In this weekly column, The Straits Times curates the most buzz-worthy music you need to know about now.
Ace Album: Ed Sheeran – - (Subtract)
The year leading up to the release of Ed Sheeran’s – (Subtract) has not been kind to the English singer-songwriter.
His wife was diagnosed with cancer while she was pregnant, his best friend died of a heart attack and he was forced to defend his artistry in court in a copyright infringement lawsuit.
Listening to the album, his last to be named after a mathematical symbol, one cannot help but feel like it is a coping mechanism for an artiste whose life has gone through the wringer.
Yes, some lyrics can be exceedingly sentimental and on the nose, such as on Life Goes On. But you are convinced that Sheeran poured his truths into these tunes.
They can be uncomfortable to listen to – Salt Water, for example, contains graphic references to suicidal thoughts, something the pop star has admitted to battling.
Not all the songs are excessively dour, though. Dusty is a sweet track about spending tender moments with his two-year-old daughter, while No Strings is an optimistic ode to unconditional love that grows stronger after going through tough times.
Working with producer Aaron Dessner, a member of renowned American indie band The National, Sheeran pares down on the overproduced pop sheen of his recent singles.
The move to strip down the songs to their bare essentials – many comprise just Sheeran’s voice, his acoustic guitar and piano – amplifies their emotional impact. – Eddino Abdul Hadi
Must-see MV: Harry Styles – Satellite
In the music video for Satellite, a song off Harry Styles’ Grammy-winning 2022 album Harry’s House, a robot vacuum at the British pop star’s concert goes rogue and sets off on a road trip across the United States.
If the cute little protagonist seems familiar, that is because it bears a resemblance to the titular character of Pixar animation film Wall-E (2008).
Styles’ fans will be thrilled that the first part of the video shows the inner workings of his concert. The scenes were filmed at Los Angeles venue Kia Forum, where he performed from late 2022 to early 2023.
There are shots of his backstage area as well as him onstage. One sequence depicting the robot sucking in massive amounts of feathers on the ground is a nod to the fact that Styles’ fans often sport feather boas at his shows.
Another nice touch? Fans of HBO drama Succession (2018 to 2023) might recognise the voice narrating the Mars Rover documentary that the robot is inspired by at the start of the video. It belongs to Scottish actor Brian Cox, who plays the formidable patriarch in the award-winning series. – Eddino Abdul Hadi
Chart Champ: Seventeen – FML
K-pop boy band Seventeen came this close to knocking American country singer Morgan Wallen’s album One Thing At A Time off the Billboard 200 album chart.
The 13-piece group’s six-track EP FML made its debut at the No. 2 spot, with 135,000 equivalent album units compared with Wallen’s 138,000, which gave the latter his ninth consecutive week at the top.
Still, FML is a blockbuster release. It notched the highest first-week K-pop album sales ever, with a whopping 4.55 million copies in its debut week based on data from Hanteo Chart. This breaks the previous record set by superstar group BTS in 2020, when their album Map Of The Soul: 7 sold 3.38 million copies in its opening week.
Seventeen’s latest release is fronted by F*** My Life and Super. Despite the former’s provocative title, the song is a mid-tempo number about not giving up on oneself even during difficult times. While pleasant, it is not particularly memorable.
Super is the true earworm. With Oriental music elements, it references the tale of Sonogong, better known as the Monkey King or Sun Wukong in Chinese mythology, with the lyrics, “Feels like I turned into Sonogong”.
Although it features the overly used beat drop chorus trendy in K-pop nowadays, Super benefits from dynamic, energetic and addictive verses. – Jan Lee
Singapore Scene: Rene – Slipped Through My Fingers
Slipped Through My Fingers is the sophomore EP from home-grown singer-songwriter Rene, whose music is a charming blend of pop, punk and indie rock.
It comes two years after she released her debut EP Something To Hide in 2021, and includes singles that she put out in the past year.
One of the budding acts who was part of music programme The Great Singapore Replay Season 2 (2019 to 2020), in which she was mentored by acts such as singer-songwriter Charlie Lim, Rene’s new output displays artistic growth.
She sounds more confident in her vocal delivery, and the songcraft and production are a lot more polished compared with her earlier works.
With introspective lyrics that reflect on the messy business of relationships and coping with grief, her songs succinctly capture the pains that come with adulting. – Eddino Abdul Hadi
Stream This Song: Joker Xue – Nothing
Joker Xue has never been one to opt for the conventional. In his new single Nothing, the Chinese singer tries a raw, unbridled approach, which takes the emotional quality of his song to a new level.
The sorrowful blues-pop number focuses on a man trying to save his relationship, and its lyrics, written by fellow Chinese singer Jace Guo, express the aching hurt of a heart being torn apart. The man pleads and begs, almost in a degrading fashion, that it is hard not to sympathise with him.
The melody, written by Xue, is slow, as if the narrator has nothing else to say. But in its build-up, it works its magic. Starting from a simple guitar solo and soft, trembling whispers, the music grows to a grand finale by the second chorus, and the pain cuts deep. – Benson Ang
