Melissa Kacar

Hey Billie, you there? Happy Record Store Day! To celebrate one of the biggest events of the year for independent record stores, Charli xcx and Billie Eilish released a special 7" vinyl single for their iconic 2024 collaboration "Guess". It was one of my most anticipated releases for this year and I'm so happy to have it in my collection! There were only 10,000 copies of this vinyl pressed worldwide and sold exclusively at independent record stores in April 2025. It is a classic black pressing with the iconic shade of brat green as the center label. The disc itself is overall very minimalist, with no markings at all on either side of the center label. Like all of the vinyl from the BRAT era , there is a sticker closing the record that needs to be cut open very carefully. This is one of two special releases Charli released this year to celebrate independent record stores.  It is housed in a cardboard sleeve, which is so different than any other record sleeve I'...

"party 4 u" by Charli xcx is a euphoric anthem of unrequited love, a song full of glittering synths and raw emotion. She sings about throwing an entire party with the hopes that just the one person she wants to see the most will be there - a very Gatsby theme that she translated so well into this song. It is featured on her 2020 album how i'm feeling now , which was largely created in isolation and released in the thick of the pandemic in May of that year. She worked with her frequent collaborator, A.G. Cook , on this song and the rest of the album. By the time the pandemic started, they only had about half of the album finished, so they decided to go with a DIY approach while finishing the rest of how i'm feeling now .  "party 4 u" had a much longer history by that point though, as Charli said in an interview with Apple Music. "This is the oldest song on the album. For myself and A. G., this song has so much life and story," Charli said. "We...

"my future" was released as the first single off of Billie Eilish 's sophomore album, Happier Than Ever . Released exactly a year prior to the rest of the album, this song signaled a transitional period for Billie as an artist. Coming off of her record-breaking debut album the year prior, with this song, Billie and Finneas set out to prove that they weren't interested in doing the same thing twice. They experimented with a wide range of influences across the album, but "my future" was definitely a more understated and simplistic sound than what they had went with on much of her debut.  "'Cause I, I'm in love with my future, can't wait to meet her," she sings in the chorus. "And I, I'm in love, but not with anybody else, just wanna get to know myself". With this song, she embraces change and growth above all else. The dreamy jazz-inspired melodies reflected her growing maturity, willingness to experiment and expansion of h...

An early version of "Never Felt So Alone" by Labrinth was featured in the second season of the hit HBO series  Euphoria , which he composes both the score and soundtrack for. Despite it being a fan favorite, it wasn't a part of the officially released soundtrack. Its official release over a year later was a long time coming for fans of the show. It ended up serving as the second single for Labrinth's third album  Ends & Begins  in 2023. It's such an incredible album by one of the coolest and most innovative producers in music.  When it came time to officially release the song on his album, he approached Billie Eilish to see if she'd want to feature on it with him. "Once I started piecing the song together, I was just like, 'Do you know what? I think this is the moment where I think Billie would be a sick addition,'" he said in an interview with Eddie Francis for Apple Music 1. He also shared the story of how he approached her about work...

Happy Record Store Day! To celebrate the semi-annual independent record store event, Billie Eilish released a special 10" vinyl commemorating her acoustic performance apart of Amazon's Songline series.  She performed four songs off of HIT ME HARD AND SOFT ; "SKINNY", "L'AMOUR DE MA VIE", "WILDFLOWER" and "BIRDS OF A FEATHER". It's just Billie, her brother Finneas , her band, and three backing singers in an empty studio space performing them live in one take. These versions aren't available on streaming, other than this rendition of "BIRDS OF A FEATHER" , which is exclusively on Amazon Music. The videos of these performances are available to watch on YouTube though, and they are really incredible. I love that she chose to perform "SKINNY" first, as it is such an emotional and vulnerable introduction into this album. It sounded so beautiful in a stripped down format like this and reminded me of the way sh...

Happy Record Store Day! To celebrate the semi-annual independent record store event, Icona Pop released a special limited edition glow-in-the-dark vinyl pressing of their iconic breakthrough hit, "I Love It". Originally released in 2012 as the lead single from their self-titled debut album, the track quickly became a defining anthem for the Swedish pop duo. Not only did it launch their career, but it also marked the first major hit for Charli XCX , who at the time was just 21 years old and an emerging songwriter carving her place in pop music. Charli had signed with Asylum Records in 2010 while still in school, spending her early years experimenting with different sounds and resisting the idea of mainstream pop, which didn't initially align with her vision as an artist. Her breakthrough came when she began collaborating with producer Patrik Berger, who was then best known for his work with Lana Del Rey and Robyn , and later worked with artists like Carly Rae Jepsen , ...