Staff Pix 3/31: On Repeat
The Milk Crate staff’s favorite tracks of the week from their ‘On Repeat’ Spotify playlist, presented with blurbs worthy of a promotional sticker on a jewel case. Tune in Fridays from 2-3 EST to the Staff Pix radio show.
Stephanie Weber
drive ME crazy! by Lil Yachty
Lil Yachty’s most recent album Let’s Start Here. features one of my most recent favorite songs “drive ME crazy!” The first verse started trending on TikTok a few weeks ago and my ears were blessed. It has an unofficial feature by singer-songwriter Diana Gordon who has been releasing singles since 2016. “drive ME crazy!” is a modern day love song, similar to that of Childish Gambino with more funk influences. My favorite lines are “Good love fill my body up like a glass / When you pour it all out,” “Imaginе me / Circling through life without a piecе of you,” and “Good love feels like butterflies suffocating your insides.” It’s no surprise that this song is produced by Patrick Wimberly, Sad Pony, Teo Halm, Nami and Mac DeMarco. It’s full of dreamlike but danceable beats, lighthearted trap and snare drums, and androgynous back up vocals. “drive ME crazy!” is definitely going to be the song of springtime, of new love and blossoming relationships.
Izzy Desmarais
Seether by Veruca Salt
Happy Women’s History Month! My favorite genre of music is angry woman. This song has accompanied me during every spare moment of silence I’ve had for the past two weeks and I don’t see it leaving my rotation any time soon. Lead single off their debut album American Thighs (1994), “Seether” is the musical manifestation of suppressed female rage. If you’re looking for something you can stomp down Boylston St. to that will make you feel like a character in My So-Called Life or the lead singer in your imaginary rock band, this is the tune for you.
Adri Pray
KILLA MODE by WESTSIDE BOOGIE and Storm Ford
This song begins the immersive experience that is WESTSIDE BOOGIE’s 2022 album, “MORE BLACK SUPERHEROES,” in which he describes the distrust he battles on the daily in his life and from those around him. The lyrics, “Covered in blood while I’m hanging with sharks / Come from the mud, it put stains on my heart,” superbly conveys WESTSIDE BOOGIE’s desire (ha, get it) to escape the hell hole that is his reality. WESTSIDE BOOGIE and I are one in the same, you see, as I too would rather live in the constructed reality inside of my mind than face bills, tuition, Emerson College, etcetera. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll listen to “MORE BLACK SUPERHEROES” right NOW!
Karenna Umscheid
Comme Des Garçons (Like The Boys) by Rina Sawayama
Rina Sawayama’s electrifying hyperpop dance track “Comme Des Garçons (Like The Boys)” is an incredibly underrated feminine anthem. Exuding the same sexy power as other tracks, such as “XS” on her album SAWAYAMA, this track has clinched a spot in my On Repeat for months now. The chorus literally repeats “I’m so confident,” sending bright shockwaves of electric female power and energy to course through the speakers of listeners. My favorite verse goes “Hot like a fever/Make you a believer/Write my name up in the sky/From Paris to Shibuya,” almost a hyperpop answer to Pitbull’s “International Love,” but with a healthy serving of Sharpay Evans theatricality, making this an unrelentingly glitter-fun banger.
Matt Kugel
Buddies Lite Lime by Ogbert the Nerd
I was lucky enough to be in the room when Ogbert the Nerd performed at Arts at the Armory over spring break and I have been chasing the delight I felt that night ever since. “Buddies Lite Lime”’s guitar parts are catchy and sunny, getting you grooving along to the music before the vocals even enter the mix. Then, before you know it, lead singer Madison James breaks through and knocks you off your feet, asking “Can you knock me out!?” Before you have time to think up an answer or even process why he’d ask that in the first place, he rattles off a couple more lines about being overwhelmed and confused. The song never loses steam, and every instrument drives forward with a conviction that feels otherworldly yet entirely deserved. But the real reason I can’t get enough of this song is because of the way it wholly envelops the listener. It’s hard to focus on anything other than what you hear when it’s something as bombastic as this.
Anne O’Leary
3AM by HAIM
HAIM’s third studio album Women In Music Pt. III is an absolute bop and full of great jams. “3AM” is the sixth track and described by sister Alana is essentially about a “booty call”. However, the song has ambivalence towards the proposition. The song begins with a voice message from a male voice asking if he can come over. But the HAIM girls are not excited with lyrics like, All I keep thinking is,/"Have lost my mind?"/But I'm picking up for the last time” and “Either way I’m gonna lose/But I just wanna give/I just can't stop staring at it/I just can't resist” The actual instrumental sound is like a clock ticking, speaking to the title. While this song is so much fun, all I wanna say is Alana stand up!
