Melissa Kacar

"Never Felt So Alone" // Labrinth & Billie Eilish Labrinth's new song, "Never Felt So Alone" was previewed in the second season of Euphoria and was now officially released as a single leading up to his newest album. It also has an uncredited Billie Eilish feature, which made such a powerful addition to the second half of the song. Labrinth and Billie are both immensely talented and creative geniuses when it comes to their music innovations, so this collaboration is the perfect match. I also loved their Coachella performance , the live version elevated all of the emotions of this song to a new level - Billie's vocals were particularly some of the best I have ever heard from her. "Chemical" // Post Malone I always love hearing Post Malone 's growth and evolution as an artist, "Chemical" is an upbeat pop song that I can see being a big hit this summer. His vocals are so strong and the chorus is infectious. It reminds me of some of...

Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions is available for the first time on vinyl as a special Record Store Day 2023 release. It was recorded for a Disney+ special, featuring only Taylor and her collaborators, Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff , at Dessner's studio in New York. The album's liner notes say, "On July 24, 2020, Taylor Swift surprise released Folklore , her 8th studio album. During the Covid-19 lockdown, the musicians recorded separately miles apart while the album was created at Long Pond studio. Taylor and her collaborators were never able to play the album together... until now ." This is an indie record store exclusive released in April 2023 for Record Store Day, which is an event held twice a year to celebrate independent record stores with dozens of new and exclusive music releases special for the occasion. It is limited to 75,000 copies - which thankfully isn't really that "limited" at all. Compared to past Record Store Day releases f...

everything's growing in our garden is the first in a series of playlists I will be sharing that follow a curated theme. Many of the songs on this list evoke a similar emotion when I hear them, no matter how subtle that connection may be. Of the sixty tracks I chose, many have a mellow, relaxed feeling and are carried by the lyrical depth they have. Spring is a time of growth, reflection, and new beginnings after the dark days of winter, which I hope to reflect in this playlist.  With  everything's growing in our garden , Phoebe Bridgers ' music particularly served as my biggest inspiration and starting point that I chose the rest of the songs around. The title is inspired by a lyric from "Garden Song", where Phoebe sings "everything's growing in our garden, you don't have to know that it's haunted". Her music bookends this playlist, starting with "Garden Song" and ending with "I Know The End". Punisher is one of my all-t...

Lana Del Rey's ninth album, Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd , is an intimate, diaristic portrait of her life and journey so far. In many ways, it is her most personal release yet, as if she is writing these songs for nobody but herself and her own healing. When talking about the process of writing the album in 2022, she told W Magazine, "I’ve been practicing meditative automatic singing, where I don’t filter anything. I’ll just sing whatever comes to mind into my Voice Notes app. It’s not perfect, obviously," she said. "For this new music ... It’s more just like: I’m angry. The songs are very conversational ... It’s a very wordy album. ... It’s almost like I’m typing in my mind." That method is present throughout the entire album, many of the songs are long and often with heavy subject matter at hand, in which she doesn't hold back at all. There is a lot of symbolism and depth in every single track. While all of her albums have been ...

"Rose Colored Lenses" // Miley Cyrus  One of my most anticipated releases of the year was Miley Cyrus ' Endless Summer Vacation and it definitely didn't disappoint! "Rose Colored Lenses", feels so representative of the thesis of the album with the lyric "Endless summer vacation, make it last till we die". This song feels so LA, it's as if I'm transported to California every time I listen to it. So much of her music throughout her career is rooted in her love for Los Angeles, which is an aspect of her songwriting that I love so much. This song is one of the highlights of the album for me, I just can't get enough of it. So many lyrics and phrases she uses are my favorite from the entire album - "daydream, deja vu", "we could stay like this forever, lost in wonderland", and the repetition of "let's stay like this forever", to name a few. Check out my full review of Endless Summer Vacation here! "Par...