Make It

Drake: What's his deal?

I haven't been that into pop music lately (like the past 8 years), but I just signed up for Spotify and it makes it so easy to sample a huge variety of music I probably wouldn't otherwise listen to (let's hear that Nicki Minaj the kids are talking about these days).

And yes, now I get it. Lady Gaga is irritating but undeniably catchy. Rihanna is eh-eh-eh-ver-y-thing. Beyonce can do no wrong. But there's one wildly succesful pop star who I just don't understand.

Drake.

He's a massive musical phenom, right? He used to be on a Canadian tv show but now people rave about him and his songs are all over the Spotify Top Songs list. But they're all so underwhelming. What am I missing? I do admit to loving his contribution to this, but really, that song is all Rihanna.

I turned to the Internet for answers:

What exactly is the appeal of Drake?

What, precisely, is the appeal of Drake?

But I remain mystified. What is the one Drake song I need to listen to that will make it all make sense?

(photo credit)

New Songs

Two songs I've recently become obsessed with. This one, Paradise Circus, I heard in the background of a scene on this week's True Blood and went online immediately afterward to figure out what it was. Turns out it's by Massive Attack, a band that has long been a favorite of mine, though I didn't realize they had a new album out this year.

The vocals are by Hope Sandoval whose Fade was essentially my favorite song in high school.

The other new song that is ROCKING my world is Boyfriend by Best Coast. It has a decidedly California feel, which I guess makes sense for me in light of this post. But the other reason I'm loving this is because in my major rewrite of my book that I just completed, I made the romantic subplot much larger and more scandalous and there's a fun scene in which a character steals her best friend''s boyfriend. In the movie version in my head of this chapter, when the main character first spots the boyfriend, this song would play. (stream the entire album for free on Urban Outfitters' site here)