I hope everyone has had a great start to their summer. I know I have. With all this extra free time, I’ve found a bunch of music and artists to write about this summer and this month has seen a lot of my favorite artists releasing great music. From Years & Years energetic new music to Beck’s dreamy new single, here are my music recommendations from June.

Years & Years, a powerhouse electronica trio founded in London, England, has been releasing a number of amazing new songs since before the release of their freshman album “Communion.”  There is the wobbly jam “Worship,” an homage to crazy love and “Shine,” which is undoubtedly their strongest record ever. Lead singer Olly Alexander puts his heart on his sleeve, belting out the energetic choruses and truly shines. The electric music video fits perfectly with the song, which is yet another cool and artful video from this group.

 

Alpine has also come back to the music scene. This Australian indie pop band has been away for about 3 years, but early this month they released their second studio album “Yuck.” Now, overall the album is not good, if I’m being completely honest. It only has a few high points, but luckily those high points are pretty great. “Damn Baby,” is exactly what you think it would be; A bombastic, sexy jam featuring brassy melodies and danceability. Another high point is “Standing Not Sleeping,” a dreamy build that evolves into a harmonious riff between the two lead vocalists, Phoebe Baker and Lou James. The group still has some issues writing great and profound lyrics and overall production aesthetics could be tweaked, but I feel they are still learning and working on getting better.

On to the current top-40 scene, The Weeknd’s new song “Can’t Feel My Face” has been stuck in my head all month. Playful and funky is not something we hear much from The Weeknd; It’s usually all sultry, breathy sex songs, but this song is giving me a old school Michael Jackson vibe. I don’t listen to his music that often, so maybe he’s always been doing this, but I’m just happy to hear his music change up a bit. It’s one of those songs that is near impossible not to dance to.

A wild card for me recently has been Beck. This amazing musician hasn’t really ever made music that I’m really into, but this might change after his most recent single “Dreams.” It’s a fresh rock song that pulls characteristics from genres all over the music soundscape. I feel like he is trying to make his music a little more mainstream, but with that he didn’t sacrifice his amazing musical talent. Everything he does in this song is smart and calculated to create this fun and energetic rock jam. He’s been doing this for so long, with his first album being released in 1993, it’s no wonder he has truly honed his talent.

I’m looking forward to hearing more from all these artists, and I’m even lucky enough to be seeing both Years & Years and Beck at the Way Out West music festival in Sweden while I’m studying abroad. There are still plenty of artists that have teased new music and still haven’t given us any so hopefully we will hear some soon. And when that happens, I can assure you I’ll be writing about it.