Spencer Griffin's New Music Mondays

 It's the last day of the year, and we have 8 brand new songs! Here they are: "Bug Like an Angel" by Mitski: Perhaps the first Mitski song to dip into folk-rock territory, "Bug Like an Angel" continues to add new dimension and depth to Mitski's already eclectic catalog! "Bug Like an Angel" is a rather cryptic metaphor, but the "angel" part seems to refer to death by either drinking or overindulgence. The song is fittingly melancholy for one that has such a depressing theme, but ultimately more bittersweet than bitter. It manages to carry itself in a major key rather than a minor one, but it's still quite powerful! There is also religious imagery woven into the song, particularly at the end when Mitski says, "I try to remember the wrath of the devil was also given to him by God." Again, it's hard to make out exactly what Mitski means here, but my best guess is that the presumably now dead person being addressed in the son...

 here they are: "Just the Once" by Metric: Not since Blondie has a female lead singer crooned so seductively to an instrumental backdrop that is equal parts disco and new wave. "Just the Once" is one of those songs that makes you want to get up and dance the moment you hear it! The lyrics are somewhat cryptic. No one knows just what Emily Haines means by "you said that it would be just the once." First of all, who places a "the" before the word "once"? Second of all, what does she even mean by "it" and "the once"? More than likely, she's referring to a sexual affair, but she never makes that clear in the song, instead preferring her fans to savor the mystery, making this banger of a song even more alluring than it already is! "Just to Keep You Satisfied" by Inhaler: This song is a bit more chill than most of Inhaler's zippy, upbeat material. On "Just to Keep You Satisfied," the 2020's ...

 here they are: "Kisses" by Slowdive: Shoegaze was never a subgenre of alt-rock that caught on the way that, say, punk rock, new wave, or grunge did. It started as an "alternative" genre and remained that way since it combined the seemingly contradictory elements of squalid noise and ethereal beauty together. Although well-known groups like The Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead were influenced by it, shoegaze has still remained underground, which is why it was a pleasant surprise for me to hear that Slowdive, one of the leaders of the shoegaze movement, have released their first album in almost three decades! Slowdive are also a group I don't know near as well as other shoegazing legends like The Jesus and Mary Chain or Cocteau Twins. With "Kisses" being the first song I've really heard by Slowdive, I must say that I'm impressed. It retains the echo-y swirl that shoegazing was initially known for and has a flavor that's both sweet and psyched...

Wanted to give myself some time off for 4th of July, so I waited 'till now, but better late than never, right? Here are this week's songs: "Dial Drunk" by Noah Kahan: I must confess, I was never that big of a Noah Kahan fan when I first heard about him. He seemed like someone who was trying to be like Mumford and Sons or Phillip Phillips but without the charm of either act. "Dial Drunk" has made me change my mind about Noah, as he has added a bit more gritty electric guitar instrumentation into his music for the song in addition to his usual banjo stuff. The song is a breakthrough for Noah, who has earned his first spots on both the Top 40 charts and the alternative charts as a result. It was probably thanks to the social media app TikTok that the song has gotten as much attention as it has lately. The song is about a man who, as the title implies, dials his girlfriend while he's drunk after being arrested for driving under the influence. The reason he c...