Best of What’s New

Welcome to another installment of my weekly recurring feature where I pick newly released songs I like. Let’s get to it without further ado. All tunes except for the last song appeared yesterday (January 7).

Dope Lemon/Rose Pink Cadillac

Dope Lemon is the solo project of Australian singer-songwriter Angus Stone. He first started to release music in 2007 with his sister as part of folk-pop duo Angus & Julia Stone. To date, four albums by the duo have appeared. In April 2009, Stone’s solo debut Smoking Gun came out under the pseudonym Lady of the Sunshine. Starting with his third solo album Honey Bones from April 2016, he has used the Dope Lemon moniker. Rose Pink Cadillac, co-written by him and Elliott Hammond, is the bouncy, funky title track of Stone’s fifth and latest solo release.

Best Coast/All Alone

I think this may be the first time I’m featuring a music artist in back-to-back Best of What’s New installments. Last week, I picked Best Coast’s then-most recently released song Leading. The rock duo, which includes songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Bethany Cosentino and guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno, was formed in 2009 in Los Angeles. Borrowing again from their Apple Music profile: Drawing inspiration from ’60s surf rock and girl groups, Best Coast’s noisy lo-fi sound gave a nod to contemporaneous acts like Hot Lava, the Vivian Girls, and Brilliant Colors. Best Coast’s first year saw a flurry of little releases. Best Coast had become something of a sensation by the time 2009 came to a close. Fast forward to yesterday and the deluxe issue of Best Coast’s fourth studio album Always Tomorrow. Here’s one of the new tunes, All Alone, written by Cosentino – nice pop-rock!

Gang of Youths/In the Wake of Your Leave

Gang of Youths are an Australian indie rock band formed in Sydney in 2011 by principal songwriter David Le’aupepe (lead vocals, guitar). The other members include Jung Kim (lead guitar, keyboards), Tom Hobden (violin, keyboards, guitar), Max Dunn (bass) and Donnie Borzestowski (drums). According to their Apple Music profile, the group’s 2015 debut album The Positions tackled Le’aupepe’s painful divorce and mental health struggles against hard-charging indie rock topped with his tumultuous baritone. Rather than dwell in darkness, though, Gang of Youths’ anthems spin true stories of trauma into triumphant badges of survival and even hopefulness. Witness the empowering, Springsteen-worthy pulse driving “Let Me Down Easy,” from 2017’s Go Farther in Lightness. After winning four ARIA Awards for that record, the band became the inaugural performers on the Australian edition of MTV Unplugged in 2018. In the Wake of Your Love, credited to all members of the group, is a new single from their upcoming third studio album Angel in Realtime scheduled for February 25.

Dirty Honey/Let’s Go Crazy

Let’s wrap up this post with one of my favorite discoveries from last year: Los Angeles rock band Dirty Honey and their new single Let’s Go Crazy. If you’re familiar with Prince, the title of the song may be familiar. It’s actually a tune he originally recorded for his sixth studio and soundtrack album Purple Rain released in June 1984. Dirty Honey, who were formed in 2017 and are influenced by bands like Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin and Black Crowes, do a nice job putting Prince’s funky pop-oriented tune into a classic rock type of song – pretty cool! Their rendition came out on December 31 – another tune I swear I didn’t see in iTunes’ new releases when I checked that day.

Last but not least, here’s a playlist of the above tunes:

Sources: Wikipedia; Apple Music; YouTube; Spotify