal samples. Nao is an up and coming British singer-songwriter from East London with a sound best described as ‘neo-soul with electronic’.
Whilst it’s still not a patch on the original by Lesley Gore back in 1963 , Grace & G-Eazy’s modernised interpretation is enjoyable. Produced by legend Quincy Jones (best known for his work on Michael Jackson’s ‘Off The Wall’, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’ albums), G-Eazy’s rap and hip-hop beats bring the track into the 21st century.
Danish band Liss perform a perfect spin on Pop music on the incessantly catchy ‘Try’. Abundant with broken vocal samples and tropical house-influenced synths, it’s a fun throwback to 80’s synthpop.
The 1975 perform their best Prince initiation on this R&B-Rock jam. Featuring heavily auto-tuned vocals, tinny guitars, luscious layered harmonies and rubbery bass-lines, it’s absolutely brilliant & fuses 80’s & 90’s music together perfectly.
Energetic and bouncy dance-pop track with funky guitar riffs and brilliant use of brass instruments. Whilst it’s been on the radio airwaves for weeks now, it’s still as hot as it was on its première.
‘In2’ is West-London trio WSTRN’s début single; an R&B/Hip hop track with moody guitar riffs and an irresistibly catchy hook.
99 Souls cleverly fuse two huge R&B tracks, Brandy & Monica’s ‘The Boy Is Mine’ and Destiny’s Child’s ‘Girl’ into a funky house track which is bound to become a huge club hit.
A strange inclusion on this edition, perhaps but in a chart so dominated by over-produced music, it’s refreshing to hear music in its simplistic form. Unaltered vocals accompanied only by a piano result in a gorgeous mash-up of Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’. And of course it’s for a brilliant cause.
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