Amelia Oei
Good Girl by Brutalismus 3000
If you know me, you know I love to dance. And I cannot stop dancing to this song! Singer Victoria Vassiliki repeats the same two verses over and over — all satirical jabs at what our patriarchal society tells women they need to do in order to be a “good girl”: “Don't be a bitch and don't be prude / Don't be clothed and don't be nude.” Victoria “Vicky” and her partner Theo — a duo based in Berlin — have created a new sound with all of their tracks. Bringing back early hardstyle and gabber sounds, they mix in elements of punk, wave, and techno. Theo produces the sound while Vicky screams the lyrics in English, German, and Slovak. They describe themselves as “post-techno punk,” and it is some of the most danceable music I have ever heard.
Lily Suckow Ziemer
Shinunoga E-Wa by Fujii Kaze
I’ve been listening to “Shinunoga E-Wa” for months now, yet I still haven’t gotten sick of it yet. The song has an irresistibly catchy melody, making you dance and sing along. Those who don’t speak Japanese might be surprised to find that “shinunoga e-wa” means “I’d rather die,” considering how up beat the song is. Kaze repeats the lyric many times as it fits the feeling the song describes: an all or nothing kind of love. He affirms he’d do anything for his love “I choose you over three meals a day / If I had to keep being separated from you like this / I'd rather die.” The song is written like it has something to prove, going to all of the extremes as a way of asserting his love. Regardless if you find the lyrics too extreme or see them as relatable, you won’t be able to stop playing the song on repeat.
Salem Ross
Broken Halo by Phantoms ft. Nicholas Braun
So Succession started this week. Cousin Greg aka Nicholas Braun has been long silent about his millennial club, DJ collective, almost coming of age feel song Broken Halo by Phantoms. If you look over the typical “night out” lines such as “Love has never worked for you, Love never worked for me” that leans into the new found emotions cliché. The song in itself is average, it's the person who's singing that makes it so interesting.
Rachel Charles
Breadcrumb Trail by Slint
One thing about me is that I love a song that follows a narrative story especially if the song runs over five minutes. Slint’s "Breadcrumb Trail" hits all the marks for me, which is why I have been ritualistically playing this track every day, granting it consistent access to my Spotify On Repeat playlist. "Breadcrumb Trail" follows the disjointed story of the narrator’s time at a carnival with a fortune teller through eerie monotone vocals and hypnotic drum patterns. This song wholly immerses the listener by combining musicality and storytelling, and has me completely hooked!
Julia Norkus
Alejandro by Lady Gaga
I know staff pix is the place for new, cool, underground, groove-tastic finds, but anyone that has spoken to me before the hour of 10:00 a.m. at any point this week knows that it’s “Alejandro” o’clock in JuliaTown. One morning, I woke up and all I could think about were the moments in my basement as a kid, watching my brother burn CDs onto the family computer from our local library to have and to hold in our iTunes library. I would watch as he popped Fame Monster (2009) into the tower and sat poised by his side while we listened to “Poker Face” on repeat and played “The Sims”. Maybe it’s the nostalgia, maybe it’s the fact that I needed a boost this week. Whatever the reason, “Alejandro” is this week’s motivator to get me up in the morning and it’s why I’ve been dancing in the aisles of CVS.
Harry Bates
The Greatest Song I Ever Heard by The New Seekers
I decided to go on one of those big, wandering walks between my early classes on Monday morning. By 10am I found myself walking out on Long Wharf over at the harbor, standing out on the pier watching one of the New England Aquarium’s whale watch cruises embark into the clear waters of the Atlantic ahead. There was something really beautiful about this view, seeing a vessel trudge forward into the freeing waters of the ever-expansive ocean before me, with 737s taking their final approach to Logan overhead and a beaming, amber sun floating just above the horizon line. The New Seekers’ 1974 “The Greatest Song I Ever Heard” fit this experience perfectly, and this view quickly became cemented in my mind as a snapshot of a time where life feels intimate and exploratory. The sight of seagulls riding the rigid air currents above, buoys bobbing from the wakes of propellers and waves below, and the salty, cool air brushing against my warmed face made this quite the freeing experience. To me, this is what life’s all about; finding the moments that make you appreciate just how wonderful the world around you really is. A beautiful world surrounds us all—-it just needs to be seen.
P.S. I found a tarnished ring out by the Harbor Islands Welcome Center. I tried handing it off to a policeman, but he said it would just sit in an evidence drawer and never see the light of day again. Is this your ring? I doubt it, but I guess it’s worth a shot ;)