5 Favourite Songs | July 2018

This month has been a beautiful month for songs. I can hardly believe it's been a month. It seems like a lot of the stuff I've been listening to in July has some kind of spooky, easy-going feel to it. A lot of these have some kind of low-level anxiety to them, often in a way that is soothing. It's an interesting selection now that I look at these five songs together. Let's talk about 'em.

1. Princess Chelsea - I Love My Boyfriend

There's so much I love about this song. Its lovely gentle glockenspiel noises, the sweet, high vocals that sound like they're coming to my ears through fog somehow. The lazy bass. The spoken word bridge portion. It's beautiful. And I love the lyrics and their resigned, reassuring sandwiching of uneasiness with a kind of sure conviction that the unease can be accepted. There's something really soothing and good about this.

Links: Spotify | YouTube

2. Aly & AJ - Good Love

This song is like being drunk on a summer Sunday morning and caught in a curtain. This song makes me want to drink a jug of Pimms and run at full speed across a bridge in a billowing dress. It has such a perfect big synth sound that makes it so euphoric and ethereal. I've been really enjoying all of Aly & AJ's recent releases, but this one is really something special. The mixing, the use of a phaser, and beautiful wound down moments combined with exquisite vocal pieces make this song such a perfect, hazy yearning song. My favourite.

Links: Spotify | YouTube

3. Friendly Fires - Love Like Waves

This song has such a fun structure. Lots of tasty noises crashing into you at different speeds. It actually does sound sort of wave like somehow. I'm a big fan of the steel drum sound that cuts through the duller, lower sounds in the chorus, almost in a slightly jaunty way, but a way that is excellent. There's a perfect dreaminess to this, it really takes me to a different place instantly. A magical place.

Links: Spotify | YouTube

4. Pale Waves - Noises

It's bizarrely hard not to include Pale Waves songs on these lists, so I won't fight my need to do so. I just love the refrain "what do you see when you look at me?" I love their song construction so much, the guitar, the dense feeling of the tracks overall, the note of desperation that comes out in such an oddly celebratory way in the chorus. And the music video is fun. I love Pale Waves so much.

Links: Spotify | YouTube

5. John Mayer - New Light

This song. Okay, I had to include the beautiful art that is this music video, first of all. It's got to be one of my ultimate favourites. But I love the smooth sounds of John Mayer, and I love how melancholy yet uplifting this song is. It's perfect. Thanks.

Links: Spotify | YouTube

♬

I don't know exactly what it is about this month's list of songs, but this just feels so incredibly me somehow. I captured a perfect little mix of songs this month that feel like they reflect me a lot. When John Mayer said "what do I with all this, what do I do with all this love that's running through my veins for you" I felt that.