The Useless Critic 2.0

I wanted to continue to give Ruby Roberts some love with her first music video, "My Endeavor." Like I said before, I definitely think she has a nice retro Lana thing going on, which I really appreciate. I also am just rooting hard for her success. Like, she needs to blow up, so help me make it happen! Ruby will continue to release singles and perform in the UK - make sure you check out "Gonna Change" as well, which is a beautiful song in its own right. Sounds like: Lana Del Rey, the 1960s/70s, Zella Day

You'd quite literally have to be owning a compound under a rock to miss the nonstop constant saturation of Taylor Swift's "Midnights" the past week. Hell, I'm a Taylor fan, and even I was overwhelmed! And of course by now most pop music fans have either streamed it nonstop ( testifying to the recent streaming records ), listened to some of it out of spite, or skipped over it completely. "Midnights" showcased a return to Taylor's penchant for strong power-ish pop mastery, like the kind she made explicitly known on "1989" (another collaboration with "Midnights" producer Jack Antonoff, who has gone on to work with Taylor numerous times, the Chicks, Florence and the Machine, Lorde, St. Vincent, and Lana Del Rey on my favorite album of all time "Norman Fucking Rockwell!")  Speaking of Lana, there was a much-hyped (and anticipated definitely for me) collab with her on the album. Titled "Snow on the Beach," the lyrics...

Zella Day releases a fair amount of music, and I can barely keep up with it! But honestly, I'm hopeful for the future of this singer-songwriter from Pinetop, Arizona. I posted last year about how much I enjoyed "Golden" - and what a giddy, fun, disco-infused pop song it was! - and this year she's kept things going as she builds up to her new album, "Sunday in Heaven" (out October 14th). Her latest track, "Mushroom Punch," is another solid testament to her talent. She's pretty amazing at a variety of styles; it's rare to hear a mainstream-ish singer-songwriter who embraces such an eclectic approach. And as you can probably deduce by the title, "Mushroom Punch" has a decidedly psychedelic pop vibe to it.  Earlier this summer, Zella released "Radio Silence," an angstier rock song that found her screaming in a way that reminded me of The Cranberries' late Dolores O'Riordan.  TL;DR I am PUMPED for "Sunday in Heav...

Zella Day is quite the genrebender, and I'm here for it. Although she tends to stay on the pop side of the mainstream music lane, she isn't afraid to embrace all kinds of retro vibes a lot of her peers would balk at. Earlier this year, I highlighted her delicate track "Holocene" featuring the formidable Weyes Blood. And now, I really need you to listen to "Golden," which would be this summer's undisputed Top 40 anthem if modern pop radio had any sense of justice. How anyone can resist this song's delightful disco airiness is beyond me. Last summer, we had Harry Styles' "Golden." This summer, we have Zella's.  Other singles Arizona-bred Zeyes Blood has released this year include "Girls" and "Dance For Love." Her next album "Sunday in Heaven" is set to come out later this year, too. (And I personally can't wait.) 

There have only been a handful of albums in my life I've loved as much as "Norman Fucking Rockwell," Lana Del Rey's 2019 magnum opus produced by wunderkind producer and fun/Bleachers musician Jack Antonoff. To give you an idea of how much I fullheartedly loved that album, I really had stopped paying attention to LDR at this point. The period between "Honeymoon" and "NFR" Is a lost time for me. I've since gone back and revisited it, but while it was actually happening, I could have cared less. "NFR" was this album that BLEW me away on my first listen. I hadn't heard an album so cohesively good in a minute. I spent the rest of 2019 listening to "NFR," on bus trips and plane rides and nights at home, and half of my first quarantine listening to it, too. It powered me through that phase of my life - it just hit home with me, on a deep level where music rarely resonates anymore. And I would classify it as my favorite album of...

Want something sleepy and gentle to listen to this Valentine's Day? Do I have the song for you; it's "Holocene" by Arizona-bred Zella Day featuring Weyes Blood. It's a step back into the lush folk of the '60s and '70s; their voices blend together almost magically. The refrain of the song is haunting: "Time forgets no one." Also, despite having the same title, this not a Bon Iver cover. Zella Day and Weyes Blood are formidable talents on their own though, and worth listening to. Below are my favorite songs by each singer: ' Both singers will be featured on Lana Del Rey's upcoming "Chemtrails Over the Country Club," due out on March 19th. They'll all be covering Joni Mitchell's classic "For Free," and see below for a taste of things to come back from when live concerts were a thing . Remember those days?