Melissa Kacar

"my future" was released as the first single off of Billie Eilish 's sophomore album, Happier Than Ever . Released exactly a year prior to the rest of the album, this song signaled a transitional period for Billie as an artist. Coming off of her record-breaking debut album the year prior, with this song, Billie and Finneas set out to prove that they weren't interested in doing the same thing twice. They experimented with a wide range of influences across the album, but "my future" was definitely a more understated and simplistic sound than what they had went with on much of her debut.  "'Cause I, I'm in love with my future, can't wait to meet her," she sings in the chorus. "And I, I'm in love, but not with anybody else, just wanna get to know myself". With this song, she embraces change and growth above all else. The dreamy jazz-inspired melodies reflected her growing maturity, willingness to experiment and expansion of h...

"Cross Yor Mind" by Shelly Shelly, the side project of close friends Clairo , Claud , Josh Mehling, and Noa Getzug returns after five years with two addicting new singles, "Cross Your Mind" and "Hartwell". I absolutely love both songs, but "Cross Your Mind" just might be my favorite song of the summer so far. Hopefully they release a full-length collaborative project soon, I can't wait to hear more from them! "Gasoline - triple j Like A Version" by Djo Earlier this year, Djo recorded an incredible cover of Haim 's "Gasoline" for triple j's Like A Version series, and now it's finally been officially released on streaming platforms. He took what was already one of my favorite songs by the band and completely made it his own, giving a fresh perspective and edge to it while still capturing everything that made the original so special. "don't speak" by Wet Leg I've been loving Wet Leg 's new a...

Now lost in the memory of a moment in time, Folklore is an album that offered an escape from the chaos of the world, creating space for timeless stories of love, loss, friendship, and heartbreak to be passed down like folk songs.  Folklore  was the first page in a new chapter for Taylor Swift , as the process of writing and releasing this album was completely different than anything she had done prior and went on to shape her approach to making music from that point forward. It was surprise released in the heat of the cruelest summer yet - with the intention for this music serving as a form of escapism from all of the stress and fear that was at the forefront of everyone's minds during the early months of the pandemic. Taylor wrote these songs from many different perspectives, some rooted in her real-life experiences, others more based on fiction. She built up storylines within the lyrics that were all intricately tied together by an invisible string.  Pulling from her pa...

"Summerboy" by Lady Gaga has that raw, gritty New York charm that defines so much of her early work. It is featured as the second to last track on her 2008 debut album, The Fame , which is among the greatest pop records of all time and stacked with countless hits like "Just Dance" , "Poker Face", and "Paparazzi", to name a few. It is really an eclectic album overall while still being very cohesive in the theming surrounding each track. In contrast to the other big singles, "Summerboy" has always felt like one of the most underrated gems in Gaga's discography. It is a breezy and carefree song about a fleeting summer romance that she knows will never last. "That's the record that every girl wishes she could sing and believe," she once said in an interview.  Gaga wrote "Summerboy" in early 2007, after being dropped by her label at the time, Island Def Jam, and prior to getting signed to Interscope. Her manageme...