“Bluest Flame” – Selena Gomez, Benny Blanco
Selena Gomez, whom the average high school student first met as the vampire daughter Mavis from Hotel Transylvania, released her 4th studio album, I Said I Love You First, in collaboration with her fiancé, producer Benny Blanco. On this genre-hopscotching collaboration, which attempts to tell the love story of Blanco and Gomez, Track 8, “Bluest Flame,” is the most volatile and seductively hypnotic song she has released yet. With help from co-writer CharliXCX, Gomez takes on hyperpop. Now, the non-stop chorus of “going all night” and “touchin’ in the summer rain” finds itself embraced by a new community: PC Music group followers.
“Henry, Come On” – Lana Del Ray
A lone maiden stands in a field—her dress blowing with the wind that used to run through her hair, ‘amount the horse of her lover. Now, she sits in the kitchen of the house they once christened together, looking at the antlers on the wall and asking god why soft leather and blue jeans brought out the worst in her. On the lead single for her upcoming country album, Lana Del Ray, who refers to herself as a lonely “cowgirl,” laments holding Icarus’s hand, only for him to fly away. To where? She doesn’t know. “You can’t chase a ghost when it’s gone.”
“Headphones On” – Addison Rae
The past is inescapable. No matter how far one runs it, the past always leaves its mark. Addison Rae escapes from the Louisiana bayou to the black sand beaches of Iceland, riding atop an Icelandic pony and wearing a childish hot-pink wig and matching hot pink boots. In “Headphones On,” Rae pays homage to the corded headphones she wore as a child to soothe the pain of her parents divorce, singing, “Wish my mom and dad could have been in love.” No longer a child, she sings, “Guess I gotta accept the pain.” Rae grows by facing the truth and accepting it—the past is the past: unchangeable.een in love.”
“I Ain’t Comin’ Back” – Morgan Wallen (feat. Post Malone)
Cruising like Tom Petty in a ’97 Chevy and hot on the tail of last summer’s hit “I Had Some Help,” Morgan Wallen invites rapper-turned-country-star Post Malone to return the favor for his upcoming album, I’m The Problem. Over a cool-blue guitar intro, Wallen spits out the insults of a past lover. “A redneck rambler, lost-cause gambler,” he sings. The words don’t bother him, maintaining his cool on the track. “There’s a lot of reasons I ain’t Jesus,” Wallen and Malone sing, in an unforgiving lament. They won’t be walking on water to repair this relationship.
